Russia’s war on Ukraine has not only destroyed millions of human lives, it has also been catastrophic for the environment. Forests and fields have been burned to the ground, animal and plant species pushed to the brink of extinction, soil and water contaminated with oil products, debris, and mines. On a single day in June 2023, the breached Kakhovka Dam flooded thousands of kilometres of protected natural habitat, as well as villages, towns, and agricultural land. The devastation of biodiversity and ecosystems across Ukraine has been immeasurable, long-lasting and its consequences stretch beyond national borders.
In this poignant book, Ukrainian researcher Darya Tsymbalyuk offers an intimate portrait of her beloved homeland against the backdrop of Russia’s war and ecocide. In elegant and moving prose, she describes the damage to the country’s rivers, the grasslands of the steppes, animals, insects, and colonies of birds, as a result of Russia’s ground and air operations. Alongside the everyday experiences of people in Ukraine living with the environmental consequences of the war, we share Tsymbalyuk’s own reckoning with the changing nature of cherished places and the loss of familiar worlds caused by the ongoing Russian invasion.
Book talks & Conversations
University of California, Berkeley
Humanities Institute, Arizona State University
European University Viadrina INALCO Maison de la Recherche, Institut d’études avancées de Paris
Harvard Ukrainian Research Institute
Pennsylvania State
Oberlin College Kenyon College
The Bauman Institute, University of Leeds Dnipro Center for Contemporary Culture
Leipzig Book Fair
Seminary Co-Op, Chicago
University of Illinois Chicago University of Wisconsin-Madison(write up in The Badger Herald by Catherine Getty)
Ukrainian Cultural Festival, Teatro LATEA, New York Shevchenko Scientific Society
Left Bank Books, St Louis
Kyiv to LA, Thomas Mann House, LA Tallinn University
University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign
Yale University