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.

Ola Hnatiuk is a professor at the University of Warsaw and at the Kyiv-Mohyla Academy. She also served in the Polish diplomatic corps (2006–2010). She is the recipient of numerous awards, including Polonia Restituta (Republic of Poland highest state award), the Antonovych Foundation Award for fostering Polish-Ukrainian cultural cooperation, and the Pruszynski Polish PEN-Club Award. Her book Courage and Fear (originally published in Polish in 2015) received awards in Ukraine and in Poland.