Shevchenko Scientific Society Inc

### Context Profile for Shevchenko Scientific Society Inc

#### 1. Organization Mission & Cause
The Shevchenko Scientific Society Inc is dedicated to promoting Ukrainian culture, history, and scholarship. Their mission is to foster a deeper understanding of Ukrainian heritage through academic research, cultural events, and community engagement. The organization emphasizes the importance of preserving Ukrainian identity and history, particularly in the context of contemporary challenges faced by Ukraine, including the ongoing conflict and historical injustices.

#### 2. Type of Activities
- **Cultural Events**: The Society hosts lectures, exhibitions, and performances that highlight Ukrainian culture and history. For example, the recent event titled "Our Life Behind Barbed Wire" focused on the experiences of Ukrainian forced laborers during WWII.
- **Fundraising Campaigns**: They conduct fundraising initiatives to support their cultural programs and outreach efforts, often collaborating with other organizations like Razom for Ukraine.
- **Community Programs**: The Society engages with the community through educational programs and cultural festivals, aiming to raise awareness and appreciation for Ukrainian arts and literature.

#### 3. Tone of Voice
The tone of voice used by the Shevchenko Scientific Society is **formal yet inviting**, with a focus on **educational and cultural enrichment**. The language is often **inspiring and respectful**, reflecting the organization's commitment to honoring Ukrainian heritage and addressing serious historical topics. The communication style is professional, aiming to engage an audience that values scholarly discourse and cultural appreciation.

#### 4. Emoji Usage
The Shevchenko Scientific Society does not appear to use emojis in their communications. Their content maintains a traditional and formal approach, focusing on clear and respectful language without the casualness that emojis might convey.

#### 5. Key Facts
- **Founding Info**: The Shevchenko Scientific Society was established to support Ukrainian scholarship and cultural initiatives.
- **Scale**: The organization has a total of 30 forms and has conducted 18 email campaigns, indicating active engagement with their audience.
- **Impact Metrics**: While specific impact metrics are not detailed on the website, the Society's events and programs are designed to reach and educate the community about Ukrainian culture and history.
- **Volunteer Info**: Information on volunteer opportunities is not explicitly stated, but the organization likely welcomes community involvement in events and initiatives.

#### 6. Writing Guidelines
- **Clarity and Precision**: Use clear and precise language to convey information about events and initiatives.
- **Respectful Tone**: Maintain a respectful and formal tone, especially when discussing sensitive historical topics.
- **Engagement**: Encourage community participation and engagement through inviting language that highlights the importance of cultural preservation.
- **Educational Focus**: Emphasize the educational aspects of events and programs, showcasing their relevance to contemporary issues facing Ukraine.

This context profile should provide a comprehensive understanding of the Shevchenko Scientific Society Inc, enabling AI assistants to generate tailored and impactful content that aligns with the organization's mission and values.

LXCL:Admission to this event is free. Suggested donation is $20.

General admission

In partnership with:&nbsp; <span contenteditable="false" draggable="false" fr-original-class="fr-img-caption fr-draggable" fr-original-style="width: 208px; display: block; vertical-align: top; margin: 5px auto 5px 0px; text-align: left;" style="width: 208px; display: block; vertical-align: top; margin: 5px auto 5px 0px; text-align: left; position: relative; max-width: 100%; box-sizing: inherit;"><img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/hxn9dbuhd/image/upload/v1759178713/wysiwyg/hzmqca9w9v8ulfoeaszj.png" style="width: 208px; display: block; vertical-align: top; margin: 5px auto 5px 0px; text-align: left; position: relative; max-width: 100%; cursor: pointer; padding: 0px 1px; user-select: none; box-sizing: inherit;" fr-original-style="width: 208px; display: block; vertical-align: top; margin: 5px auto 5px 0px; text-align: left;" fr-original-class="fr-draggable"><span contenteditable="true" fr-original-class="fr-inner" fr-original-style="" style="outline: transparent solid 0px; box-sizing: border-box; margin: auto; display: block; padding: 5px 5px 10px; font-size: 14px; font-weight: 400; opacity: 0.9; width: 100%;"><a fr-original-style="" href="https://www.razomforukraine.org/" rel="noopener noreferrer" style="text-decoration-color: initial; user-select: auto; box-sizing: inherit; display: block;" target="_blank">Razom for Ukraine</a> The Shevchenko Scientific Society gallery will host an evening of scholarship and performance centered on the experiences of Ukrainian forced laborers (Ostarbeiters) in Nazi Germany. Schedule 6:00 pm Lecture by Alex Averbuch and opening of the Ostarbeiter photography exhibit &laquo;Our Life Behind Barbed Wire&rdquo; 7:00 pm Musico-poetic performance with poet Alex Averbuch, translators Oksana Maksymchuk &amp; Max Rosochinsky, and composer-vocalist Olga Zaitseva-Herz (part of the Ukrainian Cultural Festival by Razom for Ukraine) The public lecture by Alex Averbuch will open an exhibition dedicated to the photography and correspondence of Ukrainian Ostarbeiters who were displaced to Nazi Germany during World War II. The show brings together rare images and personal letters that record daily life, coercion, and resilience. The materials trace intimate struggles, including young women&rsquo;s pregnancies in captivity, secret marriages, and clandestine efforts to send forbidden news home, as well as acts of resistance and survival under totalitarian rule.&nbsp; The exhibition will remain on view through January 1, 2026. Following the talk at&nbsp;7:00 pm,&nbsp;guests are invited to view the exhibition and attend an immersive musico-poetic program by Averbuch and Zaitseva-Herz. Blending poetry, voice, and sound, it brings forward often-silenced histories, from deported Ostarbeiters and victims of the Holocaust to those suffering under Russia&rsquo;s ongoing invasion of Ukraine. Staged within the exhibit space itself, the performance resonates with Ukraine&rsquo;s historical &ldquo;shadows,&rdquo; enveloping the audience in poetry, song, and storytelling that bridge past traumas with the present struggle for survival and dignity. Alex Averbuch, a native of Novoaidar, Luhansk region, Ukraine, is a poet, translator, and scholar. He is the author of several books of poetry and an array of over seventy selections of literary translations between Hebrew, Ukrainian, Russian, and English. His poems have appeared in English translation in Beloit, Manhattan Review, Copper Nickel, Birmingham Poetry Review, Plume, Words Without Borders, Sugar House Review, Constellations, and Common Knowledge, as well as in anthologies in English, Italian, French, Romanian, Hebrew, Finnish, Estonian, and Polish translation. His works have been twice nominated for the Pushcart Prize. Averbuch&rsquo;s latest poetry book was a finalist for the Shevchenko National Prize, Ukraine&rsquo;s highest award for culture and literature, and is forthcoming in English translation by Oksana Maksymchuk and Max Rosochinsky under the title&nbsp;Furious Harvests from HURI/Harvard UP. Standalone collections of his poetry have been or will soon be published in Polish, Italian, and German. He is currently an assistant professor of Ukrainian literature and culture in the Department of Slavic Languages and Literatures at the University of Michigan. Olga Zaitseva-Herz is an ethnomusicologist and postdoctoral fellow at the Kule Folklore Centre, University of Alberta. Originally from Dnipro, she completed her PhD in 2024 with a dissertation on Ukrainian songs in Canada, exploring their interconnectedness and the transculturality of singing styles. Her current research interest is in the strategic role of popular music in Russia&rsquo;s war on Ukraine, with particular attention to cultural resilience in digital spaces and AI-mediated communication. Alongside her academic work, she is an active performer and composer with extensive international concert experience. In 2011, she founded the band Zaitsa in Germany, reimagining traditional Ukrainian songs through jazz, pop, and klezmer elements. With this ensemble, she has performed hundreds of concerts across Europe, including a premiere at the Mela Festival in England, associated with the opening of the London Olympic Games in 2012. She has also performed as a solo singer with different orchestras and also played in orchestras on international tours with Andrea Bocelli and David Garrett. An installment of her contemporary opera Bakhmut Rhapsody, based on frontline soundscapes and ethnographic fieldwork combined with poetry by T. Shevchenko and L. Ukrainka, premiered at the Ukrainian Contemporary Music Festival in New York City in 2024. Her current artistic research project focuses on the sonification of Ukrainian embroidery, where traditional patterns are transcribed into musical compositions. In this innovative work, embroidered stitches become notes, and colors shape pitch and timbre, creating polyphonic soundscapes that translate the intangible cultural heritage of Ukrainian embroidery into sonic form. Oksana Maksymchuk is a bilingual Ukrainian-American poet, scholar, and literary translator. Her debut English-language poetry collection Still City: Diary of an Invasion (University of Pittsburgh Press (US)/Carcanet (UK)) was long-listed for the 2025 Griffin Poetry Prize and Pen/Voelcker Award for Poetry. She co-edited an anthology Words for War: New Poems from Ukraine (Academic Studies Press, 2017) and co-translated several poetry collections, most recently, Alex Averbuch&rsquo;s Furious Harvests (Harvard University Press, 2025). Oksana holds a PhD in philosophy from Northwestern University. Max Rosochinsky is a scholar, translator and poet from Simferopol/Crimea. His translations have featured in publications including Modern Poetry in Translation, Words Without Borders, Poetry International and the Best European Fiction series from Dalkey Archive Press, while his translation of Lyuba Yakimchuk&rsquo;s Prayer was performed by the author at the 2022 Grammy Awards Ceremony. A co-winner of &nbsp;first place in the Joseph Brodsky-Stephen Spender Prize translation competition, he co-edited Words for War: New Poems from Ukraine, an anthology of contemporary Ukrainian poetry with Oksana Maksymchuk, and co-translated Apricots of Donbas, a collection of selected poems by Lyuba Yakimchuk, and The Voices of Babyn Yar, a book of poetry by Marianna Kiyanovska.

Hi <span contenteditable="false" data-custom-variable="{{firstname}}" fr-original-class="fr-deletable styled-tag-chip" fr-original-style="" style="background-color: rgb(248, 248, 255); border: 1px solid rgb(191, 191, 255); border-radius: 4px; color: rgb(42, 42, 196); padding: 1px 8px; font-size: 11px; display: inline-block; margin: 0px; overflow-wrap: anywhere; user-select: none; box-sizing: inherit;">First name , Thank you for registering for our event. Your financial support sustains the mission of the Shevchenko Scientific Society: to promote higher education, scholarship, and research in the sciences and humanities, focusing on Ukrainian topics. In addition to funding publication grants, scholarships, and fellowships, your financial contribution helps maintain the library and archives and supports the weekly Saturday Lectures Series. Whatever your gift, you will be ensuring that the Society&rsquo;s activities continue to support the scholarly work of Ukrainians in Ukraine and the Diaspora. For more details, go to: https://shevchenko.org/membership-and-support/make-a-donation/ For questions and inquiries, please email events@shevchenko.org. Shevchenko Scientific Society63 4th AveNew York, NY 10003-5202events@shevchenko.org(212) 254-5130

In partnership with:  <img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/hxn9dbuhd/image/upload/v1759178713/wysiwyg/hzmqca9w9v8ulfoeaszj.png" style="width:208px;display:block;vertical-align:top;margin:5px auto 5px 0px;text-align:left;position:relative;cursor:pointer;padding:0px 1px;user-select:none;box-sizing:inherit;max-width:100%" /><a href="https://www.razomforukraine.org/" target="_blank">Razom for Ukraine</a> The Shevchenko Scientific Society gallery will host an evening of scholarship and performance centered on the experiences of Ukrainian forced laborers (Ostarbeiters) in Nazi Germany. Schedule 6:00 pm Lecture by Alex Averbuch and opening of the Ostarbeiter photography exhibit «Our Life Behind Barbed Wire” 7:00 pm Musico-poetic performance with poet Alex Averbuch, translators Oksana Maksymchuk &amp; Max Rosochinsky, and composer-vocalist Olga Zaitseva-Herz (part of the Ukrainian Cultural Festival by Razom for Ukraine) The public lecture by Alex Averbuch will open an exhibition dedicated to the photography and correspondence of Ukrainian Ostarbeiters who were displaced to Nazi Germany during World War II. The show brings together rare images and personal letters that record daily life, coercion, and resilience. The materials trace intimate struggles, including young women’s pregnancies in captivity, secret marriages, and clandestine efforts to send forbidden news home, as well as acts of resistance and survival under totalitarian rule.  The exhibition will remain on view through January 1, 2026. Following the talk at 7:00 pm, guests are invited to view the exhibition and attend an immersive musico-poetic program by Averbuch and Zaitseva-Herz. Blending poetry, voice, and sound, it brings forward often-silenced histories, from deported Ostarbeiters and victims of the Holocaust to those suffering under Russia’s ongoing invasion of Ukraine. Staged within the exhibit space itself, the performance resonates with Ukraine’s historical “shadows,” enveloping the audience in poetry, song, and storytelling that bridge past traumas with the present struggle for survival and dignity. Alex Averbuch, a native of Novoaidar, Luhansk region, Ukraine, is a poet, translator, and scholar. He is the author of several books of poetry and an array of over seventy selections of literary translations between Hebrew, Ukrainian, Russian, and English. His poems have appeared in English translation in Beloit, Manhattan Review, Copper Nickel, Birmingham Poetry Review, Plume, Words Without Borders, Sugar House Review, Constellations, and Common Knowledge, as well as in anthologies in English, Italian, French, Romanian, Hebrew, Finnish, Estonian, and Polish translation. His works have been twice nominated for the Pushcart Prize. Averbuch’s latest poetry book was a finalist for the Shevchenko National Prize, Ukraine’s highest award for culture and literature, and is forthcoming in English translation by Oksana Maksymchuk and Max Rosochinsky under the title Furious Harvests from HURI/Harvard UP. Standalone collections of his poetry have been or will soon be published in Polish, Italian, and German. He is currently an assistant professor of Ukrainian literature and culture in the Department of Slavic Languages and Literatures at the University of Michigan. Olga Zaitseva-Herz is an ethnomusicologist and postdoctoral fellow at the Kule Folklore Centre, University of Alberta. Originally from Dnipro, she completed her PhD in 2024 with a dissertation on Ukrainian songs in Canada, exploring their interconnectedness and the transculturality of singing styles. Her current research interest is in the strategic role of popular music in Russia’s war on Ukraine, with particular attention to cultural resilience in digital spaces and AI-mediated communication. Alongside her academic work, she is an active performer and composer with extensive international concert experience. In 2011, she founded the band Zaitsa in Germany, reimagining traditional Ukrainian songs through jazz, pop, and klezmer elements. With this ensemble, she has performed hundreds of concerts across Europe, including a premiere at the Mela Festival in England, associated with the opening of the London Olympic Games in 2012. She has also performed as a solo singer with different orchestras and also played in orchestras on international tours with Andrea Bocelli and David Garrett. An installment of her contemporary opera Bakhmut Rhapsody, based on frontline soundscapes and ethnographic fieldwork combined with poetry by T. Shevchenko and L. Ukrainka, premiered at the Ukrainian Contemporary Music Festival in New York City in 2024. Her current artistic research project focuses on the sonification of Ukrainian embroidery, where traditional patterns are transcribed into musical compositions. In this innovative work, embroidered stitches become notes, and colors shape pitch and timbre, creating polyphonic soundscapes that translate the intangible cultural heritage of Ukrainian embroidery into sonic form. Oksana Maksymchuk is a bilingual Ukrainian-American poet, scholar, and literary translator. Her debut English-language poetry collection Still City: Diary of an Invasion (University of Pittsburgh Press (US)/Carcanet (UK)) was long-listed for the 2025 Griffin Poetry Prize and Pen/Voelcker Award for Poetry. She co-edited an anthology Words for War: New Poems from Ukraine (Academic Studies Press, 2017) and co-translated several poetry collections, most recently, Alex Averbuch’s Furious Harvests (Harvard University Press, 2025). Oksana holds a PhD in philosophy from Northwestern University. Max Rosochinsky is a scholar, translator and poet from Simferopol/Crimea. His translations have featured in publications including Modern Poetry in Translation, Words Without Borders, Poetry International and the Best European Fiction series from Dalkey Archive Press, while his translation of Lyuba Yakimchuk’s Prayer was performed by the author at the 2022 Grammy Awards Ceremony. A co-winner of  first place in the Joseph Brodsky-Stephen Spender Prize translation competition, he co-edited Words for War: New Poems from Ukraine, an anthology of contemporary Ukrainian poetry with Oksana Maksymchuk, and co-translated Apricots of Donbas, a collection of selected poems by Lyuba Yakimchuk, and The Voices of Babyn Yar, a book of poetry by Marianna Kiyanovska.

Shevchenko Scientific Society Inc

Our Life Behind Barbed Wire: Photography, Poetry, and Song from Ukraine’s Shadows

63 4th Ave

General admission

Free

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