September 7-29, 2022 Svitlana Stretovych, Volodymyr Yermolenko, Taras Prokhasko, Mychailo Wynnyckyj

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 the Cultural Hub introduces this collection to the English-speaking audience. Volume 29 continues to present the series. You can get acquainted with the previous collection here.

Svitlana Stretovych: Tow truck to peaceful life. September 7

“Kolia,” he recounts, “will you be able to come and pick up a car standing in line at the border? This is how I went there for the first time. Yeah, it’s horrible. That first time, I learned that initially there had been two lanes to the border, and at the time there were already four. Because everyone was driving however it pleased them, often on the wrong side of the road. No rules, just chaos.” 

I’ve got to know Mykola by chance. He is a tow truck driver who is taking us, together with our car, to the relatively quiet Ukrainian city of Chernivtsi.

“Do you live here now?” he asks.

“No, no, we live in Kyiv.” 

Mykola looks at me more attentively, with some misunderstanding in his eyes. I’m sitting next to him with two kids, smiling. 

“You mean you are coming here to visit someone or for temporary residence?” — he seems to be unable to believe that anyone can live in the capital of Ukraine with children now.

At this very moment, the mobile app chimes. It informs us of an air alert in Kyiv. The female voice of the app urges us to: “Go to the nearest bomb shelter immediately!”

But we are already approaching Chernivtsi in a tow truck.

A tow truck is supposed to tow away cars when they break down. Or so it was “before.”

“After,” any conversation with a new acquaintance in Ukraine focuses on the war. However, when meeting acquaintances or old friends, the first questions are also about the war:

Where were you on February 24th? 

What did you do?

How did you decide to act during the shelling of cities? 

What do you do to bring victory closer?

Mykola is driving his car and continues: 

“In the first days of the war, I evacuated people for free. Some couldn’t pay. Some only gave me money for the fuel. There was a kind of euphoria when you could only think about how to help people… In the first few weeks, I spent $1,500 on these trips. Then I realized that I’d spent everything I could on these trips, and I had to start earning again somehow, and gradually returned to work. I towed away cars that broke down in long snarl-ups at border checkpoints.

As we speak, an endless chain of trucks comes into view – one vehicle after another, for miles and miles ahead, endlessly. 

“It’s a line to the border. The border is 50 kilometers away. My friend works as a truck driver, he says that he spends 7-8 days in such lines,” says Mykola.

“What are they taking out?”

“It can be anything. Equipment, grain, timber, things, anything…”

“Peaceful life,” I think to myself.

In the place where these vehicles are heading to, beyond the borders of Ukraine, the air alarm application doesn’t go off. Because there is no air alarm. And there, no missile will come behind you as you’re trying to escape to a safe place.

“At least, there were no missile attacks here. When I went to Kyiv, I was shocked by what I saw,” Mykola suddenly says.

Finally, it becomes clear why the fact that my two children currently live in Kyiv made him so surprised at the beginning of the conversation. 

He’s evacuating us away due to a regular car breakdown, fortunately. Just like in peacetime. 

 Svitlana Stretovych: Fugue of Life. September 7

Bomb shelters are a place where people take refuge from bomb attacks as well as read poems.

For this year’s XIII International Poetry Festival Meridian Czernowitz, some of my friends have travelled half the country to finally listen to Ukrainian writers live and hear dialogues about war. Everyone, even non-public participants of the event, has a need to talk about war, to word their wartime experiences, and share the feeling of burden with everyone else.

Now, it is not a festival, as it used to be for twelve years in succession, but rather a wartime collective talk and literature therapy session. 

When registering, we receive badges. Graphite ones. This year, they come with black ribbons. Dark posters of readings, dark banners everywhere. The mix of black and red on the poster resembles the colors of the flag. Black symbolizes the Ukrainian land, and red represents the blood shed for Ukraine.

One of the key locations hosting the events is Paul Celan Literature Center. There are numerous pictures of writers’ on the wall, Paul Celan being one of them. He knew what wartime mornings were like. It was during his stay in Chernivtsi that he wrote his “Fugue of Death.”

Black milk of morning we drink you evenings…

Black milk of morning. 

This year, it is raining heavily for the two days of the literary readings, due to which all events have been moved to shelters. White walls — a huge graphite banner on the stage.

Black milk of a literary shelter. 

Here, people will read poetry, quote classic authors and recite poems. Authors’ recital of their poetry is often a far cry from what we expected.

It’s not theatrical.

It’s not artistic.

It’s unadorned.

“I don’t really like it when someone recites my poems,” says one of the poets invited to the talk. “But when I wrote a poem about the war and saw a girl reciting it and loading her machine gun, it was rather impressive.”

The poem kept repeating: “Speak to me, speak to me…”

The voice of the poet is drawing listeners to the shelter, there are so many of them that there is not enough room, so most are standing in the aisles and at the entrance. They are willing to share this conversation about literature and war in order to get through this evening standing close to each other, forgetting that six months ago we all had to keep a distance of 1.5 meters and had no fear.

Svitlana Stretovych: For whom the bell tolls. September 13

In this gymnasium in Podil, one of Kyiv’s neighborhoods, lessons start at 8:30 am.

At 8:42 am on September 7, a teacher sends a message to a group chat: “Good morning! Missile threat. We’re at a shelter.”

The shelter is located at the nearest subway station. It means that students cannot continue their lesson until the air raid siren goes off. They can exercise their constitutional right to education only once another signal informs them that the threat is over. But it’s only until the next air raid siren rings out.

Air raid sirens operate on a very simple principle. They alert about the danger, the threat, possible rocket attacks, or ballistic or cruise missiles launched toward the territory of Ukraine. As long as you are in Ukraine, you cannot be confident that you are safe and will be able to tick off all the items on your to-do list. Your plans now depend on your smartphone app. And it can sound the alarm at any moment.  

In addition to a traditional backpack with notepads, textbooks, and gadgets — like those high-schoolers across the world take to school — the students of Kyiv gymnasium also take a grab-and-go bag. It has a tag with their first and last name and the school’s number and telephone. There’s also a face mask, a pack of cookies, a bottle of water, a torch, and medicine if a student takes any.  

A gymnasium is no longer a place to merely learn mathematical formulas or laws of physics, writers’ quotes, foreign languages, or chemical reactions. It’s a school of life where following the orders of seniors, accurately and fast, in times of danger matters more. And the most crucial skill has nothing to do with scholarship. It is the skill of staying alert.  

A school bell used to inform students that a lesson had started. Now it tolls for someone. Whenever terrorist missiles hit infrastructure facilities, you heave a sigh and rejoice if there are no casualties. It means that while the air raid siren was on, all of us were good students. 

A new workday begins. 

It is now marked by bell rings, which are no longer meant only for students.

But unfortunately, you cannot just stand up and leave this ‘lesson’ like in a gymnasium.

Svitlana Stretovych: Ukrainian history and literature lesson. September 13

The counteroffensive undertaken by Ukrainian troops in the Kharkiv region over the past few weeks was a kind of a test for people’s nerves and expectations. The videos showing locals throwing themselves into the arms of Ukrainian soldiers spread all over the Internet. “Our guys,” people said, letting out sighs.  

Crying.

 

Thanking them.

 

Hugging them.

…

Back in school, each of us experienced the watchful gaze of Taras Hryhorovych Shevchenko at least once. No matter whose portraits were hanging in Ukrainian classrooms, Shevchenko’s portrait was always given the place of honor in any school, gymnasium, or lyceum. He was like a timeless president of Ukrainian history and literature — elected for good.  

From a young age, we have seen various images of Shevchenko, both young and older. For a Ukrainian, to know the face of the young Taras Hryhorovych is the same as knowing the name of their hometown or country. Ukrainians are born with this knowledge. The Ukrainian literature curriculum is shaped in such a way that students of almost any grade learn Shevchenko’s poems by heart in Ukrainian language or literature lessons. A Ukrainian student grows up with Shevchenko. So if you ask me to name some of the most well-known Ukrainians, I will certainly give you this poet’s name.

In our classroom, there was a reproduction of Shevchenko’s first self-portrait — the one where he was still young and beardless. Had he been older, he would’ve been painted with mustache and beard. Next to his self-portrait, the lines from his poem were written: “And in the great new family, The family of the free, With softly spoken, kindly word, Remember also me.”

Shevchenko painted his first self-portrait in early 1840 in petersburg. He was twenty-six at the time.

…

Ukrainian warriors liberate Balakliya in the Kharkiv region that was occupied for six months. One of them switches on his smartphone and films his comrade tearing down a poster the occupiers pasted onto a huge billboard. Those who came here to kill us pasted a slogan, “We are with russia! One nation!” against a backdrop of the russian flag.

The warriors shout out, “Glory to Ukraine!” The enemy poster falls, and suddenly, on the billboard covered with russian slogans, a pair of eyes comes through — the same eyes that any Ukrainian student has known ever since they became self-aware. The eyes of Taras Hryhorovych. 

A 26-year-old Shevchenko is now looking down at the Ukrainian warriors just as he looked at them when they were sitting at their school desks. He knows these guys are taking their most important history exam.

The warriors are shocked. They start reading the poetic lines printed next to the portrait on the huge billboard. “Keep fighting — you are sure to win!” We all remember these words since childhood, too.

The following day, on September 11, 2022, Ukrainian troops reached the state border in the Kharkiv region occupied by the russian army for the past six months.

 Volodymyr Yermolenko: Contra spem spero. September 26

The russian revolt will be, as usually, senseless and merciless. With them, it has never been a rebellion of emancipation and liberation; it was and is only a mirror reflection of the hell of the system. The hell of the russian rebellion is no less hell than the hell of the russian “bonds”: it is a necrophilic response to the necrophilic reality. The gruesome russian literature (both classical and modern) was rarely a leap into freedom — it was mostly a statement of the hopelessness of hell. If Dante were a russian, he would stop as soon as at the first part of the Comedy, and he would paint purgatory and paradise as another version of hell. Fortunately, he wasn’t russian. A healthy culture should be able to depict hell, but it should also search for a way out. In faith, hope, and love, as well as in laughter and carnivalesque derision. Our Cossack laughter is the first leap from hell to purgatory. Thank goodness, we’ve always had it. Hope has always been there. Contra spem spero.

Svitlana Stretovych: A question to the professor. September 27

I never had friends or acquaintances serving in the Armed Forces of Ukraine. Now I have quite a few of them. I used to know many professors from schools of journalism across Ukraine. Kharkiv, Odesa, Donetsk, Mariupol, Poltava, Zaporizhzhia, Kyiv. In their lectures, most of them quoted a famous phrase a British banker once said: “He who owns the information, owns the world.”

Now some of them are serving in the military. 

At the end of this wartime summer of 2022, Ukraine’s Ministry of Education reported that russian missiles have damaged over 2,000 educational establishments in Ukraine. Another 300 have been destroyed. A huge number of university students, faculty, and employees became internally displaced persons or joined the Armed Forces of Ukraine.

I first listened to Serhiy speaking at a research conference back in 2005. The centenary of the publication of the first Ukrainian-language newspaper, Khliborob (Grain Grower), was celebrated in Poltava. It meant that only one century had passed since Ukrainians decided to establish their own newspaper in the Ukrainian language. We, Ukrainians, wanted to talk about it, discuss it, and reflect on our experience.

I was in my third year of studies at the time and prepared my first report on one of the public figures of the 1910s. Most of the conference speakers were silver-haired professors and dignified associate professors. There were a few PhD students and only a handful of students — Serhiy, a graduate student, was one of them. We became friends afterward. 

Those who demonstrate an interest in the issues of the Ukrainian language, press, or national self-identification early on, usually resign to a life tightly linked with books. So, it was only logical that Serhiy and I became colleagues, teaching each at our respective university. He and I attended conferences in Zaporizhzhia, Poltava, Kharkiv, and Kyiv. Serhiy researched essays for his PhD thesis but wrote analytics for a living. He became a journalist who also taught at the university. Before the big war broke out, he was a contract reservist in one of the units of the Poltava Region Territorial Defense Brigade.

Serhiy commences a new academic year in the Donetsk region. Today, his social media content is all about his fellow fighters and reposts of war analytics. He’s been called up. He maintains his employment with the university.

I never had friends or acquaintances serving in the Armed Forces of Ukraine. Now I have quite a few of them. I scroll my Facebook feed. I see a photo of a professor I know. A full professor from Kyiv, he has been researching media monitoring in the social communications system. I see his code name embroidered on his bulletproof vest. “Professor.”   

In another photo, I see another full professor from Zaporizhzhia. He’s been researching periodicals published by Ukrainian immigrants in interwar Europe. There’s his code name embroidered on his bulletproof vest, too. Again — “Professor.”

“What’s your code name?” I text Serhiy. “Unless it’s a secret.”

“It’s not,” he texts me back.

And he sends me a photo. I can clearly see his code name — “Journalist” — on his bulletproof vest, along with the blue-and-yellow flag.

It’s a pity that the official statistics on the people called up to the Armed Forces do not mention how many of today’s fighters are yesterday’s professors who quoted a famous phrase a British banker once said in their lectures: “He who owns the information, owns the world.” I’m wondering how the professors I know — journalists turned fighters — will rewrite this quote after the victory and how they will answer the question:

“Who owns the world?”

Svitlana Stretovych: The thorn birds. September 27

What did we need during the war?

Swards, banners, and her songs.

“Marusia Churai” by Lina Kostenko

Azovstal is well-known not only in Ukraine. This steel plant is almost ninety years old. For ninety countries across the world, it has been a top producer of steel, mainly exported to Europe. For Ukrainians, it has become a symbol of resistance and the invincibility of combat spirit. Azovstal became a fortress for Ukrainian troops defending Mariupol at the beginning of the big war. They held the line there for long eighty-seven days.  

Bombs, rockets, and missiles were destroying Mariupol.

Day after day, thousands of its residents were becoming victims of russian aggression in that Ukrainian city on the Azov Sea coast. But the warriors were still holding the line.

News coming from the commanders of the Azov battalion; messages and photos from wounded soldiers, some of whom later died — they all testified they were not about to surrender. Their invincible resistance was becoming a part of every Ukrainian’s story.

Azovstal got stuck in each of us like a piece of metal.

Some things that happened in that hell of endless shelling can be seen only in Hollywood movies. Watch the videos. A young woman is singing to the warriors between the fights on Azovstal. Explosions are banging overhead. She’s singing a popular song: “Sleep all alone.” Her code name is Ptashka — a bird. Here, in the war, she is a military doctor; in her photos, in her previous life, she is a poet and actor.  

Hugging her gun, she is singing a rebel song. Men are joining in.

The song is part and parcel of a Ukrainian soul. Everyone needs it as a memory of their kin, as support of combat spirit. There is no Ukrainian soul without song.  

She was singing there — supporting us here.

On May 20, after almost three months of confrontation, the Ukrainian military were ordered to stop the defense of Mariupol and leave the site of Azovstal. They were taken to the russian-controlled territory. We realized later that they were, in fact, ordered to surrender.

Liberation of the Azov fighters from russian captivity has become a shared national wish. Ptashka symbolized that we had to reclaim our voice because Ukrainian song has always been about bravery, hope, and loyalty to your home country.    

In the late afternoon on September 21, for the first time in a long while, social media started to feel like a summertime sea — warm like the Azov Sea that you can safely wade in certain areas. Adrenalin was rushing, wave after wave. The air heated up to the boiling point.

That day, 215 Ukrainian defenders returned from captivity. Ptashka was one of them.

…

In 1943, the Nazis retreating from Azovstal blew up almost all open-hearth and blast furnaces and coke batteries. They destroyed the electrical grid. 

Today, the steel plant is almost completely ruined.

Does this ring any bells?

They started to rebuild the plant in 1944, and as soon as in 1945, steel was already being made there. 

And history is known to walk in circles.

Taras Prokhasko: Zero f… not a damn… September 29

Looking at the currently available different kinds of materials about the russian troops, I recall a meme from the soviet army: “Where you used to study, I used to teach.” It comes to my mind because I realize now that I saw it all some forty years ago. And what I saw in this form forty years ago must have been the same in its essence for some dozens of dozens years before.  I realize that I was a soldier of the russian army. I am making excuses for myself only in the sense that I spent those years doing the conscious and through study of the phenomenon there and then, and also back and forth in time. Besides, for all that time, I tried to carve something human of the sticky mud of nihilism which (I know from my own naturalist experience) is the essence of a russian man.

In the russian army, I liked people from moscow and leningrad because they were afraid of the true russkies who despised them and lived by the memories of the small presence in a great culture. I liked the career climbers of all breeds because they actually wanted to achieve something. I liked the thieves on all levels because they had certain interest to pursue. I even liked alcoholics because they found a decent pay to support their passion. I liked the gangsterish paracriminals (the true tough criminals will not take any weapon from the state) because they followed a certain imaginary code.

I liked the primitive aesthetes who would spend all of their time improving the clownish demobee uniforms and a mythological demobee album. At least, they wanted to look nice when returning to their ladies, and have several tales about the great adventures that could be shared non-stop over and over the hundredth bottle, and also to the dumb children and grandchildren. I even liked the specialists, technicians, who enjoyed the element of iron, and the talkative political instructors who would be close to orgasm listening to themselves. I certainly liked the amateur geopolitical experts who had an opinion that the great rus will soon fuck everyone who believed, if not in God, then in the warmth, comfort, and the ersatz of love rather than the russian phallus.

I liked them because they were uncommon russkies. They were interested in something, something motivated them, something kept them going, and they had at least some values. Even when on the Satan’s side, they had certain ideas explaining why they need that world. After all, satanism is not the same as atheism. Theomacy is impossible without admitting the existence of God. Even some most malicious ideas are based on the possibility to debate with God who undeniably exists.

What is horrible is that all of those villains who I eventually fancied were extremely few. They may be the true elite of the russian army.

The bulk of the combat personnel consisted of the creatures who did not care a bean. Neither good, nor evil. Neither love, nor hate. Neither good, nor bad. Neither luck, nor trouble. Neither past, nor present. Neither life, nor death. Neither gains, nor losses. Neither God, nor devil. Classic russkie nihilism. Null. Senselessness. Like the round-the-clock vodka. Fuck and cry.

My radio station APC carried two generals. A Major General (Army Commander) and a Lieutenant General (Commander of District HQ). All the army during the military exercise was supposed to withdraw from the tactical nuclear weapons lethal area within certain timelines estimated by the same kind of smarty pants. Of course, the troops were late because almost everyone did not care within their area of responsibility. An hour later, it was time to withdraw from combat…

To the conditionally safe territory, some thirty kilometers more through the forest-locked impassable lands with the long motor column, more dead than alive. It was time to report to the Colonel General (District Commander) about the achievements. Then, I heard the following concise dialogue: “Well, comrade General, shall we screw the comrade General?” “Sir, yes sir! Comrade General, it’s time to report…” Then, I passed the radio station receiver to the Army Commander, and he said: “Comrade General, the army has been withdrawn from the hit zone in due time…” And some other hocum.

Nihilists are much worse than sadists. They propagate senselessness like the pest. And that is if you rely on Sun Tzu. Why not relying on him. When you are not a nihilist you should be aware, not to underestimate the enemy.

Mychailo Wynnyckyj: Thoughts from Kyiv. September 29

Empires fail when they run out of (human) resources.

The collapse of the russian empire (“federation”) has begun. The process is likely to last at least until the end of 2023 (if not longer), but the final outcome is now inevitable. Sadly, we are likely to see much more death and suffering before the dust settles, and I doubt very much that the violence will be limited to Ukraine.

When we exit this process, the security and institutional architecture of the world will be different. The UN, NATO, EU, WTO, and many other international organizations will change or become irrelevant. Ukraine’s current central place in global discourse is likely to be transformed into a leadership role in the world’s (re)construction efforts — not merely locally or regionally, but globally.

That’s exciting! Being part of building a (brave) new world is huge privilege, huge responsibility.

#ThoughtsfromKyiv inspired by the latest news from russia, and by today’s conference “From Resilience to Recovery: the Critical Role for Civil Society” in Kyiv.

#ThoughtsfromKyiv

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: Svitlana Stretovych, Volodymyr Yermolenko, Taras Prokhasko, Mychailo Wynnyckyj 

Translators (from Ukrainian): Halyna Bezukh (Svitlana Stretovych’s essays on September 7), Hanna Leliv (Svitlana Stretovych’s essays on September 13 and 27), Svitlana Bregman (Volodymyr Yermolenko & Taras Prokhasko’s essays)

Illustrators: Victoria Boyko (Svitlana Stretovych & Mychailo Wynnyckyj’s essays), Nastya Gaydaenko (Volodymyr Yermolenko’s essay), Yuliya Tabenska (Taras Prokhasko’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