novelists-from-ukraine

"Everyone who receives power involuntarily feels omnipotent…superior to all others who fantasize about freedom. But what do we know about the dependencies of those who are themselves omnipotent?"

"What and how do we remember and what do we forget? What do we want to remember and forget? How does history become a legend and legend a myth? Sofia Andrukhovych reveals to the reader an interlace of stories about human destinies, which form a mosaic of collective Ukrainian memory. A very timely book for modern Ukraine. After all, the future belongs to those who are not afraid to look back and look in the mirror."

"In Ukraine, death has become an integral part of everyday life"

"Until the last sentence of writing it is always uncertainty"

"Her work included unearthing the diary of Volodymyr Vakulenko, a fellow writer who was illegally detained and killed by Russian soldiers in the city of Izium in early 2022. The diary, which was buried in his garden, served as a real-time document of Russian atrocities."

"She largely set aside her writing after the full-scale Russian invasion of 2022, to focus on documenting [alleged] war crimes and working with children on or near the frontline."

"The war is when you can no longer follow all news and cry about all neighbors who died instead of you a couple of miles away [..] Still, I want to not forget to learn the names."

"It's me in this picture, I'm a Ukrainian writer. I have portraits of great Ukrainian poets on my bag. I look like I should be taking pictures of books, art, and my little son. But I document Russia's war crimes and listen to the sound of shelling, not poems. Why?"

"I know a little bit too much as I was brought up to be Russian: I attended a Russian school in Lviv, a Russian Orthodox church, a teens’ summer camp in Russia, etc. When I was 15, I was even chosen to go to Moscow to represent my city at the international Russian language contest. Hopefully, I turned out to be a terrible investment for Russia."

"As for me, I don't hate Russians at all; I'm so exhausted by the war they have waged on us that I cannot feel anything. I am numb. There’s a beautiful song by the Ukrainian band Kozak System, a wartime song with many profanities but no hatred. It starts like this: "Our national idea— fuck the hell off!""

"We should talk about reconciliation and forgiveness, of course. But, before talking about it to Ukrainians, it’s crucial to let Russians know that they have to do lots of work on their end. So I’d rather postpone the discussion until one side is not being bombed by the other."

"[On being chosen to represent Lviv in a Russian language contest aged 15] At the contest in Moscow I met kids from all those countries Russia would later try to invade or assimilate: Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia, Kazakhstan, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia, and Moldova. The Russian Federation invested a lot of money in raising children like us from the "former Soviet republics" as Russians. They probably invested more in us than they did in the education of children in rural Russia: those who were already conquered didn't need to be tempted with summer camps and excursions to the Red Square. Hopefully I will have turned out to be one of the worst investments of the Russian Federation."

"[The changing borders of Ukraine during the Soviet period] Under any [totalitarian] regime you get used to it, and you more than cooperate. You become part of this regime. In my novel Dom’s Dream Kingdom, I used the story of my grandfather. He was a Soviet military pilot. He became part of the Soviet regime. But he was from the east of Ukraine, where the Holodomor [now recognised in Ukraine as an act of genocide] occurred. His family were victims of the that man-made famine, and he had terrible memories about that. I also remember my grandfather explaining to me the fear he felt if the Soviet army could potentially send him to Czechoslovakia in 1968. But regimes force people to do terrible things. As a Ukrainian I felt there was something wrong with that, and I should be somehow even ashamed. This is not what is happening in Russia today. There is no shame."

"Often we succeed, but not always. As I write this, on my way to Izyum to document war crimes, the occupiers may well be destroying the evidence of genocide in Mariupol. Despite all our efforts, too many stories will never be known. As a human rights activist, I document war crimes and advocate for justice. Yet, as a writer, I know there are wounds only stories can heal."

"So maybe it is time to shift the debate from whether the world should 'forgive' Russian imperial art and literature, to how to prevent one of Europe’s cultures from becoming another Executed Renaissance. I was never a fan of Cancel Culture. But maybe the Execute Culture that Russians have repeatedly practiced on free Ukrainians is something the world would like to stop before it’s too late again."

"Має бути саме внутрішня готовність жити текстами, перетворювати себе на тексти, писати навіть тоді, коли ніхто не читатиме. У цьому не може відмовити жоден видавець. Якщо література – ваш спосіб взаємодії зі світом, то ставатимуться дива."

"Now there is a real threat that Russians will successfully execute another generation of Ukrainian culture – this time by missiles and bombs. For me, it would mean the majority of my friends get killed. For an average westerner, it would only mean never seeing their paintings, never hearing them read their poems, or never reading the novels that they have yet to write."

"Terrified that the pages of the diary [of Volodymyr Vakulenko] were wet and might not survive, she gave it to the Kharkiv Literary Museum. That experience led her to focus on what she called "cultural war crimes". On her phone she showed me photos of bullet holes in library walls in Kherson. "It's important to see for yourself and write down the stories," she said. "The way you see it from afar is very different to on the ground.""

"To investigate [alleged] war crimes, Victoria had joined an organisation called Truth Hounds, acquired a flak jacket, helmet and camera and started travelling to places from which the Russians had been driven out."

"Amelina put her commitment to her country and its most vulnerable people ahead of her personal safety, training to gather evidence of [alleged] war crimes that could be used in future prosecutions."

"Russia, are you not speeding along like a fiery and matchless troika?"

"The gentleman lolling back in the chaise was neither dashingly handsome nor yet unbearably ugly, neither too stout nor yet too thin; it could not be claimed he was old but he was no stripling, either. His arrival in the town created no stir and was not marked by anything out of the ordinary."

"[Women's] boarding schools, as we know, hold the three principal subjects which constitute the basis of human virtue to be the French language (a thing indispensable to the happiness of married life), piano-playing (a thing wherewith to beguile a husband’s leisure moments), and that particular department of housewifery which is comprised in the knitting of purses and other “surprises.” Nevertheless changes and improvements have begun to take place, since things now are governed more by the personal inclinations and idiosyncracies of the keepers of such establishments. For instance, in some seminaries the regimen places piano-playing first, and the French language second, and then the above department of housewifery; while in other seminaries the knitting of “surprises” heads the list, and then the French language, and then the playing of pianos—so diverse are the systems in force!"

"As it is so strangely ordained in this world, what is amusing will turn into being gloomy, if you stand too long before it, and then God knows what ideas may not stray into the mind... Why is it that even in moments of unthinking, careless gaiety a different and strange mood comes upon one?"

"There are people who exist in this world not like entities but like the speckles or spots on something."

"And for a long time yet, led by some wondrous power, I am fated to journey hand in hand with my strange heroes and to survey the surging immensity of life, to survey it through the laughter that all can see and through the tears unseen and unknown by anyone."

"Oh troika, winged troika, tell me who invented you? Surely, nowhere but among a nimble nation could you have been born in a country which has taken itself in earnest and has evenly spread far and wide over half of the globe, so that once you start counting the milestones you may count on till a speckled haze dances before your eyes... Rus, are you not similar in your headlong motion to one of those nimble troikas that none can overtake? The flying road turns into smoke under you, bridges thunder and pass, all fall back and is left behind!... And what does this awesome motion mean? What is the passing strange steeds! Has the whirlwind a home in your manes?... Rus, whither are you speeding to? Answer me. No answer. The middle bell trills out in a dream its liquid soliloquy; the roaring air is torn to pieces and becomes wind; all things on earth fly by and other nations and states gaze askance as they step aside and give her the right of way."

"Rus! Rus! I see you, from my lovely enchanted remoteness I see you: a country of dinginess, and bleakness and dispersal; no arrogant wonders of nature crowned by the arrogant wonders of art appear within you to delight or terrify the eyes... So what is the incomprehensible secret force driving me towards you? Why do I constantly hear the echo of your mournful song as it is carried from the sea through your entire expanse?... And since you are without end yourself, is it not within you that a boundless thought will be born?"

"Why are you being so stingy?", Sobakevich demanded. "It's cheap at the price. A rogue would cheat you, sell you some worthless rubbish instead of souls, but mine are as juicy as ripe nuts, all picked—they are all either craftsmen or sturdy peasants."

"there is no word so perk and quick, which bursts from the heart with such spontaneity, which seethes and bubbles with such vitality, as the aptly spoken Russian word"

"The reason why Proshka wore such large boots can be explained at once: Plyushkin kept only one pair of boots for all of his servants, however numerous they were, and they always stood in the hall."

"They insist that an author should write in the strictest, purest and noblest language: in short, they expect the Russian language to drop from the clouds, already refined, and that it should come naturally to the lips, so that all they have to do is to open their mouth and stick out their tongue. It goes without saying, of course, that the feminine half of the human species is very wise; but it must be confessed that our respected readers are even wiser."

"Apparently that does sometimes happen. Apparently even men like Chichikov are transformed into poets for a few moments in their lives: though the word "poet" would be an exaggeration here."

"Among a number of intelligent suggestions there was finally this one too, strange as it may seem, that Chichikov might be Napoleon in disguise..."

"However, nothing turned out as Tchitchikoff had intended."

"Russia! Russia! I see you now, from my wondrous, beautiful past I behold you! How wretched, dispersed, and uncomfortable everything is about you..."

"Homeland, tenderer than first caresses,/you have taught me to protect and guard/golden language in all Pushkin's treasures,/Gogol's magic, captivating word."

"I belong to the first generation of Latin American writers brought up reading other Latin American writers...Many Russian novelists influenced me as well: Dostoyevsky, Tolstoy, Chekhov, Nabokov, Gogol, and Bulgarov."

""Turn around, son! What a funny figure you are! Are those priests' cassocks you are wearing? And do they all go about like that at the academy?" With these words old Bulba greeted his two sons who had been studying at the Kiev college and had come home to their father."

"I am very fond of the modest manner of life of those solitary owners of remote villages, who in Little Russia are commonly called "old-fashioned," who are like tumbledown picturesque little houses, delightful in their simplicity and complete unlikeness to the new smooth buildings whose walls have not yet been discolored by the rain, whose roofs are not yet covered with green lichen, and whose porch does not display its bricks through the peeling stucco."

"The sergeant's widow told you a lie when she said I flogged her. I never flogged her. She flogged herself."

"I tell everyone very plainly that I take bribes, but what kind of bribes? Why, greyhound puppies. That's a totally different matter."

"The more destruction there is everywhere, the more it shows the activity of town authorities."

"What are you laughing at? You are laughing at yourselves!"

"Of course, Alexander the Great was a hero, but why smash the chairs?"

"It is no use to blame the looking glass if your face is awry."

"[Final lines] mother, mother, save your unhappy son! Let a tear fall on his aching head! See how they torture him! Press the poor orphan to your bosom! He has no rest in this world; they hunt him from place to place. Mother, mother, have pity on your sick child! And do you know that the Bey of Algiers has a wart under his nose?"

"All the world knows that France sneezes when England takes a pinch of snuff."

"To tell the truth, I often felt uneasy when I thought of the excessive brittleness and fragility of the moon. The moon is generally repaired in Hamburg, and very imperfectly. It is done by a lame cooper, an obvious blockhead who has no idea how to do it. He took waxed thread and olive-oil—hence that pungent smell over all the earth which compels people to hold their noses. And this makes the moon so fragile that no men can live on it, but only noses. Therefore we cannot see our noses, because they are on the moon."

"[P]eople think that the human brain is in the head. Nothing of the sort; it is carried by the wind from the Caspian Sea."