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 next instalment of our 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!

I will shit under a bush in the quiet woodland
In peace, in bliss, amid the scent of grasses
That is nirvana, my dear friends
And like this, in nirvana, no one has ever shitted

Don’t yell, no need to, you’re cynical people
That my poetry’s about the act of defecation
Keep calm, everything will be all right
At the proper time empty your digestive tract

I’m for everything good, may all be well
May only goodness prosper, may evil disappear
And may all kind people live in happiness
May only the Huylo in Moscow drop dead from the shits

Під кущем насеру в тихій лісосмузі
В тиші, у блаженстві, в ароматі трав
Отака нірвана, любі мої друзі
І отак в нірвані ще ніхто не срав

Не кричіть, не треба, ви, цинічні люди
Що в моїй поезії дефекацій акт
Зберігайте спокій, все нормально буде
І звільняйте вчасно ваш кишковий тракт

Я ж за все хороше, хай всім добре буде
Хай добро лиш квітне, і хай щезне зло
Й хай живуть у щасті усі добрі люди
А від срачки здохне у Москві Хуйло

Original poem by MYKHAILO MARIANYCH
Translation by TETIANA ALEKSINA
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