Age: 22
Education: Studied at Ivan Franko National University of Lviv but dropped out
Profession: Cultural manager
Did you know? Sofia is a fan of vintage clothes and has a collection of retro dresses from countries she has visited.
Sofia Cheliak has been a bookworm since she could read. She soon realized that she is a minority in Ukraine, so she decided to infect her compatriots with a love for literature.
Cheliak, a cultural manager from Lviv, quit university where she studied the Czech language in 2016. Her decision was driven by corruption in the educational institution. After leaving university, she became the director of program management at the Lviv Book Fair, a major Ukrainian international literature festival.
The 19-year-old book lover started setting the tone for how the world should perceive Ukraine through literature. However, her job is even broader than that, she said. Her work is more of cultural diplomacy.
The book fairs where Cheliak represented Ukraine, in Spain and France, attracted locals by offering them the opportunity to meet the authors of Ukrainian books and ask them about the situation in the country.
“Ukraine became much more interesting to the world. Partially, it is because of the [quality of] the literature and Ukrainian writers themselves, but, to a greater extent, it is because of the insights into Ukraine that they bring to the table,” Cheliak said.
Ukraine’s struggle to eliminate corruption and other challenges while at war with Russia has increased global interest. Cheliak believes that Ukraine’s history and culture are deserving of the spotlight. Now she has to sell Ukrainian culture to Ukrainians themselves.
Reading is unpopular in Ukraine. According to a recent study, many read only occasionally, with 20% saying they are not interested in reading at all.
Cheliak is dedicated to changing that.
“We have to teach people to read routinely, because reading is a habit. Only after we succeed, we will be able to campaign for more intellectual reading. Currently, our goal is to make people read whatever they want,” she said.
She aims to become a policymaker and to create a reading revolution. First, however, she needs to graduate from university. Cheliak is considering studying politics, marketing or communications. Until then, her main target is to make the Lviv Book Fair more prestigious. “We work so that literary celebrities enthusiastically agree to take part in our event or, even better, are lining up to get a chance to participate,” she said.
Three years working at the book fair has required a surprising amount of bravery. In September 2017, the presentation of a children’s book called “Maya and her moms” faced pushback and even threats from nationalist organizations.
The event was meant to be a talk by the author with children and their parents at a city library, but prior to the presentation, a group of radicals started sending threatening letters to fair organizers, the author, the publisher and the city mayor. They objected to the mention of same-sex marriage and called for the event to be cancelled.
However, Cheliak was among those who decided the talk should go ahead.
“This book did not break any of Ukraine’s laws,” she said. “It was just a tiny group of people who, for some reason, wished this book not to be represented. That was a matter of censorship, so the question arose: Will we take this opinion into account or will we fight for our right to speak freely? We ended up doing the latter.”
Cheliak believes she made the right decision.
“I have a saying: ‘My favorite duty is to defend our interests.’ That is what I did,” she said.
