On August 2–3, 2025, the Past / Future / Art memory culture platform and Odesa National Fine Arts Museum invited literary critic Yevhenii Stasinevych for a lecture and podium discussion. Among the topics covered were the 1920s in Odesa, the intersection of literature and politics in the multicultural city, Odesa’s intellectual landscape, and the city’s Ukrainian environments throughout its history.
PROGRAM
ODESA AND ITS COMMUNITIES: UKRAINIAN, AUDACIOUS, OTHER
Podium Discussion
August 2
16:00
If we think of the 19th century as the “Age of European Nations,” where specifically in Odesa should we look for Ukrainian marks, narratives, and figures? Who furthered the Ukrainian cause in the multicultural imperial city, and how did they do it? Was it a success? And what consequences did it have? What were those communities and centers like? And what was the role of authors and the literature in general?
The discussion was moderated by Oksana Dovgopolova, co-founder of the Past / Future / Art memory culture platform, PhD, professor at Kyiv School of Economics, and member of the Memory Studies Association.
ODESA IN THE 1920S: THE IDEAS THAT CHANGED US
Lecture
August 3
16:00
The dazzling 1920s came not only to Kharkiv and Kyiv. Odesa had a roaring decade of its own. It had equally lasting, even if sometimes hardly noticeable, consequences for Ukrainian culture: the Red Renaissance and Black Sea Doctrine, writers and historians, film poetics and psychoanalysis. What were the key ideas intellectually rooted in Odesa that shaped the landscape of Ukrainian revival and the later eras?
SPEAKER
Yevhenii Stasinevych is a literary critic, literary scholar, popular lecturer, and art project curator (Ukraine WOW, Lesya Ukrainka: 150 names, The Land: Incredible Ukraine, The World of Skovoroda, Proper Names, The Star is Rising), TV and radio host, co-author of the Word’s Scent podcast, author of the Price to Pay book, and compiler behind the Texts Unfinished book series. He is also a Senior Fellow at the Literary Museum of Kharkiv.
Podium discussion with Yevhenii Stasinevych held in the Odesa National Fine Arts Museum on August 2, 2025
Photos by Ivan Strakhov
ORGANIZERS
Past / Future / Art is a memory culture platform that carries out commemorative, research, and art projects and establishes discussion programs to engage broader audiences in working through the past. Curators: Oksana Dovgopolova and Kateryna Semenyuk.
Opened in 1899, the Odesa National Fine Arts Museum (ONFAM) accommodates an extensive art collection. The museum is housed in the antique Naryshkin Palace in central Odesa. Amid Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, ONFAM is promoting and preserving its collection, and continues its exhibition, research, and educational activities.
The events were held with the support of Pro Peace, an international non-profit organization founded in 1996 to foster non-violent conflict transformation in 13 countries in Europe, the Middle East, and Southeast Asia.