MIR IN UKRAINE
An erasure of “Address by the President of the Russian Federation,”
February 21, 2022, 22:35, The Kremlin, Moscow
Ukraine
is
country
and after
a few
words history
entirely created
by Russia
severing what is historical
Nobody asked
for War
longed
for
distance
found
sh ine
Let me repeat
its people
not a mistake
admit
them openly and honestly
Ukraine
fully
Ukraine
call
Ukraine
Go back to history repeat
it was impossible
any future
instead
bodies
wonder : why
remain
Despite injustice
Ukraine
declare
Ukraine
repeat
Ukraine
reach Ukraine
gold
rope
Never
Ukraine open
Ukraine
bin d this dictator
striking Ukraine
Ukraine
I would
men d memory
generations Ukraine
branches
r i v er s
wave
burned
But we know
Ukraine
split is
water
air
Black Sea
fracture
is
lack and lost
in tatters
Ukraine
its
root
carries on
—listen carefully, please—
—from Poets Respond
February 26, 2022
__________
Julia Kolchinsky Dasbach: “Putin’s Feb 21nd speech rewrites history, questioning Ukrainian sovereignty and making false claims legitimizing its always having been a part of Russia. While this colonial narrative is not new, hearing it spoken in my mother tongue—Russian—while being myself born in Dnipro, Ukraine, and then reading and thinking through it in English, has carried a particular sting and anxiety in the days that followed. I coped by taking on an erasure of all 11-pages of his drivel in order to give back some of the agency and voice I felt were taken from my birthplace and its people in Putin’s twisted version of history and present moment. But today, thousands of miles away, safe behind a screen, as my birthplace is invaded, I have no words for the pain and paralysis I feel. I am holding my kin on this soil close and wishing those friends abroad on Ukrainian chernozem safety. War has begun, and I am terrified for what tomorrow will bring. I emigrated from Ukraine as a Jewish refugee when I was six years old, in 1993, two years after Ukraine declared her independence from the Soviet Union in a referendum supported by 93% of Ukraine’s citizens. While going through various political regimes, Ukraine has known sovereignty since 1991. I am aching at the threat of its loss. Aching for my birthplace. Her language and culture. Her identity. For her people—my people. For the mothers who first sent their kids to school wearing stickers identifying their blood type in the event of military catastrophe and are now sheltering from missile strikes in basements and subway stations. I am aching for what I cannot change, so the process of poetic erasure of a dictator’s language lets me reclaim some sense of power, for both myself and my reader, if only for a moment, if only in the lyric space of the page, to reach for mir-мир, the word for peace in both Russian and Ukrainian. Even though now, this reaching, this hope has been completely shattered.” (web)
