Meet our2026 Civic Courage Fellows-Elect

We have just selected the first cohort of our Ukrainian Civic Courage Fellowships, supporting writers, scholars and artists whose work embodies intellectual independence, moral courage and freedom of thought in wartime Ukraine. This year’s Fellows are:
Marina Didenko, a writer and volunteer from Kharkiv whose fiction draws on the lived experience of war.
Mykyta Lyskov, an award-winning animator and filmmaker from Dnipro known for his darkly satirical films and graphic storytelling.
Vadym Menzhulin, a philosopher at Kyiv-Mohyla Academy whose work explores the relationship between ideas, biography and civic courage.
Viktoriya Korytnyanska, an Odessa writer and researcher whose current work uncovers the city’s literary life under Romanian occupation during the Second World War.
Over the coming months they will live and work in Odesa, develop new projects, share their work with the public and join conversations about literature, philosophy, history and the future of Ukraine.

Applications have just closed for ourOdessa Polyglot Literary Residency

Together with the Odesa UNESCO City of Literature Office, we invite writers to spend up to one month in Odessa, one of Europe’s most singular literary cities. We offer accommodation, travel support, a subsistence stipend, and opportunities to engage with Odessa’s writers, translators, artists and publishers.
Today, in the shadow of war, Odessa continues to write, publish, translate, and defend the life of the mind.
We welcome writers working in any language.