Yeva Skalietska received a gold-colored diary as a gift on New Year’s Day 2020, but she had never used it. She had neither the time nor the interest. His childhood life was already full, between school, his friends and his piano lessons.
Posted at 7:00 a.m.
But on February 24, the day Russia declared war on Ukraine, Yeva felt the need to write. His city, Kharkiv, was bombed. Yeva and her grandmother Iryna had taken refuge in the cellar of their building. The 12-year-old girl had just suffered her first panic attack.
“I convinced my grandmother to go back to the apartment to look for things, and I took the newspaper and some pencils,” Yeva told The Press. I started writing in the basement. I told myself that it would be easier to put my emotions on paper, and that in 10-20 years, I could read again what we went through. »
This outlet will become a daily habit for Yeva. His diary, titled You don’t know anything about war, is published these days all over the world. The French version has just arrived in bookstores in Quebec.
Chronologically, in simple but accurate words, Yeva describes her life during the first two months of the war, from her 12-year-old birthday on February 14, to her new life in Ireland with her grandmother Iryna. It was there, in a small house in Dublin where she has been living since May, that we contacted her.
How is she ?
“I’m fine,” said Yeva, who had just come home from school when we spoke to her. I really enjoy studying at my school, I am improving my English every day, and I have made new friends. On the eve of the publication of her book (“published in 18 countries and translated into 14 languages”), Yeva is happy to be able to share her story.
I want the whole world to know what we went through.
Yeva Skalietska
“I want people to understand – even just a little – what the war in Ukraine is, and how painful it is. And I really want people to enjoy their life, in peace. It’s not the computers that matter most, it’s life. »
“They changed my life”
Hers tipped over on the morning of February 24, after a metallic noise woke her up with a start. That morning, a rocket passed by her house and exploded with force. After first taking refuge in the basement, Yeva and her grandmother found refuge with a friend in western Kharkiv, then they crossed the country to reach western Ukraine.
SCREENSHOT FROM CHANNEL 4 REPORT
Yeva met Channel 4 journalists at a school serving as a shelter.
At a school in Uzhhorod, western Ukraine, Yeva met a team of reporters from Britain’s Channel 4 network, who were interested in her story and the book she was writing (and which obviously reminds Anne Frank’s diarywhich Yeva did not know).
The journalists carried out a report on Yeva and they also accompanied her in her administrative procedures to leave Ukraine. It was thanks to their report that a family from Ireland offered to host Yeva and her grandmother for the first time. It was they, too, who put her in contact with a literary agent to publish the book. “I will always remember them,” Yeva said. They changed my life. »
Yeva does not yet know where this new life will take her. For now, there is no question of returning to Kharkiv, located in northeastern Ukraine. “Universities, schools… Everything is destroyed. Our apartment is also destroyed. It’s dangerous, and there’s no future there,” says Yeva, who would like to go back to see her friends when Kharkiv is rebuilt.
She dreams of studying at Oxford University in England and one day becoming a journalist or writer. “And I would love to go to Canada. Do you live in Toronto? asks Yeva with a smirk. No doubt: this little girl will go far.
You don’t know anything about war
Yeva Skalietska
Editions Michel Lafon
272 pages (in bookshops on Wednesday)