Books about Ukraine in the Ukrainian library in Innsbruck, Austria. Photo by Olha Kuprian, used with permission.

By Olha Kuprian 

This story is part of a series of essays written by Ukrainian artists entitled “Regained Culture: Ukrainian voices curate Ukrainian culture.” This series is produced in collaboration with the Folkowisko Association/Rozstaje.art, thanks to co-financing by the governments of the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, and Slovakia through a grant by the International Visegrad Fund. The mission of the fund is to advance ideas for sustainable regional cooperation in Central Europe. This particular text was written as part of a scholarship of the Kosciuszko Foundation and Rozstaje.art. It has been translated from Ukrainian by Iryna Tiper and Filip Noubel.

Until 2022, I moved houses only within the region where I spent the first 17 years of my life. All my books, of course, moved with me. For many years, I have been watching Antonina Maley, creator of the YouTube channel “Tosya Reads Fairy Tales,” carrying books from her childhood from country to country, and how one by one they appear on her channel, like in a virtual library. “Books are home,” says Tosya, and this simple thought has become the answer to many of my questions.

Returning home to Ukraine in the summer of 2023 after being forced to emigrate because of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, I took the books I acquired in Poland. My friends do the same. At a time when Russia is destroying our libraries and books, we carry our books with us like snails carry their homes. And when we find a temporary shelter abroad, the first thing we do is to fill it with books in our native language.

Being with ‘my own kind’

In August 2024, my daughter and I are visiting on a scholarship at the People’s House [an institution which hosts cultural events for free or at accessible prices] in Przemyśl in eastern Poland on the border with Ukraine. In the days leading up to departure, I finally got to meet Romana Zolotnyk, who takes care of the collection of books. Two years ago, the 120-year-old building became a shelter for thousands of Ukrainians fleeing the war to safe countries in Europe.

At the end of 2022, organizers discussed creating a library where it would be possible to exhibit scientific publications stored in the People’s House, as well as to give refugees — especially those with children — the opportunity to borrow books.

Often, a book in Ukrainian in the context of emigration is an opportunity to feel at home. One of the users of the library is a Polish man who has taken a Ukrainian boy with autism under his care. “The little one calms down when he sees books with maps or airplanes,” says Romana. “But the child doesn’t want Polish books; they’re foreign to him. So we found suitable Ukrainian books.”

Natalia Yakubchak and her children lived in Brno in the Czech Republic for more than two years and often visited the library at the Ukrainian Center. “Leaving home for me, in particular, meant leaving my library,” the woman shares. “So I just went there to be among the books, and helped to display them. And the children were happy to see familiar books: “Look! We have this book! And this one! Let’s reread this one!”.

A nest for Ukrainians

Hnizdo Innsbruck. Photo by Olha Kuprian, used with permission.

The Ukrainian library “Hnizdo.Innsbruck” (“hnizdo” means “nest”) in the Austrian city of Innsbruck today has about 1,600 books. The digital catalog allows users to borrow books from all over Austria. Less than three years ago, “Hnizdo” ​​did not even have a premises, but in the summer of 2024, together with the Lutsk-based “Frontera” festival and the “Books from Home” project from the “Sens” bookstore, it received a grant from Culture Helps and organized a two-day literary, cultural and sports festival entitled “Ukrainian-Tyrolean Village” in Innsbruck. Over two days, the event hosted more than 200 guests, including Ukrainian and Austrian families.

“The idea to create a library arose after I moved to Innsbruck and found out that there was no stable book offer for the Ukrainian community here,” says Oleksandra Terentyeva, a political scientist, volunteer, and founder of Hnizdo.Innsbruck. “Some activists had been developing a bookshelf project even before my arrival, and at first I planned to simply donate a few dozen books. However, this shelf was located within the walls of the Osteuropa Zentrum, which was created with funds from the “Ruskiy Mir” (Russian World) foundation, and until 2022 served as the Center for Russian Studies. My colleagues and I decided that, despite the premises being located in the city center and affiliated with the university, creating a Ukrainian library there was unacceptable.”

Cultural events with a specific theme are often organized around libraries or shelves with Ukrainian books abroad. Yulia Tsidylo, who has lived in Bratislava for many years, tries to attend all Ukrainian art events in the city and its surroundings. “Ukrainians abroad have a certain cultural hunger, so when Ukrainian writers come to us, it is always very pleasing,” says Yulia. “And if they also translate our literature into Slovak, I always buy books as gifts for my Slovak friends.” 

A network of Ukrainian book corners: Belgium, Slovakia, Germany

Creating a Ukrainian-speaking environment for a child in a completely foreign language is no easy task. In larger cities, such structures have been in place for some time, and Ukrainian-speaking circles or schools for children are accessible.  Yet in smaller communities, it is around books that active migrants form communities for their children.

This is the case of the book space for Ukrainians created in the Belgian town of Baelen by designer Olena Marchyshyna. In 2022 she left Kyiv with her two children and, some months later, founded the library and developed its identity. “While the library is local, you have to come to us in person. Sometimes people travel 100 kilometers [62 miles] to get books,” says Marchyshyna. “Now we are integrating the library into the general Belgian system, so soon Ukrainians from all over Flanders will be able to order books by mail.”

According to Marchyshyna, the book collection is extremely important for the elderly. In addition, she created a book club, and even invited Belgian women to join. Ukrainian and Belgian women read the same book, but each in their own language. Then they discuss what they have read and practice their Dutch. Marchyshyna dreams of opening such a reading and conversation club for children.

This project was awarded the Cultural Prize of the Year in the municipality of Baelen, beating nine Belgian competitors. With the cash prize, Marchyshyna bought educational materials for children. A teacher currently instructs children of all ages from various regions of Ukraine in Ukrainian at the Baelen library. For some, this is the only opportunity to have a Ukrainian-speaking environment.

Inspired by Olena Marchyshyna’s experience, entrepreneur Lesya Didkovska founded a children’s library in the Slovak city of Poprad. “Since my son was born, we have been reading every evening,” says Didkovska. “My son started reading on his own at the age of four, and now he can spend the whole day with a book on the weekends.” Just six months after being forced to emigrate, she had exchanged books with everyone she knew, and later brought her own collection from Ukraine. However, there were not enough books. So Didkovska organized a collection through social networks. She coordinated with centers for helping Ukrainians in Poprad, Kežmarok, and the library in Spišská Nová Ves. This initiative became the basis for the Ukrainian Book Corner in Slovakia.

Corners of Ukrainian Books is a network that unites four Ukrainian libraries in different European countries. Two of them are located in Germany — in Rheinberg and Esens. The one in Rheinberg was founded by a guide from Kyiv, Iryna Zharkova. Together with her two daughters, she emigrated to Germany after Russia’s full-scale invasion in 2022. “My youngest daughter was just three years old, and I noticed that she was inserting German words into our conversations in Ukrainian. She either forgot the Ukrainian equivalents or got acquainted with new concepts in German right away in kindergarten,” says Zharkova. “My eldest daughter was reading about Harry Potter at that time, so we received one of the large illustrated volumes as the first parcel. I thought that other families might also be lacking Ukrainian Books.”

Zharkova turned to the German Social Security Office (Sozialamt), which supports cultural and social initiatives in the languages ​​of national minorities. She was allocated a room where she lays out Ukrainian books once a week, and exchanges them with visitors for two hours.

Today, the Ukrainian library in Rheinberg has 350 books, out of which about a third were purchased with Zharkova’s own money. “I communicate with visitors about what I have read, about life. Our language of communication is Ukrainian, although 95 percent of Ukrainians here are Russian-speaking. Both adults and children switch to Ukrainian, try to speak correctly,” she says. Zharkova is especially interested in involving local Ukrainian children: “Even if they stay in Germany forever, it is very important that they know who they are and where they come from.”

Since 2022, some Ukrainians have returned home, while others have integrated into local communities. What will happen to the Ukrainian book corners? 

The good news is that small libraries across Europe are uniting and sharing their experiences. Initiatives are growing around book collections that support Ukrainian culture, work with families, and nurture traditions. The metaphor of the nest resonates here in a special way: it is about a home from which you will sooner or later fly out, but also where people are waiting for you.