Video from Born in the USSR: Diaspora Writers Against War

April 7, 2025May 21, 2025 ~ Olga Zilberbourg ~ Leave a comment

Thanks to those of you who could attend our event, Born in the USSR: Diaspora Writers Against War, hosted by the Wende Museum on March 28. We loved having you as our audience and hope to continue the conversations in various ways.

Thank you for donating to Ukraine Trust Chain. Ukraine needs all of our support. Please continue to spread the word and donate here: https://www.ukrainetrustchain.org/

The video from our event is now online:

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Born in the USSR: Diaspora Writers Against War

March 12, 2025April 7, 2025 ~ Olga Zilberbourg ~ 2 Comments

This one of a kind reading brings together Soviet-born writers as they weave together an intricate story of identity, memory, cultural intersections, immigration, and war. From fiction to poetry, memoir and journalism, and work in translation, the reading presents a deep dive into the individual and collective experiences of the Soviet-born diaspora in the U.S. This free event includes a fundraiser in support of humanitarian aid in Ukraine and aligns with The Wende Museum’s current exhibition “Undercurrents II: Archives and the Making of Soviet Jewish Identity.” Autographed books will be on sale, courtesy of Village Well.

Hosted by The Wende Museum, readers include poets, writers, and translators: Katya Apekina, Yelena Furman, Kristina Gorcheva-Newberry, Julia Kolchinsky, Arina Kole, Maria Kuznetsova, Olga Livshin, Ruth Madievsky, Ainsley Morse, Luisa Muradyan, Jane Muschenetz, Asya Partan, Irina Reyn, Diana Ruzova, Timmy Straw, Vlada Teper, Sasha Vasilyuk, and Olga Zilberbourg.

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Vinegret, a Recipe for Disaster by Jane Muschenetz

November 14, 2023February 15, 2024 ~ Olga Zilberbourg ~ Leave a comment

I want to tell you something small, in the great turning of this world, intimate as your grandmother’s soup. When you boil beets, carrots, and potatoes together, the potatoes will soften first, even if they are bigger than the other vegetables.

It is summer 2020, and my hands are Shakespearian (“out, damned spot!”)—beet stained. Our mid-century dining table is a stage set for “Salat Vinegret,” the Soviet-era culinary staple featuring ingredients that are readily available and inexpensive, even in wintertime. The supporting cast of bowls, knives, etc., isn’t from the old country, but is well practiced in recipes that travel back to my early childhood in L’viv, Ukraine.

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Three Poems from Disbelief: 100 Russian Anti-War Poems, edited by Julia Nemirovskaya

April 12, 2023March 1, 2024 ~ Yelena Furman ~ Leave a comment

Today we feature three poems from the Russian-language anthology Disbelief: 100 Russian Anti-War Poems (edited by Julia Nemirovskaya; various translators; Smokestack Books, 2023). We are grateful for the following introduction written for Punctured Lines by Maria Bloshteyn, one of the translators of the collection. As she notes below, one of the featured poets, Galina Itskovich, is a therapist helping those in Ukraine; you can donate here to support this work.

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Valzhyna Mort’s Music for the Dead and Resurrected: Review by Katsiaryna Lozka

April 13, 2022March 1, 2024 ~ Olga Zilberbourg ~ Leave a comment

The suburbs of Minsk, the Kurapaty forest, the night of October 29-30. Here, in 1937, the Soviet NKVD executed over one hundred Belarusian intellectuals, among them prominent writers and poets, including Aleś Dudar, Michaś Zarecki, Jurka Lavonny, and others. The brutally murdered Belarusians received no proper burial, and the tragedy was shrouded in silence until the late 1980s, when Belarusians began holding an annual action in memory of the Night of Executed Poets. This “forest of the unburied dead,” which is referred to in the poem “To Antigone, a Dispatch,” is the starting point for Valzhyna Mort’s third English-language poetry collection that lifts the curtain on history and life in Mort’s native Belarus. Starting from its title, Music for the Dead and Resurrected points to the cultural context where individual and national memories are constantly concealed, repressed, and distorted. Mort’s poems claim the remains of the past and attempt to reintegrate the fragmented national memories and narratives into the present.

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Ukraine Fundraiser and Reading in Philadelphia by the Cheburashka Collective on March 24

March 20, 2022March 17, 2022 ~ Olga Zilberbourg ~ Leave a comment

Our friends The Cheburashki, “a growing collective of women & nonbinary writers who are emigres/refugees/first-generation from countries that were once a part of the Eastern bloc,” are hosting a reading in Philadelphia next week. Here’s a great place to find some camaraderie in this time of war and donate money for Ukrainian refugees.

This event is happening in conjunction with AWP, a poets and writers conference that will include several important events with USSR diaspora writers. We made a list.

Here’s their flyer and details of the event: