Down through the ages, Russia has tried to kill the Ukrainian identity. They have done everything to present Ukraine as the rural outskirts of the ‘great, educated and advanced’ Russian empire. But the ones who proclaimed themselves enlighteners were merely butchers, murderers. They did everything they could to erase Ukrainian culture, traditions, and even the Ukrainian language itself.

And they are still doing this, even now, literally. During the last eleven years of war, Russia has killed hundreds of people of literature. Writers, poets, translators, editors, publishers and librarians. Ukrainian men and women. As you read these words, others are left to disappear in an unread draft forever.

There is a project called ‘Nedopysani‘ (‘Unfinished‘ in English). It’s a memorial site for people of literature who will never be able to put that final dot in their notebook, who will never be able to take into their hands their first published book. And so, this is our hard and painful mission. This is what we must do for them. It is inevitable.

Today, we present the first instalment of our new translation series, ‘Words Live On’. We have done our best, and we hope that it will speak to our Dear Readers in a way that cold, clinical war statistics cannot.

Glory to Ukraine! To our heroes — glory!

we all will die
so it seems, that life has no meaning.

all meaning is in us, in a human head.
we set the vector of meaning on our own.

that’s why we invented a god.

based in
our image and after our likeness.
by ourselves
in ourselves

but i assure you
living – mandatory

ми всі помрем
і схоже, що у житті нема сенсу.

усі сенси у нас, в людській голові.
ми самі задаєм вектор смислу.

тому і придумали бога.

на основі
образу і подобі.
самі по собі
з себе

але запевняю
жити – треба

Original poem by HENNADII HAVRYLIV
Translation by TETIANA ALEKSINA
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