Sky Above Kharkiv

March 20, 2023
Poet and novelist Zhadan (The Orphanage) delivers a wrenching, nearly day-by-day account of the first four months of the Russian invasion of Ukraine. In slightly edited versions of his Facebook posts, Zhadan reflects on the stark choices faced by Ukrainians (“withstand this war or be annihilated”); documents his travels around Kharkiv, “a city of universities” that withstood heavy shelling in the war’s first weeks; reports on clashes between Ukrainian and Russian forces; and issues full-throated rallying cries: “The Russians are barbarians. They’ve come here to destroy our history, our culture, and our education, because all those things are alien and hostile to them. We have to protect all that, restore it, keep developing it.” There are also poignant snapshots of life returning to some semblance of normalcy during breaks in the bombardment, stories of delivering food and supplies to civilians and volunteer army units, flashes of gallows humor, calls for military aid from other countries, descriptions of concerts Zhadan and his ska band held for people bunkering in the Kharkiv metro, and pained reflections on the destruction of the Skovoroda Museum and other heritage sites. Intimate, resolute, and occasionally profound, this is an inspiring account of life during wartime. Photos.

April 1, 2023
A Ukrainian poet shares the resilient response by Kharkiv citizens and resistance by the armed forces over the first months of Russian bombardment. By turns defiant, sentimental, and improbably optimistic, these dispatches, which comprise an installment in the publisher's Margellos World Republic of Letters series, were posted on social media from the beginning of Russia's invasion through June. Collectively, they bring a visceral sense of what the people of Kharkiv and Ukrainians in general have been enduring. Poet and musician Zhadan and his band, Zhadan and the Dogs, traveled the city to deliver humanitarian supplies and sometimes organize impromptu concerts in order to maintain morale. His daily reports praise the citizens' sense of bravery in the face of the sudden Russian military onslaught; he also lauds their lack of panic and the work by the Territorial Defense Forces. As he chronicles his visits to volunteer units, checkpoints, stores, hospitals, schools, and subway stations where people were living, especially children, Zhadan interjects resentment of Russian attempts at subjugation, especially the suppression of the Ukrainian language. He argues that the great "culture of Dostoyevsky and Tolstoy" masks a contempt for Ukrainian identity, and he reflects on Ukrainian linguist George Shevelov's writings during World War II as well as the work of national Ukrainian poet Taras Shevchenko. Zhadan shows how eight years of aggression by Russia have led to a stronger Ukrainian resistance and how the Russian propaganda attempts at "denazification" and demilitarization of the country have only strengthened Ukrainian resolve. "We simply cannot afford to lose," he writes. "We have to crush our enemy and liberate our territory." Curiously, the author doesn't mention President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and his nightly addresses to the nation or his international campaign for support. A vivid, in-the-trenches report from a Ukrainian city and its "injured, yet unbreakable" citizens.

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