Anti-war books lost their relevance after the explosions: Writers contemplating the future of contemporary Ukrainian literature

In Ukraine, the most popular book by Artem Chapeye was “Dad on Paternity Leave.” In connection, the author has often been asked if there will be a book titled “Dad After Paternity Leave.” Chapeye replies briefly now: “This is what a dad looks like after paternity leave. Not seeing his children for God knows how long.” In the early days of the full-scale invasion, Artem Chapeye volunteered. “These are writers and creative figures in Ukraine nowadays,” one would comment. Many actors of the literary community were eager to defend the country on the front lines or volunteer in the rear. A whole literary battalion.

How to collect materials for future texts, and how to process what is happening

Artem Chapeye is a Ukrainian literary fiction writer and translator, four-time finalist of the BBC Ukraine Book of the Year Award, and a current soldier of the Armed Forces of Ukraine. Chapeye also covered the war in Donbas as a reporter. “From the beginning, for my own psychological support, I tried to perceive everything as an ‘observation’.” At first, Chapeye recorded witty phrases spoken by soldiers and interesting details that might otherwise be forgotten on his phone, but he said deliberately gathering information isn’t a priority right now. There are other tasks at hand. Reflection usually happens during night shifts.

Pavlo Kazarin is a Ukrainian publicist, a journalist, and the host of numerous TV shows and several projects on Radio NV and Radio Liberty. In 2021, Kazarin published an award-winning book called “Wild West of Eastern Europe.” After the outbreak of the full-scale invasion, Pavlo Kazarin joined the territorial defense forces of the Armed Forces of Ukraine and currently fights on the eastern front against Russian forces. “I’m trying to live my life with my eyes wide open, so as not to miss anything. When I have time, I write ‘diary’ columns. I might forget things, but paper won’t.”

Olena Herasymiuk is a poet, a military medic, and a veteran of the Russian-Ukrainian war. In collaboration with Eugene Lir, the Ukrainian writer and translator, Herasymiuk is making a list of fallen culture figures. “How can one possibly ‘collect material for creative work’ when everything around you, everything that fills your life, all your values and beliefs are permeated with the threat of death? How can you ‘process what is happening as a writer’ when you read and watch daily news about the death of someone from your — sometimes very close — circle of communication?”

Herasymiuk says what we are experiencing now has a distinct and terrifying name —  genocide. We read about genocide in books, studied it in school, and heard the terrifying stories, but now it’s happening to us, no matter if you are rich or poor or what you think about the war.

Herasymiuk also asks how one should respond? Is it right to view this experience as material for future creative work? History suggests it is, as poetry continues even after genocide and the sun rises over bloody battlefields.

And yet it seemed to her to be a harsh rationalization, a way to keep working despite the death of comrades, and an attempt to shield ourselves from the full impact of terrifying experiences.

Borys Humeniuk, a writer and poet, joined the Defense Forces in 2014. In a conversation with Chytomo in 2022, he mentioned that he hadn’t written a single word recently and couldn’t think about creative work. “I do hope that impressions are accumulating in my mind,” Humeniuk said, “and if I manage to come out of this war unscathed, I’ll be able to turn these impressions into texts.” Borys Humeniuk went missing in action during the battles near Klishchiivka in December 2022.

Post-war literature will be different

Creating quality literature is not a fast process. Quality poetry is now emerging and even being translated, but it is likely that large prose books about new experiences will appear later, though Ukraine already has a number of prose books about the Russian-Ukrainian war. These works make up the relatively young genre of veteran literature. “It appeared due to people who went to the front ten years ago,” military officer and journalist Pavlo Kazarin says.

Despite the emergence of worthy new names representing this layer of literature during the eight years of war in Ukraine, society before the full-scale invasion was not ready to perceive war prose the way it does today. According to poet Olena Herasymiuk, veteran authors were not warmly welcomed by the literary community either: “In my opinion, this was all due to myths about PTSD, fear of public discussions on the topic of war, and a lack of understanding that anyone can become an author and create literary works. This is not the prerogative of a bunch of a few dozen names from some union or literary organization.”

The situation has now changed greatly because the current phase of the war is more global and it’s had influence on a greater number of people. Pavlo Kazarin predicts that many people will find themselves with a desire to reflect on the experiences, but “some of these books will be primarily needed by their authors,” Kazarin adds.

Artem Chapeye also believes that this war will become part of the collective consciousness of Ukrainians, similar to the Holodomor, World War II, and Stalin’s Gulag. However, he also emphasizes the need to distance oneself from these events, which neither he nor any of the Ukrainian authors serving in the Armed Forces have been able to achieve so far.

“Let’s not forget that “All Quiet on the Western Front” by Erich Maria Remarque and “A Farewell to Arms” by Ernest Hemingway were written ten years after the end of World War I, and “Catch-22” by Joseph Heller and “Slaughterhouse-Five” by Kurt Vonnegut were written 15-20 years after the end of World War II,” Chapeye notes.

Literary critic, volunteer, and activist Bohdana Romantsova believes that even when the war ends, Ukrainian literature will change “just as any literature changes after a difficult times.” It is obvious that not only soldiers will be writing it when all Ukrainians are witnesses to the war. “Everyone experiences the war in their own way,” Romantsova emphasizes. “Everyone has their own unique perspective on this war, and there will be a growth of viewpoints and different types of perspectives.” Literature, as a whole, will reveal not only the military experience, but also the experience of refugees, the aggression, and acts of violence.

It is difficult to predict when Ukrainian authors will be able to reflect on the experiences they have lived through, and the primary task right now is to comprehend the works that have already been written during this decade-long war. Veterans, says Olena Herasymiuk, more than just writers, possess this unique experience and “vocabulary for describing the war.”

War experience changes the way readers perceive literature

Ukrainian writers (like many readers) find themselves unable to read well-known novels about war as they navigate their own paths through the war. Some readers have found a new appreciation for the authors of classic texts, while others are disappointed with these globally renowned works. Artem Chapeye believes that this is an experience shaped by decades, not a specific moment: “For example, right now, people who were selected for the first rotation are excited and cheerful, while those on the second rotation are depressed, they feel guilt. This is very different from the emotional tone of Remarque’s works or the one of Heinrich Böll’s ‘Traveler If You Come to Spa,’ written from a retrospective point of view. I wondered how could those people volunteer to go to war? After February 24 [when Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine], I did it myself. All anti-war books lost their relevance in just a few explosions.”

“When you are directly involved in this experience, it changes your perspective, of course. I mean when you have been forced to temporarily relocate, when you volunteer with refugees and constantly encounter these experiences, you see things differently,” Bohdana Romantsova points out. At the same time, she notes that she is not sure this experience necessarily improves one’s understanding of previously written texts because a change in perspective does not always lead to improvement.

Poet Olena Herasymiuk says that describing and structuring these changes can become an academic study: “I have gained a new optics on reading. One example that struck me was rereading the Nobel Prize-winning work ‘The Old Man and the Sea’ by Ernest Hemingway. When I was a schoolgirl, I couldn’t understand this text, until I read it again, but through the lens of a metaphor for a sniper duel. In my mind, this prose transformed from a paper book into a turbulent world of silence and endurance.”

“This is one of many examples where, without understanding the author’s experience, without your personal experience, and a certain background in reading, literature is merely words on paper, not a vivid image that makes you feel as if you’re right there alongside the protagonist.”

Borys Humeniuk, who at the time of the interview with Chytomo had eight years of service behind him, now prefers Ukrainian authors who have witnessed the war firsthand over global classics. “Ukraine now has dozens of authors who are far better than, for example, Remarque. When I read about a weepy, poor German soldier who wants to hug a poor French soldier in a trench I want to laugh. Contemporary Ukrainian military literature will be of much higher quality. I think neither Remarque nor Hemingway had the slightest idea of what a true war is. They drew it from their imagination.”

Memory preserving or mythologization?

Can literature preserve the memory of war in all its dimensions, or is it always a form of mythologization? Bohdana Romantsova reminds us that literature always involves a certain set of optics and choices: “Mythologization is more about one’s optics, one’s choice, the way you view it, how you comprehend it, how you talk about your experience. Of course, there will be mythologization of our heroes, for example, and of what took place. But this is unavoidable; any war carries a mythological component as well, and we just need to remember that.”

“Everything that isn’t a math textbook is mythologization,” says Pavlo Kazarin. “People tell themselves stories throughout their history. This process cannot be objective. It will always be subjective.”

“Mythmaking is important, but literature is meant to respond and reflect. Good literature is like an extension of what we call folklore,” Borys Humeniuk summarizes.

Olena Herasymiuk emphasizes that literature, like other forms of art, is engaged in preserving memory. According to her, this is one of the reasons why Russians have carried out “cultural genocides” in Ukraine and other countries for centuries: “A vivid and ‘unforgettable’ example is the activities of Kostyantyn Lytvyn, the so-called ‘Minister of Culture of the Ukrainian SSR.’ Under the leadership of this figure, the destruction and looting of exhibits in Ukrainian museums were organized [referring to the destruction of Ukrainian art objects and books during 1952-1955 – ed.]. They claimed to be ‘fighting’ against the imagined ‘bourgeois nationalism,’ just as they are now ‘fighting’ against ‘fascism,’ which they themselves embody. Culture is always about memory, the foundation of a nation, and respect for oneself.”

The Chytomo editorial team continues to hold hope for the safe return of Borys Humeniuk.

Translation: Iryna Savyuk

Copy editing: Matthew Long