Draw war

The designer is Italian. His name is Igort, a pseudonym made up of his Russian first name, Igor, because his parents were crazy about Slavic culture. He himself married a Ukrainian. And he has been interested in what is happening in the East for many years now.

Survival at the end of the line

It gave The Russian Notebooks And The Ukrainian Notebookswherein he returned at length and painfully to the Holodomor, the great famine imposed by Stalin, which decimated the Ukrainian population, in 1932 and 1933. Igort signs today Diary of an Invasiona story-testimony based on the daily phone calls made with loved ones, family, friends who were in Ukraine, during the first days of a war that Vladimir Putin had wanted ‘lightning’, and which lasts since a year.

One of the many qualities of this book is precisely the reminder of the historical dimension of this conflict. Igort does this, without hiding anything either from the pro-Nazi wanderings of certain Ukrainians during the Second World War. Another quality of this book is to have chosen to treat the current conflict by composing a puzzle of small stories. By staging clearly identified men, women, young and old.

“The idea is to look at History with the smallest possible gaze: all the primary things, to feed, to survive, to wash, with the lack of electricity, the lack of heating, the lack of water.”

The designer Igort

at franceinfo

Igort’s graphic signature is powerful. He works with a pen and often looks his characters in the eye. To hide nothing of the violence and suffering. But taking care not to make fun of the horrors of war.

“With a testimonial book, we don’t have the right to drawing pornography. We have to take a step back. When violence goes beyond what is acceptable, I try to represent it with somewhat cubist visions.”

The designer Igort

at franceinfo

This nudity of the line is terribly effective. The Ukrainian notebooks, Diary of an invasionIgort, published by Futuropolis.