My Two Wars

by Zhanna Ohanesian

I am only 21 years old and I have seen two wars in my life. The first, in my ancestral homeland, in Nagorno-Karabakh, the second – in Ukraine, where I was born and where I live. I tried to write this text to gather my own thoughts and tell you about how I am going through these wars.

The author aided children affected by the war in Nagorno-Karabakh in 2020. The conflict was the first of two she has experienced in her 21 years.

Black Garden or as the Armenians say – Artsakh

The war in Karabakh began in the fall of 2020. I would describe my feelings during the 44 days of the war in one word: agony.

During the war in Artsakh I did not want to live. I said to myself: am I worse than those 17-year-old, 20-year-old boys who are dying there now? I am not better than them. Why do I live and they do not? I said to myself: this is unfair.

It was hard for me. Hard to eat, sleep, study and work, as everyone else next to me in Ukraine did. People did not understand that my soul was in hell and I could not condemn them. I had no idea what others thought when they saw me, but I knew they could not even begin to imagine what was happening inside of me and how deeply terrible I felt. 

You have to volunteer if you do not want to become a complete madman

I volunteered during every single day of the 44-day war in Nagorno-Karabakh. Volunteering is throwing all your strength into a battle, squeezing it to the last drop.

The author, Zhanna Ohanesian, poses with several other children she worked with during the aftermath of the Nagorno-Karabakh war.

I disseminated information, wrote to international organizations. I collected material aid for war victims and refugees.

During the Karabakh war, I was too young and too emotional. Everyday, I watched a lot of negative videos, wrote aggressive comments, entered into negative discussions on social media, and read a lot of news about death. I was killing my nervous system.

In wartime, it is more important than ever to be assembled, to store your energy, to direct it in the right way.

After the bloody war in Karabakh ended, we continued to help. In the spring, I realized I wanted to go to Armenia and work with children who were close to the war zone. My friend-volunteer and I went together.

We helped not only the children, but also ourselves. Such volunteering restored our faith and gave us peace of mind. It was a serious therapy for our soul that changed the way we had   lived.

Ukraine

I was already experienced when the war started in Ukraine. I knew what to do and I knew I would not influence the situation globally. Despite the fact that explosions were heard in my city every day and we were constantly in the bomb shelter – I was not afraid. I did not feel anything.

I knew: I just have to do everything I can. 

View fullsize

View fullsize

The author walks up and down the stairs, to and from the improvised bomb shelter in her hometown of Mykolaiv, Ukraine. A strategic southern port city, Mykolaiv has been shelled extensively and attacked repeatedly by Russian ground forces, but fierce resistance by Ukrainian troops has prevented Russia from capturing the city.

From the first day of the war, I opened my laptop and wrote to my friends, “What are you doing now? I'm joining". And we started working. We translated texts about the situation in Ukraine into other languages, helped in various charitable foundations, collected money for bulletproof vests and looked for humanitarian aid for those who needed it. 

It was not easy to do volunteer work in war conditions. My city of Mykolaiv is also a combat zone – the constant sirens and explosions and bad news distracted me from my work. With each sound of the siren, my family and I descended from the ninth floor to the shelter. Finally, on the 43rd day of the war, my family and I decided to evacuate to a safer city in Ukraine.

I heard explosions constantly. There have always been mixed feelings about this city. I have never been close to the mentality of people, their behavior and habits. Maybe it is because I felt a little overwhelmed. However, at the same time, I have many wonderful memories connected with this city. First of all, these are the memories of friendship, books, studies and work. These are walks under the rain, parties, and photo shoots with a friend. It is a long search for yourself in the world.

During this war, I have a feeling of constant deja vu. Yes, it was something familiar. But now I am not 19 years old. I react calmly when I read death statistics, when I see destroyed infrastructure. It’s strange to say, but this time I came to terms with human pain. However, I do not understand: is it a state of acceptance of the situation or a state of disappointment?

When the war comes, you do not care about material things, you do not care about your own  development. You just want peace. This is the same in any war.

War is a source of endless pain. It is possible to fight the pain if you just start to control the circumstances. Volunteering is perhaps the main way of fighting. 

Fate is unfair to my nation, to the country in which I was born and raised. I have no other choice but to struggle against injustice using selflessness and a desire to help those I love.

Post-Communist World: New Artists Add Their Voices in Support of Ukraine

Many members of Atlantika Collective have close ties to Ukraine and other post-Communist and Socialist states around the world. This week, as part of our response to the invasion of Ukraine by Russia, we issued a Special Statement on Ukraine, condemning the cruel and illegal invasion and urging strong actions to defend the country and to safeguard human lives that are in grave danger.

In addition, we unveiled a new section of our website, The Post-Communist and Socialist World, that highlights the many projects that members have created that originate in Ukraine or other nations of the world that have transitioned away from communism and socialism.

Now, other artists are joining us in support of Ukraine by adding links to their projects to this new section of the website. Today, we’re featuring the voices of two very talented artists, Victoria Crayhon and Matt Mooore, who have created beautiful and insightful projects in this part of the world.

Karl Marx Street I, Irkutsk RF 2018, Archival Pigment Print, 30 X 44 inches, Victoria Crayhon.

Victoria Crayhon has been making photographs in the Russian Federation since 2011. Her work examines the intensity and omnipresence of Russian nationalism as reflected in its architecture, public space, historical sites, holiday rituals, and culture in general, which, like any form of nationalism, is essentially the glorification of one’s own culture and country. Nationalism has historically, at least in the west, led to two world wars and most American wars since 1945. Her two projects, New Empire and Far East, ask the questions: How long can a society hold onto and/or reject ideas from its own history? Which facts and stories are being told? How is history wielded and for whom?

Post-Socialist Landscapes by Matt Moore is an exploration of memory sites in countries that were at one time occupied by the Soviet Union. The photographs in this project fall into two main groups. One set of images depicts the exact location where statues of Lenin and Stalin once stood. A second group of photographs focuses on the fate of the discarded communist monuments that once stood throughout Europe’s Eastern Bloc states. Together, these two groups of photographs speak to the way local governments and municipalities control historical narratives through the manipulation of public and private space. While some societies go to great lengths to eradicate the unwanted reminders of their past, others are willing to let them slowly disintegrate.

View fullsize

Lenin, Vilnius, Lithuania, Matt Moore, 2014.

Moore’s project East/West presents images of the abandoned checkpoints that separate former eastern bloc countries from the West, particularly the Czech Republic from Austria and Germany. As remnants of the Iron Curtain, each checkpoint carries with it its own amount of history and aura. Today, each structure stands vacant and serves only as a hollow reminder that one is moving from one country to another. Moore is interested in them as symbols of the perpetual change that takes place in Europe and beyond. Ultimately, the images in this project function like time capsules. They give us a glimpse of the past, while also hinting at the potential for greater change ahead.

In addition to featuring talented artists from around the world, our new section on the Post-Communist World contains information about how you can do your utmost to assist the people of Ukraine in their historic struggle for democracy and self-determination, including information on Russian war crimes, charities that are assisting Ukrainians in their country and those who have been forced to flee, and suggestions about how to contact government officials in the West who must hear from us about the importance of this crisis for the world.

We all have a stake in the war in Ukraine, since the very future of democracy is at stake. We continue to urge everyone to do all they can to influence the outcome.

Fighting for Freedom and Democracy in Ukraine

View fullsize

This image, taken by an artist in Kyiv on February 26, 2022, shows the aftermath of a Russian attack on a civilian apartment building. Amnesty International has already documented the indiscriminate shelling of civilian targets by Russia, actions that likely constitute war crimes under international law.

Many members of Atlantika Collective have a close personal connection to the parts of the world that have transitioned away from Communism and Socialism, including the nation of Ukraine, which is under assault by Russian troops at this moment.

Today Atlantika issued a “Special Statement on the War in Ukraine.” This statement vehemently condemns the Russian invasion of Ukraine and calls on governments and people all over the world to do everything possible to assist the people of Ukraine. Importantly, it includes essential information on Russian war crimes against civilians and information on how people worldwide can send humanitarian assistance to people in Ukraine and to refugees in bordering nations. Finally, Atlantika urges people to contact their own governments to demand the strongest possible sanctions against Russia and their isolation in the world community.

In addition, to highlight the importance of protecting freedom and democracy in Ukraine, we are introducing a new section of our website today called “The Post-Communist and Socialist World.” This new section brings together a diverse collection of artworks by Atlantika Collective members (and soon, other artists who have focused on similar topics). These works offer insights into art and culture, diversity and borderlands, and the environmental problems plaguing these nations, including a number of projects that originate in Ukraine.

The war in Ukraine is one of the most pressing humanitarian crises of our time. It is also one of the most important challenges to the rule of law and the future of democracy and self-determination. For these reasons, we all have a stake in this war, and we all must do what we can to bring an end to this brutal, unwarranted and illegal use of military force.

Book Launch Discussion: Contemporary Ukrainian and Baltic Art

by Mark Isaac

On Monday, February 14, the Ukrainian Studies Organization at IU sponsored a book launch discussion featuring a group of international scholars, curators, critics, and artists, including Atlantika Collective member Jessica Zychowicz.

The ambitious book, whose full title is Contemporary Ukrainian and Baltic Art: Political and Social Perspectives, 1991–2021, surveys Ukrainian and Baltic art during the 30 years after the fall of Communism in the region, taking care to understand how the transformations of the last three decades built upon the past and how they might inform the future. The full taped version of the talk is included here.

The taped version of Book Launch: Contemporary Ukrainian and Baltic Art, a discussion sponsored by IU Ukrainian Studies Organization Talks.

A chapter titled “A New Dawn at the Centennial of Suffragism: Artistic Representation in Transeuropean and Transatlantic Kyiv” was penned by Zychowicz. This exceptionally insightful essay skillfully weaves together the evolution of International Women’s Day, the events of the 2014 Maidan Revolution of Dignity, a landmark 2018 feminist exhibition in Kyiv titled “A Space of One’s Own,” and the trial (and acquittal) of a women’s rights banner unfurled at a 2018 march to tell a story of feminist activism and accomplishment that has implications for artists, scholars, and progressive activists well beyond Ukraine’s borders. 

A full review of the book and of Zychowicz’s chapter are beyond the scope of this post, but it is worth a brief mention of two salient themes in Zychowicz’s essay that stood out for this reader. 

The piece begins by acknowledging the socialist origins of the fight for the right to vote (which was won several years earlier in Eastern Europe than it was in the United States), as well as the fight for women’s rights in general. In the post-Communist environment, which embraced a new nationalism and sought to discard anything associated with the previous regimes, feminism was identified as an unwanted relic of the past. Thus, the efforts of feminist artists in Ukraine have in part been oriented toward reintroducing feminism to the public as neither “regressive nor anti-national.” For example, as part of a participatory art project, feminist artist Alina Kopytsa posed nude for a photograph in front of a wall painted the institutional color blue that is associated with all government buildings in Ukraine. This “visual insubordination” undermines the authority associated with state institutions (and their control over women’s bodies) while also calling attention to the unspoken political meanings associated with many public spaces. 

Zychowicz asserts as basic the idea that one of the most important purposes of art is to cast light on what is marginalized or overlooked, and that this act can make what was unseen central to our lives. To elaborate, she calls attention to the 2018 Kyiv art exhibition titled A Space of One’s Own, which included a century’s worth of feminist artworks, including the provocative works of contemporary practitioners. She then interrogates a key question:

Bringing women’s history into greater visibility is the essential work of any author or artist who dares to express herself on the page or canvas. But what if the space of one’s own for self-discovery were transparent?….How does artistic production—the re-contextualization of boundaries between private/public, everyday materials, and multiple framings and perspectives open up new vocabularies, texts, and pathways for constructing ourselves, how we see each other, and the world around us? 

The title of the exhibition, A Space of One’s Own, is an allusion to Virginia Woolf’s famous essay A Room of One’s Own, in which she asserts that “a woman must have money and a room of her own if she is to write fiction.” According to Zychowicz, this work is seen by many scholars as “a breakthrough in the search for a language by which to express non-normative gender experience.” In fact, Woolf posited that feminists would need to create an “Outsider Society” to transform society from their position on its margins. 

Although Woolf never specifically created such a society, her writing and publishing efforts moved forcefully in this direction and opened the door for more contemporary artists to initiate a dialogue around such subjects as maternity, fertility and reproduction that is ongoing today. For example, Ukrainian artist Yevgenia Belorusets created photographs of marginalized gay, bisexual and transgender Ukrainians in their domestic settings, blurring the lines between public and private and challenging prevailing views about heteronormativity. 

In her extremely satisfying conclusion, Zychowicz urges us to build on these efforts by reimagining the public/private divide in new ways. She notes that Czech author Milan Kundera has identified “transparency” as one of 65 key words in “The Art of the Novel,” and this concept is closely associated with the nineteenth century philosophical interest in the concept of the glass house. But this utopian vision always involved a core element of paradox, since the glass house can equally be identified as an early vision of surveillance and confinement. For feminist artists, always outsiders, this construct will certainly be helpful as they seek to define a path forward. Freedom, Zychowicz notes, “is both a process of achieving the space of one’s own—but also, the ability to leave it at will.” 

(Please note that Zychowicz’s viewpoints and scholarship are entirely her own and do not necessary reflect the views of Fulbright Ukraine and the Institute of International Education, Kyiv Office, which she directs.)

Speakers in the discussion included: 

• Jessica Zychowicz is the Director of Fulbright Ukraine & IIE: Institute of International Education, Kyiv Office. She recently published her monograph, Superfluous Women: Art, Feminism, and Revolution in Twenty-First Century Ukraine (University of Toronto Press 2020). In 2017-2018 Dr. Zychowicz was a U.S. Fulbright Scholar to Kyiv-Mohyla Academy, where she taught courses in visual sociology, gender, and conducted interviews and archival research toward her second book. She has authored numerous articles on gender, human rights, revolution and protest in postcommunism. Dr. Zychowicz is a Board Member of the Association for Women in Slavic Studies (AWSS), an Advisory Board member of H-Net H-Ukraine, and is a founding co-editor of the Forum for Race and Postcolonialism at Krytyka.com.  

• Svitlana Biedarieva is an art historian and curator with a focus on Eastern European and Latin American art. She holds her PhD in History of Art from the Courtauld Institute of Art, University of London.  

• Kateryna Botanova is a Ukrainian cultural critic, curator, and writer based in Basel. She is a co-curator of CULTURESCAPES, Swiss multidisciplinary biennial, and is an editor of the critical anthologies that accompany each festival, among them On the Edge: Culturescapes 2019 Poland, Archeology of the Future: Culturescapes 2017 Greece, Culturescapes 2021. She has worked extensively with EU Eastern Partnership Culture Program and EUNIC Global as a consultant and expert. A member of PEN Ukraine, she publishes widely on art and culture. 

• Lia Dostlieva is an artist, cultural anthropologist and essayist. Has a degree in cultural anthropology. Primary areas of her research are trauma, postmemory and agency of vulnerable groups. Works in a wide range of media including photography, installations, textile sculptures, etc. Exhibited her works in Germany, Italy, Ukraine, Poland, Austria, Czech Republic, etc. 

• Andrii Dostliev is an artist, curator, and photography researcher from Ukraine, currently based in Poland. Has degrees in IT and graphic design. His primary areas of interest are memory, trauma, identity — both personal and collective, and limits of photography as a medium. His art practice works across photography, video, drawing, performance, and installation. Recent solo exhibitions include: ‘Black on Prussian Blue‘, Shcherbenko Art Centre, Kyiv, Ukraine (2021), ‘Black raven sang the water‘, KMBS, Kyiv, Ukraine (2021), and ‘I still feel sorry when I throw away food — Grandma used to tell me stories about the Holodomor‘, Odesa National Art Museum, Odesa, Ukraine (2021–2022). Has published several photobooks.

Workshop for the Revolutionary Word: 4 Poems

Jessica Zychowicz

This is the fourth of four in a series of experimental poems by Jessica Zychowicz, a scholar, critic, curator, and writer currently based at the University of Alberta's Contemporary Ukraine Studies Program in Canada. The title of the series, "Workshop for the Revolutionary Word," references the avant-garde circles of artists in Kyiv, Ukraine, in the 1920s, a context that gave rise to fierce debates on the direction of culture between opposing groups of writers in the early Soviet era. The poet Mykola Khvylovy, first a member of the Ukrainian Communist Party CP(B)U organization Hart, later founded VAPLITE in 1925 (Vilna Akademiia Proletarskoi Literatury—The Free Academy of Proletarian Literature) that served as a powerful platform for his critiques. He disagreed with Rosa Luxemburg and her Ukrainian supporters Iurii Piatakov and Evgeniia Bosh, who claimed that the world transformations then occurring were successfully dissolving national boundaries; by contrast, he put forward that any conclusion to the search for a more revolutionary, more progressive internationalism had yet to be achieved. “To create a new language Khvylovy fused various linguistic levels: the traditional concerns of the Ukrainian intelligentsia were interspersed with references to Western literature, Marxist political theory, the macaronic language of the Russian civil service, and the racy idiom of the town proletariat. The twenties were witnessing a democratization of culture of unprecedented proportions: the introduction of mass education, mass publications, radio and cinema meant a rapid expansion of culture beyond lyrical poetry and the theatre of ethnographic realism.” Parallels to this earlier moment of social and cultural upheaval in the early Soviet era can be felt and seen in Ukraine today. These poems bring together contemporaneous observations in the frame of exploring forms of dissent with regimes of power around the globe that serve to oppress creative expression. Asking us to revisit what can so easily be taken-for-granted, or rendered invisible, the poems play with historical repetition in different times and places in order to unmask “new” versus “old” technologies of censorship. These poems are shared in keeping with Atlantika Collective's emphasis on embracing an "open circle" of artists, writers, curators, educators and thinkers. Jessica welcomes any responses in this collaborative spirit. For more on Jessica's background, please visit our Members and Contributors page.

Nine Augusts

or, A Short Chronology of a White Girl in the U.S. in Protest Against the Unite the Right Rally in Charlottesville.

August 2003:
Transcribing speeches by Malcom Ex, Marcus Garvey, Angela Davis in Oakland. Debating police violence at meetings on Sproul Plaza. Studying with Saidiya Hartman. Writing poetry with Ismael Reed. Berkeley.

August 2009:
Visiting an activist friend in Puerto Rico and learning about her dissertation based on her grandmother's forced sterilization, La Perla District, San Juan.

August 2012:
Moving to the Deep South, far from familiar "Yankee" midwestern and Californian roots. A small local university is occupied by armed police for two months due to unknown threats on a professor's life. She is a friend - and survives. Alabama.

August 2013:
"Most of Alabama is still filled up with places that I call, like Birmingham, a 'Plantation City.' Don't let anybody fool you. We black folks know where to go and where not to go." - My conversation with a homeless black activist temporarily employed by a local group to give alternative tours of the Civil Rights Movement counter to the gaps and unequal distribution of revenue from the official museum, 2014. Birmingham, Alabama.

August 2014:
"Sorry Ma'am."

August 2015:
In a cinema next to my gay friend, writer and observer of post-Soviet Russia and Kazakhstan, while watching James Baldwin describe "whiteness" in the film I AM NOT YOUR NEGRO. Washington D.C.

August 2016:
We are coworkers for awhile: Reggie - a former officer from Obama's motorcade. Willie - an Iraq veteran. Tamikah - a single mother of three. "You know what I say about Trump? The same thing that I used to say when I was little and had to eat welfare food: “Government cheese doesn't melt!” Washington D.C.

August 2017:
Sharing a meal with friends in Virginia. White supremacists with symbols from the KKK are marching in the Unite the Right Rally two counties away. “I am afraid for my kids.” Flying to California the next day and then going abroad to work. Virginia.

August 2018:
Seeing the asymmetry in the interpretation of the law in the relative ease of reporting, documenting, and closing a criminal case. Detroit.

Not knowing how or why the season changes so quickly.

Workshop for the Revolutionary Word: Four Poems

Jessica Zychowicz

This is the third of four in a series of experimental poems by Jessica Zychowicz, a scholar, critic, curator, and writer currently based at the University of Alberta's Contemporary Ukraine Studies Program in Canada. The title of the series, "Workshop for the Revolutionary Word," references the avant-garde circles of artists in Kyiv, Ukraine, in the 1920s, a context that gave rise to fierce debates on the direction of culture between opposing groups of writers in the early Soviet era. The poet Mykola Khvylovy, first a member of the Ukrainian Communist Party CP(B)U organization Hart, later founded VAPLITE in 1925 (Vilna Akademiia Proletarskoi Literatury—The Free Academy of Proletarian Literature) that served as a powerful platform for his critiques. He disagreed with Rosa Luxemburg and her Ukrainian supporters Iurii Piatakov and Evgeniia Bosh, who claimed that the world transformations then occurring were successfully dissolving national boundaries; by contrast, he put forward that any conclusion to the search for a more revolutionary, more progressive internationalism had yet to be achieved. “To create a new language Khvylovy fused various linguistic levels: the traditional concerns of the Ukrainian intelligentsia were interspersed with references to Western literature, Marxist political theory, the macaronic language of the Russian civil service, and the racy idiom of the town proletariat. The twenties were witnessing a democratization of culture of unprecedented proportions: the introduction of mass education, mass publications, radio and cinema meant a rapid expansion of culture beyond lyrical poetry and the theatre of ethnographic realism.” (Shkandrij, Myroslav. Modernists, Marxists, and the Nation: The Ukrainian Literary Discussion of the 1920s. Edmonton: CIUS Press, 1992, p. 55.) Parallels to this earlier moment of social and cultural upheaval in the early Soviet era can be felt and seen in Ukraine today. These poems bring together contemporaneous observations in the frame of exploring forms of dissent with regimes of power around the globe that serve to oppress creative expression. Asking us to revisit what can so easily be taken-for-granted, or rendered invisible, the poems play with historical repetition in different times and places in order to unmask “new” versus “old” technologies of censorship. These poems are shared in keeping with Atlantika Collective's emphasis on embracing an "open circle" of artists, writers, curators, educators and thinkers. Jessica welcomes any responses in this collaborative spirit. For more on Jessica's background, please visit our Members and Contributors page.

WHERE THE FUTURE IS

UKRAINE is a country

Of angels and mafia men,

Of gunshots and gunned engines,

gutter dogs and little girls in

thick striped tights waiting to take communion.

Ukraine survives on its soiled hands,

on its gritty shell,

on its back like a COCKROACH—it kicks hard with a powerful will.

Ukraine is a territory claimed by

its neighbors’ tendencies to EXPAND,

and machines that SPIT AND CUT,

hurtling tons of wheat across 50 GAUGE RAILS well past midnight.

And they keep the EVIDENCE of DECADENCE anyway—

the SOVIET crystal decanter CONSTRUCTED from two halves,

two NATIONS ALIKE IN DIGNITY

stamped together in a FACTORY—

the line between them nearly invisible,

but still tactile—perceptible only to the touch

WHERE CIVIL BLOOD MAKES CIVIL HANDS UNCLEAN

walnut whisky running over everything

IN FAIR KYIV WHERE WE LAY OUR SCENE

A FLOOD

when they return

to report that they all

PRACTICALLY GOT AWAY WITH MURDER.

STAMPS AND MONUMENTS

will attest that she is an OFFICIAL country—

she is warranted between the lines,

traded in sideways doses of 80 proof currency,

when she deals her CONTRABAND.

POLITICIANS and their HENCHMEN are NO WIT

for the ABACUS

that will eventually serve them up

to the HUNGRIEST WOLF

waiting in line

at the communal counter

O – the inescapability of numbers

and the danger of monthly SPECULATION.

Ukraine is a pot-holed ROAD

A rug on the wall instead of A FLAG

Chicken bouillon, black bread, borscht,

She is one day late in a 24-hour clinic,

a gruff goodbye, a deep bow,

a marriage proposal, an anecdote,

a wooden stool

an “I LOVE YOU” and then a “FUCK YOU”

for believing them, when they say

in the election campaign posters

ON THAT ONE LAST RIDE ON THE METRO

for six Hryvnias instead of eight

that they are all telling the truth

THIS TIME AROUND.

She is a defunct beet SUGAR FACTORY,

Berries that look like eyes, staring,

Out of MANNEQUIN HEADS IN BLACK LACE

An antennae covered in razor wire

REPLAY in the martshrutka rearview.

A clay oven, apologies,

ENVY

and a loud T.V.

tuned to your favorite REALITY SHOW— [INSERT YOUR UTOPIA HERE].

Bring your best CAMERA to capture

TECHNOCHROME FINGERNAILS

and LAMINATED PHOTOS of NEON LUNCH SPECIALS

nothing is too flashy here!

SHE is many headscarves away from THE FRONT LINE,

sitting in the back

     OF THE THEATRE

where the bullets sound quieter

            AS THEY         WHIP BY.

There is also the CHOREOGRAPHY

       to consider:

       of cherry blossoms during KYIV’S TURKISH TOURIST SEASON

the bills

falling on the bar

faster

than

blouses:

That one tastes of LIPSTICK and the other one is IMITATION PERFUME FROM CHINA.

it must be some strange yeast that they are SELLING here in the bread basket of Europe

where the prices are so cheap, even the INTERNET IS CHEAPER THAN IN PAKISTAN

and don’t have to pay extra

FOR A ROOM WITH A VIEW.

But UKRAINE rides through the winter of her life like an UNBROKEN horse

holding her head up to the LIGHTBULB of a GUERNICA MOON.

IN TORETSK, DONETSK near the city of Konstiantynivka.

they leave potatoes in BLUE BUCKETS for the STRAYS

in the VILLAGE near the train station

to distract themselves from the sound of the GUNS:

“You will OCCUPY NOTHING.”

Then it ends up being the GRIP OF THEIR TEETH,

and not the basket of apples

recorded at the beginning of the FILM REEL

that leaves a purple memory

on her arm.

Deep into summer she is bright steel

in the sun’s reflection on her 3,000

riverbeds full of SHRAPNEL

“I dare you!”

Thunder cracks over her back,

BANG! BLAST!

She disappears—

like GOGOL’S DEVILS under lightning.

This is what her villagers will tell you,

when they PREDICT that their crop will turn out.

AND IT DOES.

She is RED OCTOBER,

when the silent watchers among the trees give up their currency

and demand another COUNT for the HARVEST

stolen and imprisoned in jars

basements

and MINDS.

Ukraine is ashen like BURIED BONES and OLD PAPER—

far flung with the distancing effect of

historical documents and crushed snow,

footprints in the catacombs

where SAINTS and SOVIETS STILL ACCUSE each other in the DUST:

A SLAP IN THE FACE OF PUBLIC TASTE!

When she has had enough with the FIGHT—

She is AN OLD WOMAN,

VERTOV’S STREET SWEEPER

RODCHENKO’S MOTHER

Looking through SPECTACLES

for other seers like herself

who look

like an audience filled with APPLAUSE

on the cover a book—

filled with photographs of

OLYMPIC CHAMPIONS

doing backflips

to the tune of the INTERNATIONALE

PRINTED

in red and gold LETTERS

now burning inside the CENSOR

next to the tabernacle

in the church of all

that is ICONIC —

TO WHERE THE ETERNAL FLAME HAS SIMPLY SWITCHED SIDES.

So she kneels

through a PASSAGEWAY

framed in birch

as if GOD were busy elsewhere—

in a black OVERCOAT

smoking and SMILING LIKE A CAT

extending a hand

sealing secrets in wax—

to more easily move the SURPLUS around—     

       into the STEELWORKS!

       into the MEAT PROCESSOR!

WHERE THE FUTURE IS

ALWAYS ARRIVING

ALL WAYS GO FORWARD!

Workshop For The Revolutionary Word: Four Poems

Jessica Zychowicz

This is the second of four in a series of experimental poems by Jessica Zychowicz, a scholar, critic, curator, and writer currently based at the University of Alberta's Contemporary Ukraine Studies Program in Canada. The title of the series, "Workshop for the Revolutionary Word," references the avant-garde circles of artists in Kyiv, Ukraine, in the 1920s, a context that gave rise to fierce debates on the direction of culture between opposing groups of writers in the early Soviet era. The poet Mykola Khvylovy, first a member of the Ukrainian Communist Party CP(B)U organization Hart, later founded VAPLITE in 1925 (Vilna Akademiia Proletarskoi Literatury—The Free Academy of Proletarian Literature) that served as a powerful platform for his critiques. He disagreed with Rosa Luxemburg and her Ukrainian supporters Iurii Piatakov and Evgeniia Bosh, who claimed that the world transformations then occurring were successfully dissolving national boundaries; by contrast, he put forward that any conclusion to the search for a more revolutionary, more progressive internationalism had yet to be achieved. “To create a new language Khvylovy fused various linguistic levels: the traditional concerns of the Ukrainian intelligentsia were interspersed with references to Western literature, Marxist political theory, the macaronic language of the Russian civil service, and the racy idiom of the town proletariat. The twenties were witnessing a democratization of culture of unprecedented proportions: the introduction of mass education, mass publications, radio and cinema meant a rapid expansion of culture beyond lyrical poetry and the theatre of ethnographic realism.” (Shkandrij, Myroslav. Modernists, Marxists, and the Nation: The Ukrainian Literary Discussion of the 1920s. Edmonton: CIUS Press, 1992, p. 55.) Parallels to this earlier moment of social and cultural upheaval in the early Soviet era can be felt and seen in Ukraine today. These poems bring together contemporaneous observations in the frame of exploring forms of dissent with regimes of power around the globe that serve to oppress creative expression. Asking us to revisit what can so easily be taken-for-granted, or rendered invisible, the poems play with historical repetition in different times and places in order to unmask “new” versus “old” technologies of censorship. These poems are shared in keeping with Atlantika Collective's emphasis on embracing an "open circle" of artists, writers, curators, educators and thinkers. Jessica welcomes any responses in this collaborative spirit. For more on Jessica's background, please visit our Members and Contributors page.

[In order to preserve the integrity of the original text, this poem is presented as two image files, to be read without an intended break between them.]

Workshop For The Revolutionary Word: Four Poems

Jessica Zychowicz

This is the first of four in a series of experimental poems by Jessica Zychowicz, a scholar, critic, curator, and writer currently based at the University of Alberta's Contemporary Ukraine Studies Program in Canada. The title of the series, "Workshop for the Revolutionary Word," references the avant-garde circles of artists in Kyiv, Ukraine, in the 1920s, a context that gave rise to fierce debates on the direction of culture between opposing groups of writers in the early Soviet era. The poet Mykola Khvylovy, first a member of the Ukrainian Communist Party CP(B)U organization Hart, later founded VAPLITE in 1925 (Vilna Akademiia Proletarskoi Literatury—The Free Academy of Proletarian Literature) that served as a powerful platform for his critiques. He disagreed with Rosa Luxemburg and her Ukrainian supporters Iurii Piatakov and Evgeniia Bosh, who claimed that the world transformations then occurring were successfully dissolving national boundaries; by contrast, he put forward that any conclusion to the search for a more revolutionary, more progressive internationalism had yet to be achieved. “To create a new language Khvylovy fused various linguistic levels: the traditional concerns of the Ukrainian intelligentsia were interspersed with references to Western literature, Marxist political theory, the macaronic language of the Russian civil service, and the racy idiom of the town proletariat. The twenties were witnessing a democratization of culture of unprecedented proportions: the introduction of mass education, mass publications, radio and cinema meant a rapid expansion of culture beyond lyrical poetry and the theatre of ethnographic realism.” (Shkandrij, Myroslav. Modernists, Marxists, and the Nation: The Ukrainian Literary Discussion of the 1920s. Edmonton: CIUS Press, 1992, p. 55.) Parallels to this earlier moment of social and cultural upheaval in the early Soviet era can be felt and seen in Ukraine today. These poems bring together contemporaneous observations in the frame of exploring forms of dissent with regimes of power around the globe that serve to oppress creative expression. Asking us to revisit what can so easily be taken-for-granted, or rendered invisible, the poems play with historical repetition in different times and places in order to unmask “new” versus “old” technologies of censorship. These poems are shared in keeping with Atlantika Collective's emphasis on embracing an "open circle" of artists, writers, curators, educators and thinkers. Jessica welcomes any responses in this collaborative spirit. For more on Jessica's background, please visit our Members and Contributors page.

A Lovesong for My Hackers

Seven flights to Saudi Arabia

the day Trump boards Air Force One.

If you do not recognize these charges,

please call immediately.

Robocalls at midnight

Are more fun than rental cars

but not as sexy

as the insurance papers

from Mr. Cletus in Missouri

with the photos of the body stripped

of all electronic equipment:

Theft of Ford Focus Hybrid—Paid in Full.

You are still sleeping, waiting

in the codes

and when you strike

the price will already have been paid,

but as we both know,

the trace of an NSA file, erased

stays.

And maybe we could have had it all.

You knew me better than anyone.

If you do not recognize these charges,

please call immediately.

Where The Rivers Come Together

Zhanna Oganesyan

By Gabriela Bulisova and Mark Isaac

As part of their series titled “Race and Postcolonialism in Ukraine and North America,” the journal Krytyka, an intellectual monthly magazine focused on contemporary thought regarding Ukraine and the region, has published an article and photographs by Atlantika Collective members Gabriela Bulisova and Mark Isaac. The project, created as part of their Fulbright grant in 2017-18, focuses on the unexpected diversity in the Southern Ukrainian city of Mykolaiv.

https://krytyka.com/en/race-and-postcolonialism-ukraine-and-north-america/articles/where-rivers-come-together

Ukraine Sketchbook: Photo Workshop in Antonivka

by Gabriela Bulisova and Mark Isaac

Since we’ve been in Ukraine, we’ve met some incredibly warm and giving people, who have been kind enough to let us into their lives. One of those individuals is Dmytro Say, who is involved in so many projects locally that it’s impossible to know when he sleeps.

One of Dmytro’s most important efforts is on behalf of an orphanage in a small village north of Mykolaiv called Antonivka. Dmytro taught there for several years and now he returns to assist them with a variety of programs. He asked us to come with him to the orphanage and conduct a photo workshop for the kids there, who range in age from about 5 to 16.

Dmytro used an older car for the drive, which he warned is on one of the worst roads in Ukraine. After some truly outsized bumps along the way, we arrived in Antonivka and were warmly welcomed by the staff, who took us on a tour of the facility, which includes a museum of Antonivka’s history, first as a place dominated by a wealthy landowner, then as a very productive collective farm, and now as a place where many have volunteered to fight in the East.

But the most important part of the visit was the kids, of course. We met them first in a classroom, offering some pointers on photo taking strategies that would move them beyond the selfie. Then we all walked out on the steppe, known for its constantly blowing winds, sharing cell phones to take some experimental portraits and landscapes. When we were safely back in the classroom, we downloaded the photos, projected them on a wall, and discussed the results. The kids participated enthusiastically, showing a surprisingly advanced intuitive command of composition.

We don’t know if any of them will go on to become professional photographers, but we do know that Dmytro has forged a wonderful bond with some very loving and talented young people, and we were glad to become a small part of their lives.

Mykolaiv Sketchbook: Druzhba Festival

Gabriela Bulisova and Mark Isaac

Gabriela Bulisova and Mark Isaac

Following a whirlwind of activity in Kyiv, we took the night train to our new home in Southern Ukraine: Mykolaiv. Mykolaiv was named by its founder, Prince Grigory Potemkin, in honor of St. Nicholas, on whose day he won a significant military victory. The city is at the confluence of two major rivers, the Southern Bug and the Ingul. After they join, they flow to an estuary where they meet the Dnieper and then the Black Sea. For years, Mykolaiv was one of the most significant shipbuilding cities in the entire region, and because of its contributions to the military might of the Tsars and the Soviet Union, it was a closed, secret city. People from other parts of the Soviet Union were not permitted to visit the city, and if people from Mykolaiv wanted to visit relatives from other places, they needed to leave the city and meet them somewhere else. In the post-Soviet era, the three major shipbuilding centers in Mykolaiv are all closed, and the city is now open to all, though few tourists venture here.

Here in Mykolaiv, we are working closely with our affiliate institution, Petro Mohyla Black Sea National University, including the Dean of the Philology Department, Professor Oleksandr Pronkevych, a noted Cervantes scholar, and other faculty and students to create two projects. First, we are focusing on the reasons why people of so many ethnic backgrounds have been able to live together peacefully in Mykolayiv for many generations. Second, we are creating a documentary on the relationship of the people of Mykolaiv and the surrounding region to the water that is such an important part of their lives.

On the first full weekend we spent in Mykolayiv, a new friend alerted us to the planned Druzhba, or Friendship, Festival. We packed our cameras and started walking to the location to check it out. As we turned onto the main pedestrian street, formerly Sovietskaya and now Soborna Street, we were surprised to see a colorful parade of diverse nationalities marching together. We followed them to the Cultural Palace, where a program of dancing, singing, and ethnic food unfolded. Although the city is dominated by people of Ukrainian and Russian heritage, there are dozens of different ethnic groups living here, and many of them participated in the Festival. In our first sketchbook from Ukraine, here are some very colorful and proud moments from this demonstration of cultural friendship.