New Books in Ukrainian Studies - Women of Ukraine: Reportages from the War and Beyond

Russian war showed that there is no limit to violence when it comes to genocidal conquest. It also showed the Ukrainian resilience and the power of ordinary citizens in resisting the invaders. In her first book, Anna Romandash collected testimonies of this resilience from different parts of Ukraine. Her work is a set of 33 reportages of extraordinary women who had to face the war, deal with loss of loved ones, and showed courage before the toughest circumstances. The heroines are soldiers, volunteers, psychologists, educators, and many others - who had to experience the double burden of the war as Ukrainians and women.

 

This talk was about what it was like collecting these testimonies, and how women managed to share their stories despite having to relive traumas of the recent past. Romandash discussed her work as a journalist in many dangerous areas across Ukraine, the specifics of working with vulnerable communities, and the need to give more space to the experiences of women whose individual struggles often go unnoticed amid the national tragedy.  

 

Anna Romandash is an award-winning journalist from Ukraine and an author of "Women of Ukraine: Reportages from the War and Beyond". She has extensive experience working across Eastern Europe and Central Asia where she researched democratization processes, freedom movements, and human rights violations. Her areas of interest include international security, Eastern Europe, sanctions, and energy transition. Romandash is the Fourth Freedom Forum’s first Howard S. Brembeck Fellow, a Research Affiliate at the Mgrublian Center for Human Rights at Claremont McKenna College, and a digital scholar at Vassar College. She holds an MGA degree from the Keough School of Global Affairs at the University of Notre Dame. She is a 2023-2024 Petro Jacyk Non-Residential Scholar.