While many novels, poesy collections and literature anthologies have emerged since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, very fewer offer readers an chance for healing and catharsis while examining the horrors and tragedies unfolding in the country. That is what separates Kateryna Pylypchuk’s The War that Changed Us: Ukrainian Novellas, Poems, and Essays from 2022 from another publications incorporating Ukrainians’ war experiences. Pylypchuk’s writing not only portrays the formidable Ukrainian spirit that shocked and awed the planet at a pivotal minute in global history. With its stories depicting Ukrainians who decide to return to their homeland despite the war and the depiction of Ukrainian traditions like the making of motanka dolls, it encourages readers to find the best parts of humanity amid horrible circumstances. These stories and poems remind readers that hope can be anywhere. All 1 has to do is search for it below the rubble, inside the bomb shelter, or behind a torn flag flying bravely despite the incoming missiles.
Pylypchuk’s book opens with an engrossing foreword written by erstwhile Ukrainian president Viktor Yuschenko. Yuschenko offers a poignant message that sets the collection’s overall tone: “The war continues, and it cannot but affect each of us. It changes us.” The changes Ukrainians have experienced not only since the full-scale invasion’s beginning in 2022, but since the first annexation and invasion of Crimea and east Ukraine in 2014, are the crux of Pylypchuk’s book. However, Yuschenko besides clarifies another crucial thought inherent in the author’s writings. That is despite “Russia’s efforts to destruct Ukraine’s identity, the Ukrainian nation is becoming even more consolidated, united, and determined to last and flourish”. From beginning to end, the reader sees that Pylypchuk’s stories and poems authentically encapsulate the collective Ukrainian determination to celebrate an identity – and a nation – forever separate from Russia.
“Carpe Diem”, described as a “philosophical novella about the meaning of life”, is an first gem that adeptly captures the vast changes Yuschenko describes in the foreword. The novella’s talker communicates the swiftness at which the emotional and intellectual changes manifested by describing them as so “radical” that “everything crucial yesterday becomes totally empty and meaningless today.” The talker continues by describing a life totally different to the life in Kyiv which they enjoyed. Due to the war, they now live with their grandmother. The realization of just how different their life is while surviving with their grandma occurs erstwhile the talker sees their “expensive, red designer dress” on their grandmother’s clothesline. The juxtaposition of the speaker’s old life and their fresh 1 jars with the talker so much that they realize that they had “almost let this minute slip” between their fingers. Nonetheless, the talker asserts that “we had to proceed living, even if it felt as if life was already over.” They besides admit the fact that “everything was just beginning.” Furthermore, the talker captures realizations about another all-too real existence for Ukrainians – death’s constant presence during war. The speaker’s observations about death in their life forms a metaphysical conversation in the text. The talker concludes the communicative on this metaphysical note, stating that “When we think of death, life becomes highly real. erstwhile we realize that the soul is immortal, death becomes a part of our lives.” Here, the talker develops a “death-positive” attitude, but alternatively than developing that attitude over time, the talker is forced to make it due to their circumstances.
Also inherent in Pylypchuk’s stories and poems is the thought of generational trauma and the inheritance of that trauma. The communicative “Holodomor” blends the past with the present as it examines the emotional and intellectual trauma inherited by generation after generation of Ukrainians. While events like the Holodomor only late entered the western consciousness, they have long been sources of household and national secrets. The communicative is immensely powerful due to the fact that the past blurs with the present as a parent and children escape the war and the mother, Maryna, recalls her family’s own history. Shock and disbelief permeate the part as Maryna realizes that she could “hardly accept the fact that after almost a 100 years, russia was again stealing and burning Ukrainian bread, starving and shooting Ukrainians—simply destroying the very essence of the Ukrainian nation, destroying people, children, women, the old and the young”. Maryna’s sentiment is relatable to those who are Ukrainian or those who have Ukrainian roots. Since the full-scale invasion’s beginning, millions of native Ukrainians and diasporic Ukrainians have expressed akin emotions, frequently drawing on their own families’ histories in order to process current events.
The necessity to keep and preserve a Ukrainian identity in the face of Russian aggression is another key cultural thought Pylypchuk effectively communicates. “Motanka” serves as the collection’s primary example. Motanka dolls are an ancient Ukrainian tradition. The dolls are considered household talismans that offer protection, and they are crafted by winding fabrics together. They have no face, and alternatively the dolls have multicoloured threads that form a cross shape. In Pylypchuk’s story, the act of winding the fabric to form the doll is simply a sacred ritual of preservation and meditation. The unidentified talker repeats the phrase “I shall wind,” which takes on a prayer-like speech in the poem. The repetition besides creates a cyclical sense in the poem that recreates the act of passing traditions from 1 generation to the other. another crucial symbols associated with Ukrainian culture deepen the story’s meaning. The talker begs the “sweet small dolly” to “take good care” of their warrior, and they prayerfully command, “May the streams of red viburnum on your face become the blood of our damned enemies.” Red viburnum (also called kalyna in Ukrainian culture) is the national symbol of Ukraine, and it has long been utilized to represent opposition to political oppression and abroad dominance. The talker besides references “an embroidered pattern” on the doll’s sleeve, where “each embroidered cross-stitch bears a code for my message” – an allusion to the Ukrainian vyshyvanky (embroidered blouses) and rushynyky (embroidered towels) traditions that, like motanka dolls, are seen as cultural symbols and talismans against evil.
In essence, Pylypchuk’s writings are cultural artifacts themselves. They embody the people’s spirit and vast, unique traditions that make Ukrainians and Ukrainian culture beautiful and sovereign. Her words – much like the historical writings of Taras Shevchenko and the contemporary ones of Serhiy Zhadan – capture a minute unlike any another seen in history. Most of all, Pylypchuk creates a concerted, essential minute of empathy and unprecedented reflective pause, which challenges readers to consider what it means to be human.
The War That Changed Us Ukrainian Novellas, Poems, and Essays from 2022 by Kateryna Pylypchuk. ibidem Press 2024
Nicole Yurcaba is simply a Ukrainian American of Hutsul/Lemko origin. A poet and essayist, her poems and reviews have appeared in Appalachian Heritage, Atlanta Review, Seneca Review, fresh east Europe, and Ukraine’s Euromaidan Press. Nicole holds an MFA in Writing from Lindenwood University, teaches poesy workshops for confederate fresh Hampshire University, and is Humanities faculty at Blue Ridge Community and method College in the United States. She besides serves as a guest book reviewer for Sage Cigarettes, Tupelo Quarterly, Colorado Review, and confederate Review of Books.
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