Dr. Ulyana Veryna

Project Narratives of Diasporic Identities in Popular Culture: Belarus after 2020

CV

Professional Appointments

  • 2011–2022
    Associate Professor, Belarusian State University
    • Department of Belarusian Literature (2020–2022)
    • Department of Russian Literature (2011–2020)
  • 2008–2011
    Senior Lecturer, Department of Russian Literature, Belarusian State University
  • 2002–2008
    Editor, Editorial and Publishing Department, Belarusian State University

Education and Academic Qualifications

  • 2020
    Doctor of Science (Dr. habil.) in Philology
    Dissertation: Renewal of the Genre System of Russian Poetry at the Turn of the Twentieth and Twenty-First Centuries
  • 2014
    Academic Title of Associate Professor (Literary Studies)
  • 2001
    PhD in Philology
    Dissertation: Belarusian Avant-Garde Poetry of the 1980s and 1990s
  • 1997–2000
    Postgraduate Studies, Belarusian State University
  • 1992–1997
    Belarusian State University, Faculty of Philology
    (Belarusian and Russian Languages and Literatures)

Fellowships

  • since July 2026 – Leibniz Centre for Literary and Cultural Research (ZfL), Berlin (EU4Belarus SALT III)
  • 2025–2026 – Institute of European Studies, University of Bremen (EU4Belarus SALT II)
  • 2022–2025 – Institute of Slavic Studies, University of Oldenburg (Philipp Schwartz Initiative)
  • 2018 – Matej Bel University, Banská Bystrica

Jury, Council, and Board Memberships

Editorial Board Member

  • CONTestO – Voci dall'Est (WriteUp Books, Italy)

Jury Member

  • Natalla Arsenneva Literary Award (2025)
  • Jerzy Giedroyc Literary Award (2022, 2024)
  • Maksim Bahdanovič "Debut" Literary Prize (2023)

Research Interests

  • Belarusian and Russian literatures
  • Transnational and multilingual literary cultures
  • East Slavic literary modernity
  • Soviet multinational literature
  • Literature, language and political transformation
  • Contemporary Belarusian literature and exile
  • Poetry, genre theory and poetic forms
  • Literary translation

Publications

Recent Publications

  • "Vasil' Bykaŭ"; Ryhor Baradulin." In: Ukrainian and Belarusian Writers, Part I, edited by J. Alexander Ogden. Farmington Hills, MI: Gale, 2026. Dictionary of Literary Biography. Co-authored with Viktar Zhybul'.
  • Paet – kraina. Ales' Razanaŭ (1947–2021) (= Un poeta-un paese. Ales' Razanaŭ (1947–2021); Ein Dichter wie ein ganzes Land. Aleś Razanaŭ (1947–2021)). In: Ales' Razanaŭ. Sumus ne simus, ed. Maya Halavanava & Thomas Weiler. 2026. CONTestO – Voci dall'Est, pp. 3–47.
  • "Kanflikt z 'rodnaj movaj' i transnacyjanal'ny pavarot u suchasnaj bjelaruskaj litaratury [Conflict with the 'Mother Tongue' and the Transnational Turn in Contemporary Belarusian Literature]." Acta Albaruthenica 25, 2025, pp. 165–187.
  • "Slova vojny i mira: poèziâ v krizisnye èpohi [Words of War and Peace: Poetry in Times of Crisis]." Minskaâ škola. Al'manah poèzii, issue V, 2025, pp. 228–240.
  • "Eppure, esistere [And Yet, to Exist]." In: Il mondo è finito e noi invece no: Antologia di poesia bielorussa del XXI secolo [The World Has Ended, But We Have Not: An Anthology of 21st-Century Belarusian Poetry]. Translations by Alessandro Achilli, Giulia De Florio, Maya Halavanava, Massimo Maurizio, Laura Quercioli Mincer. WriteUp Books, 2024, pp. 15–30.

Monographs

  • Obnovlenie žanrovoj sistemy russkoj poèzii rubeža XX–XXI vekov [Renewal of the Genre System of Russian Poetry at the Turn of the 20th–21st Centuries]. Minsk, 2017.
  • Kniga stihov kak fenomen kul'tury Rossii i Belarusi [A Book of Poems as a Cultural Phenomenon in Russia and Belarus] (co-author). Moscow–Ekaterinburg, 2016.
  • Verlibr u paèzii belaruskaha avanharda 1980-h – 1990-h hadoŭ [Free Verse in the Poetry of the Belarusian Avant-garde of the 1980s–1990s]. Minsk, 2005.

Lectures

  • "Architecture of Invisibility: Polish-language Soviet Literature as an Empty Reservation." Colloquium: Eastern Europe's Invisibilities. University of Zurich, Department of Slavic and Eastern European Studies, 14 April 2026.
  • "'Śpij, ma kołchozna ziemio ojczysta…': Włodzimierz Kowalski (1912–1937) and the Soviet Polonia Project." International conference: Polsko-białoruskie związki historyczne, literackie i językowe w roku 20. jubileuszu czasopisma naukowego „Studia Białorutenistyczne". Maria Curie-Skłodowska University, Lublin, 25–26 June 2026.
  • "Memories of the Borderlands vs. Soviet Internationalism: Transcultural Writing in the Era of Thaw and Stagnation (Vasil′ Bykaŭ, Uladzimir Karatkevič)." Workshop: Writing on the Border in the Post-Stalinist Era: Identities, Conflicts, Dialogues. Institute of Slavic Studies, TU Dresden, 25 March 2026.
  • "Between Emergence and Suppression: Transnational Phenomena in the Literary Space of 1920s–1930s Belarus." Workshop: After Transnationalism? Writing About East European Histories and Cultures Today. Herder Institute, Marburg, 2025.
  • "Polish-Language Writers in Belarus (1928–1937): Between Canon Formation and Historical Amnesia." 12th International Congress of Belarusian Studies, Humboldt University, Berlin, 2025.
  • "Belarus in Interwar Literature in Yiddish, Polish and Russian: The Other Homeland." International conference: Belarusian Studies in the 21st Century. University College London, 2025.
  • "The Ghost of Revival: Belarusian Literature on the Way to 'Multinational Soviet Literature.'" International conference: Soviet Multinational Literature as an Imperial Practice. TU Dresden, 2024.
  • "The Promised Land and Its Ghosts: The Literary Space of Belarus in a Transnational Vision (the 1920s – early 1930s)." Belarus Colloquium, Department of Public History, FernUniversität in Hagen, in cooperation with the Belarusian Institute of Public History, European Humanities University, Herder Institute Marburg, and University of Bremen, 21 October 2024.
  • "Vočy maršala Davu: vyjaŭlennie i ŭtojvannie ŭ apovesci Vasilja Bykava 'Afganiec' (1998)" [The Eyes of Marshal Davout: Revelation and Concealment in Vasil′ Bykaŭ's Novella Afganets (1998)]. International conference: Wasil Bykau's Front Line: Between Literature and Cinema. European Humanities University, Vilnius, 24–25 September 2024.

Courses

Teaching experience spans undergraduate and graduate courses in Russian and Belarusian literature, comparative Slavic literature, literary theory, and the history of Russian poetry, as well as seminars on Slavic literary transfer and reception, transnational and borderland literary spaces, and contemporary Belarusian and crisis-era literature.

2022–2025, University of Oldenburg

  • Vilnius as an Intersection of Slavic Cultures
  • The Reception of Slavic Classical Literature in the German-Speaking World
  • Literature in Times of Crisis — Literature Online
  • Dialogue Across a Century: Belarusian Poetry of the 1920s and the Present

2018, Matej Bel University, Banská Bystrica

  • Russian as a Foreign Language

2008–2022, Belarusian State University

  • History of 19th-Century Russian Literature
  • History of 20th-Century Belarusian Literature
  • History of Slavic Literary Criticism
  • Analysis of a Literary Text
  • Genre Systems of Belarusian and Russian Poetry