Research

My research looks at how Ukrainian children's literature has responded, and continues to respond, to increasing militarisation since 2014. I understand militarisation in a broad sense, as encompassing explicitly military themes about current and past experiences of war, and in terms of how Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has precipitated an increase in publishing on themes of traumatic history for children. One of my key interests is how children’s literature approaches, narrates, and works through trauma, both in the immediate context of the ongoing war and in terms of historical atrocities, which may be understood in relation to each other. I explore the narratives of war, past atrocities, and heroism. I am especially interested in the ecocultural dimensions, visions of national identity, and the activation and transmission of (post)memory in contemporary children’s literature.

Prior to my DPhil, I completed a BA in European Languages and Cultures at the University of Groningen, and an MSt in Slavonic Studies at the University of Oxford (Lady Margaret Hall). Before commencing my studies, I spent two years working with an NGO in Belgrade, Serbia, where I taught German and English to refugees on the Balkan route, developed language curricula, and lead recreational workshops in Belgrade and northern Serbia.

My project is funded by the Open-Oxford-Cambridge AHRC DTP and St John's College.

Conference Papers

'Sense, City, Silence: Between Public and Private Memory in Elena Chizhova's Город, написанный по памяти [A City Written from Memory]', BASEES Annual Conference, University of Birmingham, April 2026.

'Reading Genocide through Ecocide: Trees, Folklore, and Memory in Tetyana P’yankova’s Казка про горіховий корінь [The Tale of the Old Walnut Root]', Junge Slavistik im Dialog International Conference, University of Kiel, April 2026.

‘Visions of Identity in Ukrainian Children’s Literature: Memory and Folk Art’, Annual Medieval and Modern Languages Graduate Network Conference, University of Oxford, June 2026.

‘The Land Possessed: Unearthing Trauma and Non-Human Witnessing in Piat Koloskiv by Yulia Smal’, AHRC International Conference, University of Oxford, September 2026.

‘The Return of Chornobyl: Trauma, Memory and Silence in Kateryna Mikhalitsyna’s Flowers Near the Fourth’, ENRS 16th Conference of the Genealogies of Memory, University of Iași, September 2026.