Talking about lives, community, history and the present through folklore. Our stories so far.

Marichka and Ivanko

The storyline of the theatre piece performed at the 2023 Kupala festival in Brighton: Marichka and Ivanko fall in love, but a war starts and Ivanko is sent to fight. When the community begins to prepare for Kupala, Marichka protests that people shouldn't be singing and dancing while a war is going on. Then, however, she meets a widow who understands her feelings, and reminds her that Ivanko may not yet be lost. Marichka sets out to look for the fern flower that blossoms on the eve of Kupala, so that she can wish for Ivanko's safe return. She finds the magic flower, and turns round to see Ivanko there, back safe from the war. They wed, and the people of the community celebrate, leaping over the Kupala bonfire.

We've written more about the meaning of the play in our Gramarye article, which tells the story of the Kupala festival in Brighton.

Vladyslava

Vladyslava Bondar's story, set in her childhood and around her grandparents' village, shows how Kupala is rooted in Ukraine's natural environments and landscapes. 'Surrounded by a forest, a river, meadows and cherry trees, it was a perfect place for everything folkloric.'

Lesia

Setting fire to car tyres and rolling them down a hill, 'like a symbol of the sun': Lesia Kyrylenko's Kupala used twentieth-century technology to sustain a European tradition previously reported in fourth-century France.

lesia's kupala

Rusalka

Rusalka introduced herself at the 2023 Kupala festival in Brighton. As she is a troubled and tragic water spirit, it fell to her to tell visitors about the floods that followed the destruction of the Kakhovka dam the previous month.

Mavka

Rusalka's forest counterpart, a similarly unquiet spirit, also talked to visitors about Ukraine's folklore, its past and its present.