Olena Stiazhkina
Olena Stiazhkina | |
|---|---|
| Олена Вікторівна Стяжкіна | |
| Born | Ukraine |
| Known for | Research on World War II in Ukraine, Donbas history, everyday life under Soviet rule; novels and essays on Ukrainian life and war |
| Awards |
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| Scientific career | |
| Fields | History, Ukrainian history, World War II studies, Women’s history |
| Institutions |
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| Notes | |
Writes fiction under pen name Olena Iurska | |
Olena Viktorivna Stiazhkina (Ukrainian: Олена Вікторівна Стяжкіна) is a Ukrainian historian and writer. She is a Doctor of Historical Sciences and a leading research fellow at the Institute of History of Ukraine of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine.
She is known internationally for the novel Cecil the Lion Had to Die, the diary Ukraine, War, Love: A Donetsk Diary, and the essay collection Zero Point Ukraine: Four Essays on World War II.[1][2][3]
Academic career
From 1993 to 2015 Stiazhkina taught the history of Slavic peoples at Donetsk National University. After the Russian occupation of Donetsk in 2014 she left the city and continued teaching at Mariupol State University in 2015–2016. Since 2016 she has been a senior or leading research fellow at the Department of Ukrainian History in the Second Half of the Twentieth Century at the Institute of History of Ukraine of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine.[1]
Alongside her academic work,[4] Stiazhkina has been active as a prose writer and journalist, which has won awards.[5]
She has published collections of short stories and novels in Ukrainian and Russian, including works issued under the pen name Olena Iurska.[6] Her fiction often addresses everyday life in the late Soviet period and post-Soviet Ukraine, with attention to the Donbas region.[2]
Her research interests include the history of World War II in Ukraine, women's history, the history of the Donbas, and everyday life under Soviet rule.[1][3] She has authored scholarly articles and monographs on these topics.
Awards and honours
- Lviv UNESCO City of Literature Award (2023), for the novel Cecil the Lion Had to Die.[7][8]
- Ukrainian writer in virtual residence, Faculty of Medieval and Modern Languages, University of Oxford (2023).[9]
Selected works
Fiction
- Cecil the Lion Had to Die, 2021 (Ukrainian); English translation by Dominique Hoffman, Harvard Ukrainian Research Institute / Harvard University Press, 2024.[10][8]
- Zero Point Ukraine: Four Essays on World War II[11][12]
References
- ^ a b c "Styazhkina Olena". PEN Ukraine. Retrieved 15 November 2025.
- ^ a b "Olena Stiazhkina". Book Arsenal. Retrieved 15 November 2025.
- ^ "Олена Стяжкіна; Olena Styazhkina; Olena Stiazhkina". scholar.google.com. Retrieved 15 November 2025.
- ^ "Razom announces fall 2024 book tours with Ukrainian writers". Razom for Ukraine. 22 October 2024. Retrieved 15 November 2025.
- ^ "Razom announces fall 2024 book tours with Ukrainian writers". Razom for Ukraine. 22 October 2024. Retrieved 15 November 2025.
- ^ "Olena Stiazhkina won the 2023 Lviv – UNESCO City of Literature Award". Chytomo. 11 January 2024. Retrieved 15 November 2025.
- ^ a b "Cecil the Lion Had to Die". Harvard University Press. Retrieved 15 November 2025.
- ^ "2nd Ukrainian writer in residence". University of Oxford. 31 January 2023. Retrieved 15 November 2025.
- ^ Stiazhkina, Olena (2024). Cecil the Lion Had to Die. Harvard Library of Ukrainian Literature. Harvard Ukrainian Research Institute; Harvard University Press. ISBN 9780674291645.
- ^ Stiazhkina, Olena (2021). Zero Point Ukraine: Four Essays on World War II. Ukrainian Voices. ibidem Press. ISBN 9783838215501.
- ^ "Zero Point Ukraine: Four Essays on World War II". Columbia University Press. Retrieved 15 November 2025.