Dr Blacker awarded British Academy Award Mid-Career Fellowship

Dr Blacker, Associate Professor in Ukrainian and East European Culture, has been awarded a British Academy Mid-Career Fellowship for his project titled: 'Crossed Paths: Mapping Ukraine's Multicultural Literary Landscape'

Ukraine has, for centuries, been a place where many cultures, literatures and languages have co-existed. In the 19th and 20th centuries, writers working in the lands that are today Ukraine wrote in more than half a dozen languages, from Ukrainian, Crimean Tatar and Yiddish to German, Polish and Russian. They did so in the context of shifting borders and the rise and fall of multiple empires and states. Ukraine’s literary heritage is, thus, extremely rich; yet this richness is almost never viewed as a coherent, if complex, whole. Instead, self-isolating national paradigms separate and limit the work of writers who, in reality, existed across and between languages and cultures. This project makes a groundbreaking attempt to synthesise this diverse landscape and create a more nuanced understanding of the cultural history of a country that is at the centre of the world's attention yet still poorly understood

Commenting on his award, Dr Blacker says '‘I hope this project will help improve our understanding Ukraine’s amazing cultural diversity and richness.’'.

The British Academy has awarded over £5.8 million in Mid-Career Fellowships to 44 outstanding mid-career academics whose research will promote public engagement with, and understanding of, the SHAPE disciplines. The Fellowships will free researchers from normal teaching and administrative commitments, enabling them to pursue a major piece of research that advances understanding in their subject area.

• View Dr Blacker's profile
• See the full list of recipients (British Academy website)