Tanya Malyarchuk – Ukrainian writer: “War would be a disaster” – Culture

The situation in the Ukrainian-Russian border area worries the author. She hopes for the power of reason.

Tanya Malyarchuk hasn’t been sleeping well lately. The Ukrainian writer has been living in Vienna for eleven years, to which she moved for love. But her homeland won’t let her go, not even in her dreams, and certainly not in everyday life.

“Every morning when I get up, the first thing I look at is the ORF website,” she says. Then she clicks through various Ukrainian news portals, only to think with relief: “Okay, another night that passed peacefully, Putin hasn’t invaded yet.” Only then can she continue to work on her new book in peace.

Suffering «Bloodland»

In her novels and short stories, Maljartschuk has repeatedly dealt with Ukrainian melancholy, with the past and present of this suffering country between the Carpathians and the Black Sea. Ukraine, located in the so-called Bloodlands, has been repeatedly hit by disasters in the last century. This ranges from the battles of the First World War and the famine epidemics of the 1930s that killed millions to the genocide of Ukrainian Jews during the German occupation.

“We have had three or four revolutions in our history. None of them brought anything », states the author with a sad smile. Now comes the military threat from Putin’s autocracy.

“A war would be a tremendous catastrophe”

“We cannot imagine what a tremendous catastrophe a war between Russia and Ukraine would be,” said Malyarchuk. One must reckon with hundreds of thousands of deaths. In addition, there would be millions of refugees heading west.

Malyartschuk cannot yet imagine that this will actually happen. However, she expects everything: “Who knows what’s going on in Putin’s head? Some crazies on his advisory board are already philosophizing about a limited nuclear strike.”

65 percent want to join the EU

However, there are also factors that give her hope, for example her compatriots: “People in Ukraine are ready to resist. And they have never been more pro-Western than they are today.”

With the invasion of Crimea, Putin also lost sympathy among most Russian speakers in Ukraine, says the author. The polls speak for themselves in this regard: 65 percent of Ukrainians want their country to join the EU immediately. A wish that must remain pure utopia for the moment.

Malyarchuk defends her country’s right to self-determination. “It’s crazy that in 2022 you still have to discuss whether Ukraine has the right to be independent.” Of course, the country of 40 million has this right. Especially since more than 90 percent of Ukrainians voted in favor of independence in the 1991 independence referendum, including a large part of the Russian-speaking population.

Gallows humor as an antidote

Malyarchuk also gives hope that her compatriots have not lost their sense of humor. She recently saw a report on Ukrainian television. It was about the bunkers from the Cold War era, which are now being put back into operation. One of them, in Kiev, now houses a striptease bar.

“When the reporter asked the operator of the bar whether he was willing to take in people seeking protection in his bar, he said: ‘Of course. We will also make a program about it.’” She found that funny, says the author.

Ambitious striptease numbers are unlikely to be enough to deter Vladimir Putin from invading Ukraine. But maybe a start would be made if we could laugh at jokes like this together.