Book discussion: A Loss: The Story of a Dead Soldier Told by his Sister by Olesya Khromeychuk

This book is the story of one death among many in the war in eastern Ukraine. Its author is a historian of war whose brother was killed at the frontline in 2017 while serving in the Ukrainian Armed Forces. Olesya Khromeychuk takes the point of view of a civilian and a woman, perspectives that tend to be neglected in war narratives, and focuses on the stories that play out far away from the warzone. Through a combination of personal memoir and essay, Khromeychuk attempts to help her readers understand the private experience of this still ongoing but almost forgotten war in the heart of Europe and the private experience of war as such. This book will resonate with anyone battling with grief and the shock of the sudden loss of a loved one.

Dr Olesya Khromeychuk is a historian and writer. She received her PhD in History from the School of Slavonic and East European Studies, University College London. She has taught the history of East-Central Europe at the University of Cambridge, University College London, the University of East Anglia, and King’s College London. Her current research focuses on the participation of women in military formations during the Second World War and in the ongoing conflict in the Donbas region of Ukraine. She is author of ‘Undetermined’ Ukrainians. Post-War Narratives of the Waffen SS ‘Galicia’ Division (Peter Lang, 2013). She is currently the Director of the Ukrainian Institute London.

Dr Agnieszka Kubal is an interdisciplinary socio-legal, migration and human rights scholar with area studies interest in Central Eastern Europe and Russia. She is the author of two monographs, Socio-legal Integration. Polish post-2004 EU Enlargement Migrants in the UK (2012, Ashgate/Routledge) and Immigration and Refugee Law in Russia. Socio-Legal Perspectives (2019, Cambridge University Press). Together with Marina Kurkchiyan, Dr Kubal co-edited a volume on Sociology of Justice in Russia (2018, Cambridge University Press). Dr Kubal's current research The women behind Human Rights funded by Leverhulme/British Academy explores the gendered experiences of pursuing human rights claims before the European Court of Human Rights from Poland.