About Kupala Brighton

Kupala, Ukraine's traditional midsummer festival, was first celebrated in Brighton, on the south coast of England,  in July 2022. It was the first large gathering of the new Ukrainian community that was beginning to form in the city and surrounding region, following the full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February of that year, and it helped to bring that community together. At this Kupala on the south coast of England, Ukrainians practice their traditions and share them, with their children and also with the friends they have now made in the larger community of which they are now part.

The Kupala Brighton project, inspired by the festival, presents Ukrainian traditions and celebrates the community's creativity. It aims to explore how traditions work for communities today, how they are reinvented, and how they are combined with modern culture.

We talk about our project in this video:

   

in an interview for Lossi 36, which covers society, politics and culture from Central Europe to Central Asia, 'Kupala is coming home to Europe',

and in an article first published by Gramarye, the journal of the Chichester Centre for Fairy Tales, Fantasy and Speculative Fiction.

Who we are:

Vladyslava Bondar is a Ukrainian activist, culture enthusiast and a co-founder of the Kupala Brighton Festival and the Kupala Brighton project. She came to Sussex as a refugee from Ukraine in April 2022, and works in mental health and the refugee support sector.

Marek Kohn is a writer with an Anglo-Polish background, and lives in Brighton. His books include The Stories Old Towns Tell, Four Words for Friend (both published by Yale University Press) and Dope Girls (Granta). marekkohn.info