Love and Resilience on the Ukrainian Frontlines: Lunchtime with Alisa Kovalenko and Stéphane Siohan
The Chair in European Intellectual History of the Munk School and Munk Massey Global Scholar, Marci Shore, is pleased to collaborate with the Massey College to invite you to a special lunchtime conversation with Alisa Kovalenko and Stéphane Siohan who will share their unique personal experiences from the frontlines of the war in Ukraine.
Stéphane and Alisa worked for ten years, together or alternately, in Donbas and on the front lines of Ukraine at war. This conversation will provide a rare opportunity to engage directly with individuals whose lives have been shaped by the full-scale invasion in deeply personal ways. Their willingness to speak candidly will provide invaluable insight into the lived realities of Ukraine behind the headlines. We hope this session will foster meaningful dialogue across disciplines, particularly in the context of gender, power, and resistance.
Please join us for what promises to be an unforgettable and moving discussion.
Light lunch will be provided.
This event is held in partnership with the Munk School of Global Affairs and Public Policy and is open to students only.
MASSEY MEMBERS: Please login using your registered Massey email to receive applicable discounts and offers.
Speakers
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Marci ShoreMarci Shore received her BA from Stanford University, her MA from University of Toronto, and her Ph.D from Stanford University. After completing her doctorate, she was a postdoctoral fellow at the Harriman Institute of Columbia University and subsequently assistant professor of history at Indiana University from 2002 to 2006. She is currently on leave from her position as Professor of History at Yale University and will begin teaching at the Munk School in the 2025-2026 academic year.
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Stéphane Siohan
Stéphane Siohan, Alisa Kovalenko’s partner, is a senior French reporter specializing in Central and Eastern Europe, based in Kyiv since 2013. He is the correspondent in Ukraine for the French newspaper Libération, one of the most experienced international reporters on Ukraine and the author of the first biographical essay in French on President Volodymyr Zelensky. In 2014, he had to personally deal with his partner’s captivity in the war-torn Donbas region. Since then, Stéphane and Alisa have been living together and working together on documentary film projects that chronicle a decade of history in Donbass and Ukraine at war.
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Alisa Kovalenko
Alisa Kovalenko is a Ukrainian award-winning documentary filmmaker whose films are internationally acclaimed. In the early days of the full-scale invasion in 2022, she joined the ranks and fought in the Ukrainian Volunteer Army alongside the Ukrainian army. Eight years earlier, at the beginning of the Russian war in Donbass, Alisa had been taken captive by a Russian separatist unit. Her personal story, one of courage and resilience, provides an opportunity to reflect on contemporary Ukrainian history in a more intimate way.
