A CIVIL CONVERSATION FOR UNCIVIL TIMES




From Odessa — Ukraine’s humanist, cosmopolitan port — the Ukrainian Cosmopolis brings together thinkers, writers, and creators who resist attempts to police speech and thought.
A civic-intellectual collective, we hold the freedoms to think and to speak not as intellectual luxuries, but as the bare necessities of the life Ukraine now fights for.
We are the only organisation in Ukraine openly opposing the culture-war politics that feeds Russian propaganda and hybrid war.
Resisting it is not only the condition of Ukraine’s European future. It is a matter of survival.
At a time of narrowing freedoms and outward flight, we bring people to Odessa — and keep spaces of honest exchange alive.
Through public dialogue and residencies, we keep Odessa thinking and talking — and a free Ukraine still within reach.

Meet our 2026 Civic Freedom Residents-Elect

In residence in Odessa this summer!

Christine Hamel is a German radio and television journalist with Germany’s public broadcasting network ARD, with а quarter century's experience of covering post-Soviet life. Since 2014, she has reported extensively on Russia’s war against Ukraine. In Odessa she will be examining shifting social moods.
Matthew Porges is an Oxford-based anthropologist who studies war, conflict, and life in their aftermath. He has worked across the Balkans and Northern Africa on how post-conflict societies reckon with moral contradictions and recover plural life. He has written for the London Review of Books and the Los Angeles Review of Books. This summer in Odesa, he will study new forms of collective life in the city.
Nick Sturdee is a British documentarist, journalist and writer who has made numerous features for the BBC and Channel 4, and has reported on Ukraine for decades, covering Russia’s full-scale invasion from Hostomel. This summer he will work in Odessa on language, identity, urban change, and wartime everyday life.

News

Illustration

The Eternal Through Change

24-26.09.2026 • Odessa, Ukraine

Inna Holubovych & Maya Demerli joined the Organising Committee of the conference in memory of Professor M. H. Sokolyanskyi.

Illustration

Exhibition of bookplates

30,04-21.05.2026 • Odessa, Ukraine

Exhibition of bookplates by Cosmopolis member Alexandra Valchuk

Illustration

“Ode to Sonia” — an exhibition dedicated to the 140th anniversary of Sonia Delaunay

05.04.2026 • Odesa, Ukraine

With the participation of Cosmopolis members Mikhail Reva, Kateryna Biletina and Eugene Demenok

Illustration

“When Lightning Flashes Over the Sea”

31.03.2026 •
Frankfurt am Main, Germany

Screening of Eva Neymann’s film about life in wartime Odesa, presented within the programme of Produktionshaus NAXOS

Illustration

PoemsNotBombs Zoom Event featuring renowned poets

27.03.2026 • Zoom

Join Ilya Kaminsky Zoom event - a benefit for the Kid's Poetry Studio in Odessa

Illustration

Olga Yarovaya Collage Exhibition

20.03.2026 • Odessa, Ukraine

A new exhibition in a distinctive collage technique opens in the city centre

Illustration

“Visual Classics”
Alexey Botvinov & VJVideomatics

13.03.2026 • Thessaloniki, Greece

At Odessa Classics Thessaloniki 2026, Alexey Botvinov performs Bach, Chopin, Rachmaninoff, Glass and Einaudi, with video art by VJVideomatics.

Illustration

“The Girl Who Could Not Hate”

11.03.2026 • Odessa, Ukraine

An evening dedicated to the presentation of the book by Lidia Maksymowicz and Paolo Rodari

Blog

A selection of our team members’ posts on culture, conscience, civic courage, and Ukraine’s future.

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