A Loss The Story Of A Dead Soldier Told By His Sister

This book is the story of one death among many in the war in eastern Ukraine. Its author is a historian of war whose brother was killed at the frontline in 2017 while serving in the Ukrainian Armed Forces. Olesya Khromeychuk takes the point of view of a civilian and a woman, perspectives that tend to be neglected in war narratives, and focuses on the stories that play out far away from the warzone. Through a combination of personal memoir and essay, Khromeychuk attempts to help her readers understand the private experience of this still ongoing but almost forgotten war in the heart of Europe and the private experience of war as such. This book will resonate with anyone battling with grief and the shock of the sudden loss of a loved one.

A moving and thought-provoking story of loss and war *** 'Elegantly written... packed with the sharpness of moments when a death suddenly becomes real' -TLS 'If you want to understand Ukraine's determination to resist, Olesya Khromeychuk's book is essential.' -Paul Mason, author of How to Stop Fascism 'A touching and brilliantly written account about grief, and also about strength. I read it in one night.' -Olia Hercules 'If you read only one book about the war, this is the one to read.' -Henry Marsh, author of Do No Harm [A] tender and courageous book... Khromeychuk's clear-sighted prose expresses the pain that thousands, even millions, have felt, not just in Ukraine now but in every conflict, past and present. -The Literary Review Magazine WITH A FOREWORD BY PHILIPPE SANDS AND AN INTRODUCTION BY ANDREY KURKOV Killed by shrapnel as he served in the Ukrainian Armed Forces, Olesya Khromeychuk's brother Volodymyr died on the frontline in eastern Ukraine. As Olesya tries to come to terms with losing her brother, she also tries to process the Russian invasion of Ukraine: as an immigrant living far from the frontline, as a historian of war and how societies respond to them, and as a woman, a civilian, and a sister. In this timely blend of memoir and essay, Olesya Khromeychuk tells the story of her brother - the wiser older sibling, the artist and the soldier - and of his death. Deeply moving and thoughtful, The Death of a Soldier Told by His Sister picks apart the ways political violence shapes everyone and everything it touches and depicts with extraordinary intimacy the singular and complicated bond between a brother and sister. Olesya's vivid writing is a personal and powerful commitment to honesty in life, in death and in memory. 'Soon before he died, my brother said he had become a warrior. Why would a thinker, an artist, wish to become a soldier? Perhaps I didn't appreciate what it meant to be a thinker and an artist, or, maybe, what it meant to be a soldier.' 'In vivid, intimate prose and with unflinching honesty, Olesya Khromeychuk introduces us to the brother she lost in the war and found in her grief.' -Dr Rory Finnin, University of Cambridge 'I admire a book that invites me to grapple with knotty questions. Olesya Khromeychuk has written such a book - beautifully.' - Professor Cynthia Enloe, author of Nimo's War 'Moving, intelligent, and brilliantly written.' -Anna Reid, author of Borderland: A Journey Through the History of Ukraine

Russia's large-scale invasion on the 24th of February 2022 once again made Ukraine the focus of world media. Behind those headlines remain the complex developments in Ukraine's history, national identity, culture and society. Addressing readers from diverse backgrounds, this volume approaches the history of Ukraine and its people through primary sources, from the early modern period to the present. Each document is followed by an essay written by an expert on the period, and a conversational piece touching on the ongoing Russian aggression against Ukraine. In this ground-breaking collection, Ukraine's history is sensitively accounted for by scholars inviting the readers to revisit the country's history and culture. With a foreword by Olesya Khromeychuk.

This volume focuses on political and social expressions in contemporary art of Ukraine, Estonia, Lithuania, and Latvia. It explores the transformations that art in Ukraine and the Baltic states has undergone since their independence in 1991, discussing how the conflicts and challenges of the last three decades have impacted the reconsideration of identity and fostered resistance of culture against economic and political crises. It analyzes connections between the past and the present as seen by the artists in these countries and looks at their visions of the future. Contemporary Ukrainian art portrays various perspectives, addressing issues from controversial historical topics to the present military conflict in the East of the country. Baltic art speaks out against the erasure of past historical traumas and analyzes the pertinence of its cultural scene to the European community. The contributions in this collection open a discussion of whether there is a single paradigm that describes the contemporary processes of art production in Ukraine and the Baltic countries. With contributions by Ieva Astahovska, Svitlana Biedarieva, Kateryna Botanova, Olena Martynyuk, Vytautas Michelkevičius, Lina Michelkevičė, Margaret Tali, and Jessica Zychowicz.

Anastasia Lysyvets’s memoir Tell us about a happy life ... (Skazhy pro shchaslyve zhyttia ...), published in Kyiv in 2009 and now available for the first time in an English translation, is one of the most powerful testimonies of a victim of the Holodomor, the Great Famine of 1932–1933 in Ukraine. This mass starvation was organized by the Soviet regime and resulted in millions of deaths by hunger. The simple village teacher Lysyvets’s testimony, written during the 1970s and 1980s without hope of publication, depicts pain, death, and hunger as few others do. In his commentary, Vitalii Ogiienko explains how traumatic traces found their way into Lysyvets’s text. He proposes that the reader develops an alternative method of reading that replaces the usual ways of imagining with a focus on the body and that detects mechanisms of transmission of the original Holodomor experience through generations.

A classic work of American literature that has not stopped changing minds and lives since it burst onto the literary scene, The Things They Carried is a ground-breaking meditation on war, memory, imagination, and the redemptive power of storytelling. The Things They Carried depicts the men of Alpha Company: Jimmy Cross, Henry Dobbins, Rat Kiley, Mitchell Sanders, Norman Bowker, Kiowa, and the character Tim O’Brien, who has survived his tour in Vietnam to become a father and writer at the age of forty-three. Taught everywhere—from high school classrooms to graduate seminars in creative writing—it has become required reading for any American and continues to challenge readers in their perceptions of fact and fiction, war and peace, courage and fear and longing. The Things They Carried won France's prestigious Prix du Meilleur Livre Etranger and the Chicago Tribune Heartland Prize; it was also a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Critics Circle Award.

At the age of twelve, Ishmael Beah fled attacking rebels in Sierra Leone and wandered a land rendered unrecognizable by violence. By thirteen, he'd been picked up by the government army, and Beah, at heart a gentle boy, found that he was capable of truly terrible acts. At sixteen, he was removed from fighting by UNICEF, and through the help of the staff at his rehabilitation center, he learned how to forgive himself, to regain his humanity, and, finally, to heal. This is an extraordinary and mesmerizing account, told with real literary force and heartbreaking honesty.