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Translated by Grace Mahoney and Taras Malkovych
What happens to language during war? Does it become superfluous to actions? Is it twisted? Broken? Lost? In wartime, even the meaning of simple words can change, expand, contract, acquire new resonances and sounds. A Ukrainian Dictionary of War began with the fragments of experiences spoken in the new language of life under war and became a way to document a nation’s shared losses, pain, and belief in victory.
In 2022, poet Ostap Slyvynsky undertook the role of wartime lexicographer, carefully collecting and compiling a dictionary of witness to Russia’s invasion and war against Ukraine. Among the voices represented in A Ukrainian Dictionary of War are those who were forced to leave their homes and venture into the unknown, aid volunteers, medics, soldiers, social activists, and artists. All very different people connected by the experience that war has appeared in their lives.
A documentary project published in conjunction with the Lost Horse Press Contemporary Ukrainian Poetry Series, Volume 15. Bilingual Edition.
