hundreds of people pay tribute to a young poet and soldier killed on the front

The 33-year-old was killed on Sunday January 7, 2024 while fighting as a volunteer soldier in the ranks of the Ukrainian army since the Russian invasion began in 2022. Most of his poems described the horrors of the war.

Hundreds of people gathered Thursday, January 11 in kyiv (Ukraine), despite the bitter cold, to pay tribute to a young poet and soldier, Maksym Kryvtsov, whose death on the front moved Ukraine. Maksym Kryvtsov, going by the nom de guerre “Dali”, was killed on Sunday January 7, 2024 at the age of 33. He joined the army as a volunteer in 2022, after the start of the Russian invasion, and notably served as a machine gunner.

His first book, Poems from a Gap, was named among the country’s best literary works in 2023 by the Ukrainian branch of the international PEN network. The day before his death, he posted a photo on Facebook in which he can be seen in uniform in front of a tree, a sweet smile on his lips, a bun on the top of his head and his book in his hand. “90% of the poetry here is about death”he wrote.

Orthodox rite

On Thursday, his coffin, opened in accordance with tradition, was displayed in St. Michael’s Cathedral, the center of the Independent Orthodox Church of Moscow, in central Kiev. Two soldiers in khaki uniforms held a yellow and blue national flag with a black ribbon as a sign of mourning and a large wooden cross which will then be planted on his grave.

More than a hundred people, including many young people, crowded into the small cathedral to pay their last respects. Some sobbed. Many brought flowers, most often roses or carnations. Several people came with potted African violets, a reference to a poem by Maksym Kryvtsov that he published in January on Facebook and in which he described his own death on the battlefield. “Violets will grow in the spring by my plucked hands”, says the text.

“We pray for the rest of the soul of warrior Maksym”declared one of the priests during the religious ceremony, calling him “hero”. “We will remember him and continue our fight.”

A soldier named “Dali”

Originally from the town of Rivne (west), where he will be buried, the young man had already fought in 2014 in eastern Ukraine, against pro-Russian separatists supported by Moscow. It was there that Maksym Kryvtsov received his nom de guerre “Dali”, his mustache reminiscent of that of the famous Spanish painter.

The poet is not the first artist to be killed since the start of the Russian invasion. A dozen of them have already died, leading to comparisons with the “Renaissance Shot,” a term that refers to a generation of Ukrainian cultural figures killed by Soviet authorities in the 1930s. “‘Renaissance shot’… We are experiencing it again”, wrote Vladyslav Rashkovan, Ukraine’s representative to the International Monetary Fund (IMF), on Facebook.