“Poetry in times of war returns to its fundamentals, reconnects with the roots of epic poetry,” believes Ukrainian poet Halyna Kruk. In Montreal Saturday evening to talk about his collection A Crash Course in Molotov Cocktails (Arrowsmith Press), finalist for the prestigious 2024 Griffin Poetry Prize, Mme Kruk inevitably also wonders “how literature acts in times of war”. Conversation.
“War is not my favorite subject nor my favorite poetic material,” Halyna Kruk immediately emphasizes. Also a specialist in Ukrainian baroque, she has published short stories, children’s books and five collections. “Poetry has tools to transform experiences into art. And poetry in times of war regains its functions, which allow us to digest experiences, to tell them, to witness them, to heal, to memorize them. »
A few weeks after the start of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022, Mme Kruk, along with poets Julia Musakovska and Kateryna Mikhalitsyna, all from Lviv, began posting war poems in Ukrainian on Facebook.
Translators followed them, almost in real time. “It was a way of reacting, immediately, in poetry,” she recalls. “When I find myself mute after a tragic event, it is only after having written that I manage to return to my existence, to my life. »
What is this life like as a war poet and literature professor? “It’s very polarizing. We live, far from the front line, in an unreal impression of normality. At university, professors teach, students learn, and everyone stops to go down to the shelters when there is an alert. »
” We are scared. We then feel this great joy of having still survived. And we all know, constantly, that the front line is not far away — my husband is there, I can’t not think about it. These states, this polarization — this white, black, white, black — is not good for concentration or for deep learning. »
Intimate visions, political responsibilities
Since the start of the war, Mme Kruk tours a lot, all over the place. She arrives from Toronto, will continue towards the United States, will pass through Germany. In this hubbub, she writes little. And not fiction, which requires a perspective that all this movement blurs.
“I came on tranquilizers, left on painkillers / there was no other way / I felt so shattered / I feared I would break through the cabin of the plane / the interior of the hotel was of a complex design, the body of the speakers very refined / the war does not fit the rest of the world, like a wound in an evening dress: too heavy / the language is too sharp / the details too violent”, writes- she in Crash Course.
“I feel that it is my responsibility: to talk about Ukrainian culture, about this cultural genocide, about the reasons for this war whose roots are distant and deep, about what we are experiencing and suffering, to be able to make people understand our current reality. »
“To be honest, I hate this situation. I would really prefer to work only as a poet: to talk about my inner and intimate visions, about those subjects that interested me, in writing, before the war,” she says.
“Before the war, we too thought that the war was far away from us and our lives. »
Books flourish
Since the start of the war, Ukrainian publishing and literature have experienced extraordinary growth, explains Iryna Baturevych. Previously, 75% of the Ukrainian book market was occupied by Russian productions, estimates the person who worked in the early stages of the country’s Book Institute. “People read a lot more now. Ukraine was in a big reading crisis before the war. A study carried out in 2023 shows that the number of regular readers has doubled. Readers now seek their identity” through literature and national voices.
This desire for Ukrainian voices provokes a return to the classics, to the books taught at school, to the point that many publishers who did not touch fiction at all began to publish it. With its 38 million inhabitants, the Ukrainian book market has solid potential.
Last February, the largest bookstore in Ukraine opened in kyiv, on three floors. And the Arsenal book fair has just ended in the capital on June 3, attracting 35,000 visitors. This is 7,000 more than last year. The country would count, according to Mme Baturevych, some 400 publishers.
Iryna Baturevych is also at the origin of Chytomoa Ukrainian media outlet that has covered literature since 2009, and in English since 2022. The team of 10 continues its work, sometimes from afar — the co-founder now lives in Montreal, where she co-founded the Ukrainian Club.
In the 2023 list that Chytomo has made bestsellers in Ukraine, there is, as everywhere else, a romance by the American Tillie Cole and a motivational book by Jim Lawless. The first position goes to the country’s journalist Illarion Pavliuk. I Can See You’re Interested in the Darkness, in its original version, would have sold 44,000 copies. Just behind, Maksym Kidruk and The Colony. New Dark Ages, with 37,000 sales.
The demand for Ukrainian books is greater than ever. The editors continue their work, on limited productions, because each stage is longer and more difficult. “We lack electricity,” recalls Iryna Baturevych. “And human resources. Several people are at the front, or gone, or dead. »
And at the same time, there are unprecedented possibilities for Ukrainian literature to flourish, which also arouses the curiosity of readers from all over the world.
Halyna Kruk will be at the Le Port de tête bookstore, on Mont-Royal Avenue, on Saturday, June 8 at 7 p.m.