Ukraine
The writer Serhij Zhadan does everything to boost morale in his homeland
March 13, 2022 – Text: Klaus Hanisch
We have been trying to reach Serhij Zhadan for the past few days. The 47-year-old is one of the most important contemporary writers in Ukraine. And he has a lot in common with the Czech Republic: visits, books, readings. We met him exactly ten years ago at the Leipzig Book Fair. On the sidelines of a discussion round, he joined us and answered our questions in an uncomplicated way between two appointments.
The Ukrainian studied German and his German is very good. In 2012, our conversation revolved around the upcoming European Football Championship in his home country and in Poland. Serhij Zhadan is a self-confessed fan of this sport. “Football is always drama or comedy,” he smiled. At that time almost comparable to the political situation in his country. Zhadan suspected that the results of the Ukrainian eleven would even affect the upcoming elections. “If the team plays badly, then there will also be a low turnout,” he noted. The interview was published on May 3, 2012 in the sports section of the “Prager Zeitung” on page 16.
Now we wanted to ask Zhadan questions regarding the war in his homeland, wanted to find out from him how things were with his compatriots and their suffering and solidarity. We wanted to know from him how he is doing, how he is currently experiencing the war. And whether he still lives in Kharkiv, the city that came under fire from Russian troops right following the invasion began.
The Suhrkamp publishing house in Berlin, which holds all the rights to Zhadan’s books and even worldwide, mediated. An employee forwarded our request to Serhij Zhadan on March 7th. So far there has been no answer. Zhadan was born in eastern Ukraine, in the Luhansk region that has been occupied for eight years by rulers and troops openly cooperating with the Russian leadership. They had now also asked the Russian army for help, President Putin hypocritically claimed in the Kremlin.
Serhij Zhadan has published several books at Suhrkamp regarding the situation there. So “Why I’m not on the net”, poems and prose from the war. Since the summer of 2014 he has been writing down his adventures and experiences in the eastern Ukrainian war zone. In his novel Internat, which was awarded the Leipzig Book Fair Prize in 2018, he vividly raised awareness of the war in the Donbass.
Many Eastern European countries, including the Czech Republic, are now calling for Ukraine to join the EU as quickly as possible. German Chancellor Olaf Scholz rejects this because there are clear criteria and requirements that the country does not meet. The same applies to former German Foreign Minister Sigmar Gabriel, who recently justified his rejection in a TV interview by saying that Ukraine was characterized by corruption before the war and was heavily ruled by oligarchs. Other politicians in the West pointed to the lack of a market economy and a lack of legal certainty.
Coincidentally, the front page of the May 2012 issue of PZ in which our interview with Zhadan appeared was also regarding Ukraine. More precisely, the actions of the authorities once morest the imprisoned former Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko, which met with sharp criticism in the Czech Republic. The then Foreign Minister Karel Schwarzenberg advised the Ukrainian leadership to take the politician’s poor health seriously. Otherwise, the “position of the country in Europe is seriously endangered,” said Schwarzenberg.
Not long following our conversation in 2012, German television broadcast a portrait of Ukraine. Serhij Zhadan was also interviewed. In the TV report, he gave the then well-known politicians a wide berth and kept his distance from his country’s political leadership. When asked regarding more freedoms through the EM, also for art and literature, Zhandan answered us: “For five years, propaganda in Ukraine has been telling us that the country will change as a result of the EM. But these are empty phrases.”
At that time, Viktor Yanukovych, who was loyal to Moscow, was still in power, but was later expelled and found exile in Russia. Now Volodymyr Zelenskyy is the country’s president. It would be interesting to find out whether Zhadan would now back his politics in recent years and would himself urge the West to have his country join the EU as soon as possible. But Zhadan is currently no longer available to any medium. For a week he has only published messages via Facebook. He has more than 134,000 followers there. In fact, he still lives in Kharkiv and drives around the city regularly. He documents empty streets in photos. In the last few weeks “the city has changed a lot”, but you can also feel “the strength that comes from the pain.” The most important thing now is “saving the lives of the people who live here.” He is convinced of it that innate business acumen and frivolity “return to the city streets.” He calls the war “not a war between countries – this is genocide once morest the Ukrainians”.
Serhij Zhadan keeps distributing relief supplies in the city. “We bought equipment for the volunteer unit we work with. Thank you to everyone who helps. Really specific and necessary help that goes to the right place,” he writes. In addition, many medicines were unloaded for the two hospitals. Help is coming from all over the country. He also told of a dead soldier’s girl returning from the funeral silent and worried regarding her grandparents, for whom she asked to bring medicine.
He has now also posted a political statement. “I was quite skeptical regarding the actual government,” admits Zhadan. In the 2019 elections, many young people came to government offices. “I thought these young people would behave like old officials.” Although he had previously done constructive useful things with many of them. But their generation has now “suffered this cruel fate of defending the country”. Like millions of fighters and volunteers.
For him, the leaders in Russia and Belarus are like their tank technology: old and inadequate, from the last century. He accuses the USA and Germany of being cautious and lacking in courage like office workers and pensioners. After the 16th day of the war, he came to the realization that history gives outlines to the soul that no one even knew existed. “We believe in our country. Tomorrow we will wake up one day closer to our victory,” he says with confidence.
Zhadan complains that the Russians are being fooled into thinking that another war is going to happen via a popular Russian Telegram channel. Just as if Ukraine itself would destroy its cities and threaten the world. “They have a completely different reality and a completely different war and only perceive video recordings of burnt Russian tanks as part of the counter-propaganda.” The Russians would now have to live with our curse for a very, very long time.
He took a photo of a destroyed house. Previously, he already showed a famous culture house that was damaged by a shell. “They have always destroyed our culture,” he rages. However, this time they will not succeed. The house will be rebuilt. Elsewhere, too, he tries to maintain a certain normality. So he met his bandmates for rehearsals. “Everything will be Rock’n Roll!”
Then he wrote that a unit in Kharkiv needed support – or a bus. There has already been speculation that he has joined his country’s army and may take part in the fighting. This was rejected by a spokeswoman for Suhrkamp-Verlag to the “Prager Zeitung”. “Serhij Zhadan does everything to boost morale in his home country,” said the Suhrkamp employee. The demand for his books is huge, almost all of them are currently out of print and are currently being reissued. It is not unlikely that Serhij Zhadan also keeps a war diary like Egon Erwin Kisch once did. After the end of the First World War, the Prague author published his notes under the title “Write that down, Kisch!”
