Archives, decolonization, and the Ukrainian East: An Interview with Lyuba Yakimchuk

Lyuba Yakimchuk is an award-winning poet, playwright, and screenwriter from Pervomaisk, a small coal mining town in the Luhansk region of Ukraine. She is the author of several poetry collections, most notably The Apricots of Donbas, which was published in English translation by Lost Horse Press in 2021. Yakimchuk also penned the script for The Slovo House, a documentary film about the Ukrainian artists imprisoned and killed during the Stalinist purges, known collectively today as The Executed Renaissance. Yakimchuk spoke with Kate Tsurkan about one of those artists, Mykhaylo Semenko, the Ukrainian Futurist poet whose work she often evokes in her own poetic verse. They also discussed what a writer does and doesn't owe their readers, Ukraine's frontline cities, how classic Ukrainian literature can explain the differences between Ukraine and Russia, and more.

I’ve always regarded the process of viewing old documents in an archive as something special, almost like consulting an oracle. Do you share this sentiment, especially when it relates to working with artifacts from writers who are from your own country?

I used to find working in the archives uninteresting until I started digging deeper into Mykhaylo Semenko’s life story. You probably know he was a leading figure of Ukrainian Futurist poetry who was shot dead in Kyiv in 1937. The search for documents relating to his life sometimes resembles an investigation. Sometimes something is found by accident when you’re no longer looking for it, but you are found by the people who have this document.

When you immerse yourself in the historical context, all these people from the beginning of the 20th century become close to you, almost like your relatives. It’s interesting to learn every detail of their lives. In a folder with my family’s documents–passports, birth certificates, property declarations–there are several artifacts related to Semenko. This includes the first editions of his books Pierrot Wonders and Prelude and a small poster with his image published during the poet’s lifetime. My husband remarked that this means I treat Mykhaylo as a family member. There is some truth to this. He is my relative, but not by blood–rather, by literature.

Let’s stay on the topic of archives for a bit. In France, the state takes an active role in curating and preserving an author’s archive. Tell me, please, do you ever think about your own archive you’ll leave behind someday? Especially in the context of an all-out war that Russians launched intending to wipe out Ukrainian history and identity?

Last year, the Kharkiv Literary Museum asked me to donate letters to their archive. These were the letters sent to me during my residency at the Slovo House in Kharkiv, where Mykhaylo Semenko himself once lived. I decided to keep these letters; they were written to me by readers or friends, and I don’t think sharing them with a third party is ethical. I don’t want my old diaries to be put into an archive because they are private. If a cruise missile falls on me, then they should be burned. I still keep them because they are beautiful, and I wrote things in them that are meaningful only to me. But generally, I do not collect many things about myself or my every thought. If I do keep something, it’s because I haven’t moved in a long time or I haven’t done a deep cleaning of my home. After my death, only what I wrote for the public will be public.

Your reply instantly brought to mind Franz Kafka’s request to Max Brod that his unpublished work be burned upon his death and how Brod ultimately did not respect his friend’s wishes. Many critics say, “thank goodness for that,” but I think you make a fair and essential point. Writers don’t necessarily owe the public everything that they produce. There is a lost art to respecting privacy in today’s world.

The idea of privacy is changing with the world, I think. I like to differentiate tasks in my living space: cook in the kitchen, work at my desk, and sleep in bed. When you do it this way, you get better at each of these things. The same applies to separating our professional and private lives. You should always keep something to yourself. By not saying everything about yourself, you’ll have more frequent opportunities to develop as a person.

Recently, when I showed your poems to my Ukrainian tutor, she insisted that we read them alongside the works of Mykhaylo Semenko. It’s very clear the he is—as you say—your relative by way of literature. What is it about his generation that resonates with a contemporary audience today?

Even 20 years ago, we could not imagine our lives would be similar to those of the Ukrainians who lived in the early 20th century. We had a feeling of kinship, though. I think it is connected to geopolitical events. Now, as it was back then, there is a chance for Ukraine and Ukrainians to emerge from the shadow of the Russian empire. But then, with bloody terror and executions of the intelligentsia, the Soviet authorities dealt with Ukrainian culture, which was always the bearer of Ukrainian statehood on our territory. In the prime of their youth, the generation that survived the terrible First World War, rebuilt the country and developed compelling literature, art, and architecture was all but wiped out. Now we are at war and looking for new ways to talk about ourselves and this anti-colonial war. Here, in Ukraine, new meanings are continuously being born.

The more I read about that period of Ukrainian history and the works of political thinkers back then—such as Volodymyr Vynnychenko or Vyacheslav Lypynsky—I can’t help but feel that the key to understanding the most significant divergences in thought between Ukraine and Russia are to be found there. I’m wondering if you’d agree with this assessment.

Yes, but it was noticeable even before them. I am referring, for example, to Lesya Ukrainka’s Boiarynia, which describes the life of an independent Ukrainian woman who ends up in Moscow, where the social standing of women is disgraceful. They cannot even leave the house without an escort.

Ukraine’s household culture, like our culture overall, has always been quite different from Russia’s. Now we see what kind of culture the Russians are bringing to Ukraine—it is archaic. They were doing the very same things back in the times of the Russian empire: gang rapes, child abductions, not using the toilet and simply defecating where they please inside of occupied houses, killing civilians and domestic animals, burning Ukrainian books, and destroying educational and cultural institutions and historical monuments. This is not some kind of unusual behavior for Russian soldiers on the territory of Ukraine. When they return to Russia, they rape Russian women along the way. For example, there are intercepted conversations about rape in the Belgorod region. Do you think they behave better with their own family? Hardly.

At the same time, Russians export Dostoevsky or ballet, which they call "great Russian culture" and "great Russian language." Everyone is used to it, and it's normal for them, although this epithet is also a marker of the Russians' imperial view of themselves and the world. These cultural exports are a fig leaf covering up the actual state of affairs, which is an archaic culture. But if you delve deeper into Russian classical texts, this archaism is visible there, too: many Russian classical authors sympathized with criminals and justified criminal behavior in their texts. The "mysterious Russian soul" is about what was common back then and remains as such in today's Russia. To the world, it looks exotic, it surprises them, and they say: was it really possible? Often, this archaism is explained by some mystery that is not really there.

Instead, a vertical arrangement of Russian society makes protest impossible. Political apathy was created by the government’s monopoly on the media, which allowed elections to be held on the government’s terms. The Russian people do not identify themselves with their government or perceive the government as a representative body of themselves. In general, power for them is a superior whom one must obey. If you live in the Russian “mystery,” you can go crazy from it, because in those conditions, your life becomes meager, and you can, for example, wish for the extermination of a neighboring country.

All this is difficult to compare with the Ukrainian horizontal structure of society, with the defense of our freedom, which we value more than life itself.

Authentic Russian culture should now be studied in the de-occupied Ukrainian cities; it manifested itself most vividly there. Therefore, I invite all scholars of Russian art and literature to go there—many things will suddenly become more evident to them.

On the seemingly never-ending topic of suspending cooperation with Russian authors during wartime, I recently explained to a journalist that Russian literature doesn’t need to be protected, for lack of a better term. Russian classic and contemporary authors are firmly part of the world canon. So the likes of Akunin, Ulitskaya, Sorokin, etc. will be fine if you, Zhadan, or anyone else refuses to share a stage with them during wartime. But that’s beside the point. I’m more curious if you think that it is conceivable that we will see Ukrainian literature ascend to that same level of recognition in our lifetime. Or do we work for the achievements of the next generation?

I believe that the role of Ukrainian literature in the greater sphere of world literature depends on the state of affairs at the front. There is nothing beyond politics or ideology. Literature, too, is always a part of one ideology or another. Denial of ideology is also ideological because denial absorbs the features of what it denies.

And as for material about the war, we understand that this is a war of decolonization, a war that finally frees us from the imperial view of us held not only by Russia but also by the entire world. Once an object, Ukraine is now turning into a subject and becoming more self-reliant.

That is why the world looks so enthusiastically in our direction. The world also recognizes itself in this struggle because many countries continue to be empires in one form or another. Overall, I think, people are intrigued, for Ukrainians do not see themselves as victims and talk about themselves as heroes moving closer to victory. Now it is cool to be with Ukraine in one way or another because everyone sees something unique and familiar in it. This is reflected in someone learning the Ukrainian language or reconnecting with their Ukrainian roots. Would it be that way if Kyiv had been captured in three days? No—nobody wants to side with losers.

Our visibility in global culture depends on our victory at the front. If our generation wins, we will be in the world canon of literature. Because new meanings are born right in us.

On a similar note, I’ve been struck by how quickly debates have reoriented themselves (i.e., the use of the Russian language) and how stereotypes (i.e., about eastern Ukrainians) have been dismantled since February 24. Kharkiv, for example, is a city very dear to my heart. When I get the latest news from people there, I think it is not an exaggeration to say that nobody will ever again dismiss it as a “Russian city” and that the future of Ukraine is being written there.

We describe ourselves and the world primarily through stories. It is not only literature but also the oral stories we tell each other. Where there are no new impressive stories, there are stereotypes.

Before the war, Soviet-era stereotypes were spreading about the Ukrainian east. I once asked a Ukrainian author, who wrote some wild things about Donbas in his essays, when he was last there. Our conversation took place in 2010, and he told me he had last been there in Soviet times, back in the 70s. As someone who grew up in the East in the 90s and 2000s, it sounded wild to me because I did not recognize what he wrote in his texts.

There are always objectively more stories where there are coordinative changes in reality. In other words, when something rapidly changes randomly or regularly, new material appears for understanding, telling, and writing about it. After 2014, such stereotypes became fewer because people from the east migrated to the west and told their stories themselves. But Russian propaganda gave rise to stereotypes about internal refugees, and some believed it. The full-scale war gave birth to even more stories, particularly stories of resistance to Russian aggression, and of course, they supplant stereotypes because these stories are alive and real.

This works not only within the country but also abroad. Stories are written by people who have gained new experiences because it is through the experience of people who live through these events that the world is seen differently. Those who lived through war bring a unique perspective to the world and have added value. Now Ukrainians have this value for the world. We understand that no knowledge and analytical abilities can replace experience, and now the world recognizes our uniqueness in this.

The future is written where blood is spilled. We should mention not only Kharkiv but the entire front line: Luhansk, Donetsk, Kherson, and Zaporizhzhia. Also, Mykolaiv and Odesa, which are constantly under fire these days. There's also Kyiv and Chernihiv. Although as I list these regions, I understand that it is necessary to talk about the entire territory of Ukraine. Now it is difficult to find a person who has not been directly or indirectly affected by the war or who was not involved in it as a soldier, volunteer, or through a donation to the Armed Forces. It is here that the future is being written, and geopolitical and cultural agendas are emerging at the same time. This is the vanguard of both Ukrainian and global changes.

So many of Ukraine’s historical figures have tragic backstories, and I would argue that this plays very much into Ukrainian national identity. Yet following the Russian invasion, the entire population has mobilized: either to the frontlines or as volunteers to aid in the war effort. Ukrainians have inspired the whole world with their bravery and resilience. Does this mean we will have to refocus our understanding of Ukrainian national identity, moving it away from victimhood towards a more triumphant outlook? What role can writers play in this, if at all?

I consider the change in self-identity to be obvious. And it's not that we didn't have it before; no, we did. I will explain in more detail.

In my opinion, there are two types of narratives about this war. The first narrative is that we are being killed, but we fight back and destroy the enemy. This is the narrative of the tragedy. But at the same time, we see a lot of funny memes and hear a lot of jokes. It looks like the Ukrainians are fighting this war very easily. We not only have the strength to push the Russians out of our territories and mourn our dead, but we also have the strength to laugh at ourselves and the enemy. That is, it is also a comedy.

Today's war is akin to Ivan Kotlyarevsky’s Eneida. On the one hand, there are rivers of blood, an insidious enemy, and traitors; on the other, there is fun, cursing, love stories, and a sense of lightness. This is exactly how it looks outside of Ukraine, but this "swing" from grief to joy is also very noticeable here. It helps us to live without fatigue and to fight for our freedom as long as necessary. It helps to hold on, and in the end, I think it will help us to win.

Interviewed by Kate Tsurkan

Photo by Valentyn Kuzan