In 2022-2023, the arrival of over 2,000 Ukrainian refugees in Regensburg served as a poignant historical echo, suddenly illuminating a largely forgotten past – the city’s “little Ukraine” of 1945–1949, a period that Professor Walter Koschmal’s 2015 study aptly describes as a therapeutic and utopian Ukrainian microcosm in the district of Ganghofersiedlung during the immediate post-WWII years (see Koschmal, 2015). This historical parallel gained considerable media attention, with Merkur releasing the overview “Eine kleine Ukraine im Süden von Regensburg” (see Bothner, 2022) and the Mittelbayerische Zeitung publishing in October 2023 a revealing piece “Regensburger Viertel war einst die ‘kleine Ukraine’: Die drei Leben der Ganghofersiedlung” (see Wendl, 2023). In December 2023, Der Vitusbach even released a special edition, Die kleine Ukraine in Regensburg: Die Geschichte der Ganghofersiedlung am Ziegetsberg, presenting a multidimensional overview of the Ukrainian DP history in the mid-20^th century.

Zooming in on Regensburg’s post-1945 refugeedom, one encounters a substantial body of historiographic scholarship, much of it oriented toward military, political, and migration history. A key example is Peter Heigl’s 1987 study Die Integration der Flüchtlinge und Vertriebenen in der Stadt Regensburg 1945 bis 1949, published with the support of the city’s Neumüller-Stipendium. That same year saw the appearance of Regensburg 1945 bis 1949: Katalog und Aufsätze, a comprehensive collection of analytical essays and archival photographs drawn from the holdings of the Regensburg City Archives. Also noteworthy are Regensburg Articles and Documents on the History of Ukrainian Emigration in Germany after World War II (New York, 1985) and Ukrainian Gymnasium, Regensburg, Germany, 1945–1949 (New Jersey, 2008), which provide a robust foundation by documenting the institutional, educational, and cultural dimensions of the Ukrainian DP experience. Roman Smolorz’s Autoritäten und Anführer im angehenden Kalten Krieg im östlichen Bayern (Regensburg, 2006; 2nd ed. 2009) expands the perspective by tracing the interplay between authority structures and displaced communities within the broader geopolitical and social dynamics of the emerging Cold War.

These traces, in fact, had prompted me to apply for the short-term research fellowship and join Denkraum Ukraineat the University of Regensburg, with the project Finding Voice: Ukrainian DPs in Post-WWII Regensburg – Cultural Entanglements and New Ukrainian Aesthetics, which investigates cultural crossroads and reveals how literary writing, translation, and translingual production by Ukrainian DPs articulated new forms of historical encounter and aesthetic innovation. 

During August 2025, in the peace and quiet of summer, I had the opportunity to work with existing DP resources in Regensburg’s libraries. This experience made clear how little had been preserved in the city. What is absent from preservation – shaped by emigration of DPs to North America, loss, and selective remembrance – demands as much attention as what survives. As Koschmal has aptly observed in his study of “little Ukraine in Regensburg”, “Es gibt allerdings noch viele offene Fragen” (see the fragment from Bothner, 2022). Confronting these open questions and drawing on my earlier work with other DP collections, I can now pose new lines of inquiry:

• Why is it necessary to shift the discourse from “the little Ukraine in Regensburg” to “the unseen Ukraine”?

• What did the “dis-placing” of Ukrainian literature and culture mean linguistically, conceptually and aesthetically for the cultural actors in Regensburg?

• How can we rethink Regensburg not merely as a place but as a practice – and why does Regensburg still matter in Ukrainian studies?

In what follows, I try to map out these conceptual lines of inquiry and turn to the task of bringing “the found Ukrainian voice” in Regensburg back to life. 

Metaphors matter in shaping how we remember displaced cultural histories. The frequently invoked notion of “the little Ukraine in Regensburg” reflects a commemorative impulse, but it risks confining Ukrainian DP life to a static miniature. What is needed instead is a shift toward “the unseen Ukraine” – a space of networks, practices, and intellectual energies that complicate and expand this historical imagination.

Take, for example, one illustrative case. In 1946, in Regensburg, Yulian Tarnovych founded the Ukrainian-language weekly Slovo (Word) together with the large publishing house Ukrainske Slovo (Ukrainian Word), which went on to produce over 350,000 sheets of Ukrainian literary works, along with textbooks, educational materials for Ukrainian schools, and thousands of personal documents. This story has often been repeated in secondary literature, yet reading Slovo itself reveals a far more layered and unique picture that moves into the specificities of everyday cultural life. 

An excerpt from the March 1946 article “Регенсбург – середньовічне місто” (“Regensburg – A Middle Ages City”) reveals how Ukrainian displaced persons sought to inscribe themselves into the cultural fabric of the city they inhabited. By tracing connections between their own heritage – specifically Kyivan Rus – and Regensburg’s medieval past, the text constructs a sense of connectedness amid exile. In doing so, it reframes Regensburg not merely as a backdrop of displacement but as a site of certain historical continuity and encounter, allowing DP life to appear integrated rather than marginal. The passage below (in my English rendition) illustrates how Ukrainian DPs transformed Regensburg into a meaningful node of the transnational history: 

Walking along one of the narrow Fuswege, where one can almost touch the walls of buildings on either side, one cannot help but recall passages from Goethe. It seems as if, from one of the windows, the golden-haired Gretchen might appear, or a figure in operatic attire – or even Faust himself – might emerge from around the corner. And here, in this little tavern, this Gastwirtshaus, behind the heavy tables, burghers surely gathered every evening, sipping beer from clay mugs and discussing the affairs of the glorious city of Regensburg.

The city’s heyday fell in the 12th–13th centuries, when it became a cultural and commercial center of the Danubian lands. This period also coincides with the political and economic development of Kyivan Rus, which is of particular interest to us. Historical sources show that Regensburg, like many other Western European cities, maintained close commercial relations with Kyiv. By the 11th century, economic ties had already been established between Kyivan Rus and the West. Regensburg even had a dedicated merchant guild, trading exclusively with Kyivan Rus, known as the Russarii.

In the Life of St. Markian, there is a story of how Irish monks founding the monastery of St. Jacob lacked sufficient funds to complete their work. One of the monks, St. Mauritius, then traveled all the way to Kyiv to obtain the necessary resources, which he received in the form of generous gifts of furs from Volodymyr Monomakh and his retinue. Interesting details also appear in the records of St. Emmeram in Regensburg. Hartwig, a monk of this monastery, while in Kyiv, donated eighteen pounds of silver to the monastery, instructing his debtors in Regensburg to pay the same amount to the monastery.

Numerous documents from the 11th–12th centuries recording customs duties levied on merchants coming from Rus further attest to the close commercial relations between Kyivan Rus and Western Europe (Cлово, 1946). 

This narrative of medieval connections between Regensburg and Kyivan Rus also resurfaces in the article “Провідник по Регенсбургу” (“Guide to Regensburg”), published in the Regensburg edition of Спортивний довідник на 1946-1947 рр. (Sports Directory for 1946–1947). It recommends the Alter Kornmarkt (the Old Grain Market) as one of the places worthvisiting and even presents Yurii Kosach’s poem Ruzariia, where the site is evoked in lyrical form: “В Регенсбурзі на ринку, де ратуш, / Тріпотався сріблястий окунь, / І прапорами, наче б у свято, / Брався пристані берег високий. / Із далекого Києва люди, / Може й мудрого князя дружина, / (У панцирах дужі груди) / І мечі, порізьблені клином.” [literal translation: In Regensburg, at the marketplace by the Rathaus, / A silver perch flickered and leapt, / And flags, as though for a feast, / Crowned the harbor’s lofty bank. / From far-off Kyiv came the people, / Perhaps the retinue of a wise prince – / With strong breasts bound in armor, / And swords engraved with patterns] (see Cпортовий довідник, 1946). This small, local act of inscription – tracing a connection from Kyivan Rus to medieval Regensburg – is a powerful testament to how displaced communities can reclaim their past and author their own present.

As it becomes obvious, by shifting our perspective from the visible “little Ukraine” of Regensburg’s temporary camp to the “unseen” (less tangible) intellectual and cultural production of its exiles, we begin to foreground and entangle Ukrainian culture with the broader European context. And many more instances could be brought to light, revealing how Regensburg’s cultural space became formative in anchoring an avant-garde Ukrainian elite – an endeavor that would have been impossible under the Soviet regime. 

One striking figure is Svitozar Drahomaniv – born and educated in Geneva, the son of the prolific historian, public intellectual, and philosopher Mykhailo Drahomanov, and cousin of Lesia Ukrainka – who arrived in Regensburg in April 1945 from Kyiv via Lviv. He became a professor at the Ukrainian Technical-Husbandry Institute, founded in Regensburg in 1945, and actively engaged with the city’s DP community, contributing memoir pieces to the weekly press. For instance, his valuable personal accounts “Із спогадів про Лесю Українку” (“From Memories of Lesia Ukrainka”) in Slovo, recounting how he corresponded and conversed with Lesia Ukrainka entirely in French (the only language they shared) remained largely unknown for a long time and were only republished in Ukraine in 2017. 

In other words, what we see is only the tip of the iceberg; much more remains hidden, waiting to be discovered beneath the surface.

DP literary practices were shaped both by a symbolic “return to the homeland” and by the creation of a new literary world – multilingual, transnational, experimental – in which Ukrainian literature resisted essentialism and provincialism by refusing to be bound to a single ideological “center”. This is confirmed by Yuri  Sherekh-Sheveliov’s memoir, which offers direct evidence for this claim:

The primary focus was on the literature and art of the Ukrainian postwar emigration – encompassing all currents, from Kostetzky’s experiments to Samchuk’s traditionalism, with a single criterion: a sufficient artistic standard. Also important was relevance to our own time – we did not include reprints of old writings. We were interested in history, but not in its repetition; rather, in the discussion surrounding it. Next came coverage of the living or ongoing processes of contemporary culture in other countries – in the form of translations, discussions, and chronicles (Шевельов, 2021: 279). 

Sheveliov’s reflection underscores that DP literary culture was not backward-looking but instead oriented toward contemporaneity and engagement with global cultural processes. In “Над озером Баварія (Over Lake Bavaria)”, he demonstrates an even sharper critical stance, characteristic of his intellectual rigor, as he articulates a vision of emigration as a productive cultural force:

Emigration can be a retreat in order to regroup in accordance with the demands of the time, to gather strength and to reclaim lost ground and affirm itself in its own historical moment. Such emigration is a blessing; it will fulfill the mission of its people or lead the people in fulfilling their mission (Шерех, 1949). 

This sense of cultural purpose among the DPs in general is vividly captured in recollections by Hryhoriy Kostiuk:

We walked the streets of Fürth, Stuttgart, Munich, Bayreuth, still uncleansed after the bombings, and believed in the renaissance of the world, and specifically in the Ukrainian one. Inspired by the slogan of Yuriy Sherekh, whose star was just rising, about a new national style of Ukrainian literature, we believed in the future of such a breakthrough (Костюк, 1987). 

Indeed, displaced writers “dis-placed” Ukrainian literature – not only through geographic dislocation but by destabilizing its established frameworks. Dislocation thus became as much intellectual and aesthetic as it was physical. In this sense, displacement emerges not merely as loss but as a generative condition – one that enabled Ukrainian literature to enter wider aesthetic, political, and epistemic conversations, achieving what Edward Said famously described as a “plurality of vision.”

The story of Regensburg’s post-war Ukrainian community is more than a historical footnote or nostalgic echoes of a lost world. The literary and cultural works born in the Ganghofersiedlung were a crucial act of self-definition in exile, where writers and artists grappled with trauma and uncertainty, while actively reinventing and deepening the Ukrainian culture in a foreign setting. Their voices, suppressed by Soviet narratives, offer a powerful counterpoint to a history defined by political borders. Rediscovering this intellectual lineage forces us to acknowledge a transnational Ukrainian identity, one that has long been a part of the European fabric.

For instance, Viktor Domontovych’s étude Мої Великодні, a text that describes Regensburg, was written in Regensburg in April 1946, and published in the local Ukrainian DP newspaper Slovo, reminds us of the transtemporality of Regensburg’s exile experience – how Ukrainian literary traces continue to speak across time, linking the post-WWII moment to our present.

Regensburg, then, is not only a geographical site but also a practice of cultural production that continues to shape how we understand displacement, identity, and belonging. What began as the work of a Ukrainian community in exile has left a legacy that extends beyond place, reminding us that literature itself can become a space of encounter and continuity. This is why Regensburg still matters: it demonstrates how a temporary refuge can generate enduring practices of cultural resilience and creativity.

1. Bothner, M. (2022, Juli). Eine kleine Ukraine im Süden von Regensburg. Merkur. 
   URL: https://www.merkur.de/bayern/regensburg/regensburg-ukraine-krieg-russland-fluechtlinge-menschen-flucht-gemeinde-91677298.html
2. Koschmal, W. (2015). Die kleine Ukraine in Regensburg (1945–1949). Therapie und Utopie. In P. Morsbach (Ed.), Ich bin da. Regensburger Almanach 2015 (pp. 42–51). Edition Buntehunde.
3. Wendl, S. (2023, October). Regensburger Viertel war einst die „kleine Ukraine“: Die drei Leben der Ganghofersiedlung.Mittelbayerische Zeitung.
4. Косач, Ю. (1947). Еней та життя інших. Мюнхен: Прометей. 94 с.
5. Костюк Г. (1987/1998). Зустрічі і прощання. У 2 т. Едмонтон.
6. (1946). Регенсбург – середньовічне місто. Слово. № 9.
7. Спортовий довідник, 1946-47. Регенсбург, 1946. 80 с.
8. Шевельов, Ю. (2021). Я—мене—мені... (і довкруги) : Спогади. (Vol. 2). Видавець Олександр Савчук.
9. Шерех, Ю. (1949). Думки проти течії. Б.м. 1949. 100 с. 

Photo illustrations

Photo 1: Малий школяр (На чужині). Регенсбург, 1948. Source: Ukrainian Museum-Archives of Cleveland Displaced Persons Camp Periodicals Collection. https://archive.org/details/bib259934_001_001/mode/2up

Photo 2: Kossatsch, Ju. Ukrainische Literatur der Gegenwart. Regensburg, 1947. Source: Author’s private collection.

Photo 3: Хорс. Красне письменство та письменства. Ч. 1. Регенсбург: Вид. Українське слово. 1946. Source: Ukrainian Museum-Archives of Cleveland Displaced Persons Camp Periodicals Collection. https://archive.org/details/bib266096_001_001/mode/2up