May 12-30, 2022 Mychailo Wynnyckyj, Oksana Stomina, Volodymyr Yermolenko

Flash essays from the collection “Wars. Ukrainians. Humanity” tell about the insights, experiences, and beliefs of Ukrainians, which ignited their society in 2022, when the full-scale russian invasion of Ukraine began.

The Cultural Hub community and curators carefully collected, translated, and illustrated these texts in order to capture the values ​​of Ukrainians — Freedoms, Bravery, Dignity, Responsibility, and Humour. 

A series of publications in partnership with Chytomo introduces this collection to the English-speaking audience. Volume 20 continues to present the series. You can get acquainted with the previous collection here.

Myсhailo Wynnyckyj: Thoughts from Kyiv. May 12

The Sinod (governing body) of the “Ukrainian Orthodox Church” (moscow patriarchate) issued a statement today in which it condemned multiple initiatives proposed at both national and local levels throughout Ukraine, aimed at outlawing this “church.”

These initiatives are being put forth because multiple cases have been documented of UOC-MP “clergy” aiding and abetting the enemy.

As if to deliberately support the claims of their detractors, today’s statement of the UOC-MP leadership explicitly parrots moscow’s narrative.

Outrageously, the Sinod singles out (my translation): “the previous administration of Petro Poroshenko and the destructive ideology of the so-called Orthodox Church of Ukraine. We are convinced that the activities of the previous administration and of the “OCU” were among the causes of the armed invasion of Ukraine.”

WHAT??? Poroshenko and the Orthodox Church of Ukraine are responsible for russia’s war???

One can understand that the moscow-led church feels somewhat uncomfortable in current circumstances and is clearly in a bind with multiple parishes switching allegiance to the OCU.

But to blame a past President (out of office for 3 years!) and a competing church for russian military aggression??? Stupidity or deliberate organizational suicide — not sure which in this case.

The OCU was officially recognized by the Constantinople Patriarch (Tomos of autocephaly granted in 2019) and four other sister churches, and as an independent Ukrainian church now holds the moral high ground over the nominally Ukrainian UOC-MP whose 5000 strong clergy in Ukraine recognize the moscow patriarch as their head.

If there was ever any doubt as to whether the moscow patriarchate is a church or an agent of political manipulation, after today’s Sinod statement, the mask is now off.

I sincerely hope and expect this statement to lead to an increase in the number of parishes switching from UOC-MP to OCU throughout Ukraine. The process has already gained momentum in several eparchies. This statement should serve only to accelerate the process.

Today moscow-backed agents put forth yet another backfired policy of the russian federation in Ukraine. The kremlin simply doesn’t learn…

#ThoughtsfromKyiv

Oksana Stomina: A sketch from nature. To the children of Mariupol… May 14

Beasts invaded our city, cruel and obstinate.

They don’t spare people. None of them!

I am a bit scared, as they want me to die, too.

But I don’t understand what they get out of it.

I am eight. Almost. I study — or, rather, studied — in school.

We don’t have a home anymore, so my parents and I live

in the basement. Sometimes, I cry

when no one is looking. But don’t tell anyone about it!

 

Dad is out there. Mama keeps much silence about him.

I understand her, but I am not afraid:

Dad said he’d come back alive and victorious.

And Dad never lies to me. Never!

 

Uncle Vitia, an older neighbor of ours, has survived!

He says he’s happy because he can go down to the yard.

He made a bonfire outside so people could cook.

He used wooden stairs as the firewood.  

 

The stairs came from an old shed — it was destroyed, anyway.  

The playground lies in ruins, too — they must’ve been shooting blind.

There are graves now in our yard instead of flower beds.

I haven’t seen them but I heard grown-ups talking about it.

 

We no longer read books — there’s no light.

I go to bed earlier, shutting my eyes tight.

I make a wish: for the spring to bloom faster,

and for the cannons to fall silent. I want to go home, too.  

 

My bike and railroad remained there. A teddy-bear, too,

but I no longer played with him — I’m too old for that.

He was sitting on the shelf, looking down at us.

I miss him because it was a gift from Dad.

 

There are many of us in the basement, like a big family.

We play hide-and-seek and recite poems at bedtime.

Only Andriyko’s grandma from a neighboring house cries,

and Andriyko no longer comes down to the basement, for some reason.

#Маріуполь

Volodymyr Yermolenko: On pushkin. May 14

Let’s just open pushkin’s Poltava and think:

A) To pushkin, Cossacks are bloody villains, “the friends of old and bloody times”, who left behind a “bloody trail”, and their Hetman “would spill blood as soon as water”. That is, it’s not the russian empire is the center of brutal violence — but these “bloody” murderers who resist the empire and interfere with “civilization”. A 19th-century version of the “fascists” and “banderites”, isn’t it?

B) Ukraine for pushkin is a matter of the past, it must be forgotten, only traces are left of it, thank God. “Their generation passed. And with / Them every bloody trace of effort, / Of failure, of victory vanished.” How is it different from stalin’s “former people” who just need to be “helped” to disappear?

C) Cossacks for pushkin are people who sow discord and want war all the time, “The friends of old and bloody times / Were hoping for a people’s war” — how is it different from lukashenko’s “And now I will show you, where they were preparing the attack on belarus from”?

D) Mazeppa for pushkin is a pervert, both political and sexual, “a wayward savage beast”, who “betrays” kochubey as an “erotic” hero, and peter as a “political” hero — how is it different from the “Gayrope” rhetoric with its insistence that “You are all perverts out there.”

Anything new on the horizon? Has anything changed in these two centuries? I don’t think so.

Volodymyr Yermolenko: We know one simple thing: to grow, you need roots, but roots without growth are useless. May 15

But this victory is not just a sign of European solidarity. It is also a sign of unique processes in Ukrainian culture. The combination of tradition and modernity, depth of the past and modern drive, roots and growth: this is now one of the formulas of our success. Unlike very many societies, we do not have any fundamental conflict between tradition and modernity, between the past and the future. We know one simple thing: to grow, you need roots, but roots without growth are useless. The past and the future are sisters who cannot live without each other.

Oksana Stomina: Terrifying. May 17

It’s terrifying to write about it. Rhyming these words feels like

walking, again and again, over the scorching hot embers.

Taking her hand and holding it, holding it.

Being killed together with them, being captured

together with them, being the one who keeps searching.

Being in the basement, in the trenches, in the grave, under the siege.

Being a doctor without supplies in the hospital.

Being a mother whose son is at Azovstal.

Being buried alive under the rubble.

No words are enough to write it.

No heart is enough to write it.

Only hatred lets you do it.

Bad poems come out about it.

Horrible poems. And they get even worse.

#Mariupol

#safe_azov #safe_mariupol

#Ukraine #stoprussia #мариуполь

Volodymyr Yermolenko: The sky and satan. May 18

Once, the sky was our salvation. People turned to the sky, pleading for justice. The sky could love — but could also deliver just punishment. People went to the heavens to rest in peace. Wrapping up in clouds like in crystal-clear clothes. Becoming light like feathers. Losing weight; overcoming the force of gravity.

But today, the sky is a danger rather than salvation. It is missiles, not angels, that fly from the sky nowadays. What has been and still is a window into eternity is becoming a window into potential death. And our dead might no longer want to go where gloom is now coming from.

Sometimes, the sky turns away from the earth — it just cannot bear to watch what’s been happening to its sister. It either gets cloudy, hiding from gazes or pushes the clouds away, becoming pure and transparent again. This spring, the sky has been changing too fast. It was restless, just like us.

Something happened to humanity: a symbol of salvation has turned into a source of death. We beg to close what used to be God’s home. There is something satanic in the fact that today the biggest war is the war in the sky, for the sky, with the sky. We look up into its blue flesh, not searching for a falling star but in fear of seeing a missile flying by, cutting through the air — and then cutting people’s lives short.

This war is the war of a global terrorist. terrorists usually fight against the governments, but the russian terrorist is a state. terrorists usually want to overthrow the order of violence, but the russian terrorist is ordered violence. He wants to conquer our land; he wants to conquer our sky.

He mixes good and evil when trying to conquer our sky, erasing the line between them. He destroys Russian-speaking people ‘to liberate’ them. He commits genocide ‘to prevent’ it. He organizes Nazi crimes ‘to denazify.’ He continues bloody murders of the empire to defeat ‘the Western imperialism.’ He claims that good is evil, and evil is good.

It’s just that russia lost its capacity to differentiate. Words and things have lost their meanings, torn out of their places. Freedom now means slavery — and the other way round. Tyranny now means democracy — and the other way round. Religion is now whitewashing crimes. Satan has been placed in the sky.

The russian ‘unlimitedness’ has played a nasty trick on russia. If there are no limits, things lose clarity, and darkness descends. If you cannot differentiate between yourself and someone else, you can no longer be responsible. You can go and kill others, claiming ‘it’s not me.’ That’s how russia goes and kills people, claiming again and again that ‘we have been dragged into this war.’ They commit genocide against Ukrainians, claiming again and again that the murders they commit are ‘the genocide of russians.’

They claim that their war of aggression is the war of ‘russia’s independence of the West.’ They seize grain and agricultural equipment from farmers in the Kherson region, just as stalinists did in the early 1930s, organizing a new Holodomor — and all the while claiming that this Holodomor is being organized by the West that buys Ukrainian produce.

Nowadays, russians do not have a core. One Ukrainian man made the correct diagnosis for them once, even though he sold his soul to the devil for it. Yes, they are dead souls. That’s why putin is their only core. Almost a hundred million of small, remotely controlled wooden dolls. They will flee from responsibility. They will say, “It’s not me. It’s happening to me.” This war has just happened to me; it just happened to me that I’m killing innocent people; it just happened to me that I raped women. It’s not me — please take pity on me. They gave their conscience away to someone else. They transferred it to an external medium.

But if you transfer your conscience to an external medium, you find yourself on the other side of good and evil. You no longer feel responsible for your actions. A connection between you and your actions is lost. You see yourself as a victim while, in fact, you’re the executioner. You place Satan in the sky.

I do not know how long this might last. How long Satan will keep laughing up there, in the sky. How long we will be standing in this bloody rain. But we will win, no matter what. A country of conscious and free people will surely defeat a country of remotely controlled dolls. A country of dead souls.

The sky will come back one day. And we will look up at it again with hope. We’ll take lessons in peace from it. Listen to its tranquil music. Admire it hovering above us like a huge heavenly whale. And rejoice that Satan has finally fallen into his hell. Forever.

(The Ukrainian version of the text was written for the Ukrainian weekly magazine “Krayina”, translated into English for the “Wars. Ukrainians. Humanity” programme and published with the consent of the author. – Editor’s note)

Volodymyr Yermolenko: “Trembling creature”. May 22

Ultimately, this war also testifies to this: the eternal russian question “whether I am a trembling creature or whether I have the right” has been answered in a clear-cut manner.

“Trembling creature.”

But the interesting thing is that you are a “trembling creature” precisely BECAUSE you ask that stupid question, BECAUSE you want to prove to everyone that “you have the right.” For if you had this sense of rightness and dignity in you, there would be no OR.

the russian soldiers and their supporters commit violence because they are used to being subjected to violence. They live in a “killed or be killed” paradigm. They feel so bad that they can only feel good when they make others feel even worse. They are looking for this “strength-in-truth” of theirs precisely because they have no strength and no truth in them. Violence — without purpose, without meaning — is their modus vivendi. Lifestyle, style of thinking.

They are sadists precisely BECAUSE they are masochists.

Oksana Stomina: In loving memory of Vovka, a person full of love. May 29

He sat behind me, at the fourth desk in the middle row, and teased me all the time. He would either tie my apron to the chair, or weave Olia’s braid together with mine. I did not hold back either. Such a nice person — why not play tricks on him, right? He and I also exchanged hilarious letters — during the lessons, of course — making each other burst with laughter, and played dice without interrupting our learning process. We stayed away only from boardgames, since it could lead to certain consequences… Vovka’s jokes were sparkling, his ideas witty, his disposition cheerful, and the pancakes he flipped so skillfully — delicious. Later, I introduced Vovka to a friend of mine. It happened a quarter century ago, but they have not quarreled even once ever since.

“It’s just impossible to quarrel with him,” Olenka, my friend, said when I ran into her in late January.

Together, Vovka and Olenka raised three children and one grandchild. Together, they were hiding from “brotherly” shelling and bombing in the basement of their own house. The missile hit it at 4 pm on March 5. It took a long while for the neighbors to dig them out from under the rubble, but our dear Vovka could not be rescued. A fragment of the rushist bomb hit his clever head.

I remember how we graduated from high school, and Vovka was about to leave Mariupol for college. The entire class saw him off, and the girls were even crying. This time, though, none of his classmates was there to see him off. All people who were still in Mariupol were hunkering down in bomb shelters, without access to cell service. Olena, Vovka’s wife, buried him in their own yard. Under relentless shelling. I learned about it only yesterday.

I write this in loving memory of you, Vovka, a person full of love. I am so sorry that I don’t have any photo of yours to publish in this post dedicated to you! All our school pictures remain in our dear Mariupol. Please keep an eye on them, will you? Hugging you for the last time.

P. S. I don’t have any photo of Volodia or at least of his grave. But I do have lots of photos of graves of innocent locals who died under the russian shelling, just like Vovka, and were buried in their own yards.  

Volodymyr Yermolenko: These wounds, they are yours. May 30

It is a country with wounded faces. With the scars that never healed — red rivers are still pouring out of them. Every wrinkle on their skin is a story about life and death. None is on its own: each drags along the next one.

The deeper the wound, the more profound the wisdom. Ancient people believed that blood was the liquid of life. So, to understand life, you must see blood more often; to understand life, you must see death. We tried hard to leave this wisdom behind. But history has no mercy for us. It throws us back into the craters of violence. It forces us to live in bomb shelters. To be born down there — and to die there.

Our history is scorched in blood. Our wounds had no chance to heal — we reopened them again and again, searching for banned memories and buried weapons. So, we have to be cleverer than our history. We must break free of its power. We must win — no matter what.

Glamour is a religion of modernity. Glamour is a face without wrinkles, skin without chaps, body without history. Glamour is all smooth and even, like in hell. Our faces are nothing like that. They are open books. Covered all over in wounds, wrinkles, bruises, and scratches. Like in heaven.

Our towns are wounded just like our bodies. Skeletons of burnt-down buildings are looming in the villages. Only ground floors are still standing — anatomical models of their former selves. The villages moan, dreaming about houses that no longer exist. You can feel the pain of those charred bricks. You can feel the rocks suffering from injuries. The souls of the dead haunt those places at night, hugging their homes like their loved ones.

Pain has become so familiar that we’re always trying to cover its tracks. Mourning has become so familiar that we are forced to complete it earlier than expected. We want the craters of our pain to be filled with asphalt as fast as possible. We do not cherish our past because we live inside it — it does not live inside us. We do not talk about it because our bodies do. The chapped skin of our towns.

It is hard to breathe when you are crying. You must take in as much air into your lungs as possible to turn it into a salty, pesky fluid. Yet another way of clinging to life.

Some ruins teach and inspire. These are the ruins where history lurks. It has been devouring these rocks year after year. Thousands of lives, each with their own story, hide behind its gulps. The ruins of ancient European cities are like that. They are history turned into space.

But our ruins are different. Just ten minutes ago, they were someone’s home. An apartment with a couch, a pot of violets on the windowsill, and a cat in a corner. Fridge magnets. Grandma’s knit blankets. A computer screen with tropical islands on it. This apartment was full of life just ten or five or three minutes ago. Now it’s all gone. History is not lurking in those ruins — it never even had a chance to take root there.

Time did not create our ruins — violence did it. There’s no continuity about them, only abruptness and ruthlessness. We are afraid of the ruins not because of what they are but because they had too little time to be alive. Too little time to live and too little time to die. One moment — and it was over.

We often wonder why Ukrainians are ranked last in all those happiness reports. But then, it’s simple: how can you be happy if even rocks are in pain in this country? When so many people were just buried in the ground, unable to afford as much as a grave? Is there any sense in ‘hygge’ if people who deserve more than anyone to live are dying every single day? If people who have more right to live than any of us does are dying every single day?

In this country, only two ways are open to you: either to empathize with everything or become indifferent to it. None of them leads to happiness. But one does lead to dignity.

But then, what is happiness? Skovoroda wisely believed that happiness is when you feel part of something bigger than you. A grain of happiness, that’s what you are. Perhaps, genuine happiness is also a pain syndrome you share with others, fifty-fifty.

This is a country with wounded faces. Only empathy and a joint fight will unite it. Only the understanding that each rock that has been cut through is your nervous system. That every destroyed house is yours. That each life that has been ruined, injured, and hurt is yours. These wounds, they are yours. You cannot get away from them. You cannot heal them. You cannot forget them.*

* (The Ukrainian version of the text was written for the Ukrainian weekly magazine “Krayina”, translated into English for the “Wars. Ukrainians. Humanity” programme and published with the consent of the author. – Editor’s note)

The editorial “rule of small letters” or the “rule of disrespect for criminals” applies to all the words related to evil, like names and surnames of terrorists, war criminals, rapists, murderers, and torturers. They do not deserve being capitalized but shall be written in italics to stay in the focus of the readers’ attention. 

The programme “Wars. Ukrainians. Humanity” has been created by joint effort and with the financial support of the institution’s members of the Cultural Business Education Hub, the European Cultural Foundation, and BBK — the Regensburg Art and Culture Support Group from the Professional Association of Artists of Lower Bavaria/Upper Palatinate.

Authors: Mychailo Wynnyckyj, Oksana Stomina, Volodymyr Yermolenko

Translators (from Ukrainian): Hanna Leliv (Oksana Stomina’s essays, Volodymyr Yermolenko’s essays on May 18, and May 30), Halyna Bezukh (Volodymyr Yermolenko’s essays on May 14, May 15, and May 22)

Illustrators: Victoria Boyko (Mychailo Wynnycky & Oksana Stomina’s essays), Nastya Gaydaenko (Volodymyr Yermolenko’s essay), and plasticine panel by Olha Protasova

Copyeditors: Yuliia Moroz, Terra Friedman King

Proofreaders: Iryna Andrieieva, Tetiana Vorobtsova, Terra Friedman King

Content Editors: Maryna Korchaka, Natalia Babalyk

Program Directors: Julia Ovcharenko and Demyan Om Dyakiv-Slavitski