On June 18th, on the opening of Berlin Poetry Festival, ukrainian poet Halyna Kruk made a powerful speech. It was translated from german into ukrainian by Claudia Dathe, and I have translated it (much less professionally) into english. If you speak german, you can read the original here.
English translation (my apologies for the quality):
In June 2014 I was in Europe, giving a talk on one of the literary performance stages. At the same time, convoys of russian tanks were invading Ukrainian Donetsk and Luhansk. Back then I expressed an opinion about how hard it is for us, Ukrainians, to talk about poetry in these circumstances. In response to this the moderator, a 30-year old russian literature major from Berlin started patronizing me about how poetry must be above the war, that the great russian culture has always been above the war; that Tsvetaeva, Ahmatoma or Pasternak would never stoop down to topics such lowly and “hype” as war, because they were gazing into eternity, therefore they were “above” all of this. And what does russia have to do with this anyway? For the next eight years, we were trying to make ourselves heard: hey, we're at war, a part of our country is under occupation, and we are being killed every day. In response, we were treated as unintelligent children, patronized and told not to shoot back, and this will end; to be wiser, and stand above this. During the same eight years, russia was growing its appetite and gathering its military resources for a full-scale invasion. At the same time, russian poets were stubbornly gazing into eternity, paying no attention to the fact that their country is turning into an authoritarian state that only imitates democracy while cherishing narratives about imperial greatness. Those who got uncomfortable from living in these conditions moved out, continuing to spread russian culture as its ceremonial facade. I understand that you don’t like what I have to say, you, people who were raised on the best examples of the russian culture. You can’t believe my words, just like the people from Borodyanka, Gostomel’ or Bucha who couldn’t believe it when russian soldiers came to kill them, defenceless civilians, with no sense or reason. With no care if it were men or women, children or the elderly. To kill them, rape them, crush them with tanks. I do not have any metaphors to make these words more appealing, or at least less shocking. Metaphors don’t work against people with rifles. No poetry can protect you when you are being crushed by a tank while attempting to flee from the war with your family. There is no place for poetry in your life when you are standing for days near the rubble of collapsed houses, hearing your children and grandchildren screaming for help from underneath, but not being able to do anything. This is a very powerful story, some European authors could probably write a book about this and cement their place “in the eternity”. But a person who has lived through this would not write such a book. Because there is no power that would be able to live through this and remain able to explain their pain to the others.
War creates a chasm between those who have lived through it and those who stood at a distance. And with each day I see how it gets harder and harder to explain to the people from the outside what it’s like to be here, inside. And I have less and less will for any explanations. We are speaking a growingly unintelligible language that has no place for poetry. It’s hard to be “above this'' when your husband is at war, some relatives are under horrible occupation in the Kherson region, and other relatives are under constant shellfire in the Kharkiv region; when you need to constantly hide from the airstrikes because sometimes don’t get shot down at time and kill people. In these conditions, poetry changes - it turns into spontaneous prayer, a scanty testimony, a lament or a curse. This isn’t the kind of poetry that modern European culture is used to. It is functional and ritualistic, too primaeval in its emotions, too subjective, too dramatic, too intolerant. Well, it’s hard to be tolerant towards the enemy that is killing you or your children. Because once he is done killing them, he moves on to the others. I don’t think you would be able to “stand above this” either. Today, ⅕ of my country is occupied. I am sorry that this isn’t a metaphor. People from those regions are being killed, terrorized, moved to the filtration camps in russia, separated from their families, and denationalised. No poetry in the world has words for this. My Facebook news page consists of pictures of beautiful people - men and women, parents and children; all of them killed by russia. This isn’t a metaphor. Facebook blocks or deletes these pictures because it is “sensitive content” that can upset the users. But those people weren’t born to die in this war. They didn’t study to die in a war. They didn’t hone their talents to die in a war. The loss of these people will always remain as a wound in our souls, in our culture, in our science, economics, industry, and society overall. This is not a metaphor.
I don’t know any poetry that could heal this wound. This war is killing all of us, each one in a different way, even though we may look intact on the outside. Now, we move through life through short runs, even when we’re in open space. We shudder from loud noises and our children, who know what it’s like to hide in the bomb shelters from air strikes, don’t cry from fear anymore. They are so small, but they already understand that that cry can cost them their life. This isn’t a metaphor either. The war makes everything so univocal it leaves no space for poetry. Only for testimony.
But who is writing deep and beautiful poetry aimed for eternity about this war? It’s our russian colleagues. They are writing from safe places in emigration, not under fire, honing their creative pursuits without distractions of the filthy and ghastly reality. Nothing prevents them from concentrating on creativity - no sirens, no shots, no tanks of occupants with rifles.
I am sorry that poetry doesn’t kill.
