My reflections on the Stories from Ukraine eBook anthology series
Stories from Ukraine (2024) is an informative, engaging, and occasionally heartbreaking anthology series featuring narrative non-fiction stories. I was the copy editor for this series, having met the editor-in-chief, Victoria, during the summer of 2024. I copy edited the newly translated text (which was primarily written originally in Ukrainian) while also providing an outsider’s perspective on the project, showing how a Western reader might understand it. It was an enlightening and enriching experience that led me to learn a considerable amount about Ukraine, Russia, and their shared history, and gave me the opportunity to reflect on myself and Canada in the process.
What are these books?
Every story is written by a Ukrainian person and features a Ukrainian protagonist. Three generations are featured across the three volumes (Believers, Fighters, and Keepers), covering people of all ages.
Believers features protagonists who range from teenagers to people in their early to mid 20s. The stories in this volume feature a surprising breadth of experiences for such a small age span, but the same spirit that has fueled this nation’s fighting ability is clearly present in the young people highlighted in these narratives.
The cover of the first volume of Stories from Ukraine, titled “Believers.”
In Fighters, the protagonists are more established—people from their late twenties through the next stages of adulthoods. Their decisions are affected by many variables: family needs, home ownership, career ambitions, leaving Ukraine, being caretakers, personal relationships, and, unfortunately, being drafted. This generation either saw the emergence or grew up with the promise of post-Soviet independence, and they have had to fight for Ukraine and its potential ever since.
In Keepers, we learn about the oldest generation of Ukrainians alive today, those roughly 60 and older. This generation lived under the former Soviet Union, often for many years, before the independence of the 1990s and the subsequent turmoil and war of the modern era. They maintain the traditions and history, even if they have done so quietly, either because of shame or fear.
What’s Russia got to do with them?
The stories are either overtly or more subtly guided by the effects of the Russian-Ukrainian war, with a focus on the phase that began with the Russian invasion on February 24, 2022. Progressing through the stories, we learn about the wide variety of ways that Russia has continually affected every generation of Ukrainians living today. For example, many references in Believers refer to 2014, when Crimea was occupied and annexed. Students reflect on their memories of the military in the streets at that time and how it compares to today’s military presence.
We also learn about the next generation’s life of protest with the Orange Revolution in 2004, which saw the country erupt in protest of a fixed election for a pro-Russian candidate. These protests were followed by renewed efforts in 2013 and 2014, and again since 2022. Finally, in Keepers, we learn about how Ukrainians have been resisting (or not) Russian efforts to, if not eliminate, at least diminish the Ukrainian culture and language. One of my favourite elements of these volumes is learning about people who spoke Russian for their entire lives, but now in their 60s and 70s are learning and speaking Ukrainian fluently as a matter of protest and moral right.
The cover of the second volume of Stories from Ukraine, titled “Fighters.”
My changed impressions of these stories , and who the Ukrainian people are.
These stories contain a lot of dates, the most significant being February 24, 2022: the date of the full-scale invasion of Russia into Ukraine. With each date, I was given the opportunity to pause and reflect. We learn about events in 2013 and 2014, when the Euromaidan protests were followed by the Revolution of Dignity response to Ukrainian leaders seeking closer ties with Russia. These protests were quickly followed by the occupation and annexation of Crimea, which triggered the real beginning of the current war.
I reflected on how I was finishing my Bachelors of Arts degree at that time, struggling to find a job until I eventually got a contract with a large corporation that turned into a full-time gig. I remember those days for myself clearly, the uncertainty of my early 20s. Meanwhile, in Ukraine, there were protests and war.
In each volume, we go back to the Orange Revolution in late 2004 to January 2005, which erupted in protest to corrupt politicians. I reflected on how I was finishing up high school at that time, vaguely aware of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and little else, mostly focused on the usual things that young teenagers are focused on. Meanwhile in Ukraine, there were protests and war.
When I read about major cities like Kyiv being bombed, I mentally substituted them with the major cities in my life, Toronto or Montreal. As I read about the effects on citizens, students, workers, and soldiers, as I read about libraries being destroyed and power struggles, about the differences between living in the suburbs and the downtown cores and so on, I could imagine what all that would mean in my own cities. With wars happening a few hundred kilometres (or less) away from the cities, I could substitute other cities and imagine what it would feel like to know that Kingston or Sudbury or Ottawa or Halifax were under occupation or being assaulted daily. What if the Skyway bridge in Hamilton was hit with a rocket every day for years? Would I drive over it to get to work? When schools were destroyed, I could imagine any of my former schools being destroyed. Schools under occupation could be the schools of the children of my friends and family.
By reading through more than 20 stories across the three volumes, I found that the Ukrainian people and their amazing achievements in the Russian-Ukrainian war became very personalized. I loved working through these stories because they were always so personal, specific, and unique. I thought that there would perhaps be a lot of stories about soldiers, or a lot of harrowing scenes of bombings, injury, and death, and those stories are present, including the first story of the first volume. However, I learned about the wide range of responses by Ukrainians, along with the many different ways that it affected people. I could understand and imagine broad issues of war, even if I don’t fully understand them, like the worry or fact of displacement or the fear of attack, but these stories provide a greater scope of how war affects people, and the many ways that people can respond.
One story that has stayed with me is the account of Olena in “Olena: A Story about Disappearing Water, Stubbornness, and the Pink Coral Necklace” by Kateryna Mikhalitsyna. In one of the narratives, we met Olena, who left her successful career as a lawyer to take care of the many dogs that have been abandoned by people escaping the war. She lives with and cares for the “homeless and abandoned dogs of Nikopol and the surrounding area,” even though she was afraid of dogs for most of her life. She had already established a shelter called “Chance for Life” in 2017, but after the full-scale war began, she decided to devote her attention full-time to war-affected animals. I had never previously considered the pets of refugees or victims of war. One of my own volunteer roles is as a dog foster for rescues, so this was an issue that I could relate to. It was commendable that someone would see the need and answer the call, choosing to be there for these animals. Olena says that “human faithfulness, along with the fact that people can just abandon, or, on the contrary, take away a trusting being that depends on you and hopes for you, bothers her more than Russian artillery.”
The cover of the third volume of Stories from Ukraine, titled “Keepers.”
Reflecting back
When I consider war, I tend to focus on the struggles and moral difficulties of battle. It is a privilege to only have to consider war as a hypothetical, but the Stories from Ukraine series provided an opportunity to consider many other lenses while doing so. But the war is only one component of these stories; the most important thing is the Ukrainian people themselves, their spirit and their customs, taking their time to share their stories and the truth of their experience. I learned an incredible amount about Ukraine, and it made me appreciate these people and their unique culture, as well as their commitment and love for their land, which runs so deep and clearly through the stories.
It made me reflect on Canada and Canadians in the process and my feelings about this country. What would Canada do if there was a full-scale invasion from a superpower neighbour? Could we resist and fight back? Would I give everything to defend the Canadian way of life, the Canadian culture? Do I care enough about the land? What would I give up? And what would everyone else do?
Meanwhile, in Ukraine and many other parts of the world, there are still protests, and there is still war.
Stories from Ukraine is available now on Amazon for e-readers.
This three-volume series is the ambitious first book release by Kovyla Publishing. They are a Ukrainian publishing house whose goal is to present Ukrainian stories written by Ukrainians, but for Western audiences and written in the English language.
You can learn more about Kovyla Publishing by reading our interview with Victoria Narizhna, the editor-in-chief at Kovyla Publishing (coming soon).
Learn more about the publisher of Stories from Ukraine, Kovyla Publishing, on their website.
Written by Matthew Long
Edited by APT Editing