The Faraway Sky of Kyiv: Ukrainians in the War

This book is a product of personal and collective trauma, and a reflection of the ongoing Russo-Ukrainian War. It compiles narratives, shared by Olga Khomenko’s family members, friends, and former students, over the first two years of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine. The impetus for this endeavor was an interview of the author for Japanese media in early 2022, which revealed a significant knowledge gap about Ukrainian history and culture. Driven by a deep sense of responsibility, Khomenko wrote this book to amplify the voice of Ukrainians and their experiences in this war.

Dr Olga Khomenko is a CARA/British Academy Fellow at the Nissan Institute of Japanese Studies at the University of Oxford, specializing in Japanese Studies and International History with a particular focus on Eastern Asia and Eastern Europe. She studied in Kyiv and Tokyo, worked at the Ukrainian News agency UNIAN as well as the Ukrainian Embassy in Tokyo, and taught at the Kyiv-Mohyla Academy, Kyiv School of Economics as well as at Kyiv-Mohyla Business School. Khomenko was a Fulbright Scholar at the Harvard Ukrainian Research Institute and held fellowships of the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science, Vienna University, and Canadian Institute of Ukrainian Studies. She is the author of Transnational history of Ukraine (Gunzosha 2024), The Far Away Sky of Kyiv: Ukrainians in the War (Chuo Koron Shinsha 2023) and From Ukraine with Love (Gunzosha 2014) as well as co-translator of A Short Anthology of Contemporary Ukrainian Literature (Gunzosha 2005).

Dr Hiroaki Kuromiya is Emeritus Professor of History at Indiana University in Bloomington.