Ukrainian journalist, human rights activist and war veteran. He holds a degree in philosophy from Taras Shevchenko National University of Kyiv and a master’s degree in anthropology from the University of Sussex. He has advocated for human rights and social justice, helped refugees, protested against war, discrimination and racism, and supported freedom of speech and assembly. After Russia launched the full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, he joined the Armed Forces of Ukraine and in June 2022 he was captured by Russian troops. A few months later, a Russian court sentenced him to 13 years in prison on trumped-up charges. Eventually, in October 2024, after spending 2 years and 4 months in Russian captivity, he was released from captivity. In 2025, Maksym became a co-founder of the charity foundation The Principle of Hope. In 2025, he was also awarded the Václav Havel Prize by the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe. A collection of his essays was published in French and German while he was in captivity.

Ukrainian poet, prose writer and translator. He graduated from the Mukachevo Military School, Ukrainian Studies at Uzhhorod University and Balkan Studies at the Institute of East European Studies of the University of Warsaw. Andriy’s books were published in the USA, the United Kingdom, Germany, Slovakia, Austria, Greece, Serbia, Poland, Croatia, Lithuania, Slovenia and North Macedonia. He is a laureate of the literary awards Debut (2007), Kyiv Laurels (2011), the Kovaliv Fund Award (2017), the Yurii Shevelov Prize for Modern Essays (2017) and the international Joseph Conrad-Kozhenovsky Literary Prize (2024). He translates poetry and prose from Polish, English, Serbian and Croatian. He is an active volunteer who has passed 415 cars to the Armed Forces of Ukraine during the war; he is awarded the medals of the Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine and of the Minister of Defense of Ukraine. Andriy Lyubka is the Director of the Institute for Central European Strategy (ICES) and the Vice-President of PEN Ukraine. He is a serviceman of the Armed Forces of Ukraine.

PhD, cultural manager, lecturer in literature (KSE), researcher of intertextual and intercultural connections. Valentyna is a co-author of the podcasts Where Are We? (Svidomi-media) and Decolonizers (Suspilne.Culture), a trainer at the Cultural Transformation Lab of the Goethe-Institut Ukraine. In 2024-2025, she headed the literature and book department at the PE NACMC “Mystetskyi Arsenal” and was the program coordinator of the 13th International Book Arsenal Festival.

Musicologist, music critic, program manager of the Ukrainian Institute. Liuba was the curator of the music program of Book Arsenal in 2019 and 2021, the curator of the music program of a number of other Ukrainian festivals, the developer and lecturer of lecture courses on new music in Kyiv and Kharkiv, the co-organizer of the first conference on Ukrainian music at Sorbonne Université and the host of author music programs on Hromadske Radio and the UA:Culture TV channel. Since 2005, she has been contributing articles on music to Ukrainian, Polish, German and Danish media, the main area of her research interests is the history and contemporary state of Ukrainian music.