by Khrystia Vengryniuk
Translated from the Ukrainian by Yulia Lyubka and Kate Tsurkan

If we forgive, forget, and swallow it down again, as in 2014, our children will have to live through the same things we are going through now; only they will play the leading roles. This evil never sleeps, so our descendants must be constantly ready for everything. Unlike us, who neglected the words of Taras Shevchenko, Mykola Khvylovy, and Vasyl Stus and missed, overlooked, and underestimated them.

by Kateryna Sergatskova

Open the online galleries of international agencies like Getty Images or Associated Press, and you'll see that most photographers in Ukraine capture the remnants of missiles, destruction, corpses, and funerals. War forced wedding photographers to capture funeral processions and fashion photographers to take photos of soldiers in the trenches.

by Iryna Tsilyk
Translated from the Ukrainian by Tetiana Savchynska

I have a recurring dream that has been haunting me in different variations for many years. In it, two people are walking side by side across a vast and snowy field. They carry backpacks (or rather, emergency go-bags) including all that remained from their former peaceful lives. The woman walks ahead of the man, and his big footprints cover hers so that it seems as if just one person has made their way across the field.

by Lyubko Deresh
Translated from the Ukrainian by Dmytro Kyyan

Before the seminar on NOMADLAND, he wrote to me: "Despite everything, I want us to do our work and to do it well." However, it seemed that fate had destined him to face the war head-on for a second time. My mom's call at 5:35am on February 24 woke me from a restless sleep. Before picking up the phone, I already knew what I was about to hear. "Sonny, the war has begun," my mom said through tears. "They are bombing Kyiv."

By Agata Tumiłowicz-Mazur

I unfold a map in my mind and spread its crumpled edges wide. I know all my neighbors by heart, and I can say a lot about them. This storytelling is much like sitting down at a spinning wheel and beginning to work with a ball of yarn. You draw out long fibers: some made of stereotypes, followed by the histories you’ve been taught, others from accounts of your loved ones, and, finally, some you’ve experienced yourself.

by Olga Breydo

What I do not know during that summer of 2020 is that nearly two years later, I will revisit this paragraph with regret for remembering Kharkiv instead of returning there when I had the chance. For imagining instead of experiencing. Planning instead of doing. And then I will write something again, but this time it will beis a longer piece.

By Maryna Prykhodko

My heart sinks. I forgot. For a moment, I forgot—not about the war, which is impossible to forget, but about how close we are to death. It's right there, just tens of kilometers away. It feels wrong to even look at it. The enemy. The country that is trying to kill us. It's so close, looming over my beloved Kharkiv. What gives them the right?

by Myroslav Laiuk
Translated from the Ukrainian by Daisy Gibbons

How does our memory work? What does it choose? How do associations arise? How is trauma born and how does it mature? People will be going to therapists and psychiatrists, and even now Ukraine doesn’t have enough specialists in these professions. But first and foremost, each person will have to answer this question alone; many times; late at night.

Interviewed by Justina Dobush

I fought against the “rich vocabulary” theory from the beginning. I see no reason why it is necessary to have a large vocabulary to write well. After all, if you don’t know how to use words correctly, it doesn’t matter how many you know. You can use few words, but in a good way, or vice versa—use a lot of words badly.

by Kateryna Iakovlenko

Seeing the photos of my house sent by my neighbors, I saw that nothing was left. I wanted to imagine that there might be my refrigerator where I had left a bottle of pét-nat wine from Odesa. I thought it would be a lovely “welcome home” drink, after all. Instead, only emptiness awaited me–dust and ashes.

by Natalia A. Feduschak

According to another book I read, there was once a thriving lemon trade between Sicily and the western Ukrainian city of Lviv, now home to hundreds of thousands of Ukrainian refugees. I’ve thought of that trade when I purchase lemons from my regular vendor here at the local bazaar, although learning more about it doesn’t hold the interest it once might have.

by Mariya Mykhaylova

Russian will always be my mother tongue, but Ukrainian is my homeland’s tongue. For me, at this moment, it is not about saying no to Russian–it is about saying yes to Ukrainian. I do not know what my future holds. For now, I stick to learning Ukrainian day by day as a way to feel whole.