BookForum 2023 – what it was like – a column by Radoslava Kabachii

Advertising:

Event recording:

Discussion “War as the collapse of civilization: will there be happiness after the war?”

I was also talking about memory when Oleksandr Sushko, executive director of the International Renaissance Foundation, during the discussion “Developing the Marshall Plan for Ukraine: Why Ukraine’s Victory Will Benefit Everyone” (participants: Sevgil Musaeva, Oleksandra Matviychuk, Kristina Berdynskikh, Timothy Garton Ash, Emma Graham-Harrison, Oleksandr Sushko), said that: “Any mature, integrated policy to help Ukrainian reconstruction will primarily focus on social capital”. Paraphrasing Mr. Oleksandr, recovery is possible where there are people left. I would also add – people who clearly remember what I did to them, their homes and their usual lives, etc.; people who, having experienced it, are ready to join the reconstruction and at the same time carry this memory to future generations.

Event recording:

Advertising:

Discussion “Developing the Marshall Plan for Ukraine: why Ukraine’s victory will benefit everyone”

There was also about memory discussion “Crimean Fig”: “literature from behind bars”, Ukrainian Crimea and freedom of speech” (participants: Radomyr Mokryk, Alim Aliyev, Anastasia Levkova, Myroslav Marynovych), because on the one hand, it was about the relationship between the experience of “literature from behind bars”, which was written by Ukrainian dissidents, and which was written by Russian prisoners. On the other hand, about the fact that “Crimean Fig” is a reflection of the struggle for the preservation of the Crimean Tatar and Ukrainian identity, an existential war in which survival is a question.

Discussion “Crimean Fig”

Discussion “Colonial discourse in Russian literature: how we (mis)understand the “Russian soul” (participants: Eva Thompson, Oksana Zabuzhko, Elif Batuman, Paata Shamugia, Charlotte Higgins), was obviously also about memory. As Oksana Zabuzhko wrote, announcing the event: “this is actually an epoch-making panel. And not only because we will have with us the “same” Eva Thompson, the famous author of “The Troubadours of the Empire”, who was the first to make Russian literature the subject of post-colonial studies (how fiercely the Russian agency worked, including in our country, to discredit her is the subject of a separate study!), and Elif Batuman, whose confession in the January “New Yorker” about how, after 20 years of fascination with Russian studies, she discovered Pushkin’s imperialism for herself, became an international sensation no bigger than my article in the literary supplement to the “Times” (“How to read Russian literature after Buchi?”), to which Elif is referred to as an eye-opener (after all, unlike Elif, I was never a Russian and I could at least be accused of “war trauma”, while Elif’s speech “from inside the shop” was already simply an undermining of the foundations on which she stood Western Russian Studies)”.

Event recording:

Photo: BookForum

Probably, the most painful are the events of memory themselves: “Women, war and justice: in memory of Victoria Amelina” and “Presentation of the book “I am transformed… Diary of the occupation. Selected poems by Volodymyr Vakulenko-K. Because, unfortunately, every year at the Forum we remember and talk about those who will never come to the Forum. Children’s writer Volodymyr Vakulenko lived in Kapitolivka in the Izyum region, he did not have the opportunity to leave, so he lived under occupation and kept a diary. The day before he was abducted, Volodymyr buried the diary under a cherry tree in his yard, telling his father: “When ours come, give it back.” Currently, these tumultuous records, as well as poems, are collected under the cover of the book “I am changing…” (Vivat publishing house). And this book became possible in general thanks to the writer, volunteer, documenter of war crimes of the Russian Federation, Victoria Amelinia, who accidentally found out where exactly the diary was buried. Victoria died this year in Kramatorsk, where she was with a delegation of Colombian journalists and writers. While they were having dinner at the Ria Lounge restaurant in the city center, the Russian occupiers launched a rocket attack on the building, as a result of which Victoria was seriously injured. Doctors and paramedics in Kramatorsk and Dnipro did everything they could to save her life, but unfortunately the wound was fatal.

Record of the event “Women, war and justice: in memory of Victoria Amelina”:

Recording of the event “Presentation of the book “I’m turning… Diary of the occupation. Selected poems by Volodymyr Vakulenko-K.:

Photo: BookForum

Despite the tragedies of these losses, I think we should learn not just to remember and honor, but to work with memory. Because as Victoria Amelina wrote in the preface to Volodymyr Vakulenko’s book: “My message is saved, even if tomorrow I manage to step on some anti-personnel mine. And while the writer is being read, he is alive.”

So we should continue the affairs of those who are no longer with us. And we also need to learn to relay our memory, rethink it, explain to those who cannot or do not want to understand us. Because by doing this, we enable the formation of the future, which will definitely include the 100th, 200th, and 500th Lviv International BookForum – a celebration of books, intellectual pleasure, and deep meanings.