Voices from an Endangered Culture: Ukrainian Wartime Poetry
Soldiers, poets, translators, academics, and representatives from Lviv, Manchester, and Exeter UNESCO Cities of Literature have joined forces to share Ukrainian wartime poetry.
We gratefully acknowledge all the poets for permission to translate and share their work.
Voices from an Endangered Culture
Exeter City of Literature is proud to host a series of readings from Ukrainian poets and members of the armed forces, Fedir Rudyi, Eva Tur, Dmytro Lazutkin, and Anatoliy Dnistrovyi, with the poet and broadcaster Olena Huseinova. They read their own work, with subtitles by University of Exeter students Olena Mevsha and Mykyta Isagulov, and the poet, Yuliya Musakovska, in collaboration with Hugh Roberts.
These videos were first shown at Manchester Poetry Library and Exeter Phoenix in June/July 2024. Olena Huseinova and Yuliya Musakovska, in collaboration with their friend and colleague Hanna Khriakova, Lviv City of Literature international manager, were taking part in a series of events in Manchester, Exeter, and at the Ukrainian Institute London, to promote Ukrainian wartime poetry, including by friends and colleagues who have been killed by Russian forces.
Fedir (callsign “Author”) Rudyi – first released on TikTok, ‘The Position’ is an extraordinarily moving poem recorded on the front line, from the eponymous position, where Fedir Rudyi is on active service for the Ukrainian Armed Forces. Sounds of artillery can be heard in the background. Instagram: @fedir.rudy
Eva Tur is a graphic artist, an art critic, a poet and a mother. She is also a servicewoman with the Ukrainian Armed Forces, having already joined a paramedic division following illegal Russian occupation of Ukrainian territory in 2014. Her intensely personal poem, ‘Look at me’, recorded by chance when she happened upon a poetry reading, draws on Ukrainian folk traditions to express her loss. Read more about Eva Tur here.
Dmytro Lazutkin worked as a sports journalist and commentator and holds several sports titles, including a Bronze Medal at the Kickboxing World Cup. He is currently serving in the 7th Separate Mechanized Brigade, "Magura", where he is a Senior Lieutenant, he is also a spokesman for the Ukrainian Ministry of Defence. In 2024 he was joint winner of the Taras Shevchenko Prize, the most prestigious literary award in Ukraine, for his collection of poetry.
This amateur video was recorded at Kyiv’s Arsenal Book Fair, at an event in memory of people of culture killed in the war – a picture of poet and soldier, Glib Babych, appears in the background. ‘Rolling Stones (Paint it Black)’ is another astonishing poem, expressing the outrage of a soldier whose wife has left Ukraine to ‘find her true purpose’. Read more about Dmytro Lazutkin here.
Olena Huseinova is a writer, translator and radio host from Kyiv. She published a poetry collection, Night Air in 2024, the result of poems she wrote while hosting night shifts on Ukrainian radio for the year-and-a-half since Russia’s full-scale invasion. She recorded ‘A Country of Open Wounds’ in the early morning by Kharkiv station – her poem also alludes to Ukraine’s second city, currently under regular bombardment by Russia. Instagram: @ohuseinova
Anatoliy Dnistrovyi is a writer, academic, artist, and officer for the Ukrainian Armed Forces. He has published several novels, poetry collections, and war diaries. ‘The Three Colonels’ dates from November 2022, when he coincidentally encountered three colonels with matching names: the poem shows another side to the inspirational Ukrainian spirit of resistance, namely a sense of humour and of the absurd. The film was taken at the 2023 Kyiv Book Arsenal. Instagram: @dnistrovy
Ukrainian War Poetry - Translating Cultures
A selection of poetry from Ukrainian soldiers on the front line and the poet and broadcaster Olena Huseinova, translated by Yuliya Kostyuk with Hugh Roberts and Helen Vassallo.
Poets, broadcasters, translators and academics have joined forces to give voice to Ukrainian war poetry written in response to Russia’s illegal invasion of the country. The poems, some of which have been written by artists fighting on the frontline, have been translated into English, recorded and made available to the public on YouTube.
They include the work of Liza Zharikova, a poet and musician, who was recently injured while on service in Donbas; and radio host Olena Huseinova, whose work covering the evacuation of Mariupol has found new expression in her poetry.
The project arose following the visit in July, last year, of a delegation from Lviv City of Literature, who were invited to take part in the Translating Cultures with UNESCO Cities of Literature event in Exeter. During the event, Ms Musakovska and Ms Huseinova read poetry written by colleagues who had been killed in the war, or who are are still fighting on the front line or the home front. The pair also took part in public discussions around the nature of that poetry.
The project has been led by the University of Exeter in collaboration with Exeter UNESCO City of Literature, and poet and translator Yuliya Musakovska. Read more about the project here.
Ukrainian War Poetry: Translating Experience
March 2024
The Devon Ukrainian Association have collaborated with academics from the University of Exeter’s Department of Languages, Cultures and Visual Studies to run a series of workshops, ‘Ukrainian War Poetry: Translating Experience’, with support from the University’s Bridging Communities Fund.
The workshops invite Ukrainian refugees in Devon and Exeter to share poetry reading and reactions to it, inspiring their own creative writing to ‘translate’ their experience.
The Devon-based prize-winning poet Fiona Benson leads the creative sessions, in solidarity with Ukraine and her fellow poets, including PEN Ukraine members Yuliya Musakovska and Olena Huseinova, who were welcomed to the city in July 2023 as part of Translating Cultures.
The Devon Ukrainian Association and the university team already joined forces for ‘Reading for Odesa’, a simultaneous cultural event across the world on 24 February 2024. Through Exeter UNESCO City of Literature, the Exeter-based readings joined numerous others across the world coordinated by the UNESCO network.
Several members of the Devon Ukrainian Association gave moving readings of poetry, including by Dron’. The university team simultaneously released a recording of ‘”Mary” to “Golgotha”’ via Exeter City of Literature, a poetic masterpiece by Maksym Kryvtsov, a celebrated poet and soldier, who was tragically killed by Russian forces in January 2024.
“We Were Here” - Artur Dron’
November 2024
Artur Dron’s "We Were Here" translated by Julia Musakovska and published by Jantar Publishing was released on Thursday 7th November 2024.
Dron’ was a writer working for Old Lion Publishing House in Lviv when Russia launched its illegal invasion of Ukraine. Dron’ wrote the 50 poems contained in We Were Here while serving with the 125th Separate Territorial Defence Brigade.
The University of Exeter’s Department of Languages, Cultures and Visual Studies believe that this may be the first translation into English of a full collection by a Ukrainian poet since Russia's full-scale invasion began in February 2022.
This translation was made possible by the award of a 'Translate Ukraine 2024' grant of the Ukrainian Book Institute.
Julia Musakovska, Olena Huseinova and Anna Khriakova first presented Artur Dron's poetry at a July 2023 meeting in Exeter, 'Translating Cultures with UNESCO Cities of Literature', co-organized by Department of Modern Languages and Cultures, University of Exeter and Exeter UNESCO City of Literature with Lviv City of Literature.
The Daily Telegraph‘s culture newsletter has also selected one of the poems, Children, as its ‘Poem of the Week’, and the collection is also being reviewed by The Times Literary Supplement.
