Authors

Sasha Dovzhyk¹; Charlotte Higgins²;  ¹ INDEX: Institute for Documentation and Exchange, Ukraine;  ² Writer, journalist, UK

Discussion

INDEX: The Institute for Documentation and Exchange was established in Lviv amidst Russia’s full-scale war against Ukraine. The purpose of this new cultural and research institution is to document Ukrainian wartime experiences in diverse forms and formats, while rooting this work in intellectual exchange with the broader world. Facilitating the production of situated knowledge about Ukraine in global contexts, INDEX pursues justice – not confined to the sort of justice that the legal system can provide, but also encompassing historical and epistemic justice as stories are told and passed on. In her presentation, the founder and head of INDEX Dr Sasha Dovzhyk will explore the challenges and motivations as well as acts of courage and political imagination involved in documenting the war while living it. She will be joined by the chief culture writer for The Guardian Charlotte Higgins who was INDEX’s scholar-in-residence in April–June 2025. Dovzhyk and Higgins will discuss the day-to-day mechanics of international cooperation and the production of contextualised knowledge that is fostered by INDEX.


Sasha Dovzhyk is a Ukrainian writer, editor, and cultural manager. She holds a PhD in English and Comparative Literature from Birkbeck, and has taught at Birkbeck and UCL SSEES and worked as a special projects curator at the Ukrainian Institute London. Her writing has also appeared in the New York Times, Los Angeles Review of Books, Guardian, CNN, and others. She is the editor of three books and of the online journal London Ukrainian Review. Having lived in London for nine years, she moved back to Ukraine in 2023 and established INDEX: Institute for Documentation and Exchange in Lviv. At night, she writes stories of Ukrainian resistance stylised as fairy tales.

Charlotte Higgins is a British writer, journalist, and the chief culture writer for The Guardian. Her books include Greek Myths: A New Retelling (2021), Red Thread: On Mazes and Labyrinths (2018), This New Noise (2015), Under Another Sky (2013). Her project as INDEX’s scholar in residence is the book based on three years of reporting on Russo-Ukrainian War, provisionally titled Ukrainian Lessons.