REPCO

The war in Ukraine continues and Ukrainian writers continue to not only establish themselves as critical chroniclers of one of the most challenging times in both national and global history. Ukraine’s writers, too, have risen to the challenge of serving their homeland in a myriad of ways – including serving in the Ukrainian Armed Forces. While many books published about the war document the daily lives of soldiers, volunteers and refugees and focus on the damage, destruction and upheaval of everyday life, very few – if any – books before Oleksandr Mykhed’s The Language of War have managed to document the war’s psychological and ideological effects on language at both the civilian and military level.

What Mykhed’s book initially does very well – especially for western readers who may be unfamiliar with the centuries-long oppression of Ukrainians by Russians – is establish what Ukraine is and who Ukrainians are. Mykhed notes that Ukrainians “have been framed by a discourse imposed by Russia and supported by the West, implying that Ukraine is anti-Russia”. He continues that “We are not anti-Russia. We are something entirely different.” Mykhed combats Russian propaganda by asserting that Ukraine is a “young independent, dynamic nation, who knows its history and has its own vision of the future”. These statements express the dreams and desires of a generation of Ukrainians raised in an entirely independent Ukraine, and as Mykhed declares that he wants to “shout to the world” that Ukrainians are “greater than the war”, the Ukrainian determination and resilience that has defined a nation and a people since February 2022 is once again reaffirmed.

Of course, central to the discussion of language in The Language of War is the global proliferation of Russian propaganda, which has, sadly, influenced far-right politicians and supporters in both the United States and Europe. Mykhed effectively dissects the role of propaganda and its influence on everyday language by discussing how that propaganda effects some of the war’s most vulnerable populations – refugees. He poses that Russian propaganda “tries to once again impose… a narrative about some not so kosher Ukrainian immigrants”. He also reminds readers that they should “remember: none of us ever wanted to end up where we did. After having lost everything.” These ideas echo ones which come later, as Mykhed poses that “Ukrainian history is a history of constant demolition” and that “barely any continuity” exists “between generations” including “generations of artists” who are “executed, shot, repressed”.

 
Mykhed manages to mimic the lack of continuity between generations by structuring the book so that his own reflections and entries ebb and flow with the reflections of journalists-turned-soldiers and snippets of war crime documentation. One of the book’s most memorable, and painful, entries, is that of Yevhen Spirin. Spirin’s narrative is poignant and personal, direct and vulnerable. Spirin’s narrative focuses on a key topic that Russian media, and its allies, have courted continually as they attempt to thwart western – and particularly US – support for the war: the threat of nuclear war. Spirin offers a thought-provoking insight that examines Putin’s threats in the context of Soviet history:

                        “People think that Brezhnev or Khrushchev were not allowed to destroy the world
                        with a nuclear war because they had a politburo that stopped them. Stalin
                        did not start a nuclear war because he simply did not have nukes. And this
                        motherfucker does not have a politburo to restrain him and he does have nuclear
                        weapons.”

Spirin fully displays his own vulnerability as he admits that Putin’s lack of restraint “scares” him, not because he is “afraid to die” but because Ukraine, specifically, could have “progressed in technology, in the development of society, literature, education, culture”, but instead Ukraine must “deal with Russia”. However, as the book continues, readers see that both Ukraine as a nation and Ukrainians as a people have developed ingenious ways of dealing with Russia, including through music.

When the war initially began in 2022, numerous Ukrainian music groups like Go_A; PROBASS ∆ HARDI; Zhadan and the Dogs; Grandma’s Smuzi; and many others developed an important role in fundraising and cultural promotion. However, other non-Ukrainian bands like Metallica, Portishead, Imagine Dragons, Judas Priest and Pink Floyd donated money, expressed solidarity, and released songs in support of Ukraine. Mykhed writes, “This war is about rock music.” The music possesses a language of its own, which Mykhed does not develop as an idea. However, the war’s transformation of the Ukrainian celebrities into military and humanitarian heroes is undeniable.

Mykhed poses a few key questions that are applicable not only to how the war in Ukraine has vastly transformed language for Ukrainians, but for humanity. “What are we doing to our language? What can our language do to us?” asks Mykhed. These questions are profound, given that another propaganda line Russia has fed to the globe is that the war is, in part, to protect the Russian language. Russia’s invasion actually made the Ukrainian language hugely popular and successful, since many Russian-speaking Ukrainians changed to the Ukrainian language during war’s initial days, weeks and months. Mykhed, nonetheless, explains that this transformation has been even more significant, that the “language of war is direct, like an order that cannot have a double interpretation and needs no clarification”. The language of war consists of speaking “more clearly, more simply, in chopped phrases, saving each other’s time and saturating conversation with information”. This new language is even reflected in the contemporary poetry of Ukrainian poets like Halyna Kruk, whose dual-language edition of Lost in Living (Lost Horse Press, 2024) consists of poems that reconcile with Ukraine’s past and present by foregoing metaphor and simile and instead embracing the language of the war.

What The Language of War reaffirms for readers is the necessity of literature during times of crisis. Mykhed asserts that literature “is one of the tools to ensure that what we’ve been through, our rage, and the horrors that modern Ukraine is experiencing, becomes a collective memory”. He writes, “Literature makes sure that our perception does not become clouded by the ever-growing number of tragedies that continue to occur, or by each new torture chamber or mass burial exposed—in Bucha, Mariupol, Izyum, Dnipro, Brovary. It ensures that our rage does not subside.” What literature – Ukrainian literature, specifically, including Mykhed’s book – also ensures during these inhumane times is that the world hears the stories of those oppressed, and for Ukrainians, this is one of the few times in history that has occurred. Thus, The Language of War is one of the most important contributions to the Ukrainian literature canon to emerge from the ever-increasing realm of Ukrainian non-fiction, and in its pages Oleksandr Mykhed establishes himself as one of his generation’s most thought-provoking and philosophical writers.

The Language of War by Oleksandr Mykhed. Penguin Books 2024

Nicole Yurcaba is a Ukrainian American of Hutsul/Lemko origin. A poet and essayist, her poems and reviews have appeared in Appalachian Heritage, Atlanta Review, Seneca Review, New Eastern Europe, and Ukraine’s Euromaidan Press. Nicole holds an MFA in Writing from Lindenwood University, teaches poetry workshops for Southern New Hampshire University, and is Humanities faculty at Blue Ridge Community and Technical College in the United States. She also serves as a guest book reviewer for Sage Cigarettes, Tupelo Quarterly, Colorado Review, and Southern Review of Books.