“Considering how painful and not talked-through questions from our very recent history remain for us, it is difficult to overestimate the importance of Ola Hnatiuk’s work. It appears that we all, one way or another, will have to answer some very uncomfortable questions in the very near future. Books such as this one will make that a little easier.”
— Serhiy Zhadan, author
Courage and Fear
Courage and Fear is a study of a multicultural city in times when all norms collapse. Ola Hnatiuk presents a meticulously documented portrait of Lviv’s ethnically diverse intelligentsia during World War Two. As the Soviet, Nazi, and once again Soviet occupations tear the city’s social fabric apart, groups of Polish, Ukrainian, and Jewish doctors, academics, and artists try to survive, struggling to manage complex relationships and to uphold their ethos. As their pre-war lives are violently upended, courage and fear shape their actions. Ola Hnatiuk employs diverse sources in several languages to tell the story of Lviv from a multi-ethnic perspective and to challenge the national narratives dominant in Central and Eastern Europe.
