KuFC KuleNews | March 2026

Welcome to the Kule Folklore Centre’s monthly mailout, where we share upcoming events, stories, and news to keep you connected and inspired. 

In the March 2026 KuleNews edition:

News and Event Recap:

• February 20 – March 20 — “Ukraine: War and Resistance” photo exhibition at the U of A’s Rutherford Library
• March 18 — “Ukrainian People are my People Too: An Indigenous Perspective on Relationality, War, and Reconciliation” in conversation with Dr. Niigaan Sinclair
• March 20 — “When Songs Go to War: Pop Music, Propaganda, and Digital Soft Power in Russia’s War on Ukraine” by Dr. Olga Zaitseva-Herz

Upcoming Events:

• April 10 — Annual Bohdan Medwidsky Memorial Lecture. Dr. Maryna Hrymych presents “Between Narratives of Mourning and Humour: Memory and Resilience in Ukraine, 2022–25” (UPDATED LOCATION)
• April 10–12 — Ukrainian Film Festival in Alberta (Calgary)
• April 17–19 — Ukrainian Film Festival in Alberta (Edmonton)

New on YouTube:

• “When Songs Go to War: Pop Music, Propaganda, and Digital Soft Power in Russia’s War on Ukraine” by Olga Zaitseva-Herz
• "Ukrainian People are my People Too: An Indigenous Perspective on Relationality, War, and Reconciliation" in conversation with Dr. Niigaan Sinclair
• “How to use the SUCH network database”

Enjoy!
Kule Folklore Centre (KuFC)

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Kule News and Event Recap

February 20 – March 20
“Ukraine: War and Resistance” – Exhibition by American and Ukrainian photographers at Rutherford Library, U of A

“Ukraine: War and Resistance” is a travelling photo exhibition initiated by Fulbright Ukraine and the Institute of International Education (IIE) Kyiv Office, in cooperation with partner institutions in Europe and North America. The exhibition brings together photographs by American and Ukrainian Fulbright alumni who have lived and worked in Ukraine. Most of the photographs were taken after Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine on 24 February 2022. Some date back to 2014, when Russia initially invaded Ukraine and occupied Crimea. The photographs show everyday life during the war: destruction and loss alongside moments of resilience and solidarity.

The exhibition presents works by J.T. Blatty, Oleksii Furman, Brendan Hoffman, Serhii Korovayny, Joseph Sywenkyj, Emine Ziyatdinova, and Oksana Parafeniuk. Being directly present in Ukraine during these events, the photographers recorded what they witnessed with clarity and restraint. Their photographs capture both the gravity of the war and the human effort to continue living under its conditions.

The exhibition was first shown in the city of Vinnytsia, Ukraine, in the fall of 2022 and has since traveled to several countries, including the United States, Bulgaria, and Germany. Its first presentation in Canada, shown in Edmonton, is co-organized by the Kule Folklore Centre and hosted at the Rutherford Library, University of Alberta.

General design: Marian Luniv, a Ukrainian artist and the Communications Coordinator at Fulbright Ukraine and the IIE Kyiv Office.

Curatorial assistance at the University of Alberta: Dr. Oleksandr Pankieiev, Dmytro Yesypenko, Andriyka Reisdorf, and Illia Pokotylo.

The Fulbright Program is an international academic exchange program supported by the U.S. Department of State and operating in more than 160 countries worldwide. Established in 1946, it promotes educational and cultural exchange to foster mutual understanding. The Fulbright Program has operated in Ukraine since 1992 and has supported hundreds of Ukrainian and American scholars, researchers, and artists. 

March 18 
“Ukrainian People are my People Too: An Indigenous Perspective on Relationality, War, and Reconciliation” — in conversation with Dr. Niigaan Sinclair

The Kule Folklore Centre is excited to announce that the recording of this event is now available on YouTube.

The Indigenous-Ukrainian Relationship Initiative (IURI), a joint initiative of the Ukrainian Resource and Development Centre - MacEwan University and the Kule Folklore Centre at the University of Alberta, hosted a special online event - a conversation with Niigaan Sinclair. Niigaan Sinclair is Anishinaabe from Peguis First Nation. He is an award-winning writer, editor and professor of Indigenous Studies at the University of Manitoba who was named by Maclean’s magazine in 2022 as one of the most influential people in Canada.

To learn more about Niigaan, the IURI initiative and past events, visit our website https://storiesoftheselands.ca/

recording of: “Ukrainian People are my People Too: An Indigenous Perspective on Relationality, War, and Reconciliation”

March 20
“When Songs Go to War: Pop Music, Propaganda, and Digital Soft Power in Russia’s War on Ukraine” by Olga Zaitseva-Herz

The Kule Folklore Centre is excited to announce that the recording of this event is now available on YouTube.

Olga Zaitseva-Herz is an ethnomusicologist, currently a Postdoctoral Fellow at the Kule Folklore Centre. Originally from Dnipro, Ukraine, she received her PhD at the University of Alberta in 2024 with a dissertation on Ukrainian songs in Canada, examining transcultural circulation, memory, and diaspora. In parallel with her academic research, Dr. Zaitseva-Herz maintains an active practice as a performer and composer. Her recent creative work includes the contemporary opera project Bakhmut Rhapsody, which premiered at the Ukrainian Contemporary Music Festival in New York City in 2024. 

This talk examined the role of popular music as a tool of propaganda and soft power during Russia’s ongoing war against Ukraine. Moving beyond the idea of music as mere cultural background, Dr. Zaitseva-Herz argued that songs function as active agents in contemporary information warfare, shaping emotions, legitimizing violence, mobilizing audiences, and normalizing political narratives. 

from left: Oleksandr Pankieiev and Olga Zaitseva-Herz

recording of: “When Songs Go to War: Pop Music, Propaganda, and Digital Soft Power in Russia’s War on Ukraine”

Upcoming Events

April 10
Annual Bohdan Medwidsky Memorial Lecture. Dr. Maryna Hrymych presents “Between Narratives of Mourning and Humour: Memory and Resilience in Ukraine, 2022–25"

🗓  April 10, 2026
🕙 3:30 p.m. MDT
📍 UNH 2-100 University Hall, North Campus
🗺️ https://maps.app.goo.gl/5P2fgVhbXqVUjaRP7
💳 Free admission (please register!)

Precis of the 2026 Medwidsky Lecture: From the first day of the full-scale invasion in February 2022, Ukraine faced challenges that required immediate working through, largely realized through communication on social media. Amid the torrent of textual, photo, and video content there emerged both “one-day” messages and private reflections, as well as posts that became, to varying degrees, folklorized and integrated into the collective narrative. Taken together, these narratives — both mournful and humorous — help people to process collective trauma while simultaneously fostering resilience and maintaining a sense of identity.

Dr. Maryna Hrymych is a writer, folklorist, ethnographer, cultural manager, publisher, and diplomat. With the academic ranks of Doctor of Historical Sciences and Candidate of Philological Sciences, she is a member of PEN Ukraine, the National Writers’ Union of Ukraine, the National Union of Local Historians of Ukraine, and the Memory Studies Association. Hrymych is the author of a biographical monograph on KuFC founder Bohdan Medwidsky in the form of essays on Ukrainian-Canadian folklore studies (2016), as well as editor of Robert-Bohdan Klymasz’s book Ukrainian Folk Culture in the Canadian Prairies (2013) and author of its afterword. Hrymych has written twenty novels and novellas, and she is the founder (2005) and director of the Duliby Publishing House.

April 10–19
The Ukrainian Film Festival in Alberta

🗓 April 10–12, 2026
📍Globe Cinema, Calgary
💳 Free admission (please register!)

🗓 April 17–19, 2026
📍Metro Cinema at the Garneau Theatre, Edmonton
💳 Free admission (please register!)

View show times and locations: https://www.ukrfilmfestival.com/

This year, the Ukrainian Film Festival in Alberta (UFFA) will showcase a selection of compelling contemporary films about Ukraine in both Edmonton and Calgary. These critically acclaimed films have received international recognition and won numerous awards.

Over two weekends, festival-goers will have the opportunity to experience some of the most outstanding works of contemporary Ukrainian cinema, highlighting powerful stories of resilience, identity, history, and cultural heritage.

The UFFA 2026 is co-organized by the Alberta Society for the Advancement of Ukrainian Studies, the Peter and Doris Kule Centre for Ukrainian and Canadian Folklore, the Canadian Institute of Ukrainian Studies, and the Wirth Institute for Austrian and Central European Studies—the latter three all at the University of Alberta. The festival is held in partnership with the Ukrainian Resource and Development Centre at MacEwan University and is financially supported by Razom for Ukraine and the Alberta Ukrainian Commemorative Society.

New videos on KuFC YouTube

How to use the SUCH network database

Dedicated to supporting Ukrainian Canadian archives and cultural heritage collections in the community!

We are pleased to share a short new video tutorial introducing the Sustainable Ukrainian Canadian Heritage (SUCH) program. In this step-by-step guide, Sia Chernyavska walks viewers through the basics of navigating and searching the database—from a quick keyword search to more advanced options, exploring collections, and locating the physical repositories of original materials.

Whether you are a researcher, student, community member, or simply curious about Ukrainian Canadian heritage, this tutorial is designed to help you get the most out of the SUCH program.

The tutorial is part of our ongoing effort, led by the Kule Folklore Centre, to make the SUCH program more accessible and user-friendly.

Learn more: www.uab.ca/SUCH

See our full Schedule of Events