They took up arms to fight Russia. They鈥檝e taken up pens to express themselves.
| Kyiv, Ukraine
When Ukrainian combat medic Dmytro Shandra writes poetry about his life on the front line, he does so in Russian.
It comes naturally. The son of schoolteachers, he grew up reading Russian literature. Besides, Ukraine and Russia have long shared a cultural space, and he wants Russians to read his work, to grasp how much hatred they have sown with their aggression in Ukraine.
鈥淭he most interesting fragments come from the least comfortable places, where the tensions and emotions run highest,鈥� says Junior Sergeant Shandra, sitting on a park bench in Kyiv. He is briefly unsettled by the buzzing wheels of a passing cyclist because it reminds him of the hum of incoming drones 鈥� a sound so ubiquitous it torments civilians and soldiers alike.
Why We Wrote This
A story focused onWar has always been a catalyst for creativity. Russia鈥檚 invasion of Ukraine is no exception, as Ukrainian soldiers turn to writing poetry and prose to express their anger and pain at what they鈥檝e seen on the battlefield.
Russia鈥檚 invasion has spawned a new generation of Ukrainian writers-turned-soldiers and soldiers-turned-writers who reconstruct the horrors of war in poetry and prose. Their voices, like Sgt. Shandra鈥檚, are being amplified by Ukrainian publishing houses and promoters, who recognize people鈥檚 need to affirm their Ukrainian identity while making sense of the unfolding madness.
鈥淧eople want to know what is happening in this war,鈥� says Alla Lysenko, distribution manager at the Folio publishing house, which has tripled sales since the start of the war thanks to the surge of interest in Ukrainian historical nonfiction and Ukrainian-language books about the ongoing war. 鈥淭hey want to understand from firsthand, personal accounts, not just television.鈥�
No longer on the margins
At the Kyiv Book Fest, a handful of men in uniform bask in celebrity status during panel discussions and author keynotes. Maj. Andrii Kirichenko smiles behind one of the busiest sales stands as women snap up his latest titles, then line up for his autograph.
鈥淓verything that I have witnessed and experienced taught me that I don鈥檛 have the right to forget,鈥� he says in between selfies and readings. 鈥淚 must pass this on to others. Every story, every poem is rooted in reality.鈥�
Hanna Skoryna, a literary promoter, makes sure that military writers like Maj. Kirichenko are heard. She took a serious interest in Russia-Ukraine war literature in a bid to reconnect with her husband, a soldier who had been fighting since 2014. By 2017, the independent researcher had tracked 150 Ukrainian titles about the conflict, only 30 known to the broader public.
鈥淭hese accounts used to be on the margins,鈥� says Ms. Skoryna, who has documented 580 new titles since 2022 when Russia launched its full-scale war against Ukraine. Eighty of the titles are by soldiers. 鈥淣ow, every home, every publishing house has been touched by the war,鈥� she says.
Iryna Bilotesrkovska of the Squirrel-Bilka publishing house keeps the printing presses running in Kyiv despite regular blackouts. 鈥淧eople react differently to stressful events,鈥� she points out. 鈥淪ome don鈥檛 want to know anything at all. Others want to know everything; they are are brave and strong because they volunteer to let the war into their lives, into their homes, and into their heads.鈥�
The inevitable common thread for Ukrainian writers of all stripes now is war 鈥� one that has grown in scale and intensity. 鈥淚n the 15 minutes I was at a position, say, near Bakhmut, the number of mines, artillery, or tank shells fired by the Russians was much higher than in the 10 months I spent on the front lines in 2015,鈥� writes Artem Chekh, a soldier and author of 16 books, in an online written conversation with 海角大神.
鈥淚 am more interested in who will be left behind,鈥� he adds. 鈥淲ho will speak when the guns fall silent? Whose voices will continue to be heard? Because war gives rise to many meanings in literature, but will these writers be able to keep from losing themselves as writers? Is it not because of their naked nerves that they have the power of their words and thus become famous?鈥�
The giant of war
Poetry appears to be a popular format for soldier-writers. Quick snatches that pack a punch are compatible with active duty. 鈥淧oetry is an important medium in wartime because of its short format,鈥� says Pfc. Yaryna Chornohuz, a combat medic and poet who also writes prose. 鈥淚t shows how we can all feel the same but from different points of view.鈥�
Mr. Shandra dedicated his collection of poetry, 鈥淪olid Black,鈥� to a fallen brother-in-arms he befriended in the early days of the war. It draws inspiration from the uncomfortable marriage of beauty and pain, using the titular color as a theme. 鈥淚t is the blackness of your fear and despair; it is the blackness of the soil you are hiding in. It is the blackness of the night you operate in,鈥� he explains.
Private Chornohuz likens war to a giant that makes everybody feel small and at the mercy of uncontrollable events. 鈥淲hen you are a soldier, you feel this,鈥� she says while visiting her daughter in Kyiv between deployments. 鈥淵ou do a small job, you feel small. And the same thing happens to civilians under rocket attacks. You feel very small.鈥�
Sofia Cheliak of the Lviv Book Forum, another book festival, knows about that. On Sept. 4, a Russian missile strike killed seven people in the center of Lviv in western Ukraine. Sitting on the terrace of a caf茅 just hours later, she reflects on the violence. 鈥淪ince the beginning of the full-scale invasion, everything is happening to you, with different degrees of intensity,鈥� she says.
鈥淓verything is horrible, horrible, and you can鈥檛 find language to explain this,鈥� she adds, pondering the bonds that bind war-battered creatives. 鈥淵ou stop believing in God, in literature, in art for art.鈥�
Her mind inevitably turns to her friend, Victoria Amelina, a Ukrainian author killed last year in a Russian missile strike on a pizza place in Kramatorsk. In an introduction to the diary of Volodymyr Vakulenko, who was tortured and killed by Russian soldiers in 2022, she had referred to the generation of Ukrainian writers in the 1920s and 1930s who were killed during the Stalinist purges in Ukraine.
The memory of those victims looms large in the collective creative consciousness taking shape now. 鈥淚 am in the midst of the new 鈥楨xecuted Renaissance,鈥欌�� Ms. Amelina had written.
鈥淟iterature is a way to share the love鈥�
But lives cut short and interrupted projects have not been enough to stop Ukrainian culture from reasserting itself.
The full-scale invasion has spawned not just poetry, but also a huge amount of nonfiction writing, says Ms. Cheliak. Books range from occupation diaries, to memoirs by those who have suffered loss, to accounts by prisoners of war. And, of course, many writers have joined the army, while some soldiers have discovered writing at the front.
鈥淏eing on the front line, it is easy to lose your humanity because you can see really horrible things that make you dead inside,鈥� she notes. 鈥淏ut literature is a way to share the love and keep something good in you alive.鈥�
Like the need to fight, Ukrainians say, the act of writing is, today, an existential requirement.
鈥淎ll throughout history, Russia told us that we are one nation, that we are nothing special,鈥� says Ms. Bilotesrkovska. 鈥淩ussia has tried to take our voice, to take our culture and appropriate all that we have and present it as theirs. But it is not. Right now, we are on our way to finding our own identity and our own voice.鈥�
Oleksandr Naselenko supported reporting of this article.
