Filling Oneself-with-One-Self: Public discussion on Ukrainian dissidents in the Eastern European context - Instytut Pileckiego

The conversation focuses on the Ukrainian Sixtiers, a generation of writers, poets, and intellectuals who emerged during Khrushchev’s so-called “thaw.” They sought to recover silenced histories, confronted Stalinist violence, resisted censorship and Russif

The panel brings together Dr. Andrii Portnov, historian of East-Central Europe and Director of Prisma Ukraine; Dr. Franziska Davies, historian of Eastern Europe and President of the German-Ukrainian Society; and Dr. Tamara Hundorova, literary scholar and expert on Ukrainian modernism. The discussion will be moderated by Hanna Radziejowska, Head of the Pilecki Institute Berlin.

The conversation focuses on the Ukrainian Sixtiers, a generation of writers, poets, and intellectuals who emerged during Khrushchev’s so-called “thaw.” They sought to recover silenced histories, confronted Stalinist violence, resisted censorship and Russification, and many of them ultimately paid a high price for this resistance through persecution and imprisonment.

The panel addresses a significant blind spot in German remembrance culture. Dissent in the Soviet Union is still most often associated with Russian figures such as Solzhenitsyn or Sakharov, while Ukrainian intellectual resistance remains largely invisible. By centering Ukrainian voices and drawing on the idea of “Filling Oneself-with-One-Self”, a phrase used by Wasyl Stus to describe the process of personal growth and writing - the discussion aims to broaden this perspective and highlight the crucial role of Ukrainian dissent in the history of Eastern Europe.