I am not Ukrainian, but my Great Uncle was. He was born into what was Poland, fought against the Soviets, was forcibly conscripted by the Nazis, and came to the UK after WW2 as a displaced person who could never return home for fear of being arrested and killed by the new regime.
He was the inspiration for the main character of my novel, a ridiculous, comedic thing, currently on submission to publishing houses. My novel’s heroine is a physician who’s excellent at her job but even better at losing her temper and being fired. She is attempting to make it America because there, she can earn enough money to keep her whole family safe from anything. In my novel, her fear of Russian invasion is presented as slightly melodramatic; the family – like my great uncle – is from Ternopil Oblast, a long way from the War in Donbas. I did not expect she would ever be proven to be justified in her fears.
My thoughts are with the people of Ukraine, who are brave, and fierce, and who are, if my uncle was anything to go by, Ukrainian to their bones. My thoughts are with his other great-nieces and nephews, the ones he never got to meet, but who surely still live in the tiny village, who I hoped to be able to go and find someday. I hope I still will.
I set up this blog to talk about books and writing, so that’s what I’m going to do. Here are four thoroughly recommended Ukrainian books.
Ukraine Diaries by Andrey Kurkov
Kurkov is known for his fiction, which is also well worth reading (Death and the Penguin is his best-known work, but I’ll throw in a vote for Grey Bees, as it’s about a beekeeper living in his abandoned village in the “Grey Zone” just beyond the former borders of the Donbas conflict) but Ukraine Diaries is his first-hand account of the start of this war. Covering the period between November 2013-April 2014, it recounts the pro-European Maidan protests, Russia’s invasion of Crimea, and the start of the War in Donbas. As a diary, it’s not necessarily the most thrilling read, and it stops just as events are get started (it was published very quickly) AND it’s (rather oddly) translated from the French (and uses the Russian transliterations), but if you want to know what happened, start here.
Chernobyl Prayer by Svetlana Alexievich
Svetlana Alexievich is an historian who records the oral histories of the people of Eastern Europe and Russia. In addition to this book (which the HBO series Chernobyl is, very loosely, based on) she’s recorded the history of the Soviet women fighters of WW2 (The Unwomanly Face of War (UK)/War’s Unwomanly Face (US)), and the collapse of the USSE (Secondhand Time).
What’s delightful about her work is the personality she captures. It’s very much possible to read it privately placing a bet on if the narrator will be Ukrainian or not. Her work, more than any other book, will give you a taste for ordinary Ukrainian life, and the national character of its people.
Fieldwork in Ukrainian Sex by Oksana Zabuzhko
This is probably the most astonishing translation I’ve ever read (honestly, how?): a stream-of-consciousness narrative covering the unnamed poet’s recently ended affair, her lover’s abusive tendencies, and what it is to be a Ukrainian woman. It is about sex, and language, and identity, and culture, and it is not an easy read, by any means, but it is amazing.
Snegurochka by Judith Heneghan
Based on the British author’s experiences in Kiev (as the book has it), this is the claustrophobic account of a new mother wrestling with her mental health in Independent Ukraine, trying to negotiate her way around a country she doesn’t understand which operates in a language she doesn’t speak. The setting is a little lightly worn for my taste, but the writing is wonderful. If you don’t know anything about Ukraine, this is a decent (if not actually Ukrainian) place to start.
Theo Malings 
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