August 2022, the Ukrainian writer, activist and war crimes investigator, Victoria Amelina, posted a poem on Facebook based on her testimony from Mariupol.
Ukrainian poet and writer, Victoria Amelina, died recently from wounds inflicted by a Russian missile strike in the East Ukrainian city of Kramatorsk
August 2022, the Ukrainian writer, activist and war crimes investigator, Victoria Amelina, posted a poem on Facebook based on her testimony from Mariupol.
Strange scorching summer
Filled with sea people
Their memories dismantled
Into souvenirs
Photographers for German papers
Journalists for the Times
Prosecutors
Investigators
Archivists
For future museums of the City
Of which only a sea remains
And some sea people
Whose memories are collected
As souvenirs
The images form a kind of palindrome: investigative reports from the war framed by people바카라s personal memories.
Victoria Amelina, (1986-2023), died on July 1 from wounds inflicted by a Russian missile strike on a restaurant in the East Ukrainian city of Kramatorsk.
With Amelina바카라s death, the world lost a fearless, thoughtful individual, whose writing probed the limits of memory and belonging. Take this excerpt from one of her novels, published in my home university바카라s journal Alchemy a year ago:
바카라A dog can show you, like on a map, the pulse points and entire spots of pain in this city. The forties lie at a shallow level. And a bit deeper바카라the events of World War I바카라 There are no names, no nationalities, or class affiliations that can be read. Instead, you have to ascribe traces of vague human words on this vivid map. They must be collected, like breadcrumbs, from a few tour guides, chatty neighbors, and popular radio broadcasts.바카라
바카라Dom바카라s Dream Kingdom,바카라 translated by Grace Mahoney, is told from the perspective of a dog, whose sharp sense of smell gives him unique access into a city바카라s history. For Dom, centuries are layered, namelessly, one atop another. And cultures are interwoven, bounded by their belonging to a common space.
Born in Lviv to a Russian-speaking family, Amelina briefly lived in Canada as a teenager before returning to her native Ukraine. She studied computer science and worked in IT, shifting to writing full-time when her first novel, The Autumn Syndrome, or Homo Campatiens (Sindrom listopadu, abo Homo Compatiens), a book about the 2014 Revolution of Dignity, was published in 2015. Her 2017 novel, Dom바카라s Dream Kingdom (Dim dlia Doma)바카라literally, a home for Dom바카라was awarded the European Union Prize for Literature and was shortlisted for the LitAktsent Book Prize. It바카라s about a family in Lviv with a Soviet pedigree, who live in the home of the Polish Jewish sci-fi writer, Stanislav Lem. Amelina also wrote children바카라s fiction and poetry. She was awarded the Joseph Conrad Literary Award in 2017.
On the eve of the full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Russia began bombing cities in Donbas. Amelina posted on her Facebook page, 바카라Kramatorsk, what바카라s happening with you?바카라 She was traveling abroad, and was slated to fly home on February 24, 2022. 바카라I feel so bad I바카라m not with you right now,바카라 she posted from the airport, having learned that Ukraine had closed its air space. 바카라Forgive me. I바카라ll try to be useful.바카라 The next day she posted a long message in English, asking citizens of the world to protest: 바카라Evil never stops바카라we must stop it. So please do not give me shelter, give me your hand.바카라 As millions of displaced Ukrainians fled across the border to Poland, Amelina crossed the border back into Ukraine. That spring, she began documenting war crimes for the human rights organisation, Truth Hounds, traveling through Ukraine바카라s newly de-occupied territories to investigate the violence carried out against Ukrainian citizens. Among her contributions was the recovery of a diary left by writer and activist, Volodymyr Vakulenko, whom Russian troops had abducted and killed near the city of Izium in the first months of the full-scale war. Vakulenko had buried the diary under a cherry tree, telling his father to give it to 바카라our side바카라 when the city was liberated. Amelina passed the original, which she unearthed with Vakulenko바카라s father, to the Kharkiv Literary Museum.
I knew Amelina only virtually. She and I were friends on Facebook, a venue that has emerged, particularly since war broke out in 2014, as the virtual agora where Ukrainian poets share their work as well as calls for activism thoughts about Ukraine바카라s changing civic society. We followed each other바카라s tweets, liked each other바카라s posts. I got to know her, that is, from a distance, admired her brave response to the war, her advocacy for Ukrainian literature, her clarity in both Ukrainian and English. A month into the war, she wrote an article for the Eurozine magazine, harshly contrasting the intellectual debate바카라from whether to engage with Russian culture to the annihilation of Ukrainian culture in the tsarist and Soviet periods.
바카라Because while the world debates whether to cancel or to welcome artists and writers who suddenly feel like leaving Russia amidst its economic collapse, it neglects the crucial question: will Russia succeed in executing Ukrainian culture once again?바카라
Though her focus for the last year of her life was on documenting the reality of war, her poetry and commentary reminded her readers how much was at stake. Amelina was planning to take a break from her war crimes work and spend the coming year as a fellow at Columbia University바카라s Paris campus. She had not planned to return to Donbas, but agreed to take one last trip, to lead a delegation of Colombian writers who hoped to visit the liberated cities she had been documenting. Twelve civilians were killed along with Amelina, including four children.
(Those who wish to honour Amelina바카라s memory may donate to the literary festival she founded in the East Ukrainian town of Nyu York. Link
https://pen.org.ua/en/rozpochato-zbir-koshtiv-na-pidtrymku-festyvalyu-zasnovanoho-viktoriyeyu-amelinoyu)
Amelia Glaser is a professor at the University Of California San Diego