#victoria amelina

[folklorespring]

by Victoria Amelina, translated from Ukrainian by Anatoly Kudryavitsky

[wintersmitth]

Award-winning writer, human rights advocate, investigator of the russian war crimes in Ukraine, Victoria Amelina died of the injuries incompatible with life received as a result of the Russian missile strike on Ria Lounge in Kramatorsk on June 27.

[kaoszkutato]

június 27

"Vlagyimir Putyin nem háborús bűnös" - jelentette ki Orbán Viktor a június 27-én a német Bildben megjelent interjújában.

Legyen itt egy történet aznapról.

Ő itt Victoria Amelina, ukrán író, az ukrán PEN tagja, a New York nevű kis ukrán település táblája előtt, ahol megalapította a New York-i Irodalmi Fesztivált.

A háború miatt az ő élete is felfordult. Az ukrán költők képeivel díszített táskájával a vállán itt éppen nem egy irodalmi rendezvényre indult, hanem megnézni és megörökíteni az oroszok által bombázott Harkivot. Belefogott egy könyvbe, melyben az oroszok háborús bűneit dokumentálta.

Ennek a munkának a során fedezte fel az oroszok által elhurcolt és meggyilkolt Volodymyr Vakulenko naplóját. Vakulenko költő, gyerekkönyvíró volt, egy 14 éves fia maradt árván. Június 22-én részt vett naplóból készült könyv bemutatóján, melynek ő írta az előszavát.

Június 24-én egy kijevi művészeti esten olvasott fel költeményeket.

Június 27-én kolumbiai írók és újságírók csoportjával felkeresték a felszabadított Kapytolivkét, ahonnan Vakulenkót elhurcolták. A képen a kis falu könyvtárosát éppen a kolumbiai író, Héctor Abad Faciolince köszönti. Ahogy a képet készítő Victoria a bejegyzésében írta: "It feels like a solidarity hug from America Latina for Ukraine 💛💙".

Aznap este beültek egy étterembe. Kramatorszkban. Pizzázni. Igen, abba az étterembe, amit az oroszok rakétával támadtak meg.

Tegnap este jelentették be, hogy hiába küzdöttek Victoria életéért, meghalt.

Egy 12 éves kisfiú maradt árván utána, akivel ősszel terveztek Párizsba költözni a Columbia University ösztöndíjával.

Julia és Anna Akszencsenkó, a mindössze 14 éves ikerpár is az áldozatok között volt. „Egy orosz rakéta megállította két angyal szívének dobbanását" - írta róluk megemlékezésében a város önkormányzata.

Ezek pedig honfitársaink kommentjei egy magyar nyelvű orosz propaganda-oldalon a rakétatámadásról szóló bejegyzés alatt.

Biztos vagyok benne, hogy Orbán Viktor a pokol tüzén fog elégni, és remélem, hogy oda is ugyanúgy tömegek fogják követni, ahogyan a nagygyűléseire is.

[huggingtentacles]

Air-raid sirens across the country

It feels like everyone is brought out

For execution

But only one person gets shot

Usually the one at the edge

Not you today; all clear

By Victoria Amelina, translation by me, I'm elaborating on it under the cut:

I made a rough translation from Ukrainian, tried my best to make it work. Though the word order itself carries some meaning that's hard to communicate in English so I'll just explain the differences and hope you'll get the vibes.

The second and third line directly translates like this:

As if every time led to an execution

Everyone

The word order in English doesn't work like that but putting "everyone" in the end works for emphasis on Ukraninan. Everyone is brought out to get shot.

"Usually the one at the edge" doesn't convey the whole thing. There is a double meaning here. Being "At the edge" or "скраю" in Ukraninan is also synonymous with not being involved or plainly speaking, innocent.

And in the final line the rough translation would be "Today not you; all clear" putting "today" in the beginning puts emphasis on the word. In English it sounds almost cheerful to me, like yeah, congrats, it's not you today! But in Ukraninan it says something more like "It's not you today."

I just felt like conveying these differences is important.

I would also like to mention that Victoria Amelina was a really good poet, I like a lot of her works. Unfortunately there won't be more, she was killed in a Russian air strike last year.

[panimoonchild]

Executed Renaissance extended

Writer Volodymyr Vakulenko hid his manuscripts describing the Russian occupation at home, in his garden under a cherry tree. The Russians killed him. The writer Victoria Amelina found those manuscripts. The Russians killed her. The Vivat publishing house published Vakulenko's manuscripts. The Russians attacked the printing house. They killed the workers. Thousands of books were destroyed. The Executed Renaissance of the 21st century was shot. The killers are the same.

"This is how you get used to everything. The main thing is who you remain in all this," Vakulenko wrote.

As a result of yesterday's Russian attack on the printing house in Kharkiv, 50,000 books were burned, - Volodymyr Zelenskyy.

If someone will be in Berlin from 27.05-16.06., you can visit this heart-wrenching exhibition.

[justacynicalromantic]

[thegirlwhohid]

One of the poems of Victoria Amelina, written after the start of the full-scale invasion.

[loneberry]

In November 2022 I wrote, “Ukrainian writer Victoria Amelina speaks beautifully about her memories of Maidan, of the university of the streets, the transformational eros of revolt, and how useless literary writing feels during times of war, how she switched from writing novels to investigating war crimes.” She had immediately captivated me when I listen to two podcast interviews with her about the war and Ukrainian literature. I felt she had a radiant and beautiful soul, that she was driven by an indefatigable fierceness of spirit that seems true to so many strong-willed Ukrainians. In December I posted about Victoria Amelina’s discovery of the buried diary of dead Ukrainian poet Volodymyr Vakulenko. Now Victoria is dead. It’s hard to believe given how full of life she was.

.

We are all eagerly awaiting the day when the sound of shelling is replaced by the sound of poems.

.

[snovyda]

"I say here: not "Putin’s regime", as I was still inclined to say at the start of the total war. And I say: “Russia”. Some crimes are too great not to be borne by an entire people. Some crimes go beyond the mere culpability established by justice, which must be established by name, individually, and in this respect, totally.

Who, after all, committed this crime, and certainly more than a hundred thousand others? Certainly, it was Putin who unleashed this new war of aggression, an extension of the one he started in 2014, and he and all his accomplices will have to be prosecuted for this crime of aggression too. [...]

Still others, as Nataliya Gumanyuk reports, congratulated themselves on the murder, including children, such as the head of the Duma’s military committee, Colonel-General Andrei Kartapolov, on a propaganda program on Russian television. And those who invited this colonel are guilty. And those who listened to this program without saying anything or feeling anything. And those who look away and say nothing. And those who vacation in Europe. And those who voted for Putin and who—80%, it seems, even if polls are always questionable—support his war (the number has increased since February 24, as has the expressed rate of support for Putin). And those, too, who supported Priogozhin, as if there were no equivalence between Wagner’s crimes and those of the regime. And those who fled conscription, but said nothing against massive crimes. And those who fled conscription, but said nothing against massive crimes. And all those, even dissidents, who continue to complain about their fate, but say nothing about that of the Ukrainians, as if there were no possible comparison. But also, yes, those among them who, while calling for an end to the war and punishment for the crimes committed, refuse to pay reparations. Those who do not kneel. Those who do not ask forgiveness. Those who, because they didn’t vote for Putin, think they can exonerate themselves from the burden of the crime.

Then I certainly have some rare Russian friends who carry each of these crimes on their conscience, for whom it is a real personal suffering each time, and you still have some—women members of feminist organizations especially, it seems—who have enough courage to light a little light in front of the makeshift votive monuments in tribute to those who were murdered in Bucha, Mariupol, Izyum or Dnipro. [...] But how many people are capable of thinking like that? If you Russians do not mourn Victoria and all the others, not out of obligation, but deep down inside, you are guilty."

[ravencat35]

Russians continue to kill our people, our artists, writers, athletes. They mutilate and destroy everyone and everything, so that later the world can invite a Russian director or a children's writer to the premiere. If ghosts were real, I'm sure that the murdered Ukrainian artists would stand by your beds forever and ask why they had to die so that you glorified Russian culture

[deadpanwalking]

[thelibraryiscool]

"Or, perhaps, that country didn't crumble, but rather spilled over like a river after the winter, or, for example, a bowl of oil? Then that would explain everything. The great, terrible country shattered and spilled out, as sometimes spills out oil purchased by some Lviv lady at the Pryvokzalny market. The country was spilling over the cobblestones in rivulets, in rivers. And it's not so easy to scrub it off the streets."

-- Victoria Amelina, A House for Dom [Дiм для Дома]

Чи, може, та країна не розсипалася, а розлилася, як річка після зими чи, наприклад, пляшка олії? Це ж тоді все пояснює. Велика страшна країна розбилася й розлилася, як розливається часом олія, куплена на Привокзальному ринку якоюсь львивскою пані. Країна розтікалася бруківкою струмочками, ріками. І так просто її не витреш із вулиць.

[wintersmitth]

I went to the wake for Victoria Amelina today, and it's. I don't know. It's so painful our best ones are being killed so cruelly. She was so talented and full of life. She did not deserve to die from a missile strike.

[takmiblog]

[protoslacker]

by Victoria Amelina

Dan Little pointed to this essay in a thoughtful post on his blog Understanding Society.

The essay is not long and is very much worth reading.

[ohpannoinno]

Homo Sovieticus is a catchy, sarcastic reference that’s become popular shorthand for describing millions of Hanna’s children. Humor helped us to survive the Soviet times. But what the label conceals is tragic. [...] It is about accepting lies in order to survive and prosper while forgetting the truth of the past. It is about them being the easiest prey to the post-truth era deceptions. So the cycle of lies and forgetting never breaks.

Though the Soviet Union collapsed decades ago, the Sovieticus syndrome hasn’t been entirely eradicated. Yesterday’s “Soviet Man” has morphed into today’s “Amnesiac Man”. Homo Sovieticus has mutated into Homo Oblivious.

— Homo Oblivious, an essay by Victoria Amelina (1986-2023)