Revelatory, evocative and deeply humane, Life In Spite of Everything is a celebration of a country’s past and present, and its people’s tenacity, creativity and independence.

Since start of Russia’s war against Ukraine in 2014, its eastern region – Donbas – has been synonymous with conflict. With the escalation of that war in 2022, cities such as Bakhmut and Lysychansk have become familiar to us through the images and reports of brutal devastation.

In her new book, Victoria Donovan excavates a rich, multicultural history of this area, and paints a radically different picture. Travelling from the dramatic, jagged peaks of Bilokuz’mynivka to the marshland of Mariupol, from a warehouse rave to an abandoned gypsum mine, the physical world and its importance to this region’s identity is brought to vivid life. But above all else, by speaking to those whose lives are embedded there now – curators, artists, railway workers, young people who have grown up amidst instability and destruction – Donovan amplifies local voices and reveals the intensely personal lived reality of Putin’s war.

Life in Spite of Everything is a cultural portrait of eastern Ukraine, and an urgent, essential read.

Join us for what is sure to be a very special afternoon at All Saints Church.

Victoria Donovan is Professor of Ukrainian and East European Studies and Director of the Centre for Global Postsocialisms, Southeast, Central and East European Studies at the University of St Andrews.