Faced with the dramatic situation in the Middle East, Putin talks about peace. But in his immediate territory, he wants nothing to do with it: bravado, threats and direct aggression, while the Ukrainian drama does not stop, enduring more than two years of Russian invasion. The requests for help from the Zelensky government are multiplying, sometimes desperate, as are the latest military mobilization measures to fill the places on the front.
One of the most important Ukrainian writers, Serhiy Zhadan, said he will join a National Guard brigade. “
It seems to me that today there are no writers or non-writers, musicians or non-musicians, there are citizens of Ukraine who feel responsible for their country. The army makes us all equal
”He said in a message from the Serebrianka forest. Author of novels, poems and essays that reflect on issues related to the war, Zhadan had already enlisted as a volunteer, transporting aid to the army.
Voroshilovgrad
With a doctorate in philology from Kharkiv University with a thesis on Ukrainian futurism, Zhadan is a poet, novelist, essayist and also has his own ska band. He was a university professor and then began working as a freelance writer, organizer of literary and musical festivals.
His debut novel “Depeche Mode” dates back two decades, but his consecration came with “Voroshilovgrad” (2010), the harshest description of the Donbas region, where the Russians began their expansion in 2014 by annexing an important part of the territory. from Ukraine.
Some compare his description of these territories with the texts of Cormac McCarthy: “Extensive cornfields that are lost in the horizon, where the young Herman, protagonist of the novel, ends up understanding that precisely that place and no other is the one that can give meaning to his life". In Voroshilovgrad, facing the wind and stifling heat, Herman goes through multiple difficulties, especially threats from local gangsters who want to take over his business.
The awards
Born in Starobilsk, Lugansk region, and resident in Kharkiv, Zhadán also published the novels “Orphanage”, “The Invention of Jazz in Donbas” (2010), “Mesopotamia” (2014) and “Internat” (2017). And poems and stories in “The history of culture at the beginning of the century” (2003), “Hymn of democratic youth” (2006) and “Antena” (2018).
With the Russian invasion complete, he released “The Sky Over Kharkov,” a compilation of his stories. “Voroshilovgrad” won him the Jan Michalski Prize in Switzerland. And two years ago, he received a new distinction at the Leipzig Book Fair: the Peace Prize of the German booksellers.
“The jury distinguishes him for his outstanding artistic work and for his humanitarian stance, with which he addresses people in situations of war and helps them by putting their lives at risk,”
announce it. And they argued
: “In his works, Zhadan takes us into a world that has experienced great upheavals and at the same time lives on tradition. His texts tell how war and destruction enter this world and shake people.
In 2013, Zhadán participated in the Maidan Square uprising in central kyiv, followed by the Orange Revolution, which ended the Yanukovych regime. Zhadan was an activist who published an appeal to the residents of Kharkiv: “Do not listen to propaganda, there are no fascists or extremists here, come to our side.”
Three days later, he ended up bloodied and with his head shattered by police beatings. But he replied: “I am an adult; "It's hard to stun me with a blow to the head." Yanukovych fled to Russia, protected by Putin.
Descriptions
The works of Zhadan, and particularly Voroshilovgrad, expose the Donbas. According to a commentary in The New Yorker, signed by writer Marci Shore,
“in this temporarily anomalous wasteland everything existential emerges through the physical: a little football, a lot of sex, even more violence. The material objects that Zhadan describes with almost grotesque precision (wooden icons of Orthodox Christian martyrs, a Manchester United pendant, a pair of Bosch electric scissors) serve as missing words in the midst of a laconic dialogue. Not only are words missing
.
People call Donbass the Bermuda Triangle. Many of those who remain have survived beatings of various kinds. "We all wanted to be pilots," says Herman, the novel's protagonist, of his childhood friends. "Most of us become losers." And Zhadan wants us to understand not just the losers, but the damaged losers, with their scarred torsos, limbs, and faces. "I looked closer at the rest of my old friends, their bodies battered by hard lives and the fists of their rivals," Herman says.
Definitions
Zhadan never wavered in his stance on the invasion.
"Faced with this bloody and dramatic war unleashed by Russia, there are many who do not want to accept a simple fact: Without justice there can be no peace
," he denounced. "
There may be many forms of frozen conflicts, temporarily occupied territories, time bombs disguised as compromises, but not peace, true peace that offers security and perspective."
He also referred to the emotional factor in Ukrainian proclamations:
"The world that listens to us sometimes finds it difficult to understand something very simple and that is that when we speak we show a high degree of emotionality and tension. We Ukrainians do not have to justify our emotions, but "It would be good to explain it, just so we don't have to be left alone with the pain and anger."