Terra Invicta
Ukrainian Wartime Reimaginings for a Habitable Earth
Will be published approx. on 18. November 2025
Book
Paperback/Softback
392 pages
978-0-2280-2583-2 (ISBN)
Description
The Russian invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 produced not only military and humanitarian responses but also scholarly and artistic ones from Ukrainians looking to the future of their country.
Terra Invicta is a series of critical and creative articulations of pasts, presents, and possible futures involving humans and the more-than-human world. The authors suggest that Ukraine is caught in an environmental war, waged by a fossil-fuel superpower against people who are prepared to lay down their lives to protect their land. This volume explores the relationship between Ukrainians - a multiethnic and multireligious people with a complicated history - and the Ukrainian land, the zemlia to which they belong. Themes include decoloniality, ecocultural identity, the politics of reconstruction, and artistic responsibility amid a war for national survival. Contributors emphasize the value of reviving multispecies relations with the land, positively transforming multicultural relations with history, and reinvigorating grassroots engagements with the state and society.
Terra Invicta grapples with the role of artistic expression in the face of war and collective loss and what it means to commit to a place, a land, a territory, in a world set in constant motion.
Terra Invicta is a series of critical and creative articulations of pasts, presents, and possible futures involving humans and the more-than-human world. The authors suggest that Ukraine is caught in an environmental war, waged by a fossil-fuel superpower against people who are prepared to lay down their lives to protect their land. This volume explores the relationship between Ukrainians - a multiethnic and multireligious people with a complicated history - and the Ukrainian land, the zemlia to which they belong. Themes include decoloniality, ecocultural identity, the politics of reconstruction, and artistic responsibility amid a war for national survival. Contributors emphasize the value of reviving multispecies relations with the land, positively transforming multicultural relations with history, and reinvigorating grassroots engagements with the state and society.
Terra Invicta grapples with the role of artistic expression in the face of war and collective loss and what it means to commit to a place, a land, a territory, in a world set in constant motion.
Reviews / Votes
"Terra Invicta does something urgently needed but nonetheless new: it makes it clear that there is no choice between ecological concerns and the struggle against military aggression. In Ukraine, they are two moments of the same struggle. Terra Invicta deserves to become an instant classic, a volume that everyone who wants to grasp the contours of our global crisis should read." - Slavoj Zizek, author of Zero Point"We in Ukraine have been breathing war for more than two years. War is part of the air, just like oxygen. And this is not a metaphor. The war in Ukraine affects the ecology of nature and the ecology of consciousness throughout the world. This book is the best way to understand Ukraine today and the impact of Russian aggression on your life, no matter what country you live in." - Andrey Kurkov, author of The Silver Bone
More details
Language
English
Place of publication
Montreal
Canada
Target group
College/higher education
Product notice
Paperback (trade)
Unsewn / adhesive bound
Illustrations
44 photos, 1 diagram, colour throughout
Dimensions
Height: 230 mm
Width: 157 mm
Thickness: 26 mm
Weight
666 gr
ISBN-13
978-0-2280-2583-2 (9780228025832)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Person
Adrian Ivakhiv holds the J.S. Woodsworth Chair in the Humanities at Simon Fraser University.
Content
CONTENTS
Figures xi
Preface xv
Editor's Acknowledgments xix
A Note on Transliteration xxi
INTRODUCTION
Earthbound@climatecrisis.war
What Does It Mean to Be Here, Tut? 3
Adrian Ivakhiv
PART ONE
?????????/Conditions
Anthropocenes and Colonialities
1 Ukraine in the Anthropocene 45
Asia Bazdyrieva
2 Decolonial Thinking and Artistic Practice in Ukraine After February 2022 54
Kateryna Botanova
3 Heart of Earth: The Flapping of Butterflies' Wings 72
Olesia Ostrovska-Liuta
Interlude 1.
"Does the Flap of a Butterfly's Wings in Brazil Set Off a Tornado in Texas?" 78
Larion Lozovyi and Natasha Chychasova
4 Unfolding Coloniality: Ecocide as the Erasure of Memory 86
Svitlana Biedarieva
5 Impossible, Potential, Unavoidable, Invisible 93
Lesia Kulchynska
PART TWO
?????/Ground
Earthy, Vegetal, and Arboreal (Be)longings
6 Zemlia: Soil and Seed as Weapons of Resistance in Wartime Ukrainian Popular Culture 117
Iryna Kovalenko
7 I Dream of Seeing the Steppe Again 138
Darya Tsymbalyuk
8 Into Kin-Regions with Horytsvit Vesnianyi 150
Iryna Zamuruieva
9 Split Gills as Companion Species: On Mushrooms, Nuclear Colonialism, and War 166
Yuliia Kishchuk
10 Goethe's Oak and Mohyla's Linden: History from an Arboreal Perspective 175
Kateryna Filyuk
Interlude 2.
40 x 30 x 20 188
Sofiia Holubeva
PART THREE
???/Movement
Mappings and Passages
11 Amphibious Landings: Interspecies RelationsAfter the Destruction of the Kakhovka Hydroelectric Station 199
Tanya Richardson, Vladyslav Balynskyy, Ihor Beliakov, Nataliia Brusentsova, Vasyl Fedorenko, and Ivan Rusev
12 Indigenous Futurity in Exile: Mapping Jamala's QIRIM 223
Maria Sonevytsky
13 Sonic Fictions in the Ruins of Catastrophe 243
Olya Zikrata
14 Revisiting and Reimagining Chornobyl: The Multiple Aftermaths of Catastrophe 263
Valentyna Kharkhun
Interlude 3.
Castle-New-Castle 277
Taras Polataiko and Violetta Oliinyk
PART FOUR
??????????/Conjectures
Conversations and Speculations
15 A Wartime Conversation on Ukraine, Coloniality, and Futurity 285
Asia Bazdyrieva, Adrian Ivakhiv, Svitlana Matviyenko, and Oleksiy Radynski
16 The Public Life of Food 300
Olesia Ostrovska-Liuta and Olena Stiazhkina
17 War and Wild Nature: Speculations on the Future of Ukrainian Wildlife 310
Oleksii Vasyliuk
18 We Will Definitely Talk About This After the Last Air Raid Alert Stops 322
Yuri Yefanov
POSTSCRIPT
Decolonization (of the Unnamed Other)
Is Not a Metaphor 335
Adrian Ivakhiv
Contributors 349
Index 357
Figures xi
Preface xv
Editor's Acknowledgments xix
A Note on Transliteration xxi
INTRODUCTION
Earthbound@climatecrisis.war
What Does It Mean to Be Here, Tut? 3
Adrian Ivakhiv
PART ONE
?????????/Conditions
Anthropocenes and Colonialities
1 Ukraine in the Anthropocene 45
Asia Bazdyrieva
2 Decolonial Thinking and Artistic Practice in Ukraine After February 2022 54
Kateryna Botanova
3 Heart of Earth: The Flapping of Butterflies' Wings 72
Olesia Ostrovska-Liuta
Interlude 1.
"Does the Flap of a Butterfly's Wings in Brazil Set Off a Tornado in Texas?" 78
Larion Lozovyi and Natasha Chychasova
4 Unfolding Coloniality: Ecocide as the Erasure of Memory 86
Svitlana Biedarieva
5 Impossible, Potential, Unavoidable, Invisible 93
Lesia Kulchynska
PART TWO
?????/Ground
Earthy, Vegetal, and Arboreal (Be)longings
6 Zemlia: Soil and Seed as Weapons of Resistance in Wartime Ukrainian Popular Culture 117
Iryna Kovalenko
7 I Dream of Seeing the Steppe Again 138
Darya Tsymbalyuk
8 Into Kin-Regions with Horytsvit Vesnianyi 150
Iryna Zamuruieva
9 Split Gills as Companion Species: On Mushrooms, Nuclear Colonialism, and War 166
Yuliia Kishchuk
10 Goethe's Oak and Mohyla's Linden: History from an Arboreal Perspective 175
Kateryna Filyuk
Interlude 2.
40 x 30 x 20 188
Sofiia Holubeva
PART THREE
???/Movement
Mappings and Passages
11 Amphibious Landings: Interspecies RelationsAfter the Destruction of the Kakhovka Hydroelectric Station 199
Tanya Richardson, Vladyslav Balynskyy, Ihor Beliakov, Nataliia Brusentsova, Vasyl Fedorenko, and Ivan Rusev
12 Indigenous Futurity in Exile: Mapping Jamala's QIRIM 223
Maria Sonevytsky
13 Sonic Fictions in the Ruins of Catastrophe 243
Olya Zikrata
14 Revisiting and Reimagining Chornobyl: The Multiple Aftermaths of Catastrophe 263
Valentyna Kharkhun
Interlude 3.
Castle-New-Castle 277
Taras Polataiko and Violetta Oliinyk
PART FOUR
??????????/Conjectures
Conversations and Speculations
15 A Wartime Conversation on Ukraine, Coloniality, and Futurity 285
Asia Bazdyrieva, Adrian Ivakhiv, Svitlana Matviyenko, and Oleksiy Radynski
16 The Public Life of Food 300
Olesia Ostrovska-Liuta and Olena Stiazhkina
17 War and Wild Nature: Speculations on the Future of Ukrainian Wildlife 310
Oleksii Vasyliuk
18 We Will Definitely Talk About This After the Last Air Raid Alert Stops 322
Yuri Yefanov
POSTSCRIPT
Decolonization (of the Unnamed Other)
Is Not a Metaphor 335
Adrian Ivakhiv
Contributors 349
Index 357