Scholar in Residence 2026

ERSTE Foundation - Winter 2025 1 – 31 January 2026

Sara Cincurova’s current journalistic and academic interests centre on two main areas:

— Identifying the most ethical ways of interviewing traumatised individuals or those currently in difficult circumstances — including people displaced or affected by war, internally displaced persons, and frontline communities seeking immediate safety.

— Working on a long-read article for the academic journal Current History, in which she highlights the war in Ukraine through the lens of civilian and military initiatives centred on resistance and resilience rather than victimhood and tragedy. Cincurova describes scenes of resilience, community, and creativity in the war zone that are often unknown to international audiences: how survivors of rape used as a weapon of war actively support frontline communities and teach courses on overcoming trauma; how civic groups such as the Cultural Forces of Ukraine use music and other art forms to support soldiers on the front lines; how various veteran groups engage in meaningful activities; and many other initiatives that highlight aspects of the war that often go unreported.

Sara Cincurova

Sara Cincurova is a Slovak-born, Ukraine-based journalist whose reporting on human rights, conflict, and displacement has been featured in The New York Times, The Guardian, BBC News, Al Jazeera English, Der Spiegel, Foreign Policy, New York Magazine, and Newsweek, among other outlets. A former Agence France-Presse correspondent, she has reported from more than 20 countries, bringing to light some of the world’s most urgent and overlooked crises: documenting the use of rape as a weapon of war in Ukraine; reporting on rape in Libya and women trafficked across Europe; covering the plight of refugees from inside Belarus; and investigating Venezuela’s deepening political and humanitarian collapse.