https://blue.feedland.org/?river=http://data.feedland.org/blue/feeds/@Komarnyckyj.xml It's just a feed for now Wed, 27 Nov 2024 12:21:04 GMT feedland v0.6.43 https://cyber.harvard.edu/rss/rss.html Wed, 27 Nov 2024 12:21:04 GMT http://rpc.rsscloud.io:5337/pleaseNotify Wed, November 27, 2024 7:21 AM EST <p>A thread on Ukrainian literature and the genocide of Ukrainians last century.</p> <p>In 1962, the poet Vasyl Symonenko was walking in Bykivnia forest near Kyiv when he saw some boys playing football with a human skull. The graves of a vast number of Ukrainians, who had been murdered by the Soviets, were concealed among the trees. The skull had perhaps been exposed by erosion and surfaced like a dirty secret. Prior to the fall of the Soviet Union, the authorities had suppressed the truth about the mass executions of the 1930s. However, many of the trees are now adorned with embroidered scarves and the photographs of people believed to be buried there. The families of the dead can at least commemorate their loss. Similarly, the rural population, and those members of their family who had survived and moved to the city, were able to begin discussing the Holodomor, or genocide famine, of 1932-1933.</p> <p>Rafael Lemkin described what happened in Ukraine during the 1930s as the “classic example of Soviet genocide”. The Soviet state sought to destroy Ukraine as a nation by targeting sections of the population. They exterminated the peasantry by means of an organised famine, now known as the Holodomor. The country’s artistic and literary elite was also targeted. In both cases, a deniable mechanism was deployed.</p> <p>Stalin’s New Year’s telegram of 1 January 1933 initiated food requisitioning across Ukraine. He knew that there was no food to requisition and the measure would initiate wholesale confiscations of anything that might be edible. Pots of stew were overturned and flower seeds were destroyed. A subsequent directive on 22 January 1933 confined the peasants within the borders of Ukraine and the Ukrainian enclave of the Kuban. The pretext was that they were spreading anti-Soviet agitation.</p> <p>The assault on Ukraine’s authors was more complex but comprised arrests on spurious charges and being dispatched to a labour camp or shot. During the 1920s, the Soviet state had actually encouraged Ukrainian in public life as it sought to gain the trust of the local population. The policy of governing in a republic’s native language was applied across the Soviet Union. However, because Ukrainian had been repressed under the Tsars, the result was a veritable volcano of uninhibited artistic expression, a true renaissance. The Tsars had arrested and exiled Ukraine’s national poet Taras Shevchenko and largely prohibited the language under the Ems Ukaz of 1876. Now authors, who were free to create in their native tongue, initiated an exuberant style which critic Yurii Lavrinenko termed “Clarinetism”. The term derives from Pavlo Tychyna’s 1919 collection Solar Clarinets. The aesthetic exuberance of these authors would form one of the pretexts for the arrest of several of their number.</p> <p>The wave of arrests and executions that swept Ukraine from 1930 onwards was targetted at crushing Ukrainian identity. The initial arrests and trials involved accusing authors and academics of being members of a “Union for the Liberation of Ukraine”. During the years that followed writers were arrested on various, often absurd, charges. They were shot or sent to labour camps to die of malnutrition, hypothermia, and/or exhaustion. However, the culling of the nation’s literary intelligentsia was never openly declared. A select number of the most prominent authors were terrorised into eulogising the Soviet state. These included Pavlo Tychyna, whose poems from this period read like brutal totalitarian chants; anthems to collectivisation and mass killing. Other authors evaded the bullet or the train journey to an arctic concentration camp in various ways.</p> <p>Volodymyr Svidzinskyi survived until 1941 partly by severely restricting the volume of his published work, but was murdered by the Soviets as the Nazi armies advanced across Ukraine. Mykola Bazhan, a supremely gifted poet, produced a diabolical ode to Stalin. It should be noted that the majority of these writers were not anti-soviet power and many were communists. However, they wrote in Ukrainian and that in itself threatened the regime. Mykhailo Drai-Khmara was arrested in part because of a rather beautiful sonnet entitled Swans (Lebedi). The poem described five swans migrating to freedom and was interpreted as an allusion to his own work and that of his neo-classical Ukrainian colleagues. The poem, published in my impressionistic translation in Modern Poetry in Translation’s Centres of Cataclysm anthology, is an assertion of the right to free expression. Ukrainian poetry was a threat to the Soviets not because of its content, but because it was Ukrainian and contained the promise of a liberated imagination. Ukrainians are de-colonising their own country, toppling Lenins like skittles, adorning apartment blocks with gaudy exuberant memorials. But the empire exists in the minds and hearts of foreigners. Joseph Conrad, whose roots lay in Ukraine, wrote about how Russia appeared “Under Western Eyes”. However, the West still largely sees Ukraine through Russian eyes. There is a risk that post war Russians will again control the narrative and portray their genocide of Ukrainians as a &quot;Russian tragedy&quot;. That is why deplatforming them and handing the microphone to Ukrainians matters now.</p> Wed, 27 Nov 2024 12:21:04 GMT https://blue.feedland.org/?item=787647 https://blue.feedland.org/?item=787647 A thread on Ukrainian literature and the genocide of Ukrainians last century. In 1962, the poet Vasyl Symonenko was walking in Bykivnia forest near Kyiv when he saw some boys playing football with a human skull. The graves of a vast number of Ukrainians, who had been murdered by the Soviets, were concealed among the trees. The skull had perhaps been exposed by erosion and surfaced like a dirty secret. Prior to the fall of the Soviet Union, the authorities had suppressed the truth about the mass executions of the 1930s. However, many of the trees are now adorned with embroidered scarves and the photographs of people believed to be buried there. The families of the dead can at least commemorate their loss. Similarly, the rural population, and those members of their family who had survived and moved to the city, were able to begin discussing the Holodomor, or genocide famine, of 1932-1933. Rafael Lemkin described what happened in Ukraine during the 1930s as the “classic example of Soviet genocide”. The Soviet state sought to destroy Ukraine as a nation by targeting sections of the population. They exterminated the peasantry by means of an organised famine, now known as the Holodomor. The country’s artistic and literary elite was also targeted. In both cases, a deniable mechanism was deployed. Stalin’s New Year’s telegram of 1 January 1933 initiated food requisitioning across Ukraine. He knew that there was no food to requisition and the measure would initiate wholesale confiscations of anything that might be edible. Pots of stew were overturned and flower seeds were destroyed. A subsequent directive on 22 January 1933 confined the peasants within the borders of Ukraine and the Ukrainian enclave of the Kuban. The pretext was that they were spreading anti-Soviet agitation. The assault on Ukraine’s authors was more complex but comprised arrests on spurious charges and being dispatched to a labour camp or shot. During the 1920s, the Soviet state had actually encouraged Ukrainian in public life as it sought to gain the trust of the local population. The policy of governing in a republic’s native language was applied across the Soviet Union. However, because Ukrainian had been repressed under the Tsars, the result was a veritable volcano of uninhibited artistic expression, a true renaissance. The Tsars had arrested and exiled Ukraine’s national poet Taras Shevchenko and largely prohibited the language under the Ems Ukaz of 1876. Now authors, who were free to create in their native tongue, initiated an exuberant style which critic Yurii Lavrinenko termed “Clarinetism”. The term derives from Pavlo Tychyna’s 1919 collection Solar Clarinets. The aesthetic exuberance of these authors would form one of the pretexts for the arrest of several of their number. The wave of arrests and executions that swept Ukraine from 1930 onwards was targetted at crushing Ukrainian identity. The initial arrests and trials involved accusing authors and academics of being members of a “Union for the Liberation of Ukraine”. During the years that followed writers were arrested on various, often absurd, charges. They were shot or sent to labour camps to die of malnutrition, hypothermia, and/or exhaustion. However, the culling of the nation’s literary intelligentsia was never openly declared. A select number of the most prominent authors were terrorised into eulogising the Soviet state. These included Pavlo Tychyna, whose poems from this period read like brutal totalitarian chants; anthems to collectivisation and mass killing. Other authors evaded the bullet or the train journey to an arctic concentration camp in various ways. Volodymyr Svidzinskyi survived until 1941 partly by severely restricting the volume of his published work, but was murdered by the Soviets as the Nazi armies advanced across Ukraine. Mykola Bazhan, a supremely gifted poet, produced a diabolical ode to Stalin. It should be noted that the majority of these writers were not anti-soviet power and many were communists. However, they wrote in Ukrainian and that in itself threatened the regime. Mykhailo Drai-Khmara was arrested in part because of a rather beautiful sonnet entitled Swans (Lebedi). The poem described five swans migrating to freedom and was interpreted as an allusion to his own work and that of his neo-classical Ukrainian colleagues. The poem, published in my impressionistic translation in Modern Poetry in Translation’s Centres of Cataclysm anthology, is an assertion of the right to free expression. Ukrainian poetry was a threat to the Soviets not because of its content, but because it was Ukrainian and contained the promise of a liberated imagination. Ukrainians are de-colonising their own country, toppling Lenins like skittles, adorning apartment blocks with gaudy exuberant memorials. But the empire exists in the minds and hearts of foreigners. Joseph Conrad, whose roots lay in Ukraine, wrote about how Russia appeared “Under Western Eyes”. However, the West still largely sees Ukraine through Russian eyes. There is a risk that post war Russians will again control the narrative and portray their genocide of Ukrainians as a "Russian tragedy". That is why deplatforming them and handing the microphone to Ukrainians matters now. <p>A thread on Ukrainian literature and the genocide of Ukrainians last century.</p> <p>In 1962, the poet Vasyl Symonenko was walking in Bykivnia forest near Kyiv when he saw some boys playing football with a human skull. The graves of a vast number of Ukrainians, who had been murdered by the Soviets, were concealed among the trees. The skull had perhaps been exposed by erosion and surfaced like a dirty secret. Prior to the fall of the Soviet Union, the authorities had suppressed the truth about the mass executions of the 1930s. However, many of the trees are now adorned with embroidered scarves and the photographs of people believed to be buried there. The families of the dead can at least commemorate their loss. Similarly, the rural population, and those members of their family who had survived and moved to the city, were able to begin discussing the Holodomor, or genocide famine, of 1932-1933.</p> <p>Rafael Lemkin described what happened in Ukraine during the 1930s as the “classic example of Soviet genocide”. The Soviet state sought to destroy Ukraine as a nation by targeting sections of the population. They exterminated the peasantry by means of an organised famine, now known as the Holodomor. The country’s artistic and literary elite was also targeted. In both cases, a deniable mechanism was deployed.</p> <p>Stalin’s New Year’s telegram of 1 January 1933 initiated food requisitioning across Ukraine. He knew that there was no food to requisition and the measure would initiate wholesale confiscations of anything that might be edible. Pots of stew were overturned and flower seeds were destroyed. A subsequent directive on 22 January 1933 confined the peasants within the borders of Ukraine and the Ukrainian enclave of the Kuban. The pretext was that they were spreading anti-Soviet agitation.</p> <p>The assault on Ukraine’s authors was more complex but comprised arrests on spurious charges and being dispatched to a labour camp or shot. During the 1920s, the Soviet state had actually encouraged Ukrainian in public life as it sought to gain the trust of the local population. The policy of governing in a republic’s native language was applied across the Soviet Union. However, because Ukrainian had been repressed under the Tsars, the result was a veritable volcano of uninhibited artistic expression, a true renaissance. The Tsars had arrested and exiled Ukraine’s national poet Taras Shevchenko and largely prohibited the language under the Ems Ukaz of 1876. Now authors, who were free to create in their native tongue, initiated an exuberant style which critic Yurii Lavrinenko termed “Clarinetism”. The term derives from Pavlo Tychyna’s 1919 collection Solar Clarinets. The aesthetic exuberance of these authors would form one of the pretexts for the arrest of several of their number.</p> <p>The wave of arrests and executions that swept Ukraine from 1930 onwards was targetted at crushing Ukrainian identity. The initial arrests and trials involved accusing authors and academics of being members of a “Union for the Liberation of Ukraine”. During the years that followed writers were arrested on various, often absurd, charges. They were shot or sent to labour camps to die of malnutrition, hypothermia, and/or exhaustion. However, the culling of the nation’s literary intelligentsia was never openly declared. A select number of the most prominent authors were terrorised into eulogising the Soviet state. These included Pavlo Tychyna, whose poems from this period read like brutal totalitarian chants; anthems to collectivisation and mass killing. Other authors evaded the bullet or the train journey to an arctic concentration camp in various ways.</p> <p>Volodymyr Svidzinskyi survived until 1941 partly by severely restricting the volume of his published work, but was murdered by the Soviets as the Nazi armies advanced across Ukraine. Mykola Bazhan, a supremely gifted poet, produced a diabolical ode to Stalin. It should be noted that the majority of these writers were not anti-soviet power and many were communists. However, they wrote in Ukrainian and that in itself threatened the regime. Mykhailo Drai-Khmara was arrested in part because of a rather beautiful sonnet entitled Swans (Lebedi). The poem described five swans migrating to freedom and was interpreted as an allusion to his own work and that of his neo-classical Ukrainian colleagues. The poem, published in my impressionistic translation in Modern Poetry in Translation’s Centres of Cataclysm anthology, is an assertion of the right to free expression. Ukrainian poetry was a threat to the Soviets not because of its content, but because it was Ukrainian and contained the promise of a liberated imagination. Ukrainians are de-colonising their own country, toppling Lenins like skittles, adorning apartment blocks with gaudy exuberant memorials. But the empire exists in the minds and hearts of foreigners. Joseph Conrad, whose roots lay in Ukraine, wrote about how Russia appeared “Under Western Eyes”. However, the West still largely sees Ukraine through Russian eyes. There is a risk that post war Russians will again control the narrative and portray their genocide of Ukrainians as a &quot;Russian tragedy&quot;. That is why deplatforming them and handing the microphone to Ukrainians matters now.</p> Sat, 23 Nov 2024 12:00:04 GMT https://blue.feedland.org/?item=787571 https://blue.feedland.org/?item=787571 A thread on Ukrainian literature and the genocide of Ukrainians last century. In 1962, the poet Vasyl Symonenko was walking in Bykivnia forest near Kyiv when he saw some boys playing football with a human skull. The graves of a vast number of Ukrainians, who had been murdered by the Soviets, were concealed among the trees. The skull had perhaps been exposed by erosion and surfaced like a dirty secret. Prior to the fall of the Soviet Union, the authorities had suppressed the truth about the mass executions of the 1930s. However, many of the trees are now adorned with embroidered scarves and the photographs of people believed to be buried there. The families of the dead can at least commemorate their loss. Similarly, the rural population, and those members of their family who had survived and moved to the city, were able to begin discussing the Holodomor, or genocide famine, of 1932-1933. Rafael Lemkin described what happened in Ukraine during the 1930s as the “classic example of Soviet genocide”. The Soviet state sought to destroy Ukraine as a nation by targeting sections of the population. They exterminated the peasantry by means of an organised famine, now known as the Holodomor. The country’s artistic and literary elite was also targeted. In both cases, a deniable mechanism was deployed. Stalin’s New Year’s telegram of 1 January 1933 initiated food requisitioning across Ukraine. He knew that there was no food to requisition and the measure would initiate wholesale confiscations of anything that might be edible. Pots of stew were overturned and flower seeds were destroyed. A subsequent directive on 22 January 1933 confined the peasants within the borders of Ukraine and the Ukrainian enclave of the Kuban. The pretext was that they were spreading anti-Soviet agitation. The assault on Ukraine’s authors was more complex but comprised arrests on spurious charges and being dispatched to a labour camp or shot. During the 1920s, the Soviet state had actually encouraged Ukrainian in public life as it sought to gain the trust of the local population. The policy of governing in a republic’s native language was applied across the Soviet Union. However, because Ukrainian had been repressed under the Tsars, the result was a veritable volcano of uninhibited artistic expression, a true renaissance. The Tsars had arrested and exiled Ukraine’s national poet Taras Shevchenko and largely prohibited the language under the Ems Ukaz of 1876. Now authors, who were free to create in their native tongue, initiated an exuberant style which critic Yurii Lavrinenko termed “Clarinetism”. The term derives from Pavlo Tychyna’s 1919 collection Solar Clarinets. The aesthetic exuberance of these authors would form one of the pretexts for the arrest of several of their number. The wave of arrests and executions that swept Ukraine from 1930 onwards was targetted at crushing Ukrainian identity. The initial arrests and trials involved accusing authors and academics of being members of a “Union for the Liberation of Ukraine”. During the years that followed writers were arrested on various, often absurd, charges. They were shot or sent to labour camps to die of malnutrition, hypothermia, and/or exhaustion. However, the culling of the nation’s literary intelligentsia was never openly declared. A select number of the most prominent authors were terrorised into eulogising the Soviet state. These included Pavlo Tychyna, whose poems from this period read like brutal totalitarian chants; anthems to collectivisation and mass killing. Other authors evaded the bullet or the train journey to an arctic concentration camp in various ways. Volodymyr Svidzinskyi survived until 1941 partly by severely restricting the volume of his published work, but was murdered by the Soviets as the Nazi armies advanced across Ukraine. Mykola Bazhan, a supremely gifted poet, produced a diabolical ode to Stalin. It should be noted that the majority of these writers were not anti-soviet power and many were communists. However, they wrote in Ukrainian and that in itself threatened the regime. Mykhailo Drai-Khmara was arrested in part because of a rather beautiful sonnet entitled Swans (Lebedi). The poem described five swans migrating to freedom and was interpreted as an allusion to his own work and that of his neo-classical Ukrainian colleagues. The poem, published in my impressionistic translation in Modern Poetry in Translation’s Centres of Cataclysm anthology, is an assertion of the right to free expression. Ukrainian poetry was a threat to the Soviets not because of its content, but because it was Ukrainian and contained the promise of a liberated imagination. Ukrainians are de-colonising their own country, toppling Lenins like skittles, adorning apartment blocks with gaudy exuberant memorials. But the empire exists in the minds and hearts of foreigners. Joseph Conrad, whose roots lay in Ukraine, wrote about how Russia appeared “Under Western Eyes”. However, the West still largely sees Ukraine through Russian eyes. There is a risk that post war Russians will again control the narrative and portray their genocide of Ukrainians as a "Russian tragedy". That is why deplatforming them and handing the microphone to Ukrainians matters now. <p>A thread on Ukrainian literature and the genocide of Ukrainians last century.</p> <p>In 1962, the poet Vasyl Symonenko was walking in Bykivnia forest near Kyiv when he saw some boys playing football with a human skull. The graves of a vast number of Ukrainians, who had been murdered by the Soviets, were concealed among the trees. The skull had perhaps been exposed by erosion and surfaced like a dirty secret. Prior to the fall of the Soviet Union, the authorities had suppressed the truth about the mass executions of the 1930s. However, many of the trees are now adorned with embroidered scarves and the photographs of people believed to be buried there. The families of the dead can at least commemorate their loss. Similarly, the rural population, and those members of their family who had survived and moved to the city, were able to begin discussing the Holodomor, or genocide famine, of 1932-1933.</p> <p>Rafael Lemkin described what happened in Ukraine during the 1930s as the “classic example of Soviet genocide”. The Soviet state sought to destroy Ukraine as a nation by targeting sections of the population. They exterminated the peasantry by means of an organised famine, now known as the Holodomor. The country’s artistic and literary elite was also targeted. In both cases, a deniable mechanism was deployed.</p> <p>Stalin’s New Year’s telegram of 1 January 1933 initiated food requisitioning across Ukraine. He knew that there was no food to requisition and the measure would initiate wholesale confiscations of anything that might be edible. Pots of stew were overturned and flower seeds were destroyed. A subsequent directive on 22 January 1933 confined the peasants within the borders of Ukraine and the Ukrainian enclave of the Kuban. The pretext was that they were spreading anti-Soviet agitation.</p> <p>The assault on Ukraine’s authors was more complex but comprised arrests on spurious charges and being dispatched to a labour camp or shot. During the 1920s, the Soviet state had actually encouraged Ukrainian in public life as it sought to gain the trust of the local population. The policy of governing in a republic’s native language was applied across the Soviet Union. However, because Ukrainian had been repressed under the Tsars, the result was a veritable volcano of uninhibited artistic expression, a true renaissance. The Tsars had arrested and exiled Ukraine’s national poet Taras Shevchenko and largely prohibited the language under the Ems Ukaz of 1876. Now authors, who were free to create in their native tongue, initiated an exuberant style which critic Yurii Lavrinenko termed “Clarinetism”. The term derives from Pavlo Tychyna’s 1919 collection Solar Clarinets. The aesthetic exuberance of these authors would form one of the pretexts for the arrest of several of their number.</p> <p>The wave of arrests and executions that swept Ukraine from 1930 onwards was targetted at crushing Ukrainian identity. The initial arrests and trials involved accusing authors and academics of being members of a “Union for the Liberation of Ukraine”. During the years that followed writers were arrested on various, often absurd, charges. They were shot or sent to labour camps to die of malnutrition, hypothermia, and/or exhaustion. However, the culling of the nation’s literary intelligentsia was never openly declared. A select number of the most prominent authors were terrorised into eulogising the Soviet state. These included Pavlo Tychyna, whose poems from this period read like brutal totalitarian chants; anthems to collectivisation and mass killing. Other authors evaded the bullet or the train journey to an arctic concentration camp in various ways.</p> <p>Volodymyr Svidzinskyi survived until 1941 partly by severely restricting the volume of his published work, but was murdered by the Soviets as the Nazi armies advanced across Ukraine. Mykola Bazhan, a supremely gifted poet, produced a diabolical ode to Stalin. It should be noted that the majority of these writers were not anti-soviet power and many were communists. However, they wrote in Ukrainian and that in itself threatened the regime. Mykhailo Drai-Khmara was arrested in part because of a rather beautiful sonnet entitled Swans (Lebedi). The poem described five swans migrating to freedom and was interpreted as an allusion to his own work and that of his neo-classical Ukrainian colleagues. The poem, published in my impressionistic translation in Modern Poetry in Translation’s Centres of Cataclysm anthology, is an assertion of the right to free expression. Ukrainian poetry was a threat to the Soviets not because of its content, but because it was Ukrainian and contained the promise of a liberated imagination. Ukrainians are de-colonising their own country, toppling Lenins like skittles, adorning apartment blocks with gaudy exuberant memorials. But the empire exists in the minds and hearts of foreigners. Joseph Conrad, whose roots lay in Ukraine, wrote about how Russia appeared “Under Western Eyes”. However, the West still largely sees Ukraine through Russian eyes. There is a risk that post war Russians will again control the narrative and portray their genocide of Ukrainians as a &quot;Russian tragedy&quot;. That is why deplatforming them and handing the microphone to Ukrainians matters now.</p> Fri, 22 Nov 2024 14:46:29 GMT https://blue.feedland.org/?item=787562 https://blue.feedland.org/?item=787562 A thread on Ukrainian literature and the genocide of Ukrainians last century. In 1962, the poet Vasyl Symonenko was walking in Bykivnia forest near Kyiv when he saw some boys playing football with a human skull. The graves of a vast number of Ukrainians, who had been murdered by the Soviets, were concealed among the trees. The skull had perhaps been exposed by erosion and surfaced like a dirty secret. Prior to the fall of the Soviet Union, the authorities had suppressed the truth about the mass executions of the 1930s. However, many of the trees are now adorned with embroidered scarves and the photographs of people believed to be buried there. The families of the dead can at least commemorate their loss. Similarly, the rural population, and those members of their family who had survived and moved to the city, were able to begin discussing the Holodomor, or genocide famine, of 1932-1933. Rafael Lemkin described what happened in Ukraine during the 1930s as the “classic example of Soviet genocide”. The Soviet state sought to destroy Ukraine as a nation by targeting sections of the population. They exterminated the peasantry by means of an organised famine, now known as the Holodomor. The country’s artistic and literary elite was also targeted. In both cases, a deniable mechanism was deployed. Stalin’s New Year’s telegram of 1 January 1933 initiated food requisitioning across Ukraine. He knew that there was no food to requisition and the measure would initiate wholesale confiscations of anything that might be edible. Pots of stew were overturned and flower seeds were destroyed. A subsequent directive on 22 January 1933 confined the peasants within the borders of Ukraine and the Ukrainian enclave of the Kuban. The pretext was that they were spreading anti-Soviet agitation. The assault on Ukraine’s authors was more complex but comprised arrests on spurious charges and being dispatched to a labour camp or shot. During the 1920s, the Soviet state had actually encouraged Ukrainian in public life as it sought to gain the trust of the local population. The policy of governing in a republic’s native language was applied across the Soviet Union. However, because Ukrainian had been repressed under the Tsars, the result was a veritable volcano of uninhibited artistic expression, a true renaissance. The Tsars had arrested and exiled Ukraine’s national poet Taras Shevchenko and largely prohibited the language under the Ems Ukaz of 1876. Now authors, who were free to create in their native tongue, initiated an exuberant style which critic Yurii Lavrinenko termed “Clarinetism”. The term derives from Pavlo Tychyna’s 1919 collection Solar Clarinets. The aesthetic exuberance of these authors would form one of the pretexts for the arrest of several of their number. The wave of arrests and executions that swept Ukraine from 1930 onwards was targetted at crushing Ukrainian identity. The initial arrests and trials involved accusing authors and academics of being members of a “Union for the Liberation of Ukraine”. During the years that followed writers were arrested on various, often absurd, charges. They were shot or sent to labour camps to die of malnutrition, hypothermia, and/or exhaustion. However, the culling of the nation’s literary intelligentsia was never openly declared. A select number of the most prominent authors were terrorised into eulogising the Soviet state. These included Pavlo Tychyna, whose poems from this period read like brutal totalitarian chants; anthems to collectivisation and mass killing. Other authors evaded the bullet or the train journey to an arctic concentration camp in various ways. Volodymyr Svidzinskyi survived until 1941 partly by severely restricting the volume of his published work, but was murdered by the Soviets as the Nazi armies advanced across Ukraine. Mykola Bazhan, a supremely gifted poet, produced a diabolical ode to Stalin. It should be noted that the majority of these writers were not anti-soviet power and many were communists. However, they wrote in Ukrainian and that in itself threatened the regime. Mykhailo Drai-Khmara was arrested in part because of a rather beautiful sonnet entitled Swans (Lebedi). The poem described five swans migrating to freedom and was interpreted as an allusion to his own work and that of his neo-classical Ukrainian colleagues. The poem, published in my impressionistic translation in Modern Poetry in Translation’s Centres of Cataclysm anthology, is an assertion of the right to free expression. Ukrainian poetry was a threat to the Soviets not because of its content, but because it was Ukrainian and contained the promise of a liberated imagination. Ukrainians are de-colonising their own country, toppling Lenins like skittles, adorning apartment blocks with gaudy exuberant memorials. But the empire exists in the minds and hearts of foreigners. Joseph Conrad, whose roots lay in Ukraine, wrote about how Russia appeared “Under Western Eyes”. However, the West still largely sees Ukraine through Russian eyes. There is a risk that post war Russians will again control the narrative and portray their genocide of Ukrainians as a "Russian tragedy". That is why deplatforming them and handing the microphone to Ukrainians matters now. <p>A thread on Ukrainian literature and the genocide of Ukrainians last century.</p> <p>In 1962, the poet Vasyl Symonenko was walking in Bykivnia forest near Kyiv when he saw some boys playing football with a human skull. The graves of a vast number of Ukrainians, who had been murdered by the Soviets, were concealed among the trees. The skull had perhaps been exposed by erosion and surfaced like a dirty secret. Prior to the fall of the Soviet Union, the authorities had suppressed the truth about the mass executions of the 1930s. However, many of the trees are now adorned with embroidered scarves and the photographs of people believed to be buried there. The families of the dead can at least commemorate their loss. Similarly, the rural population, and those members of their family who had survived and moved to the city, were able to begin discussing the Holodomor, or genocide famine, of 1932-1933.</p> <p>Rafael Lemkin described what happened in Ukraine during the 1930s as the “classic example of Soviet genocide”. The Soviet state sought to destroy Ukraine as a nation by targeting sections of the population. They exterminated the peasantry by means of an organised famine, now known as the Holodomor. The country’s artistic and literary elite was also targeted. In both cases, a deniable mechanism was deployed.</p> <p>Stalin’s New Year’s telegram of 1 January 1933 initiated food requisitioning across Ukraine. He knew that there was no food to requisition and the measure would initiate wholesale confiscations of anything that might be edible. Pots of stew were overturned and flower seeds were destroyed. A subsequent directive on 22 January 1933 confined the peasants within the borders of Ukraine and the Ukrainian enclave of the Kuban. The pretext was that they were spreading anti-Soviet agitation.</p> <p>The assault on Ukraine’s authors was more complex but comprised arrests on spurious charges and being dispatched to a labour camp or shot. During the 1920s, the Soviet state had actually encouraged Ukrainian in public life as it sought to gain the trust of the local population. The policy of governing in a republic’s native language was applied across the Soviet Union. However, because Ukrainian had been repressed under the Tsars, the result was a veritable volcano of uninhibited artistic expression, a true renaissance. The Tsars had arrested and exiled Ukraine’s national poet Taras Shevchenko and largely prohibited the language under the Ems Ukaz of 1876. Now authors, who were free to create in their native tongue, initiated an exuberant style which critic Yurii Lavrinenko termed “Clarinetism”. The term derives from Pavlo Tychyna’s 1919 collection Solar Clarinets. The aesthetic exuberance of these authors would form one of the pretexts for the arrest of several of their number.</p> <p>The wave of arrests and executions that swept Ukraine from 1930 onwards was targetted at crushing Ukrainian identity. The initial arrests and trials involved accusing authors and academics of being members of a “Union for the Liberation of Ukraine”. During the years that followed writers were arrested on various, often absurd, charges. They were shot or sent to labour camps to die of malnutrition, hypothermia, and/or exhaustion. However, the culling of the nation’s literary intelligentsia was never openly declared. A select number of the most prominent authors were terrorised into eulogising the Soviet state. These included Pavlo Tychyna, whose poems from this period read like brutal totalitarian chants; anthems to collectivisation and mass killing. Other authors evaded the bullet or the train journey to an arctic concentration camp in various ways.</p> <p>Volodymyr Svidzinskyi survived until 1941 partly by severely restricting the volume of his published work, but was murdered by the Soviets as the Nazi armies advanced across Ukraine. Mykola Bazhan, a supremely gifted poet, produced a diabolical ode to Stalin. It should be noted that the majority of these writers were not anti-soviet power and many were communists. However, they wrote in Ukrainian and that in itself threatened the regime. Mykhailo Drai-Khmara was arrested in part because of a rather beautiful sonnet entitled Swans (Lebedi). The poem described five swans migrating to freedom and was interpreted as an allusion to his own work and that of his neo-classical Ukrainian colleagues. The poem, published in my impressionistic translation in Modern Poetry in Translation’s Centres of Cataclysm anthology, is an assertion of the right to free expression. Ukrainian poetry was a threat to the Soviets not because of its content, but because it was Ukrainian and contained the promise of a liberated imagination. Ukrainians are de-colonising their own country, toppling Lenins like skittles, adorning apartment blocks with gaudy exuberant memorials. But the empire exists in the minds and hearts of foreigners. Joseph Conrad, whose roots lay in Ukraine, wrote about how Russia appeared “Under Western Eyes”. However, the West still largely sees Ukraine through Russian eyes. There is a risk that post war Russians will again control the narrative and portray their genocide of Ukrainians as a &quot;Russian tragedy&quot;. That is why deplatforming them and handing the microphone to Ukrainians matters now.</p> Fri, 22 Nov 2024 14:43:54 GMT https://blue.feedland.org/?item=787560 https://blue.feedland.org/?item=787560 A thread on Ukrainian literature and the genocide of Ukrainians last century. In 1962, the poet Vasyl Symonenko was walking in Bykivnia forest near Kyiv when he saw some boys playing football with a human skull. The graves of a vast number of Ukrainians, who had been murdered by the Soviets, were concealed among the trees. The skull had perhaps been exposed by erosion and surfaced like a dirty secret. Prior to the fall of the Soviet Union, the authorities had suppressed the truth about the mass executions of the 1930s. However, many of the trees are now adorned with embroidered scarves and the photographs of people believed to be buried there. The families of the dead can at least commemorate their loss. Similarly, the rural population, and those members of their family who had survived and moved to the city, were able to begin discussing the Holodomor, or genocide famine, of 1932-1933. Rafael Lemkin described what happened in Ukraine during the 1930s as the “classic example of Soviet genocide”. The Soviet state sought to destroy Ukraine as a nation by targeting sections of the population. They exterminated the peasantry by means of an organised famine, now known as the Holodomor. The country’s artistic and literary elite was also targeted. In both cases, a deniable mechanism was deployed. Stalin’s New Year’s telegram of 1 January 1933 initiated food requisitioning across Ukraine. He knew that there was no food to requisition and the measure would initiate wholesale confiscations of anything that might be edible. Pots of stew were overturned and flower seeds were destroyed. A subsequent directive on 22 January 1933 confined the peasants within the borders of Ukraine and the Ukrainian enclave of the Kuban. The pretext was that they were spreading anti-Soviet agitation. The assault on Ukraine’s authors was more complex but comprised arrests on spurious charges and being dispatched to a labour camp or shot. During the 1920s, the Soviet state had actually encouraged Ukrainian in public life as it sought to gain the trust of the local population. The policy of governing in a republic’s native language was applied across the Soviet Union. However, because Ukrainian had been repressed under the Tsars, the result was a veritable volcano of uninhibited artistic expression, a true renaissance. The Tsars had arrested and exiled Ukraine’s national poet Taras Shevchenko and largely prohibited the language under the Ems Ukaz of 1876. Now authors, who were free to create in their native tongue, initiated an exuberant style which critic Yurii Lavrinenko termed “Clarinetism”. The term derives from Pavlo Tychyna’s 1919 collection Solar Clarinets. The aesthetic exuberance of these authors would form one of the pretexts for the arrest of several of their number. The wave of arrests and executions that swept Ukraine from 1930 onwards was targetted at crushing Ukrainian identity. The initial arrests and trials involved accusing authors and academics of being members of a “Union for the Liberation of Ukraine”. During the years that followed writers were arrested on various, often absurd, charges. They were shot or sent to labour camps to die of malnutrition, hypothermia, and/or exhaustion. However, the culling of the nation’s literary intelligentsia was never openly declared. A select number of the most prominent authors were terrorised into eulogising the Soviet state. These included Pavlo Tychyna, whose poems from this period read like brutal totalitarian chants; anthems to collectivisation and mass killing. Other authors evaded the bullet or the train journey to an arctic concentration camp in various ways. Volodymyr Svidzinskyi survived until 1941 partly by severely restricting the volume of his published work, but was murdered by the Soviets as the Nazi armies advanced across Ukraine. Mykola Bazhan, a supremely gifted poet, produced a diabolical ode to Stalin. It should be noted that the majority of these writers were not anti-soviet power and many were communists. However, they wrote in Ukrainian and that in itself threatened the regime. Mykhailo Drai-Khmara was arrested in part because of a rather beautiful sonnet entitled Swans (Lebedi). The poem described five swans migrating to freedom and was interpreted as an allusion to his own work and that of his neo-classical Ukrainian colleagues. The poem, published in my impressionistic translation in Modern Poetry in Translation’s Centres of Cataclysm anthology, is an assertion of the right to free expression. Ukrainian poetry was a threat to the Soviets not because of its content, but because it was Ukrainian and contained the promise of a liberated imagination. Ukrainians are de-colonising their own country, toppling Lenins like skittles, adorning apartment blocks with gaudy exuberant memorials. But the empire exists in the minds and hearts of foreigners. Joseph Conrad, whose roots lay in Ukraine, wrote about how Russia appeared “Under Western Eyes”. However, the West still largely sees Ukraine through Russian eyes. There is a risk that post war Russians will again control the narrative and portray their genocide of Ukrainians as a "Russian tragedy". That is why deplatforming them and handing the microphone to Ukrainians matters now. <p>Another thread from &quot;Raven&#39;s Way&quot; my translation of Vasyl Shkliar&#39;s magic realist novel of the Ukrainian war of independence set in the 1920s and published by Kalyna Language Press. This book will help you see #Ukraine in a way that no bloodless history can. We join Cossack rebel Raven after he has been separated from his soldiers during a battle with the Bolsheviks.</p> <p>‘Return With The Dawn’. A persistent melancholy had taken over Raven’s spirit after he had met her. She who had shamed him, a brave officer with three Georgian Crosses on his breast, and awakened his sleeping sense of honour.</p> <p>Raven, who was then known as Staff Captain Chornousov because the army required him to use the Russian version of his name, had already graduated from the Omsk School of Standard Bearers. He had been involved in the wars ‘For Tsar and Fatherland’ and the ‘Spirit of Kerensky’, and had requested to enlist with the ‘Death or Glory’ Battalion. He had been close to death more than once and was awarded his first medal because, while under fire from the Germans, he had freed three dead junkers from the barbed wire that ensnared them.</p> <p>On the eve of the February Revolution fate rewarded him by his assignment to the second division, which was based in Uman, fifty versts away from his childhood home. When he arrived at the division’s staff office he entered the chancellery and the duty officer formulated his documents. It was here that the event, which revived his spirit so fatigued and battered by war, was waiting for him.</p> <p>There were two young ladies sitting in the room, who whispered to each other between spurts of laughter. One of them looked at the unfamiliar staff captain in such a way that he began to stammer when he spoke. Her grey, smiling eyes, her short, blond hair and ... well you do not need to ask any more! The neatly arranged blouse with a black cravat, the diaphanous mesh of her skirt and below</p> <p>... restrain yourselves gentlemen officers. The rose-coloured, delicate stockings were tightly guarded by the stiletto heels of her shoes. Even the most fashionable ladies in Moscow would not have been able to compete with her beauty.</p> <p>Staff Captain Chornousov replied in Russian to the questions of the lieutenant, stuttering as if confused, ‘In Moscow I was assigned to the 8th Grenadier Brigade ...’</p> <p>‘One moment.’ The wonderful apparition in rose-coloured stockings interrupted him. ‘Why are you talking like a Muscovite? You’re Ukrainian aren’t you?’</p> <p>The cavalier with the Georgian Crosses clammed up. Was she ridiculing him? Did they make these kind of jokes here? In his confusion he directed his gaze towards the staff officer on whose face a conspiratorial smile was forming.</p> <p>‘Well, if truth be told,’ said the lieutenant in Ukrainian, lowering his hands onto the desk, ‘our time has come. The army is being Ukrainianised. We have to seize the moment. Where do you want to serve, in Uman or maybe in Cherkasy?’</p> <p>‘In Cherkasy,’ he replied after a moment’s thought. He would be nearer home there.</p> <p>‘Well, that’s good. There is a position in the 290th Brigade.’ ‘Thank you. On an occasion like this allow me to request that</p> <p>you partake in a glass of Champagne gentle ladies and lieutenant.’ He turned to the ladies but he could only see one of them</p> <p>and there was now a curious, rather than an amused, look in her grey eyes. Perhaps this was because he had requested to serve in Cherkasy rather than a prestigious town like Uman where beautiful, noble ladies were found; even in the headquarters of the military.</p> <p>‘Let me make your acquaintance,’ he said, both excited and pleased that his native language was returning from his remote past.</p> <p>‘Afanasii Karpovych Kalyuzhnyi.’ The lieutenant practically jumped from behind the chancellery table. He straightened his body and stretched out his hand as he clicked his heels. ‘I have been wondering why my nose has been itching from this morning onwards. Yes, permit me to be presented to you and to present my staff. These are our ... err ... colleagues on the battalion staff.’</p> <p>Manyunia, the lady with bright crimson lipstick and a fake beauty spot, made a gracious curtsey, lifting her slender wrist almost to his lips. He took her hand, but before he kissed it he asked, ‘Manyunia, in other words Maria?’</p> <p>‘No,’ she smiled, ‘simply Manyunia.’</p> <p>Oh, this was yet a trifling bit of banter, otherwise he would not have joked with her. He noticed the lady with the aristocratic eyes, in whose presence Manyunia disappeared, along with her beauty spot.</p> <p>‘Tina.’ She offered him a slender, cold hand, which he clasped in his before asking stupidly, ‘Tina, that’s Valentina?’</p> <p>‘Tina, that’s me,’ she said.</p> <p>In the evening they dined at Restaurant Sofia, not far from Sofiyivka Park, the famous park in Uman where Prince Potocki had once poured mountains of sugar so he could take his capricious Sofia for a ride on a sledge in the summer. Staff Captain Chornovus, for he proudly recommenced using his Ukrainian name, reserved Abrau ‘champagne’ for the ladies, and for the gentlemen officers, a carafe of rye vodka. He asked the waiters to bring some roast meat and all kinds of delicacies.</p> <p>‘Yes, these ladies confused you with their names,’ said Lieutenant Kalyuzhnyi, who had begun to break into Russian after his second glass of vodka. ‘Take me for instance, according to my birth certificate, I’m Afanasii but my mother and other relatives always called me Fania. Just Fania.</p> <p>‘But we will call you Panas,’ said Manyunia, looking at him severely. ‘Maybe then you will remember about the Ukrainianisation of the army.’</p> <p>‘Yes, excuse me,’ said the lieutenant miserably, ‘call me Panas if you like it more and while we are seated for dinner, Fania.’</p> <p>‘No,’ said Manyunia, taking issue with him. ‘Fania, that’s a name for an old lady, but you are an officer and will therefore be Panas. Let us drink to your christening and to your new name.’ The dark beauty spot trembled on her cheek. ENDS. I hope you enjoyed this extract and please reach out if you want to know more.</p> Thu, 21 Sep 2023 12:33:01 GMT https://blue.feedland.org/?item=127378 https://blue.feedland.org/?item=127378 Another thread from "Raven's Way" my translation of Vasyl Shkliar's magic realist novel of the Ukrainian war of independence set in the 1920s and published by Kalyna Language Press. This book will help you see #Ukraine in a way that no bloodless history can. We join Cossack rebel Raven after he has been separated from his soldiers during a battle with the Bolsheviks. ‘Return With The Dawn’. A persistent melancholy had taken over Raven’s spirit after he had met her. She who had shamed him, a brave officer with three Georgian Crosses on his breast, and awakened his sleeping sense of honour. Raven, who was then known as Staff Captain Chornousov because the army required him to use the Russian version of his name, had already graduated from the Omsk School of Standard Bearers. He had been involved in the wars ‘For Tsar and Fatherland’ and the ‘Spirit of Kerensky’, and had requested to enlist with the ‘Death or Glory’ Battalion. He had been close to death more than once and was awarded his first medal because, while under fire from the Germans, he had freed three dead junkers from the barbed wire that ensnared them. On the eve of the February Revolution fate rewarded him by his assignment to the second division, which was based in Uman, fifty versts away from his childhood home. When he arrived at the division’s staff office he entered the chancellery and the duty officer formulated his documents. It was here that the event, which revived his spirit so fatigued and battered by war, was waiting for him. There were two young ladies sitting in the room, who whispered to each other between spurts of laughter. One of them looked at the unfamiliar staff captain in such a way that he began to stammer when he spoke. Her grey, smiling eyes, her short, blond hair and ... well you do not need to ask any more! The neatly arranged blouse with a black cravat, the diaphanous mesh of her skirt and below ... restrain yourselves gentlemen officers. The rose-coloured, delicate stockings were tightly guarded by the stiletto heels of her shoes. Even the most fashionable ladies in Moscow would not have been able to compete with her beauty. Staff Captain Chornousov replied in Russian to the questions of the lieutenant, stuttering as if confused, ‘In Moscow I was assigned to the 8th Grenadier Brigade ...’ ‘One moment.’ The wonderful apparition in rose-coloured stockings interrupted him. ‘Why are you talking like a Muscovite? You’re Ukrainian aren’t you?’ The cavalier with the Georgian Crosses clammed up. Was she ridiculing him? Did they make these kind of jokes here? In his confusion he directed his gaze towards the staff officer on whose face a conspiratorial smile was forming. ‘Well, if truth be told,’ said the lieutenant in Ukrainian, lowering his hands onto the desk, ‘our time has come. The army is being Ukrainianised. We have to seize the moment. Where do you want to serve, in Uman or maybe in Cherkasy?’ ‘In Cherkasy,’ he replied after a moment’s thought. He would be nearer home there. ‘Well, that’s good. There is a position in the 290th Brigade.’ ‘Thank you. On an occasion like this allow me to request that you partake in a glass of Champagne gentle ladies and lieutenant.’ He turned to the ladies but he could only see one of them and there was now a curious, rather than an amused, look in her grey eyes. Perhaps this was because he had requested to serve in Cherkasy rather than a prestigious town like Uman where beautiful, noble ladies were found; even in the headquarters of the military. ‘Let me make your acquaintance,’ he said, both excited and pleased that his native language was returning from his remote past. ‘Afanasii Karpovych Kalyuzhnyi.’ The lieutenant practically jumped from behind the chancellery table. He straightened his body and stretched out his hand as he clicked his heels. ‘I have been wondering why my nose has been itching from this morning onwards. Yes, permit me to be presented to you and to present my staff. These are our ... err ... colleagues on the battalion staff.’ Manyunia, the lady with bright crimson lipstick and a fake beauty spot, made a gracious curtsey, lifting her slender wrist almost to his lips. He took her hand, but before he kissed it he asked, ‘Manyunia, in other words Maria?’ ‘No,’ she smiled, ‘simply Manyunia.’ Oh, this was yet a trifling bit of banter, otherwise he would not have joked with her. He noticed the lady with the aristocratic eyes, in whose presence Manyunia disappeared, along with her beauty spot. ‘Tina.’ She offered him a slender, cold hand, which he clasped in his before asking stupidly, ‘Tina, that’s Valentina?’ ‘Tina, that’s me,’ she said. In the evening they dined at Restaurant Sofia, not far from Sofiyivka Park, the famous park in Uman where Prince Potocki had once poured mountains of sugar so he could take his capricious Sofia for a ride on a sledge in the summer. Staff Captain Chornovus, for he proudly recommenced using his Ukrainian name, reserved Abrau ‘champagne’ for the ladies, and for the gentlemen officers, a carafe of rye vodka. He asked the waiters to bring some roast meat and all kinds of delicacies. ‘Yes, these ladies confused you with their names,’ said Lieutenant Kalyuzhnyi, who had begun to break into Russian after his second glass of vodka. ‘Take me for instance, according to my birth certificate, I’m Afanasii but my mother and other relatives always called me Fania. Just Fania. ‘But we will call you Panas,’ said Manyunia, looking at him severely. ‘Maybe then you will remember about the Ukrainianisation of the army.’ ‘Yes, excuse me,’ said the lieutenant miserably, ‘call me Panas if you like it more and while we are seated for dinner, Fania.’ ‘No,’ said Manyunia, taking issue with him. ‘Fania, that’s a name for an old lady, but you are an officer and will therefore be Panas. Let us drink to your christening and to your new name.’ The dark beauty spot trembled on her cheek. ENDS. I hope you enjoyed this extract and please reach out if you want to know more. <p>A thread from &quot;Raven&#39;s Way&quot; my translation of Vasyl Shkliar&#39;s magic realist novel of the Ukrainian war of independence set in the 1920s. #Ukraine</p> <p>I am still unable to explain, even to myself, the delight that grips me before every battle. It trembles through my entire body like a living thing. My heart sings, my pupils dilate and my palms tingle. If there is a firm resolution that we will go forth into battle today, or even tomorrow, I cannot find a place for myself. Something shakes me from the centre of my being. I saw that this feeling affected not just me, all of us were captured by this delight, but we all lived through it in our own way. One guy would strut like a rooster, another would clean his pistol, someone else would hum or whistle, and there was one man who would sit motionlessly, while his eyes burned with an evil flame. When we suddenly forswore the battle, I experienced a feeling as though a young woman had refused me at the last minute and I remained alone with my longing.</p> <p>No, there was no fear in any of us. It had been scattered to the winds, along with hope and when hope leaves a man how can there be any fear?</p> <p>The blind sorceress, Yevdosia, would have said that there was nothing to boast about. I went to her when everything began. She could gather pain from the human body and was able to heal the soul. I went to her one day and said, ‘Take from my being two unnecessary things. Draw them out of my spirit so that no trace of either remains.’</p> <p>‘What unnecessary things?’ she asked as she smiled with her unseeing eyes.</p> <p>‘Fear and regret,’ I said. ‘Draw the fear from me and then the</p> <p>regret.’</p> <p>‘Those cannot be removed from you; without fear and regret you would swiftly lose yourself.’</p> <p>I have recollected her words many times when I have been decapitating people in a way that was no longer like war for me but had simply become an everyday occupation that made my hands ache at night. That is how I had become when we captured some Chinese soldiers. You can imagine the kind of captivity it was for them. There was no clemency in our hearts. We would put our prisoners to the sword immediately, without squandering bullets on them.</p> <p>On this occasion we led them to the block and I ordered them to lay down their heads ready to be executed. I do not know, even now, why the Chinese who fell into our hands laid their heads under our swords so willingly. It was as if they were in thrall to some enchantment. There was no pleading for mercy and no whining, only a completely submissive compliance with a reality that they could not change.</p> <p>When between ten and twenty heads had rolled and the grass had become crimson with blood, the last one came to the block. He was skinny, not very tall, and had bow legs. It seemed to me that if I had grabbed his knees and spun him he would have rolled like a wheel, who knows in what direction. He was a complete calamity. The front of his head had been shaved and the hair on the back was plaited into a pigtail. What was particularly interesting about this ‘walking calamity’ was that when he knelt down and laid his neck on the block he suddenly grabbed the pigtail and gathered it onto the crown of his head. This made me laugh. What was it about? Was he afraid of losing this ‘beauty’ and had moved it to prevent it from being separated from his head, or did he gather it from the nape of his neck to stop it being spattered with blood?</p> <p>My hands descended. I did not know whether to laugh or what to do, but I saw clearly enough that there was not a drop of fear in his eyes; as if he thought he was heading straight for paradise and was only worried about ensuring his pigtail was whole, clean and well groomed for the next life. I grabbed him by that tail, pulled him sharply from his knees and turned his face towards me. There was still no shadow of fear in those dark, narrow eyes. As he looked at me with a quiet curiosity and understanding, he suddenly spoke, ‘Chan fights for whoever gives him a bite to eat. If you give him something to eat, he will fight for you.’</p> <p>I released his pigtail and instead of throwing his neck onto the block again I turned to the lads and said, ‘Well, shall we take this Khodya with us. Maybe we could train him like a dog.’</p> <p>I did not foresee that the dark hour would come when I would be alone in the woods with this Chinese man as we ate our first raw raven without salt.</p> Thu, 21 Sep 2023 04:50:13 GMT https://blue.feedland.org/?item=127128 https://blue.feedland.org/?item=127128 A thread from "Raven's Way" my translation of Vasyl Shkliar's magic realist novel of the Ukrainian war of independence set in the 1920s. #Ukraine I am still unable to explain, even to myself, the delight that grips me before every battle. It trembles through my entire body like a living thing. My heart sings, my pupils dilate and my palms tingle. If there is a firm resolution that we will go forth into battle today, or even tomorrow, I cannot find a place for myself. Something shakes me from the centre of my being. I saw that this feeling affected not just me, all of us were captured by this delight, but we all lived through it in our own way. One guy would strut like a rooster, another would clean his pistol, someone else would hum or whistle, and there was one man who would sit motionlessly, while his eyes burned with an evil flame. When we suddenly forswore the battle, I experienced a feeling as though a young woman had refused me at the last minute and I remained alone with my longing. No, there was no fear in any of us. It had been scattered to the winds, along with hope and when hope leaves a man how can there be any fear? The blind sorceress, Yevdosia, would have said that there was nothing to boast about. I went to her when everything began. She could gather pain from the human body and was able to heal the soul. I went to her one day and said, ‘Take from my being two unnecessary things. Draw them out of my spirit so that no trace of either remains.’ ‘What unnecessary things?’ she asked as she smiled with her unseeing eyes. ‘Fear and regret,’ I said. ‘Draw the fear from me and then the regret.’ ‘Those cannot be removed from you; without fear and regret you would swiftly lose yourself.’ I have recollected her words many times when I have been decapitating people in a way that was no longer like war for me but had simply become an everyday occupation that made my hands ache at night. That is how I had become when we captured some Chinese soldiers. You can imagine the kind of captivity it was for them. There was no clemency in our hearts. We would put our prisoners to the sword immediately, without squandering bullets on them. On this occasion we led them to the block and I ordered them to lay down their heads ready to be executed. I do not know, even now, why the Chinese who fell into our hands laid their heads under our swords so willingly. It was as if they were in thrall to some enchantment. There was no pleading for mercy and no whining, only a completely submissive compliance with a reality that they could not change. When between ten and twenty heads had rolled and the grass had become crimson with blood, the last one came to the block. He was skinny, not very tall, and had bow legs. It seemed to me that if I had grabbed his knees and spun him he would have rolled like a wheel, who knows in what direction. He was a complete calamity. The front of his head had been shaved and the hair on the back was plaited into a pigtail. What was particularly interesting about this ‘walking calamity’ was that when he knelt down and laid his neck on the block he suddenly grabbed the pigtail and gathered it onto the crown of his head. This made me laugh. What was it about? Was he afraid of losing this ‘beauty’ and had moved it to prevent it from being separated from his head, or did he gather it from the nape of his neck to stop it being spattered with blood? My hands descended. I did not know whether to laugh or what to do, but I saw clearly enough that there was not a drop of fear in his eyes; as if he thought he was heading straight for paradise and was only worried about ensuring his pigtail was whole, clean and well groomed for the next life. I grabbed him by that tail, pulled him sharply from his knees and turned his face towards me. There was still no shadow of fear in those dark, narrow eyes. As he looked at me with a quiet curiosity and understanding, he suddenly spoke, ‘Chan fights for whoever gives him a bite to eat. If you give him something to eat, he will fight for you.’ I released his pigtail and instead of throwing his neck onto the block again I turned to the lads and said, ‘Well, shall we take this Khodya with us. Maybe we could train him like a dog.’ I did not foresee that the dark hour would come when I would be alone in the woods with this Chinese man as we ate our first raw raven without salt. <p>A thread from &quot;Raven&#39;s Way&quot; my translation of Vasyl Shkliar&#39;s magic realist novel of the Ukrainian war of independence set in the 1920s. #Ukraine</p> <p>I am still unable to explain, even to myself, the delight that grips me before every battle. It trembles through my entire body like a living thing. My heart sings, my pupils dilate and my palms tingle. If there is a firm resolution that we will go forth into battle today, or even tomorrow, I cannot find a place for myself. Something shakes me from the centre of my being. I saw that this feeling affected not just me, all of us were captured by this delight, but we all lived through it in our own way. One guy would strut like a rooster, another would clean his pistol, someone else would hum or whistle, and there was one man who would sit motionlessly, while his eyes burned with an evil flame. When we suddenly forswore the battle, I experienced a feeling as though a young woman had refused me at the last minute and I remained alone with my longing.</p> <p>No, there was no fear in any of us. It had been scattered to the winds, along with hope and when hope leaves a man how can there be any fear?</p> <p>The blind sorceress, Yevdosia, would have said that there was nothing to boast about. I went to her when everything began. She could gather pain from the human body and was able to heal the soul. I went to her one day and said, ‘Take from my being two unnecessary things. Draw them out of my spirit so that no trace of either remains.’</p> <p>‘What unnecessary things?’ she asked as she smiled with her unseeing eyes.</p> <p>‘Fear and regret,’ I said. ‘Draw the fear from me and then the</p> <p>regret.’</p> <p>‘Those cannot be removed from you; without fear and regret you would swiftly lose yourself.’</p> <p>I have recollected her words many times when I have been decapitating people in a way that was no longer like war for me but had simply become an everyday occupation that made my hands ache at night. That is how I had become when we captured some Chinese soldiers. You can imagine the kind of captivity it was for them. There was no clemency in our hearts. We would put our prisoners to the sword immediately, without squandering bullets on them.</p> <p>On this occasion we led them to the block and I ordered them to lay down their heads ready to be executed. I do not know, even now, why the Chinese who fell into our hands laid their heads under our swords so willingly. It was as if they were in thrall to some enchantment. There was no pleading for mercy and no whining, only a completely submissive compliance with a reality that they could not change.</p> <p>When between ten and twenty heads had rolled and the grass had become crimson with blood, the last one came to the block. He was skinny, not very tall, and had bow legs. It seemed to me that if I had grabbed his knees and spun him he would have rolled like a wheel, who knows in what direction. He was a complete calamity. The front of his head had been shaved and the hair on the back was plaited into a pigtail. What was particularly interesting about this ‘walking calamity’ was that when he knelt down and laid his neck on the block he suddenly grabbed the pigtail and gathered it onto the crown of his head. This made me laugh. What was it about? Was he afraid of losing this ‘beauty’ and had moved it to prevent it from being separated from his head, or did he gather it from the nape of his neck to stop it being spattered with blood?</p> <p>My hands descended. I did not know whether to laugh or what to do, but I saw clearly enough that there was not a drop of fear in his eyes; as if he thought he was heading straight for paradise and was only worried about ensuring his pigtail was whole, clean and well groomed for the next life. I grabbed him by that tail, pulled him sharply from his knees and turned his face towards me. There was still no shadow of fear in those dark, narrow eyes. As he looked at me with a quiet curiosity and understanding, he suddenly spoke, ‘Chan fights for whoever gives him a bite to eat. If you give him something to eat, he will fight for you.’</p> <p>I released his pigtail and instead of throwing his neck onto the block again I turned to the lads and said, ‘Well, shall we take this Khodya with us. Maybe we could train him like a dog.’</p> <p>I did not foresee that the dark hour would come when I would be alone in the woods with this Chinese man as we ate our first raw raven without salt.</p> Thu, 21 Sep 2023 04:22:48 GMT https://blue.feedland.org/?item=127111 https://blue.feedland.org/?item=127111 A thread from "Raven's Way" my translation of Vasyl Shkliar's magic realist novel of the Ukrainian war of independence set in the 1920s. #Ukraine I am still unable to explain, even to myself, the delight that grips me before every battle. It trembles through my entire body like a living thing. My heart sings, my pupils dilate and my palms tingle. If there is a firm resolution that we will go forth into battle today, or even tomorrow, I cannot find a place for myself. Something shakes me from the centre of my being. I saw that this feeling affected not just me, all of us were captured by this delight, but we all lived through it in our own way. One guy would strut like a rooster, another would clean his pistol, someone else would hum or whistle, and there was one man who would sit motionlessly, while his eyes burned with an evil flame. When we suddenly forswore the battle, I experienced a feeling as though a young woman had refused me at the last minute and I remained alone with my longing. No, there was no fear in any of us. It had been scattered to the winds, along with hope and when hope leaves a man how can there be any fear? The blind sorceress, Yevdosia, would have said that there was nothing to boast about. I went to her when everything began. She could gather pain from the human body and was able to heal the soul. I went to her one day and said, ‘Take from my being two unnecessary things. Draw them out of my spirit so that no trace of either remains.’ ‘What unnecessary things?’ she asked as she smiled with her unseeing eyes. ‘Fear and regret,’ I said. ‘Draw the fear from me and then the regret.’ ‘Those cannot be removed from you; without fear and regret you would swiftly lose yourself.’ I have recollected her words many times when I have been decapitating people in a way that was no longer like war for me but had simply become an everyday occupation that made my hands ache at night. That is how I had become when we captured some Chinese soldiers. You can imagine the kind of captivity it was for them. There was no clemency in our hearts. We would put our prisoners to the sword immediately, without squandering bullets on them. On this occasion we led them to the block and I ordered them to lay down their heads ready to be executed. I do not know, even now, why the Chinese who fell into our hands laid their heads under our swords so willingly. It was as if they were in thrall to some enchantment. There was no pleading for mercy and no whining, only a completely submissive compliance with a reality that they could not change. When between ten and twenty heads had rolled and the grass had become crimson with blood, the last one came to the block. He was skinny, not very tall, and had bow legs. It seemed to me that if I had grabbed his knees and spun him he would have rolled like a wheel, who knows in what direction. He was a complete calamity. The front of his head had been shaved and the hair on the back was plaited into a pigtail. What was particularly interesting about this ‘walking calamity’ was that when he knelt down and laid his neck on the block he suddenly grabbed the pigtail and gathered it onto the crown of his head. This made me laugh. What was it about? Was he afraid of losing this ‘beauty’ and had moved it to prevent it from being separated from his head, or did he gather it from the nape of his neck to stop it being spattered with blood? My hands descended. I did not know whether to laugh or what to do, but I saw clearly enough that there was not a drop of fear in his eyes; as if he thought he was heading straight for paradise and was only worried about ensuring his pigtail was whole, clean and well groomed for the next life. I grabbed him by that tail, pulled him sharply from his knees and turned his face towards me. There was still no shadow of fear in those dark, narrow eyes. As he looked at me with a quiet curiosity and understanding, he suddenly spoke, ‘Chan fights for whoever gives him a bite to eat. If you give him something to eat, he will fight for you.’ I released his pigtail and instead of throwing his neck onto the block again I turned to the lads and said, ‘Well, shall we take this Khodya with us. Maybe we could train him like a dog.’ I did not foresee that the dark hour would come when I would be alone in the woods with this Chinese man as we ate our first raw raven without salt. <p>A thread from &quot;Raven&#39;s Way&quot; my translation of Vasyl Shkliar&#39;s magic realist novel of the Ukrainian war of independence set in the 1920s. #Ukraine</p> <p>I am still unable to explain, even to myself, the delight that grips me before every battle. It trembles through my entire body like a living thing. My heart sings, my pupils dilate and my palms tingle. If there is a firm resolution that we will go forth into battle today, or even tomorrow, I cannot find a place for myself. Something shakes me from the centre of my being. I saw that this feeling affected not just me, all of us were captured by this delight, but we all lived through it in our own way. One guy would strut like a rooster, another would clean his pistol, someone else would hum or whistle, and there was one man who would sit motionlessly, while his eyes burned with an evil flame. When we suddenly forswore the battle, I experienced a feeling as though a young woman had refused me at the last minute and I remained alone with my longing.</p> <p>No, there was no fear in any of us. It had been scattered to the winds, along with hope and when hope leaves a man how can there be any fear?</p> <p>The blind sorceress, Yevdosia, would have said that there was nothing to boast about. I went to her when everything began. She could gather pain from the human body and was able to heal the soul. I went to her one day and said, ‘Take from my being two unnecessary things. Draw them out of my spirit so that no trace of either remains.’</p> <p>‘What unnecessary things?’ she asked as she smiled with her unseeing eyes.</p> <p>‘Fear and regret,’ I said. ‘Draw the fear from me and then the</p> <p>regret.’</p> <p>‘Those cannot be removed from you; without fear and regret you would swiftly lose yourself.’</p> <p>I have recollected her words many times when I have been decapitating people in a way that was no longer like war for me but had simply become an everyday occupation that made my hands ache at night. That is how I had become when we captured some Chinese soldiers. You can imagine the kind of captivity it was for them. There was no clemency in our hearts. We would put our prisoners to the sword immediately, without squandering bullets on them.</p> <p>On this occasion we led them to the block and I ordered them to lay down their heads ready to be executed. I do not know, even now, why the Chinese who fell into our hands laid their heads under our swords so willingly. It was as if they were in thrall to some enchantment. There was no pleading for mercy and no whining, only a completely submissive compliance with a reality that they could not change.</p> <p>When between ten and twenty heads had rolled and the grass had become crimson with blood, the last one came to the block. He was skinny, not very tall, and had bow legs. It seemed to me that if I had grabbed his knees and spun him he would have rolled like a wheel, who knows in what direction. He was a complete calamity. The front of his head had been shaved and the hair on the back was plaited into a pigtail. What was particularly interesting about this ‘walking calamity’ was that when he knelt down and laid his neck on the block he suddenly grabbed the pigtail and gathered it onto the crown of his head. This made me laugh. What was it about? Was he afraid of losing this ‘beauty’ and had moved it to prevent it from being separated from his head, or did he gather it from the nape of his neck to stop it being spattered with blood?</p> <p>My hands descended. I did not know whether to laugh or what to do, but I saw clearly enough that there was not a drop of fear in his eyes; as if he thought he was heading straight for paradise and was only worried about ensuring his pigtail was whole, clean and well groomed for the next life. I grabbed him by that tail, pulled him sharply from his knees and turned his face towards me. There was still no shadow of fear in those dark, narrow eyes. As he looked at me with a quiet curiosity and understanding, he suddenly spoke, ‘Chan fights for whoever gives him a bite to eat. If you give him something to eat, he will fight for you.’</p> <p>I released his pigtail and instead of throwing his neck onto the block again I turned to the lads and said, ‘Well, shall we take this Khodya with us. Maybe we could train him like a dog.’</p> <p>I did not foresee that the dark hour would come when I would be alone in the woods with this Chinese man as we ate our first raw raven without salt.</p> Thu, 21 Sep 2023 04:05:54 GMT https://blue.feedland.org/?item=127104 https://blue.feedland.org/?item=127104 A thread from "Raven's Way" my translation of Vasyl Shkliar's magic realist novel of the Ukrainian war of independence set in the 1920s. #Ukraine I am still unable to explain, even to myself, the delight that grips me before every battle. It trembles through my entire body like a living thing. My heart sings, my pupils dilate and my palms tingle. If there is a firm resolution that we will go forth into battle today, or even tomorrow, I cannot find a place for myself. Something shakes me from the centre of my being. I saw that this feeling affected not just me, all of us were captured by this delight, but we all lived through it in our own way. One guy would strut like a rooster, another would clean his pistol, someone else would hum or whistle, and there was one man who would sit motionlessly, while his eyes burned with an evil flame. When we suddenly forswore the battle, I experienced a feeling as though a young woman had refused me at the last minute and I remained alone with my longing. No, there was no fear in any of us. It had been scattered to the winds, along with hope and when hope leaves a man how can there be any fear? The blind sorceress, Yevdosia, would have said that there was nothing to boast about. I went to her when everything began. She could gather pain from the human body and was able to heal the soul. I went to her one day and said, ‘Take from my being two unnecessary things. Draw them out of my spirit so that no trace of either remains.’ ‘What unnecessary things?’ she asked as she smiled with her unseeing eyes. ‘Fear and regret,’ I said. ‘Draw the fear from me and then the regret.’ ‘Those cannot be removed from you; without fear and regret you would swiftly lose yourself.’ I have recollected her words many times when I have been decapitating people in a way that was no longer like war for me but had simply become an everyday occupation that made my hands ache at night. That is how I had become when we captured some Chinese soldiers. You can imagine the kind of captivity it was for them. There was no clemency in our hearts. We would put our prisoners to the sword immediately, without squandering bullets on them. On this occasion we led them to the block and I ordered them to lay down their heads ready to be executed. I do not know, even now, why the Chinese who fell into our hands laid their heads under our swords so willingly. It was as if they were in thrall to some enchantment. There was no pleading for mercy and no whining, only a completely submissive compliance with a reality that they could not change. When between ten and twenty heads had rolled and the grass had become crimson with blood, the last one came to the block. He was skinny, not very tall, and had bow legs. It seemed to me that if I had grabbed his knees and spun him he would have rolled like a wheel, who knows in what direction. He was a complete calamity. The front of his head had been shaved and the hair on the back was plaited into a pigtail. What was particularly interesting about this ‘walking calamity’ was that when he knelt down and laid his neck on the block he suddenly grabbed the pigtail and gathered it onto the crown of his head. This made me laugh. What was it about? Was he afraid of losing this ‘beauty’ and had moved it to prevent it from being separated from his head, or did he gather it from the nape of his neck to stop it being spattered with blood? My hands descended. I did not know whether to laugh or what to do, but I saw clearly enough that there was not a drop of fear in his eyes; as if he thought he was heading straight for paradise and was only worried about ensuring his pigtail was whole, clean and well groomed for the next life. I grabbed him by that tail, pulled him sharply from his knees and turned his face towards me. There was still no shadow of fear in those dark, narrow eyes. As he looked at me with a quiet curiosity and understanding, he suddenly spoke, ‘Chan fights for whoever gives him a bite to eat. If you give him something to eat, he will fight for you.’ I released his pigtail and instead of throwing his neck onto the block again I turned to the lads and said, ‘Well, shall we take this Khodya with us. Maybe we could train him like a dog.’ I did not foresee that the dark hour would come when I would be alone in the woods with this Chinese man as we ate our first raw raven without salt. <p>A thread from &quot;Raven&#39;s Way&quot; my translation of Vasyl Shkliar&#39;s magic realist novel of the Ukrainian war of independence set in the 1920s. #Ukraine</p> <p>I am still unable to explain, even to myself, the delight that grips me before every battle. It trembles through my entire body like a living thing. My heart sings, my pupils dilate and my palms tingle. If there is a firm resolution that we will go forth into battle today, or even tomorrow, I cannot find a place for myself. Something shakes me from the centre of my being. I saw that this feeling affected not just me, all of us were captured by this delight, but we all lived through it in our own way. One guy would strut like a rooster, another would clean his pistol, someone else would hum or whistle, and there was one man who would sit motionlessly, while his eyes burned with an evil flame. When we suddenly forswore the battle, I experienced a feeling as though a young woman had refused me at the last minute and I remained alone with my longing.</p> <p>No, there was no fear in any of us. It had been scattered to the winds, along with hope and when hope leaves a man how can there be any fear?</p> <p>The blind sorceress, Yevdosia, would have said that there was nothing to boast about. I went to her when everything began. She could gather pain from the human body and was able to heal the soul. I went to her one day and said, ‘Take from my being two unnecessary things. Draw them out of my spirit so that no trace of either remains.’</p> <p>‘What unnecessary things?’ she asked as she smiled with her unseeing eyes.</p> <p>‘Fear and regret,’ I said. ‘Draw the fear from me and then the</p> <p>regret.’</p> <p>‘Those cannot be removed from you; without fear and regret you would swiftly lose yourself.’</p> <p>I have recollected her words many times when I have been decapitating people in a way that was no longer like war for me but had simply become an everyday occupation that made my hands ache at night. That is how I had become when we captured some Chinese soldiers. You can imagine the kind of captivity it was for them. There was no clemency in our hearts. We would put our prisoners to the sword immediately, without squandering bullets on them.</p> <p>On this occasion we led them to the block and I ordered them to lay down their heads ready to be executed. I do not know, even now, why the Chinese who fell into our hands laid their heads under our swords so willingly. It was as if they were in thrall to some enchantment. There was no pleading for mercy and no whining, only a completely submissive compliance with a reality that they could not change.</p> <p>When between ten and twenty heads had rolled and the grass had become crimson with blood, the last one came to the block. He was skinny, not very tall, and had bow legs. It seemed to me that if I had grabbed his knees and spun him he would have rolled like a wheel, who knows in what direction. He was a complete calamity. The front of his head had been shaved and the hair on the back was plaited into a pigtail. What was particularly interesting about this ‘walking calamity’ was that when he knelt down and laid his neck on the block he suddenly grabbed the pigtail and gathered it onto the crown of his head. This made me laugh. What was it about? Was he afraid of losing this ‘beauty’ and had moved it to prevent it from being separated from his head, or did he gather it from the nape of his neck to stop it being spattered with blood?</p> <p>My hands descended. I did not know whether to laugh or what to do, but I saw clearly enough that there was not a drop of fear in his eyes; as if he thought he was heading straight for paradise and was only worried about ensuring his pigtail was whole, clean and well groomed for the next life. I grabbed him by that tail, pulled him sharply from his knees and turned his face towards me. There was still no shadow of fear in those dark, narrow eyes. As he looked at me with a quiet curiosity and understanding, he suddenly spoke, ‘Chan fights for whoever gives him a bite to eat. If you give him something to eat, he will fight for you.’</p> <p>I released his pigtail and instead of throwing his neck onto the block again I turned to the lads and said, ‘Well, shall we take this Khodya with us. Maybe we could train him like a dog.’</p> <p>I did not foresee that the dark hour would come when I would be alone in the woods with this Chinese man as we ate our first raw raven without salt.</p> Thu, 21 Sep 2023 04:04:41 GMT https://blue.feedland.org/?item=127103 https://blue.feedland.org/?item=127103 A thread from "Raven's Way" my translation of Vasyl Shkliar's magic realist novel of the Ukrainian war of independence set in the 1920s. #Ukraine I am still unable to explain, even to myself, the delight that grips me before every battle. It trembles through my entire body like a living thing. My heart sings, my pupils dilate and my palms tingle. If there is a firm resolution that we will go forth into battle today, or even tomorrow, I cannot find a place for myself. Something shakes me from the centre of my being. I saw that this feeling affected not just me, all of us were captured by this delight, but we all lived through it in our own way. One guy would strut like a rooster, another would clean his pistol, someone else would hum or whistle, and there was one man who would sit motionlessly, while his eyes burned with an evil flame. When we suddenly forswore the battle, I experienced a feeling as though a young woman had refused me at the last minute and I remained alone with my longing. No, there was no fear in any of us. It had been scattered to the winds, along with hope and when hope leaves a man how can there be any fear? The blind sorceress, Yevdosia, would have said that there was nothing to boast about. I went to her when everything began. She could gather pain from the human body and was able to heal the soul. I went to her one day and said, ‘Take from my being two unnecessary things. Draw them out of my spirit so that no trace of either remains.’ ‘What unnecessary things?’ she asked as she smiled with her unseeing eyes. ‘Fear and regret,’ I said. ‘Draw the fear from me and then the regret.’ ‘Those cannot be removed from you; without fear and regret you would swiftly lose yourself.’ I have recollected her words many times when I have been decapitating people in a way that was no longer like war for me but had simply become an everyday occupation that made my hands ache at night. That is how I had become when we captured some Chinese soldiers. You can imagine the kind of captivity it was for them. There was no clemency in our hearts. We would put our prisoners to the sword immediately, without squandering bullets on them. On this occasion we led them to the block and I ordered them to lay down their heads ready to be executed. I do not know, even now, why the Chinese who fell into our hands laid their heads under our swords so willingly. It was as if they were in thrall to some enchantment. There was no pleading for mercy and no whining, only a completely submissive compliance with a reality that they could not change. When between ten and twenty heads had rolled and the grass had become crimson with blood, the last one came to the block. He was skinny, not very tall, and had bow legs. It seemed to me that if I had grabbed his knees and spun him he would have rolled like a wheel, who knows in what direction. He was a complete calamity. The front of his head had been shaved and the hair on the back was plaited into a pigtail. What was particularly interesting about this ‘walking calamity’ was that when he knelt down and laid his neck on the block he suddenly grabbed the pigtail and gathered it onto the crown of his head. This made me laugh. What was it about? Was he afraid of losing this ‘beauty’ and had moved it to prevent it from being separated from his head, or did he gather it from the nape of his neck to stop it being spattered with blood? My hands descended. I did not know whether to laugh or what to do, but I saw clearly enough that there was not a drop of fear in his eyes; as if he thought he was heading straight for paradise and was only worried about ensuring his pigtail was whole, clean and well groomed for the next life. I grabbed him by that tail, pulled him sharply from his knees and turned his face towards me. There was still no shadow of fear in those dark, narrow eyes. As he looked at me with a quiet curiosity and understanding, he suddenly spoke, ‘Chan fights for whoever gives him a bite to eat. If you give him something to eat, he will fight for you.’ I released his pigtail and instead of throwing his neck onto the block again I turned to the lads and said, ‘Well, shall we take this Khodya with us. Maybe we could train him like a dog.’ I did not foresee that the dark hour would come when I would be alone in the woods with this Chinese man as we ate our first raw raven without salt. <p>A thread from &quot;Raven&#39;s Way&quot; my translation of Vasyl Shkliar&#39;s magic realist novel of the Ukrainian war of independence set in the 1920s. #Ukraine</p> <p>I am still unable to explain, even to myself, the delight that grips me before every battle. It trembles through my entire body like a living thing. My heart sings, my pupils dilate and my palms tingle. If there is a firm resolution that we will go forth into battle today, or even tomorrow, I cannot find a place for myself. Something shakes me from the centre of my being. I saw that this feeling affected not just me, all of us were captured by this delight, but we all lived through it in our own way. One guy would strut like a rooster, another would clean his pistol, someone else would hum or whistle, and there was one man who would sit motionlessly, while his eyes burned with an evil flame. When we suddenly forswore the battle, I experienced a feeling as though a young woman had refused me at the last minute and I remained alone with my longing.</p> <p>No, there was no fear in any of us. It had been scattered to the winds, along with hope and when hope leaves a man how can there be any fear?</p> <p>The blind sorceress, Yevdosia, would have said that there was nothing to boast about. I went to her when everything began. She could gather pain from the human body and was able to heal the soul. I went to her one day and said, ‘Take from my being two unnecessary things. Draw them out of my spirit so that no trace of either remains.’</p> <p>‘What unnecessary things?’ she asked as she smiled with her unseeing eyes.</p> <p>‘Fear and regret,’ I said. ‘Draw the fear from me and then the</p> <p>regret.’</p> <p>‘Those cannot be removed from you; without fear and regret you would swiftly lose yourself.’</p> <p>I have recollected her words many times when I have been decapitating people in a way that was no longer like war for me but had simply become an everyday occupation that made my hands ache at night. That is how I had become when we captured some Chinese soldiers. You can imagine the kind of captivity it was for them. There was no clemency in our hearts. We would put our prisoners to the sword immediately, without squandering bullets on them.</p> <p>On this occasion we led them to the block and I ordered them to lay down their heads ready to be executed. I do not know, even now, why the Chinese who fell into our hands laid their heads under our swords so willingly. It was as if they were in thrall to some enchantment. There was no pleading for mercy and no whining, only a completely submissive compliance with a reality that they could not change.</p> <p>When between ten and twenty heads had rolled and the grass had become crimson with blood, the last one came to the block. He was skinny, not very tall, and had bow legs. It seemed to me that if I had grabbed his knees and spun him he would have rolled like a wheel, who knows in what direction. He was a complete calamity. The front of his head had been shaved and the hair on the back was plaited into a pigtail. What was particularly interesting about this ‘walking calamity’ was that when he knelt down and laid his neck on the block he suddenly grabbed the pigtail and gathered it onto the crown of his head. This made me laugh. What was it about? Was he afraid of losing this ‘beauty’ and had moved it to prevent it from being separated from his head, or did he gather it from the nape of his neck to stop it being spattered with blood?</p> <p>My hands descended. I did not know whether to laugh or what to do, but I saw clearly enough that there was not a drop of fear in his eyes; as if he thought he was heading straight for paradise and was only worried about ensuring his pigtail was whole, clean and well groomed for the next life. I grabbed him by that tail, pulled him sharply from his knees and turned his face towards me. There was still no shadow of fear in those dark, narrow eyes. As he looked at me with a quiet curiosity and understanding, he suddenly spoke, ‘Chan fights for whoever gives him a bite to eat. If you give him something to eat, he will fight for you.’</p> <p>I released his pigtail and instead of throwing his neck onto the block again I turned to the lads and said, ‘Well, shall we take this Khodya with us. Maybe we could train him like a dog.’</p> <p>I did not foresee that the dark hour would come when I would be alone in the woods with this Chinese man as we ate our first raw raven without salt.</p> Tue, 19 Sep 2023 09:26:58 GMT https://blue.feedland.org/?item=124991 https://blue.feedland.org/?item=124991 A thread from "Raven's Way" my translation of Vasyl Shkliar's magic realist novel of the Ukrainian war of independence set in the 1920s. #Ukraine I am still unable to explain, even to myself, the delight that grips me before every battle. It trembles through my entire body like a living thing. My heart sings, my pupils dilate and my palms tingle. If there is a firm resolution that we will go forth into battle today, or even tomorrow, I cannot find a place for myself. Something shakes me from the centre of my being. I saw that this feeling affected not just me, all of us were captured by this delight, but we all lived through it in our own way. One guy would strut like a rooster, another would clean his pistol, someone else would hum or whistle, and there was one man who would sit motionlessly, while his eyes burned with an evil flame. When we suddenly forswore the battle, I experienced a feeling as though a young woman had refused me at the last minute and I remained alone with my longing. No, there was no fear in any of us. It had been scattered to the winds, along with hope and when hope leaves a man how can there be any fear? The blind sorceress, Yevdosia, would have said that there was nothing to boast about. I went to her when everything began. She could gather pain from the human body and was able to heal the soul. I went to her one day and said, ‘Take from my being two unnecessary things. Draw them out of my spirit so that no trace of either remains.’ ‘What unnecessary things?’ she asked as she smiled with her unseeing eyes. ‘Fear and regret,’ I said. ‘Draw the fear from me and then the regret.’ ‘Those cannot be removed from you; without fear and regret you would swiftly lose yourself.’ I have recollected her words many times when I have been decapitating people in a way that was no longer like war for me but had simply become an everyday occupation that made my hands ache at night. That is how I had become when we captured some Chinese soldiers. You can imagine the kind of captivity it was for them. There was no clemency in our hearts. We would put our prisoners to the sword immediately, without squandering bullets on them. On this occasion we led them to the block and I ordered them to lay down their heads ready to be executed. I do not know, even now, why the Chinese who fell into our hands laid their heads under our swords so willingly. It was as if they were in thrall to some enchantment. There was no pleading for mercy and no whining, only a completely submissive compliance with a reality that they could not change. When between ten and twenty heads had rolled and the grass had become crimson with blood, the last one came to the block. He was skinny, not very tall, and had bow legs. It seemed to me that if I had grabbed his knees and spun him he would have rolled like a wheel, who knows in what direction. He was a complete calamity. The front of his head had been shaved and the hair on the back was plaited into a pigtail. What was particularly interesting about this ‘walking calamity’ was that when he knelt down and laid his neck on the block he suddenly grabbed the pigtail and gathered it onto the crown of his head. This made me laugh. What was it about? Was he afraid of losing this ‘beauty’ and had moved it to prevent it from being separated from his head, or did he gather it from the nape of his neck to stop it being spattered with blood? My hands descended. I did not know whether to laugh or what to do, but I saw clearly enough that there was not a drop of fear in his eyes; as if he thought he was heading straight for paradise and was only worried about ensuring his pigtail was whole, clean and well groomed for the next life. I grabbed him by that tail, pulled him sharply from his knees and turned his face towards me. There was still no shadow of fear in those dark, narrow eyes. As he looked at me with a quiet curiosity and understanding, he suddenly spoke, ‘Chan fights for whoever gives him a bite to eat. If you give him something to eat, he will fight for you.’ I released his pigtail and instead of throwing his neck onto the block again I turned to the lads and said, ‘Well, shall we take this Khodya with us. Maybe we could train him like a dog.’ I did not foresee that the dark hour would come when I would be alone in the woods with this Chinese man as we ate our first raw raven without salt. <p>A thread from &quot;Raven&#39;s Way&quot; my translation of Vasyl Shkliar&#39;s magic realist novel of the Ukrainian war of independence set in the 1920s. #Ukraine</p> <p>I am still unable to explain, even to myself, the delight that grips me before every battle. It trembles through my entire body like a living thing. My heart sings, my pupils dilate and my palms tingle. If there is a firm resolution that we will go forth into battle today, or even tomorrow, I cannot find a place for myself. Something shakes me from the centre of my being. I saw that this feeling affected not just me, all of us were captured by this delight, but we all lived through it in our own way. One guy would strut like a rooster, another would clean his pistol, someone else would hum or whistle, and there was one man who would sit motionlessly, while his eyes burned with an evil flame. When we suddenly forswore the battle, I experienced a feeling as though a young woman had refused me at the last minute and I remained alone with my longing.</p> <p>No, there was no fear in any of us. It had been scattered to the winds, along with hope and when hope leaves a man how can there be any fear?</p> <p>The blind sorceress, Yevdosia, would have said that there was nothing to boast about. I went to her when everything began. She could gather pain from the human body and was able to heal the soul. I went to her one day and said, ‘Take from my being two unnecessary things. Draw them out of my spirit so that no trace of either remains.’</p> <p>‘What unnecessary things?’ she asked as she smiled with her unseeing eyes.</p> <p>‘Fear and regret,’ I said. ‘Draw the fear from me and then the</p> <p>regret.’</p> <p>‘Those cannot be removed from you; without fear and regret you would swiftly lose yourself.’</p> <p>I have recollected her words many times when I have been decapitating people in a way that was no longer like war for me but had simply become an everyday occupation that made my hands ache at night. That is how I had become when we captured some Chinese soldiers. You can imagine the kind of captivity it was for them. There was no clemency in our hearts. We would put our prisoners to the sword immediately, without squandering bullets on them.</p> <p>On this occasion we led them to the block and I ordered them to lay down their heads ready to be executed. I do not know, even now, why the Chinese who fell into our hands laid their heads under our swords so willingly. It was as if they were in thrall to some enchantment. There was no pleading for mercy and no whining, only a completely submissive compliance with a reality that they could not change.</p> <p>When between ten and twenty heads had rolled and the grass had become crimson with blood, the last one came to the block. He was skinny, not very tall, and had bow legs. It seemed to me that if I had grabbed his knees and spun him he would have rolled like a wheel, who knows in what direction. He was a complete calamity. The front of his head had been shaved and the hair on the back was plaited into a pigtail. What was particularly interesting about this ‘walking calamity’ was that when he knelt down and laid his neck on the block he suddenly grabbed the pigtail and gathered it onto the crown of his head. This made me laugh. What was it about? Was he afraid of losing this ‘beauty’ and had moved it to prevent it from being separated from his head, or did he gather it from the nape of his neck to stop it being spattered with blood?</p> <p>My hands descended. I did not know whether to laugh or what to do, but I saw clearly enough that there was not a drop of fear in his eyes; as if he thought he was heading straight for paradise and was only worried about ensuring his pigtail was whole, clean and well groomed for the next life. I grabbed him by that tail, pulled him sharply from his knees and turned his face towards me. There was still no shadow of fear in those dark, narrow eyes. As he looked at me with a quiet curiosity and understanding, he suddenly spoke, ‘Chan fights for whoever gives him a bite to eat. If you give him something to eat, he will fight for you.’</p> <p>I released his pigtail and instead of throwing his neck onto the block again I turned to the lads and said, ‘Well, shall we take this Khodya with us. Maybe we could train him like a dog.’</p> <p>I did not foresee that the dark hour would come when I would be alone in the woods with this Chinese man as we ate our first raw raven without salt.</p> Tue, 19 Sep 2023 07:25:35 GMT https://blue.feedland.org/?item=124917 https://blue.feedland.org/?item=124917 A thread from "Raven's Way" my translation of Vasyl Shkliar's magic realist novel of the Ukrainian war of independence set in the 1920s. #Ukraine I am still unable to explain, even to myself, the delight that grips me before every battle. It trembles through my entire body like a living thing. My heart sings, my pupils dilate and my palms tingle. If there is a firm resolution that we will go forth into battle today, or even tomorrow, I cannot find a place for myself. Something shakes me from the centre of my being. I saw that this feeling affected not just me, all of us were captured by this delight, but we all lived through it in our own way. One guy would strut like a rooster, another would clean his pistol, someone else would hum or whistle, and there was one man who would sit motionlessly, while his eyes burned with an evil flame. When we suddenly forswore the battle, I experienced a feeling as though a young woman had refused me at the last minute and I remained alone with my longing. No, there was no fear in any of us. It had been scattered to the winds, along with hope and when hope leaves a man how can there be any fear? The blind sorceress, Yevdosia, would have said that there was nothing to boast about. I went to her when everything began. She could gather pain from the human body and was able to heal the soul. I went to her one day and said, ‘Take from my being two unnecessary things. Draw them out of my spirit so that no trace of either remains.’ ‘What unnecessary things?’ she asked as she smiled with her unseeing eyes. ‘Fear and regret,’ I said. ‘Draw the fear from me and then the regret.’ ‘Those cannot be removed from you; without fear and regret you would swiftly lose yourself.’ I have recollected her words many times when I have been decapitating people in a way that was no longer like war for me but had simply become an everyday occupation that made my hands ache at night. That is how I had become when we captured some Chinese soldiers. You can imagine the kind of captivity it was for them. There was no clemency in our hearts. We would put our prisoners to the sword immediately, without squandering bullets on them. On this occasion we led them to the block and I ordered them to lay down their heads ready to be executed. I do not know, even now, why the Chinese who fell into our hands laid their heads under our swords so willingly. It was as if they were in thrall to some enchantment. There was no pleading for mercy and no whining, only a completely submissive compliance with a reality that they could not change. When between ten and twenty heads had rolled and the grass had become crimson with blood, the last one came to the block. He was skinny, not very tall, and had bow legs. It seemed to me that if I had grabbed his knees and spun him he would have rolled like a wheel, who knows in what direction. He was a complete calamity. The front of his head had been shaved and the hair on the back was plaited into a pigtail. What was particularly interesting about this ‘walking calamity’ was that when he knelt down and laid his neck on the block he suddenly grabbed the pigtail and gathered it onto the crown of his head. This made me laugh. What was it about? Was he afraid of losing this ‘beauty’ and had moved it to prevent it from being separated from his head, or did he gather it from the nape of his neck to stop it being spattered with blood? My hands descended. I did not know whether to laugh or what to do, but I saw clearly enough that there was not a drop of fear in his eyes; as if he thought he was heading straight for paradise and was only worried about ensuring his pigtail was whole, clean and well groomed for the next life. I grabbed him by that tail, pulled him sharply from his knees and turned his face towards me. There was still no shadow of fear in those dark, narrow eyes. As he looked at me with a quiet curiosity and understanding, he suddenly spoke, ‘Chan fights for whoever gives him a bite to eat. If you give him something to eat, he will fight for you.’ I released his pigtail and instead of throwing his neck onto the block again I turned to the lads and said, ‘Well, shall we take this Khodya with us. Maybe we could train him like a dog.’ I did not foresee that the dark hour would come when I would be alone in the woods with this Chinese man as we ate our first raw raven without salt. <p>A thread from &quot;Raven&#39;s Way&quot; my translation of Vasyl Shkliar&#39;s magic realist novel of the Ukrainian war of independence set in the 1920s. #Ukraine</p> <p>I am still unable to explain, even to myself, the delight that grips me before every battle. It trembles through my entire body like a living thing. My heart sings, my pupils dilate and my palms tingle. If there is a firm resolution that we will go forth into battle today, or even tomorrow, I cannot find a place for myself. Something shakes me from the centre of my being. I saw that this feeling affected not just me, all of us were captured by this delight, but we all lived through it in our own way. One guy would strut like a rooster, another would clean his pistol, someone else would hum or whistle, and there was one man who would sit motionlessly, while his eyes burned with an evil flame. When we suddenly forswore the battle, I experienced a feeling as though a young woman had refused me at the last minute and I remained alone with my longing.</p> <p>No, there was no fear in any of us. It had been scattered to the winds, along with hope and when hope leaves a man how can there be any fear?</p> <p>The blind sorceress, Yevdosia, would have said that there was nothing to boast about. I went to her when everything began. She could gather pain from the human body and was able to heal the soul. I went to her one day and said, ‘Take from my being two unnecessary things. Draw them out of my spirit so that no trace of either remains.’</p> <p>‘What unnecessary things?’ she asked as she smiled with her unseeing eyes.</p> <p>‘Fear and regret,’ I said. ‘Draw the fear from me and then the</p> <p>regret.’</p> <p>‘Those cannot be removed from you; without fear and regret you would swiftly lose yourself.’</p> <p>I have recollected her words many times when I have been decapitating people in a way that was no longer like war for me but had simply become an everyday occupation that made my hands ache at night. That is how I had become when we captured some Chinese soldiers. You can imagine the kind of captivity it was for them. There was no clemency in our hearts. We would put our prisoners to the sword immediately, without squandering bullets on them.</p> <p>On this occasion we led them to the block and I ordered them to lay down their heads ready to be executed. I do not know, even now, why the Chinese who fell into our hands laid their heads under our swords so willingly. It was as if they were in thrall to some enchantment. There was no pleading for mercy and no whining, only a completely submissive compliance with a reality that they could not change.</p> <p>When between ten and twenty heads had rolled and the grass had become crimson with blood, the last one came to the block. He was skinny, not very tall, and had bow legs. It seemed to me that if I had grabbed his knees and spun him he would have rolled like a wheel, who knows in what direction. He was a complete calamity. The front of his head had been shaved and the hair on the back was plaited into a pigtail. What was particularly interesting about this ‘walking calamity’ was that when he knelt down and laid his neck on the block he suddenly grabbed the pigtail and gathered it onto the crown of his head. This made me laugh. What was it about? Was he afraid of losing this ‘beauty’ and had moved it to prevent it from being separated from his head, or did he gather it from the nape of his neck to stop it being spattered with blood?</p> <p>My hands descended. I did not know whether to laugh or what to do, but I saw clearly enough that there was not a drop of fear in his eyes; as if he thought he was heading straight for paradise and was only worried about ensuring his pigtail was whole, clean and well groomed for the next life. I grabbed him by that tail, pulled him sharply from his knees and turned his face towards me. There was still no shadow of fear in those dark, narrow eyes. As he looked at me with a quiet curiosity and understanding, he suddenly spoke, ‘Chan fights for whoever gives him a bite to eat. If you give him something to eat, he will fight for you.’</p> <p>I released his pigtail and instead of throwing his neck onto the block again I turned to the lads and said, ‘Well, shall we take this Khodya with us. Maybe we could train him like a dog.’</p> <p>I did not foresee that the dark hour would come when I would be alone in the woods with this Chinese man as we ate our first raw raven without salt.</p> Tue, 19 Sep 2023 05:00:04 GMT https://blue.feedland.org/?item=124869 https://blue.feedland.org/?item=124869 A thread from "Raven's Way" my translation of Vasyl Shkliar's magic realist novel of the Ukrainian war of independence set in the 1920s. #Ukraine I am still unable to explain, even to myself, the delight that grips me before every battle. It trembles through my entire body like a living thing. My heart sings, my pupils dilate and my palms tingle. If there is a firm resolution that we will go forth into battle today, or even tomorrow, I cannot find a place for myself. Something shakes me from the centre of my being. I saw that this feeling affected not just me, all of us were captured by this delight, but we all lived through it in our own way. One guy would strut like a rooster, another would clean his pistol, someone else would hum or whistle, and there was one man who would sit motionlessly, while his eyes burned with an evil flame. When we suddenly forswore the battle, I experienced a feeling as though a young woman had refused me at the last minute and I remained alone with my longing. No, there was no fear in any of us. It had been scattered to the winds, along with hope and when hope leaves a man how can there be any fear? The blind sorceress, Yevdosia, would have said that there was nothing to boast about. I went to her when everything began. She could gather pain from the human body and was able to heal the soul. I went to her one day and said, ‘Take from my being two unnecessary things. Draw them out of my spirit so that no trace of either remains.’ ‘What unnecessary things?’ she asked as she smiled with her unseeing eyes. ‘Fear and regret,’ I said. ‘Draw the fear from me and then the regret.’ ‘Those cannot be removed from you; without fear and regret you would swiftly lose yourself.’ I have recollected her words many times when I have been decapitating people in a way that was no longer like war for me but had simply become an everyday occupation that made my hands ache at night. That is how I had become when we captured some Chinese soldiers. You can imagine the kind of captivity it was for them. There was no clemency in our hearts. We would put our prisoners to the sword immediately, without squandering bullets on them. On this occasion we led them to the block and I ordered them to lay down their heads ready to be executed. I do not know, even now, why the Chinese who fell into our hands laid their heads under our swords so willingly. It was as if they were in thrall to some enchantment. There was no pleading for mercy and no whining, only a completely submissive compliance with a reality that they could not change. When between ten and twenty heads had rolled and the grass had become crimson with blood, the last one came to the block. He was skinny, not very tall, and had bow legs. It seemed to me that if I had grabbed his knees and spun him he would have rolled like a wheel, who knows in what direction. He was a complete calamity. The front of his head had been shaved and the hair on the back was plaited into a pigtail. What was particularly interesting about this ‘walking calamity’ was that when he knelt down and laid his neck on the block he suddenly grabbed the pigtail and gathered it onto the crown of his head. This made me laugh. What was it about? Was he afraid of losing this ‘beauty’ and had moved it to prevent it from being separated from his head, or did he gather it from the nape of his neck to stop it being spattered with blood? My hands descended. I did not know whether to laugh or what to do, but I saw clearly enough that there was not a drop of fear in his eyes; as if he thought he was heading straight for paradise and was only worried about ensuring his pigtail was whole, clean and well groomed for the next life. I grabbed him by that tail, pulled him sharply from his knees and turned his face towards me. There was still no shadow of fear in those dark, narrow eyes. As he looked at me with a quiet curiosity and understanding, he suddenly spoke, ‘Chan fights for whoever gives him a bite to eat. If you give him something to eat, he will fight for you.’ I released his pigtail and instead of throwing his neck onto the block again I turned to the lads and said, ‘Well, shall we take this Khodya with us. Maybe we could train him like a dog.’ I did not foresee that the dark hour would come when I would be alone in the woods with this Chinese man as we ate our first raw raven without salt. <p>A thread from &quot;Raven&#39;s Way&quot; my translation of Vasyl Shkliar&#39;s magic realist novel of the Ukrainian war of independence set in the 1920s. #Ukraine</p> <p>I am still unable to explain, even to myself, the delight that grips me before every battle. It trembles through my entire body like a living thing. My heart sings, my pupils dilate and my palms tingle. If there is a firm resolution that we will go forth into battle today, or even tomorrow, I cannot find a place for myself. Something shakes me from the centre of my being. I saw that this feeling affected not just me, all of us were captured by this delight, but we all lived through it in our own way. One guy would strut like a rooster, another would clean his pistol, someone else would hum or whistle, and there was one man who would sit motionlessly, while his eyes burned with an evil flame. When we suddenly forswore the battle, I experienced a feeling as though a young woman had refused me at the last minute and I remained alone with my longing.</p> <p>No, there was no fear in any of us. It had been scattered to the winds, along with hope and when hope leaves a man how can there be any fear?</p> <p>The blind sorceress, Yevdosia, would have said that there was nothing to boast about. I went to her when everything began. She could gather pain from the human body and was able to heal the soul. I went to her one day and said, ‘Take from my being two unnecessary things. Draw them out of my spirit so that no trace of either remains.’</p> <p>‘What unnecessary things?’ she asked as she smiled with her unseeing eyes.</p> <p>‘Fear and regret,’ I said. ‘Draw the fear from me and then the</p> <p>regret.’</p> <p>‘Those cannot be removed from you; without fear and regret you would swiftly lose yourself.’</p> <p>I have recollected her words many times when I have been decapitating people in a way that was no longer like war for me but had simply become an everyday occupation that made my hands ache at night. That is how I had become when we captured some Chinese soldiers. You can imagine the kind of captivity it was for them. There was no clemency in our hearts. We would put our prisoners to the sword immediately, without squandering bullets on them.</p> <p>On this occasion we led them to the block and I ordered them to lay down their heads ready to be executed. I do not know, even now, why the Chinese who fell into our hands laid their heads under our swords so willingly. It was as if they were in thrall to some enchantment. There was no pleading for mercy and no whining, only a completely submissive compliance with a reality that they could not change.</p> <p>When between ten and twenty heads had rolled and the grass had become crimson with blood, the last one came to the block. He was skinny, not very tall, and had bow legs. It seemed to me that if I had grabbed his knees and spun him he would have rolled like a wheel, who knows in what direction. He was a complete calamity. The front of his head had been shaved and the hair on the back was plaited into a pigtail. What was particularly interesting about this ‘walking calamity’ was that when he knelt down and laid his neck on the block he suddenly grabbed the pigtail and gathered it onto the crown of his head. This made me laugh. What was it about? Was he afraid of losing this ‘beauty’ and had moved it to prevent it from being separated from his head, or did he gather it from the nape of his neck to stop it being spattered with blood?</p> <p>My hands descended. I did not know whether to laugh or what to do, but I saw clearly enough that there was not a drop of fear in his eyes; as if he thought he was heading straight for paradise and was only worried about ensuring his pigtail was whole, clean and well groomed for the next life. I grabbed him by that tail, pulled him sharply from his knees and turned his face towards me. There was still no shadow of fear in those dark, narrow eyes. As he looked at me with a quiet curiosity and understanding, he suddenly spoke, ‘Chan fights for whoever gives him a bite to eat. If you give him something to eat, he will fight for you.’</p> <p>I released his pigtail and instead of throwing his neck onto the block again I turned to the lads and said, ‘Well, shall we take this Khodya with us. Maybe we could train him like a dog.’</p> <p>I did not foresee that the dark hour would come when I would be alone in the woods with this Chinese man as we ate our first raw raven without salt.</p> Tue, 19 Sep 2023 04:57:09 GMT https://blue.feedland.org/?item=124866 https://blue.feedland.org/?item=124866 A thread from "Raven's Way" my translation of Vasyl Shkliar's magic realist novel of the Ukrainian war of independence set in the 1920s. #Ukraine I am still unable to explain, even to myself, the delight that grips me before every battle. It trembles through my entire body like a living thing. My heart sings, my pupils dilate and my palms tingle. If there is a firm resolution that we will go forth into battle today, or even tomorrow, I cannot find a place for myself. Something shakes me from the centre of my being. I saw that this feeling affected not just me, all of us were captured by this delight, but we all lived through it in our own way. One guy would strut like a rooster, another would clean his pistol, someone else would hum or whistle, and there was one man who would sit motionlessly, while his eyes burned with an evil flame. When we suddenly forswore the battle, I experienced a feeling as though a young woman had refused me at the last minute and I remained alone with my longing. No, there was no fear in any of us. It had been scattered to the winds, along with hope and when hope leaves a man how can there be any fear? The blind sorceress, Yevdosia, would have said that there was nothing to boast about. I went to her when everything began. She could gather pain from the human body and was able to heal the soul. I went to her one day and said, ‘Take from my being two unnecessary things. Draw them out of my spirit so that no trace of either remains.’ ‘What unnecessary things?’ she asked as she smiled with her unseeing eyes. ‘Fear and regret,’ I said. ‘Draw the fear from me and then the regret.’ ‘Those cannot be removed from you; without fear and regret you would swiftly lose yourself.’ I have recollected her words many times when I have been decapitating people in a way that was no longer like war for me but had simply become an everyday occupation that made my hands ache at night. That is how I had become when we captured some Chinese soldiers. You can imagine the kind of captivity it was for them. There was no clemency in our hearts. We would put our prisoners to the sword immediately, without squandering bullets on them. On this occasion we led them to the block and I ordered them to lay down their heads ready to be executed. I do not know, even now, why the Chinese who fell into our hands laid their heads under our swords so willingly. It was as if they were in thrall to some enchantment. There was no pleading for mercy and no whining, only a completely submissive compliance with a reality that they could not change. When between ten and twenty heads had rolled and the grass had become crimson with blood, the last one came to the block. He was skinny, not very tall, and had bow legs. It seemed to me that if I had grabbed his knees and spun him he would have rolled like a wheel, who knows in what direction. He was a complete calamity. The front of his head had been shaved and the hair on the back was plaited into a pigtail. What was particularly interesting about this ‘walking calamity’ was that when he knelt down and laid his neck on the block he suddenly grabbed the pigtail and gathered it onto the crown of his head. This made me laugh. What was it about? Was he afraid of losing this ‘beauty’ and had moved it to prevent it from being separated from his head, or did he gather it from the nape of his neck to stop it being spattered with blood? My hands descended. I did not know whether to laugh or what to do, but I saw clearly enough that there was not a drop of fear in his eyes; as if he thought he was heading straight for paradise and was only worried about ensuring his pigtail was whole, clean and well groomed for the next life. I grabbed him by that tail, pulled him sharply from his knees and turned his face towards me. There was still no shadow of fear in those dark, narrow eyes. As he looked at me with a quiet curiosity and understanding, he suddenly spoke, ‘Chan fights for whoever gives him a bite to eat. If you give him something to eat, he will fight for you.’ I released his pigtail and instead of throwing his neck onto the block again I turned to the lads and said, ‘Well, shall we take this Khodya with us. Maybe we could train him like a dog.’ I did not foresee that the dark hour would come when I would be alone in the woods with this Chinese man as we ate our first raw raven without salt. <p>A thread from &quot;Raven&#39;s Way&quot; my translation of Vasyl Shkliar&#39;s magic realist novel of the Ukrainian war of independence set in the 1920s. #Ukraine</p> <p>I am still unable to explain, even to myself, the delight that grips me before every battle. It trembles through my entire body like a living thing. My heart sings, my pupils dilate and my palms tingle. If there is a firm resolution that we will go forth into battle today, or even tomorrow, I cannot find a place for myself. Something shakes me from the centre of my being. I saw that this feeling affected not just me, all of us were captured by this delight, but we all lived through it in our own way. One guy would strut like a rooster, another would clean his pistol, someone else would hum or whistle, and there was one man who would sit motionlessly, while his eyes burned with an evil flame. When we suddenly forswore the battle, I experienced a feeling as though a young woman had refused me at the last minute and I remained alone with my longing.</p> <p>No, there was no fear in any of us. It had been scattered to the winds, along with hope and when hope leaves a man how can there be any fear?</p> <p>The blind sorceress, Yevdosia, would have said that there was nothing to boast about. I went to her when everything began. She could gather pain from the human body and was able to heal the soul. I went to her one day and said, ‘Take from my being two unnecessary things. Draw them out of my spirit so that no trace of either remains.’</p> <p>‘What unnecessary things?’ she asked as she smiled with her unseeing eyes.</p> <p>‘Fear and regret,’ I said. ‘Draw the fear from me and then the</p> <p>regret.’</p> <p>‘Those cannot be removed from you; without fear and regret you would swiftly lose yourself.’</p> <p>I have recollected her words many times when I have been decapitating people in a way that was no longer like war for me but had simply become an everyday occupation that made my hands ache at night. That is how I had become when we captured some Chinese soldiers. You can imagine the kind of captivity it was for them. There was no clemency in our hearts. We would put our prisoners to the sword immediately, without squandering bullets on them.</p> <p>On this occasion we led them to the block and I ordered them to lay down their heads ready to be executed. I do not know, even now, why the Chinese who fell into our hands laid their heads under our swords so willingly. It was as if they were in thrall to some enchantment. There was no pleading for mercy and no whining, only a completely submissive compliance with a reality that they could not change.</p> <p>When between ten and twenty heads had rolled and the grass had become crimson with blood, the last one came to the block. He was skinny, not very tall, and had bow legs. It seemed to me that if I had grabbed his knees and spun him he would have rolled like a wheel, who knows in what direction. He was a complete calamity. The front of his head had been shaved and the hair on the back was plaited into a pigtail. What was particularly interesting about this ‘walking calamity’ was that when he knelt down and laid his neck on the block he suddenly grabbed the pigtail and gathered it onto the crown of his head. This made me laugh. What was it about? Was he afraid of losing this ‘beauty’ and had moved it to prevent it from being separated from his head, or did he gather it from the nape of his neck to stop it being spattered with blood?</p> <p>My hands descended. I did not know whether to laugh or what to do, but I saw clearly enough that there was not a drop of fear in his eyes; as if he thought he was heading straight for paradise and was only worried about ensuring his pigtail was whole, clean and well groomed for the next life. I grabbed him by that tail, pulled him sharply from his knees and turned his face towards me. There was still no shadow of fear in those dark, narrow eyes. As he looked at me with a quiet curiosity and understanding, he suddenly spoke, ‘Chan fights for whoever gives him a bite to eat. If you give him something to eat, he will fight for you.’</p> <p>I released his pigtail and instead of throwing his neck onto the block again I turned to the lads and said, ‘Well, shall we take this Khodya with us. Maybe we could train him like a dog.’</p> <p>I did not foresee that the dark hour would come when I would be alone in the woods with this Chinese man as we ate our first raw raven without salt.</p> Tue, 19 Sep 2023 04:55:55 GMT https://blue.feedland.org/?item=124865 https://blue.feedland.org/?item=124865 A thread from "Raven's Way" my translation of Vasyl Shkliar's magic realist novel of the Ukrainian war of independence set in the 1920s. #Ukraine I am still unable to explain, even to myself, the delight that grips me before every battle. It trembles through my entire body like a living thing. My heart sings, my pupils dilate and my palms tingle. If there is a firm resolution that we will go forth into battle today, or even tomorrow, I cannot find a place for myself. Something shakes me from the centre of my being. I saw that this feeling affected not just me, all of us were captured by this delight, but we all lived through it in our own way. One guy would strut like a rooster, another would clean his pistol, someone else would hum or whistle, and there was one man who would sit motionlessly, while his eyes burned with an evil flame. When we suddenly forswore the battle, I experienced a feeling as though a young woman had refused me at the last minute and I remained alone with my longing. No, there was no fear in any of us. It had been scattered to the winds, along with hope and when hope leaves a man how can there be any fear? The blind sorceress, Yevdosia, would have said that there was nothing to boast about. I went to her when everything began. She could gather pain from the human body and was able to heal the soul. I went to her one day and said, ‘Take from my being two unnecessary things. Draw them out of my spirit so that no trace of either remains.’ ‘What unnecessary things?’ she asked as she smiled with her unseeing eyes. ‘Fear and regret,’ I said. ‘Draw the fear from me and then the regret.’ ‘Those cannot be removed from you; without fear and regret you would swiftly lose yourself.’ I have recollected her words many times when I have been decapitating people in a way that was no longer like war for me but had simply become an everyday occupation that made my hands ache at night. That is how I had become when we captured some Chinese soldiers. You can imagine the kind of captivity it was for them. There was no clemency in our hearts. We would put our prisoners to the sword immediately, without squandering bullets on them. On this occasion we led them to the block and I ordered them to lay down their heads ready to be executed. I do not know, even now, why the Chinese who fell into our hands laid their heads under our swords so willingly. It was as if they were in thrall to some enchantment. There was no pleading for mercy and no whining, only a completely submissive compliance with a reality that they could not change. When between ten and twenty heads had rolled and the grass had become crimson with blood, the last one came to the block. He was skinny, not very tall, and had bow legs. It seemed to me that if I had grabbed his knees and spun him he would have rolled like a wheel, who knows in what direction. He was a complete calamity. The front of his head had been shaved and the hair on the back was plaited into a pigtail. What was particularly interesting about this ‘walking calamity’ was that when he knelt down and laid his neck on the block he suddenly grabbed the pigtail and gathered it onto the crown of his head. This made me laugh. What was it about? Was he afraid of losing this ‘beauty’ and had moved it to prevent it from being separated from his head, or did he gather it from the nape of his neck to stop it being spattered with blood? My hands descended. I did not know whether to laugh or what to do, but I saw clearly enough that there was not a drop of fear in his eyes; as if he thought he was heading straight for paradise and was only worried about ensuring his pigtail was whole, clean and well groomed for the next life. I grabbed him by that tail, pulled him sharply from his knees and turned his face towards me. There was still no shadow of fear in those dark, narrow eyes. As he looked at me with a quiet curiosity and understanding, he suddenly spoke, ‘Chan fights for whoever gives him a bite to eat. If you give him something to eat, he will fight for you.’ I released his pigtail and instead of throwing his neck onto the block again I turned to the lads and said, ‘Well, shall we take this Khodya with us. Maybe we could train him like a dog.’ I did not foresee that the dark hour would come when I would be alone in the woods with this Chinese man as we ate our first raw raven without salt.