Ukraine has no choice but to be Ukrainian and united – a conversation with Yuri Andrukovych and Earthly Szczerk

liberte.pl 1 month ago

On the 4th anniversary of the full-scale Russian invasion, Leszek Jażdżewski talks with Yuri Andruchowycz – Ukrainian writer, poet, translator and musician, and Ziemowit Szczerk – writer, reporter and journalist.

The interview was registered on 24 February 2026 in Ivano-Frankivsk as part of the "Probable Issue" podcast in the Polish Radio First Programme.

Leszek Jażdżewski: 24 February 2022 was a fat Thursday in Poland. I was standing in line for doughnuts, looking people in the eye, wondering if they already knew if they saw the news. How did you remember the minute of the invasion?

Yuri Andrukovych: Given the Russian dictator's fondness for symbolic dates, I expected an attack the day before. February 23 is simply a vacation in Russia – erstwhile Red Army Day, later renamed Homeland Defenders Day. The situation was tense. Since the beginning of November, information has been received all day about the regrouping of troops – from distant areas of Russia to the border with Ukraine were moving full divisions, tanks, trucks, rocket launchers. It was apparent that under the pretense of practice there was an intention to attack. At six o'clock in the morning, I was awakened by the sound of a close explosion. inactive in the mediate of the night, I thought it was our artillery that was practicing in the field under the city, and it was a rocket attack at the airport in Ivano-Frankivsk. I reached for the tablet, saw the red headlines. It was clear. I saw a immense cloud of smoke through the window. It's kind of... historically. specified a minute happens erstwhile in my life – I watched the war begin, and black smoke slow covers the sky. But that was a good sign – the Russians missed the airport and the gas station. For me, this attack has become a metaphor for this war: a deadly threat, which after a while has proved to be something that can be survived, however, that can be fought.

Earthly Honest: I was in the Balkans at the time, in the Serbian Republic. erstwhile I spoke to people in Sarajevo, actually only Bosnians cared about the destiny of the Ukrainians; they said: "God, how pity these people, how they must be afraid now.” The Serbs were alternatively relaxed, then president Milorad Dodik made various pro-Russian gestures. There were besides specified – mostly left-wing sympathizers, not only the Serbs, but besides the Croats – who claimed that nothing would happen, that the Russians were only scaring. This was a reasonably typical position of the European part – fortunately not Polish – left. In the morning of February 24, erstwhile it was clear that the war had begun, I packed, got in my car and went to Lviv. I took Victoria Amelina, a Ukrainian writer. We bought power banks, dressings. Victoria died a year later in Kramatorsk, in an attack on the pizzary. She was a truly brave girl.

L.J.: You're writers. How did you see your function at the time? Have you thought about how to convey the emotions that accompanied you, to those who did not participate straight in these events? Or was your commitment any kind of reaction to these emotions?

J.A.:During the first hours of the war, questions were asked from various media, especially abroad media. Tens of emails in respective languages. I had an hour, possibly 2 to think about whether I should even communicate with the world. At first I reacted emotionally: I don't want to. You should have done it sooner. For decades, the destiny of Ukraine did not concern anyone, and in a minute we will be gone. But I yet got the first call from Taiwan. I thought if I was going to give an interview to someone, possibly Taiwan is the best country to understand. And then I had to go out with the dog. During this walk, I kind of cooled off and thought, what can I do? I'm not going to the army anymore. Of course, I can effort to get a weapon – at that minute I was almost certain that the Russians would come to the Carpathians themselves and you would gotta participate in the guerrillas; I actually considered it a good option for myself. But so far they're not here, so possibly my function should be to communicate with those who weren't curious in us, and now they're writing from all sides of the planet to find out. I put off the fresh that I was just beginning to write, and decided that I would work all day, that I would not refuse any specified request. I spent the first sixty days of the invasion anyway.

Z.Sz.: I did not know what was going to happen – I only knew that it would be essential to get individual out of Ukraine and that I could be useful for that. At the border of the line to leave, they were about 30 kilometres long. Cars and dogs. I've never seen anything like it. It was a war. Just like in the books, like in the movies. We slept under Lviv in a monastery hotel. The monks went out with baseball bats. Everyone was scared, and they kept asking us who we were and what we were doing. It was dark and empty in Lviv alone, but there was no panic. At the time, I was reasoning about the Ukrainian insurgent song “Lent behind the Lint” (“Tape Behind Tape). I did not care about the historical events between Poland and Ukraine, this song simply moved me. That was the only time I always thought about how it would end? Where will they go? And I was beautiful certain it would end badly. But I called my friend, and he says, “The old man, for they have not even reached the Dnieper.” And actually, they haven't gotten there yet. Shortly after that, I went to Bucza. A friend of mine invited me home. A full block of dug-up doors, broken TVs under the block. Russian soldiers if they didn't steal, they destroyed. And a friend of mine had a large bottle of apple vodka! It's just a neighbour who utilized to collect alcohol from the world. erstwhile they drank it all, they most likely didn't have the strength. Anyway, there are terrible things in Bucha. Same thing in Irpien. And it is as if from the position of Krakow Russians were before Wieliczka, or from the position of Warsaw – in Konstancin. But they were driven out. Only traces of their savagery remain.

L.J.: 1 can say that this is the second war of Ukrainian independency in modern times. The first Ukraine lost and was partially incorporated into the russian Union, partially to Poland. The second has been moving continuously since 2014 and it is hard to express the script in which it would lose – in the sense of losing independence. What Ukraine emerges from this fight?

J.A.: On the 1 hand, this successful fight for independency is something that has not been in our history. But I don't want to jinx it, due to the fact that as early as 2022, we said that we were about to enter Moscow with our army... In fact, we inactive don't know at what point of war we're at – whether we're coming to an end, whether we're halfway there, and we should be preparing for the next 4-5 years, or possibly we're at the very beginning. At the same time, we want to believe that Russian opportunities are moving out, that their economy is about to collapse, that they will not have people. But it could be different. Behind Russia are China, which will give a lot to support this invasion. We besides have a serious problem on the another side of the ocean, where the United States, this leader of the free world, seems to care more about Russia and not Ukraine. In this constellation of strength, I would not be brave adequate to say that we will win this war. From a moral point of view – yes, we have already won, but in a real, geopolitical sense, it is inactive unknown. surely Ukraine has put up unprecedented resistance. We have demonstrated courage and technological maturity, thanks to which in the disastrous deficiency of people inactive manages to hold the front line. possibly the point of our fresh past is to wage specified a permanent war of independence?

Z.Sz.: I had no thought the Ukrainians were so well prepared for this war. I didn't think they'd run it with specified brilliance and in specified a thoughtful way. The word is that they're beating Russian asses, driving them out of Kiev and Kharkiv, and revealing any beautiful serious restrictions on the Russian army, not just military. Ukraine had intelligence from Americans, its soldiers and officers were trained in NATO, applied much more modern tactics. It was a collision of 2 different worlds: Russia, with its hierarchical command model, where officers and officers do not make decisions without consulting the superiors, and Ukraine, where the troops operate on the basis of an assessment of the situation by individual commanders. This provided Ukrainians with mobility and showed the fundamental difference between the mentality of Russia and the mentality of the West, to which Ukraine clearly belongs.

L.J.: What happens next?

Z.Sz.: It may be that this war will slow expire, smokin' on the lines of contact. Like a conflict in Transnistria that never truly ended, it just expired on its own. I can't imagine breaking the front right now on either side. Trump actually has a unusual policy. If he had decided to push Russia from the very beginning, he could most likely shortly get what he wanted from Putin. I besides think that there is simply a kind of "schroederisation" of the American elite, and Witkoff and Kushner are tempted by Putin with possible gains. He late wrote "The Economist". In any case, Russia will someway always exist, so the force on Ukraine will continue. Let's presume that yet elections will be held. surely no beginning of the pro-Russian organization can slip into politics. But did anyone in Georgia anticipate that little than 10 years after the Russian invasion Bidina Ivanishvili [Presidents of the Georgian Dream organization – ed.] Under the mantle of an independent, pretend-oppositionist, will Georgia structurally begin to turn into something like a “rosiodal” state, despite nominally maintaining its course to the West? Romania and Moldova have akin problems today. TickTok and social media play a much bigger function than any authoritative government agenda. BI think Russia will start to win not so much a war as the Ukrainians against each other. That interior grudges will begin. There will surely be issues related to the economy, with war trauma – there are many areas that Russia can effort to influence. The most crucial thing is to decision on to the counteroffensive and act so that the Russians feel they're in the war, so there's no point in getting into a further confrontation.

L.J.: erstwhile you scope for Polish books from the 1950s, you can see how strong the tensions around German culture were at the time: “Germans” were written with a tiny letter, questions arose as to whether Thomas Mann or Goethe could inactive be read after the Holocaust. In the context of today’s war, do akin questions arise in relation to Russian culture? What strategy can be adopted in a situation where a man is in fact incapable to mention to the past or culture of our region without entering into any dialog or controversy with the Russian Empire?

J.A.: 2022 was the minute of the strongest debate in Ukrainian artistic circles – smoking Russian books or not? Everyone was against Russian culture, they were only different from the degree of radicalism. I think my friend was right, who said that quarantine should be declared for the large ones. Besides, were they truly great? What the Russian state and society look like present shows the failure of this culture. Everything related to imperialism and power remains valid. What was destroyed, killed, burned, is her humanism. Sovetologists in the West keep saying it's the most beautiful literature about man. I think that's not true. She may have been created by a fewer geniuses, but if she's about a man, she's about a slave man. It is literature that I quote Love, the head of the enslaved. If this eternal war ends, in about fifty, possibly a 100 years we can discuss Russian culture peacefully. present I request only 1 thing from Russia – to retreat beyond Ukraine's borders.

Z.Sz.: Purely emotionally, at the beginning of the invasion, I was incapable to perceive to Russian music or read Russian. It made me sick. Besides, there was no time for specified consideration. Then I started asking myself what it would be like if my country was ruled by a madman and gave individual a cruel bloody war. Would I like to be deprived of my culture for this? Would I like to be treated as if I had a collective responsibility? I don't have a good answer yet. I'm certain I'd gotta point out that this is not happening on my behalf. At 1 point, I pointed out how Russian culture speaks about Russians and how Ukrainian culture speaks about Ukrainians. Ukrainians just like each other. And it's not any "Ukraine above all" yell, it's just a simple sympathy for your own country. They like their cuisine and customs. There is nothing there that frequently appears in Russia: either hysterical worship to which 1 must be forced, or contempt – the same which in the 19th century had the Russian elite pretend they were not Russians, and talk French. Ukrainian culture is close to man. Russian culture is inflated. I do not want to decide at this minute whether it should be "castrated" in any way, draining from imperiality. For now, as long as Russia attacks, we just gotta isolate it. But will it not be counterproductive? If the Russians so choke in their own sauce, they can become even more detached from reality. After all, it was besides culture that convinced them that the situation was different than it truly is. It is besides crucial that Poles and Russians look at Ukraine from completely different points. We see Lviv and the remainder of the country through the filter of Western Ukraine. We know that we are dealing with a mature, formed, strong and separate nation. The Russians look from the east—through the Kharkivs, possibly through Donbas—and see what they want to see: a culture that, in their opinion, is only a variant of something earlier, of Sovietity and of advice. I think that in Russian culture it is crucial that the image of Ukraine appear in it as a completely separate country. Until that happens, the Russians will proceed to fantasize about Ukraine as they have done so far, and this will lead to the same consequences that we see today.

L.J.: In a conversation with Pawel Smolensk, “Szcze ne wmerła i do not die” from 12 years ago, you spoke about your critical attitude towards the political class of east Ukraine and its post-Soviet mentality. Things have changed today. east Ukraine is partially under occupation, partially is the place of fighting. On the another hand, erstwhile you read your writings in the book “The Devil Is in the Cheese”, the European writer, who in Europe feels like home. Meanwhile, Europe first treated Ukraine a bit like a political function towards Russia, and later took a shine to it. How do you see the in-Ukrainian revalue and in relations with Europe?

J.A.: Whether there will be any another version of this division into east and western Ukraine depends mostly on the result of the war. surely the invasion has united us – it has helped to remove the differences, and the conflicts that they have created. It is unusual to say, "Thanks to the war", but – yes, thanks to this war the Ukrainians found a very crucial common denominator – they believe in their armed forces. There are families in all region whose members are in the military. According to all social studies, the army is the highest authority for all Ukrainian, from the east, west, center or south. So if this army, and I believe that the Ukrainian army will proceed to be victorious, and will not let the aggressor regulation over much of Ukraine, then it will stay a origin that will build social solidarity. Not as a coercion mechanism, but as an authority. In fact, without Putin everything went in this direction, only that we needed much more time to get utilized to the thought that – if we have 2 languages – it was actually just two. That it is not actual that Ukraine talks in 10 or 12 languages, or that we have different memories, different forms of transmission. That you can inactive live in complete unity. That's where we were headed. And I think that's what the Russian drill smelled in 2014. Second Majdan [November 2013-February 2014– editorial] showed that Ukraine has an independent future and does not request Russia. most likely then in the Kremlin they concluded that they had to halt these processes and destruct the proukrain number of Donbas. In 2014, 7 or 8 1000 people protested in the largest demonstration in Donetsk under Ukrainian flags. Many, but inactive not enough; the changes begin with a critical number of those who want them. There wasn't adequate time in Donbasa, about ten, possibly 15 years. Russia's most active activists were brutally murdered. Others left – to Kiev, to Lviv, to Tarnopol; individual went abroad, individual fought and fought until today. I do not know what could in future fuel another specified dramatic division among the Ukrainians, due to the fact that the main origin of this division, or Russia, has withdrawn itself from the influence. Pro-Russian parties are banned from our home. Ukraine has no choice but to be Ukrainian and united.

L.J.: Earthly, you wrote about the paradox of people from western Ukraine fighting for Ukraine, which they do not truly know. East Ukraine may resent suffering besides much, so the possible of even an unfair truce can be more attractive to the East...

J.A.: I gotta step in. Look at the number of soldiers killed coming from Western Ukraine. Inside the Ukrainians there is no right to specified a reproach due to the fact that all home and all village suffered the victims of this war. No 1 has yet counted how many victims there are from the east and how many from the west, as no 1 knows where the border is between them.

Z.Sz.: That's a fact.When I was driving around liberated Russian territories north of Kiev, where everyone utilized to talk Russian, they were now speaking Ukrainian. In Kherson, those who were pro-Russian fled with the Russians or even before. There were those who awaited liberation. There are pictures of the dead all over Ukraine. Here in Ivano-Frankivsk, close downtown is simply a full wall in pictures of the people who died. All Ukraine suffers. On the another hand, erstwhile it comes to material tissue, the destroyed cities are mainly in the east, and I believe that Ukraine must be ready to defy specified simplifications that Russia will fuel. But nobody expected that Ukraine would abruptly become the strongest military state in the region, technologically advanced. In addition, war accelerates improvement in various fields. And this, I have the impression, makes Ukraine simply attractive to Ukrainians – something worth fighting for. And that puts them together, too.

L.J.: After 4 years of war and thousands of interactions between Poles and Ukrainians who have travelled through Poland or decided to live here, did the minute come erstwhile hard cards of Ukrainian history, as well as Ukrainian national heroes, should be taken under the microscope?

J.A.: surely war isn't the moment. In my opinion, during the existence of free Poland, i.e. since the late 1980s, and then free Ukraine since 1991, a very good chance for a joint task of historians from both countries has been wasted. I experienced the evolution of Volyn trauma in Polish society. I remember that in the early 1990s I could talk culturally about Stepan Bander, based on historical facts. This ended after the Orange Revolution, in which Poles were importantly involved. I think Russia has realised that it is dealing with the emergence of a fresh solidarity of 2 nations, and has decided to launch the subject of Ukrainian crimes in Poles. From 2009 to 2010, the meetings became nervous, any of the audience was coming out outraged. In the memory of Ukrainians there are besides immense harm done by Poles – it is not that in a common past only Ukrainians committed crimes, and the victims were only Poles. That's what historians should be working on. However, this communicative led to the fact that present in Poland 1 can be attacked for utilizing Ukrainian language itself. I have never read in our media that individual who speaks Russian on a tram is attacked, and all week we have specified relations with Polish cities. Is this all for Volyn? I'm certain we request to keep working on the exhumations and number the victims.

L.J.: Among the Polish intellectual elites there was a long desire to dismiss the subject of the Volyn crime, but present it does not let politicians, historians or intellectuals to wait longer, even though the situation on the Ukrainian side does not favour expiation; especially that the bills of harm are not on 1 side alone...

Z.Sz.: Of course not, and of course, that Russia has a large influence on arguing and conquering us, especially in social media, the Volyn theme. But it is besides not that Volyn did not be in social consciousness. In the old days, it was just more peaceful due to the fact that the elites were talking to each another or those who were willing to communicate. At the minute erstwhile Ukraine became a regular theme, abruptly everyone started talking about Volyn. Ukrainians accuse Poles of bad timing and are right. Poles in turn accuse Ukrainians of gaslighting erstwhile these whitewash characters SchuchewyksAnd they're right, too. But that's not truly the point right now. But I am calm that sooner or later everyone will face their dead bodies in the closet. For a time Poles did nothing else, but they were whipping each another in all subject: we are like this, or we did this and that. This was necessary, but we went through it erstwhile we knew that Poland was and will be. In a situation where Ukraine is experiencing a vital threat to its existence, this is not a good time. But a simple course of past will 1 day gotta make a stronger revision of history. And he will. That's it.

L.J. Thank you for talking to me!

Yuri Andrus (born 1960) – poet, prozaik, essayist and translator. Co-founder of the Bu-Ba-Bu poetic group. Polish readers are known to his collections of essays Erz-herz-perc, My Europe (shared with Andrzej Stasiuk), The last territory, the Devil lies in cheese, as well as poesy volumes of Exotic Birds and Plants and Songs for a Dead Rooster. In 2014, Paweł Smolenski interviewed him with a river about the Ukrainian Revolution She's not going to die. He has won many prestigious awards, including the Herder Prize, the European Agreement awarded at the Leipzig Book Fair, the Angelus Literary Prize for Central Europe, the Vilenica global Literary Prize and the Václav Burian Prize. In 2022 he received an honorary doctorate from the University of Rzeszów.

Terrestrial Honesty (born 1978) – writer and prozaik. Winner of the “Politics” Passport, nominated for the Beata Pawlak MediaTory and Awards, and respective times for the Nike Literary Prize and the Angelus Literary Prize of Central Europe.
He drives around unusual places and writes about it.

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