UKRAINETT+ Conference Keynote Speaker: Bohdana Neborak
As part of the annual UKRAINETT+ conference, The War and Beyond: Perspectives on Ukrainian Culture and Society (Bergen 14–15 October 2025), we invite you to join us for Bohdana Neborak’s public keynote lecture.
The lecture will be live-streamed from Bergen on the 14th of October 10.15 – 11.15. A link will be available here. The presentation time may be adjusted. Please check our website regularly for the most up-to-date information
Ukrainian literature during the ongoing war has become a crucial medium for understanding and examining Ukrainian identity and the phenomenon of resistance to Russian aggression. Both within the country and abroad, literature creates a space for discussing and reflecting on contemporary realities.
Literature and culture offer tools to comprehend the lives and experiences of individuals and communities we have never encountered, to interpret the past, and to envision the future.
In the 20th century, there were several surges of international interest in Ukrainian culture, closely tied to major geopolitical upheavals. Following the Revolution of Dignity and the onset of the Russian-Ukrainian war in 2014, Ukrainian culture gained greater visibility on the international stage, partly due to shifts in national cultural policy and Ukraine’s course toward European integration. After the full-scale invasion in 2022, new cultural connections between Ukraine and other European countries emerged, consolidating the collaborations of previous decades and opening space for new conversations.
The keynote lecture will explore these cultural connections and the grand narratives they have brought to light.
Bohdana Neborak is a journalist, curator of cultural projects and editor at «The Ukrainians Media». With an MA in law, Bohdana has more than ten years of experience in creative industries, working as a journalist, culture manager, and curator in Ukrainian and international projects. In 2020, Bohdana drafted and launched the first state literary translation grant program at the Ukrainian Book Institute. She co-hosts a podcast about culture and colonialism and is a lecturer of a contemporary Ukrainian literature course at the Projector Institute. Bohdana is a co-curator at the FUNDAMENT literary festival and founder of the Kyiv Book Club reading promotion platform.
Photo credit: Julia Weber
Bohdana was recognized by «30 Under 30: Most Prospective Young Journalists» in 2021, by the Heorhii Gongadze Prize and «30 Under 30 Kyiv Post» (award for the most innovative Ukrainians) in 2020. Her podcast about the influence of literature on civil society, «I Read That,» was recognized as one of the top 30 Ukrainian podcasts in 2021, and her podcast about colonialism, «Unnamed for Now,» won «The Best Ukrainian Podcast about culture» nomination award by «Slushno» (2022).