Learn more about NoW | ДІЗНАТИСЯ БІЛЬШЕ ПРО NOW

The NoW project records and makes public first-hand written testimonies of direct witnesses to Russia’s war against Ukraine. It is a collaboration between a team of clinical psychologists, linguists, librarians, and archivists from the Ukrainian Psychotrauma Center of Lesya Ukrainka Volyn National University (LUVNU, Lutsk, Ukraine) and the Centre for Advanced Research in Experimental and Applied Linguistics (ARiEAL) at McMaster University (Hamilton, ON, Canada). Data collection has been administered online by the Ukrainian Psychotrauma Center since May 2022 and is ongoing. Contributors are asked to describe their experience of the war and provide basic demographic and geographic data. At the time of the Virtual Exhibit opening in June 2023, Over 1500 Ukrainians had submitted testimonies to the project.

All documents in the Virtual Exhibit are available in Ukrainian and in English translation. To protect the anonymity of the contributors, all testimonies are de-identified by redacting personal names and geographic locations. Testimonies are accompanied by basic non-identifying demographic information about subjects’ age, gender, education, marital status, home region, and displacement status.

Note: testimonies submitted by minors (younger than 18 years old) have been removed from this public corpus. Some testimonies were lightly edited for spelling errors and punctuation. All contributors gave their informed consent for using their information for research and publication purposes. The NoW project received approval from the ethics board of Lesya Ukrainka Volyn National University and McMaster University.

In addition to the testimonies, the Virtual Exhibit aims to provide additional historic and socio-cultural context to specific dates, regions, and events. Selections of testimonies are accompanied with research essays and illustrative audio-video materials.

The Narratives of War Virtual Exhibit and the LUVNU- McMaster University collaboration is funded by the McMaster International Initiatives Micro Fund. The Virtual Exhibit has also received generous support from McMaster University Library, McMaster Advancement Office and McMaster Office of International Affairs.

Note: All NoW written testimonies are personal accounts collected with permission from contributors. The views and opinions expressed are those of the contributors and do not necessarily reflect the views of Lesya Ukrainka Volyn National University or McMaster University.