‘Yesterday a missile hit. Tonight, we have poetry’: the writers drawing crowds on Ukraine’s frontlines | Poetry
‘Yesterday a missile hit. Tonight, we have poetry’: the writers drawing crowds on Ukraine’s frontlines | Poetry
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Bu içerik, Ukraynalı bir film yapımcısı ve şairin, Ukrayna’da yaşanan günlük kontrastları ve zorlukları anlatmaktadır. ABD başkanının seçilmesi haberleri ile başlayan bir gün, Zaporizhzhia’daki bir otelde Summertime Sadness şarkısını üzüntüyle söylerken bulunan bir grup insanın hikayesini anlatmaktadır. Ukraynalı şair ve asker Yaryna Chornohuz, Alman yazar ve gazeteci Ronya Othmann ve yazar Yuri Izdryk gibi isimlerin bir araya gelerek güney Ukrayna’daki sınır şehirlerinde düzenlenen bir turda bir araya geldikleri vurgulanmaktadır. Yazara göre, Ukrayna’da yaşanan trajediler her gün gerçekleşmektedir ve insanlar bazen teselliye ve eğlenceye ihtiyaç duymaktadır. Avrupa’da yaşanan korkulara da değinilen içerikte, Ukraynalıların devletlerini korumak için küçük adımlarla başlayarak ayakta kalmaya çalıştığı vurgulanmaktadır. Savaş bölgelerine yapılan gezilerdeki deneyimler ve modern Ukrayna şiirinin halk arasındaki popülerliği de detaylı bir şekilde anlatılmaktadır. Savaşın etkilediği şehirlerde gerçekleştirilen şiir etkinliklerine katılanların duyguları ve ortamın atmosferi de içeriğin odak noktalarından biridir.
As a film-maker and a poet, I like strange, whimsical contrasts, and as a Ukrainian I often feel that our daily routine exclusively consists of them. For example, the day starts with news about the election of a new US president, and we are in the hotel in Zaporizhzhia sadly singing along to Summertime Sadness on the radio. Who are we? The Ukrainian poet and soldier Yaryna Chornohuz; the German writer and journalist Ronya Othmann, who has come to Ukraine for the first time since the beginning of the full-scale Russian invasion; and me. We are travelling together with a legendary Ukrainian poet, Yuri Izdryk, and the head of the literary corporation Meridian Czernowitz,Svyatoslav Pomerantsev who has organised this tour to the frontline cities in southern Ukraine.
Ukrainian soldier and poet Yaryna Chornohuz meets readers in Mykolayiv on the tour of frontline cities. Photograph: Olexander Kornyakov
Yesterday, a ballistic Russian missile hit Zaporizhzhia and killed eight civilians, but tonight we have poetry readings here. The event is not cancelled, because such tragedies occur in Ukraine almost every day, and people need some consolation – and even fun. Nonetheless, today is full of anxiety. “What do your Ukrainian friends write about Trump?” Ronya asks me while I’m scrolling the feed. “They darkly joke about world war three. And what about your German friends?” “They write: ‘Oh, what will happen to Ukraine now?!’”
‘Start with small steps’ … Iryna Tsilyk in Kherson on the poets’ tour.
In their place, I would ask: what will happen to the whole of Europe? Besides my trips around Ukraine, I travel to various countries in central and western Europe and often feel Europeans’ fear that the war may go too far. There’s a clear goal for us Ukrainians. We need to survive and preserve our statehood, and so we “keep calm and carry on”, even if the global political arena has turned into a bloody circus, democracies decline, and the horizon of future planning is hazy. Don’t you know what to do? Start with small steps: wash the dishes, clean the weapon, donate to the production of drones and read poems for the people in whose city a missile landed and killed civilians again.
I can do that. I am looking from the stage at hundreds of faces with shining eyes and thinking again about the amazing popularity of modern Ukrainian poetry in our nation, especially in those cities that Russian propaganda tries to label as “purely Russian”. I’ve travelled to the frontline cities a lot, but I’m still surprised by the large audiences here. As well as students and local intellectuals, readings are always attended by soldiers, combat medics, military volunteers. And all this speaks not only about the love of the poetic word, but also their need to be among like-minded people. And the closer they are to the frontline, the more acute this need is.
Odesa, Mykolaiv, Kherson and Zaporizhzhia – the cities we’re visiting are being shelled even harder than before. The event in Kherson is more like some secret operation: we go there in bulletproof vests and helmets to perform in a shelter, the event known only to a limited circle of people. When we reach the city, we see black smoke – there have just been missile strikes. There’s a lot of destruction in Kherson itself and few people left, but quite a lot of guests still come to our readings. It sounds like a meeting of some secret lodge, the Order of Glimpses of Normality in Dark Times.
‘The Order of Glimpses of Normality in Dark Times’ …Readers in Zaporizhzhia for the frontline cities poets’ tour. Photograph: (await credit)
Later, at the event Meridian Zaporizhzhia, the hall is so full that people stand in the aisles. I think about whether our colleague Ronya will understand at least something from our readings. She came to Ukraine not as a poet, but as an observer and journalist. Yet despite some lines being lost in translation, I believe she understands most important things. In the audience, there are a lot of young and older people, cadets in military uniform, bright teenagers, and so many of them cry and laugh, cry and laugh.
The very next day, another rocket will fly into this city and kill several people, including a baby. And I’ll return to Kyiv. “Phew, I’m home, safe,” I’ll think at first, forgetting for a moment that my city has also been shelled every night for the past two weeks.
“… We are the masters of sports in balancing. Balancing on the edge between different realities. A Girl on a Ball, hold on tight, press your feet into your planet, while it shakes …”
‘Yesterday a missile hit. Tonight, we have poetry’: the writers drawing crowds on Ukraine’s frontlines | Poetry
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