Berezil – PrikVO – Lesia Theater: How to Assemble the 20th-century History?
18.6.2020
zoom
We invite you to the talk with Dr. Mayhill Fowler, Associate Professor at Stetson University and Fulbright Scholar in Ukraine, and Dr. Sofia Dyak, Director of the Center for Urban History. The event will be taking place online.
The Berezil theater is in the core of stories about modern Ukrainian theater and culture.
Lesia Theater is an illustration of how crucial changes can be made possible in theater institutions.
PrikVO Theater is a by far the forgotten history and is hardly perceived as part of the story of a culture in Ukraine.
In the talk, we shall touch upon what unites these theaters and how to write about the history and culture of the 20th century; how can it help understand and create the present-day culture.
The online-event will be based on the talk we've recorded in May.
Zoom-meeting is scheduled on June 18, 7 pm (Kyiv Time)
Working language - Ukrainian
The May conversation focused on Dr. Fowler’s book project War Stories: Theater on the Frontlines of Socialism, on PrikVO, the Theater of the Carpathian Military district in Soviet Ukraine, which was one of the seven official, professional military theaters across the Soviet Union. We discussed how the story of PrikVO challenges us to rethink the history of theater in Lviv, in Ukraine, and in Eastern Europe more broadly. We focused on the theater itself, its rise, its heyday, its demise, its post-Soviet transformation and its (often invisible) legacies today. Central to this story is war, and theater’s ability--and inability--to tell a true war story. More broadly, how is a true war story ever possible? Throughout the conversation we returned to the themes of the stories we tell, why we tell them, and why our stories matter for how we understand ourselves and the place in which we live. Ultimately, PrikVO is a Lviv story, a story of this city and the people who called it home for their lives and careers.
Dr. Mayhill C. Fowler
Ph.D. Princeton, associate professor of history at Stetson University. She teaches and researches the cultural history of Ukraine, and has published widely on theater, film, and revolutionary culture. Her first book, “Beau Monde on Empire’s Edge: State and Stage in Soviet Ukraine” (Toronto, 2017), tells the story of the making of culture both Soviet and Ukrainian through a collective biography of young artists and officials in the 1920s and 1930s. She is completing two projects: “War Stories: Theater on the Frontlines of Socialism”, and “Comrade Actress: Soviet Ukrainian Women”. She is a Fulbright Research Scholar in Ukraine 2019-2020.