Victoria Narizhna from Kovyla Publishing on the inspiration for “Stories from Ukraine” (Part three of three)
Victoria Narizhna at the Book Space festival held in Dnipro in September, 2021. Victoria is the founder and editor-in-chief of Kovyla Publishing, a new publishing house based out of Ukraine.
Kovyla Publishing are focused on sharing new Ukrainian voices with Western and other foreign audiences to help improve people’s understanding of Ukraine and Ukrainians. We met with their editor-in-chief, Victoria Narizhna, to discuss the inspiration for Kovyla Publishing and their first books.
This is the third part of our conversation with Kovyla’s editor-in-chief.
What’s the Idea: You launched Kovyla Publishing in 2024. Are you following the original ideas that inspired you, or did the idea change through the process?
Victoria Narizhna: The goal is to make sure these books are interesting for wider audiences all over the world, for Western audiences, and to make sure that they're understood, engaging, and something you want to keep reading. We would like to do it in the same easy-to-read way, just to talk to people in [understandable] language about interesting things.
I want to tell the world about Ukraine in an engaging and understandable way, and that is far from fulfilled. But I think that we are ready to experiment with formats. I have two big dreams for 2025. I have a dream to start experimenting with publishing fiction about Ukraine. I think that true stories are very powerful, and people want to know what real people are going through, but imagined stories are also a powerful tool. Sometimes they can convey the emotions, the experiences, the atmosphere, the vibe in a way that non-fiction just can't. It’s a very different thing to publish fiction, but maybe we’ll get there and publish our first fiction book.
The other thing I dream about is to start a series that would really explain Ukraine in a more direct, more engaging and interesting way. The idea came to me when I was speaking with one of the authors from Stories from Ukraine, to have this series of small books that just explain some very Ukrainian things that are usually not clear to outsiders.
A destroyed residential building in the town of Borodyanka, which is in the Kyiv region in Ukraine.
This author told me that Ukrainians are considered real party poopers in Europe and everywhere because when a Ukrainian comes into the room, all small talk stops and everyone needs to show their compassion, and everyone understands that the conversation will start to drift toward very dark things. And it's true, you can't avoid it. You're living in the war, and of course everyone feels the need to ask you “how are your dear ones?” and to show that they're supporting you. It's perfectly okay, but sometimes, it's very tiresome for both sides. Not only for the people who need to invite these dark things into their not-so-dark world; it's actually sometimes Ukrainians, I think, [who] don't understand how difficult it actually is, and how great a job the Ukrainian supporters are doing just by not turning away. It's really very difficult to not turn away from the kind of horrors we are living through here, because all over the world, people have this choice to turn away. When they are choosing not to, it's really a big deal. It's really something we need to thank people for more often.
But actually, it's tiresome also for Ukrainians to be the people who stop all normal conversation. It's like you are inside of some dark bubble and no one wants to contact you because you're always inside this dark bubble.
After that conversation, I thought, we here in Ukraine have so many topics for small talk. We can tell so many interesting, captivating, funny stories, fun stories about our history, our traditions, [or] our nature, because Ukraine is actually a very interesting country where a very interesting history was forged. Not [always] in pleasant ways, but it’s a lot of fun to learn and to understand, and that inspired me to propose the series to the team. We now have a working title of “Small Talk” and a working slogan: “Ukraine as told over a glass of wine.” That's the vibe I would like. I think it takes courage to talk about your country this way when it's drowning in blood because it's something that can easily be claimed as, I don't know, blasphemy. But I hope that we will find this balance between being engaging and lighthearted but [also] being very earnest, sincere, and useful for the potential Ukrainian victory.
The Ukrainian flag flies in Kharkiv, which is in a northeastern region very close to the Russian border.
“For the first time, I saw myself as Ukrainian with some kind of external gaze. I had this need to explain things that I understood in my bones to other people, and it really was a wonderful and a very sad experience.”
What’s the Idea: What have you learned through this process?
Victoria Narizhna: I've learned a lot of new things in the process, not only about publishing [or] about the process of preparing the book. I learned a lot about the world, what people need, what people would like to know, what people actually know about Ukraine. It really was a great journey because I think that, for the first time, I saw myself as Ukrainian with some kind of external gaze. I had this need to explain things that I understood in my bones to other people, and it really was a wonderful and a very sad experience.
It was wonderful because I really felt that I can find the voice and I can find the words and so that means that I can build this publishing house which will be really telling about the right things. But it was a sad experience because [it’s] only when you start explaining [to] someone else your family story, your country[’s] story, [that] you start to understand how many abnormally bad things [have] happened to you and to your family and to your country. When we just live in Ukraine, we don't have to think about it so often or so deeply. And of course, you do not want to think about your trauma so closely. But when you start to explain yourself outside, you see what a turbulent history you have, both on a collective [level] and on personal levels. And it's also a difficult task to explain this history without too much drama. I sometimes catch myself speaking about all these history events and it's a condensed drama. It’s drama upon drama. You feel that it's too much [for] the listener just to comprehend all this at the same moment.
And I think I had some unique experiences in understanding the world, and now I see that we have much more in common with people of Europe or the United States or Canada. That stories similar to [the] Ukrainian story have happened all over the world and were happening through the ages. Maybe not on such a scale and maybe not with such an impact on the history of all continents, but a lot of people went through similar experiences. When you start talking with them, not as persons but people as a nation, as ethnic groups, they understand you much better than you thought they would.
On the other hand, I think that I saw, and I think a lot of Ukrainians saw, that we are unique in some ways, and it's also a great discovery. We didn't think about ourselves as unique in these ways. So I think it was really a path of great discoveries about the world and about ourselves. I'm really happy that it's only at its start because I am really excited about the things we can tell the world about. It's exciting, interesting, unexpected things that will shake anyone who touches them. I hope that the fates will be kind to us and let us do all this.
What’s the Idea: We can really change people's perspectives and lives when we're vulnerable and open, and it sounds like this project is an opportunity for you to be vulnerable and share your stories and your understanding of the world. You can feel that expressed through both the subjects and the authors’ voices in the “Stories from Ukraine” volumes, so I'm excited to see that continue through the rest of your books.
Is there a story, a volume, or anything in particular that you would point to for readers from Stories from Ukraine that does this?
Victoria Narizhna: I think that different stories speak differently to different people, but I can refer to the stories I personally would really like everyone to read.
In Believers, it's the first story about the Ukrainian South and Human Anatomy Sketchbooks. It's one of my favorites in the volume because the author and the heroine of the story have this very good vibe between them and there are a lot of feelings for each other. It’s a heartbreaking story but with a really happy ending. It so vibrantly describes the south of Ukraine, the places I love very much. This story works like magic for me. You are transported to the beaches of Odesa region.
The cover of the first volume of Stories from Ukraine. Believers focuses on the experiences of the teenagers and young adults of Ukraine.
Also from the Believers [volume], I was really mesmerized with the story of “Angry Mavkas,” this anonymous heroine from the nonviolent resistance movement the Angry Mavkas. It's an amazing story about how much you can do even when you think you just can do nothing, even when your circumstances, where any resistance or any struggle, any fight for yourself, seems impossible, but actually, it's still possible if you will [it to be], [and] if there are other people around you who have the will to fight for freedom for themselves.
On the other side of the generation continuum, in the Keepers volume, I really like the story of [Myroslav] Marynovych, the Ukrainian dissident and philosopher. It captures so well, I think, what it meant to be Ukrainian in the Soviet [era]. Also, it captures how the human spirit is really unbreakable, even in a peaceful man. He is not a warrior or a guerrilla fighter. He was just a young man who wanted to live his life but had some principles and views, and he was not willing to sacrifice them. And of course, it brought him to the camps in the far east of Russia, but what dignity it brought him too. What an amazing life of dignity and resilience. It's also a story [about] how much you can do even when you seem powerless.
From Fighters, I think I can recommend with all my heart this story by Natalya Korniyenko about the Ukrainian poet, Iya Kiva. It's an amazing story about finding common language inside a nation that was artificially broken into parts. For decades and decades, they were fed with propaganda to weaken the unity to weaken the understanding between different parts of the country. Natalia is from the western part of the country, and Iya originally is from Donetsk, and these two young women remember their lives and see how much more are similar than they thought, and [how] a lot of differences are very superficial. They analyze what happened to the country since 2014, and how we learned a lot about each other, and how we saw ourselves with different eyes. I think it's a great introspective [piece] about the forming of the modern Ukrainian identity. Maybe not forming, but rediscovering it. Through the decades, the Russian Empire invested a lot into beating this identity into oblivion, into forcing Ukrainians to forget about their identity, to misunderstand it, to lose it, and now I think it's the forming of the new identity, but also a rediscovering of the existing one. This piece very poetically and very movingly shows this process, as seen from the two different points in different parts of the country, like the western and eastern one.
The cover of the third volume of Stories from Ukraine. Keepers focuses on the oldest generation of Ukrainians alive today to share their stories.
“When someone wants to kill you just because you have a Ukrainian passport, you can’t help starting to wonder, what does it mean to be Ukrainian?”
What’s the Idea: As you're describing that last story, it points to what these stories do so well in explaining Ukraine and Ukrainians to Western audiences. The author and the subject are learning about Ukraine itself and their own history through the story, so the reader is with them through the process of learning about Ukraine. As you do this, you can reflect on your own life, and it creates a beautiful opportunity to learn and understand so that you're reading and participating.
Victoria Narizhna: I think you're right. The beauty of it is that we are rediscovering ourselves and the world is discovering us at the same time. So, it's a moment to be really cherished. Despite all the blood and death and pain, it's really a moment to be cherished because it's really an important thing when you can at last understand who you are, and to be able to tell others who you are and be accepted by them.
What’s the Idea: These are the circumstances when you, as a person and as a nation, are forced to know who you are.
Victoria Narizhna: There’s actually a surge of demand to understand who we are in Ukraine. [There are] a lot of projects now dedicated to this self-understanding of identity, [and] a lot of projects dedicated to local identities. People want to understand not only what it means to be Ukrainian but also what it means to be a citizen of, I don't know, Poland, you name it.
I always say that when someone wants to kill you just because you have a Ukrainian passport, you can't help starting to wonder, what does it mean to be Ukrainian, because someone wants to kill you for it. And it's a powerful thing to make you wonder, “what does it mean?”
The surveys show that almost all Ukrainians, no matter what part of the country they live in, what social background they have, almost all of them understand this war as a war on Ukrainian identity, as a war that is fought by Russians not for the land or for some economical purposes or something else, but to erase Ukraine as a nation. It's amazing to see how, throughout the nation, this is the understanding. It's like even people who have no educational background to understand this difficult concept of imperial war, of post colonialism or such, clearly see that the war is about erasing Ukrainians as a nation. So, I think that in such circumstances, you just can't help [but have] this need to understand who you are. Why are you the object of this aggression? What is it about?
What’s the Idea: Through the work that you're doing, that journey of self-discovery is going to be shared and read by many different audiences, and the wisdom can be shared beyond Ukraine, as it should be.
Victoria Narizhna: I hope so.
Please support Kovyla Publishing by buying the Stories from Ukraine eBooks and telling everyone you know about these works.
Learn more about Kovyla Publishing on their website and follow them on social media.
You can read my reflections on the process of editing Stories from Ukraine here.
Interview conducted by Matthew Long
Written by Matthew Long
Edited by APT Editing