On February 18, 2026, a discussion will take place with the award-winning Ukrainian author Halyna Kruk. The focus will be on her poetry collection “Crashkurs in Molotowcocktails: Poems” (translated by Claudia Dathe and Stefaniya Ptashnyk, edition fotoTAPETA).

In her texts, Halyna Kruk reflects on the growing threat to peace and finds a powerful lyrical language for the intrusion of war and violence into people’s lives. The discussion will address both the book itself and the challenges of its translation into German.

In addition to the author, her translator Stefaniya Ptashnyk will also be participating. Cornelius Hell will moderate, and Stefaniya Ptashnyk will also provide interpretation.

Halyna Kruk

born in 1974 in Lviv, Ukraine, is an author of poetry, prose, and children’s books, a translator from Polish, and a professor at Ivan Franko University in Lviv. Her works have been translated into more than 30 languages.

Crashkurs in Molotowcocktails

This book presents the first major collection of poems by one of the most important contemporary Ukrainian poets in German. Since 2011, Halyna Kruk has been making her voice heard with works that address the growing threat to peace, and, according to the two editors and translators, “since 2014 she has found a lyrical language for the intrusion of war and violence into people’s lives.” She has received numerous awards for her work, and she travels tirelessly to convey to audiences abroad, through her writing, what it means to live in war. According to the editors, poetry is “more than just writing poems for Halyna Kruk. It has become the most important and indispensable way for her to be and to live. Essentially, she expresses everything she thinks and feels through poetry.”