Zhadan: War has changed Ukrainian language, filling it with pain
Ukrainian writer, poet, and soldier Serhii Zhadan is convinced that the Russian war has changed the Ukrainian language—its lightness has disappeared, replaced by pain.
According to a Ukrinform correspondent, Zhadan spoke about this at the Austrian State Prize for European Literature award ceremony during a solemn event at the Salzburg Festival.
"Talking about literature in times of war is a great luxury. It is now much more common to talk about war in Ukrainian. To see the war, you don't need to open a book — just look out the window," the writer said.
He spoke about one of the recent Russian attacks on Kharkiv and emphasized: "The Russians are destroying our cities and our fellow citizens. Russia is waging this aggressive and unjust war to destroy us."
According to Zhadan, Ukrainian books currently being published will almost certainly feature the war, or “even if it is not in the plot, it will fill the pauses and voids.”
Literature, he noted, does not always seem appropriate when it comes to contemplating death. But it is necessary to bear witness to the war “in order to continue fighting” — “to bear witness in order to love.”
The writer believes that war has deformed the current Ukrainian language.
"What happened to our language? How did war change it? Its lightness disappeared. Instead, pain appeared. A lot of pain. And it turned out that its excessive presence deforms the language, deprives it of balance. We now speak the language of people who particularly want to be heard, who are trying to explain themselves. There is no need to look for excessive egocentrism behind this. We are not shouting to draw attention to ourselves — we are shouting to draw attention to those who are worse off than us, who are particularly bad off, who are suffering, who are in pain. We are shouting for those who cannot speak now, who have been deprived of their voice, who have been deprived of their heartbeat," said Zhadan.
According to him, “in times of war, language breaks down”: "The usual structures that support its functionality and effectiveness collapse. War deprives us of our balance. Accordingly, it deprives us of our usual intonations. Looking into the darkness, you are forced, one way or another, to carefully evaluate the weight of what is said and heard."
According to Zhadan, Ukrainians today are trying not just to preserve the remnants of reality that broke down with the start of the war. "We are trying to reassemble this reality, to restart it, to reimagine it, to rename it. We are learning to control our language from scratch, we are testing words for functionality and effectiveness, we are like a person who is learning to walk again after a terrible catastrophe," he emphasized.
At the same time, the writer emphasized that it is language that gives Ukrainians the opportunity to “speak again after a long period of numbness, after deadly silence, after muteness, which comes, confirming your lack of strength and desire to explain anything.”
"It is language that gives us the opportunity to explain the world to ourselves and ourselves to the world. Today, language is our most accurate and effective tool in our attempts to understand the world, in our efforts to be convincing and understandable. We use a language that is only now growing and recovering, like a branch after a break. We use this language to talk about things that we have never talked about before, that were not in our vocabulary, that we never pronounced because they were simply not part of our experience," he said.
Today, Ukrainians have a completely different experience, Zhadan noted, “and, accordingly, a completely different language.” "This language will obviously be used to write completely different literature. Perhaps this literature will lack nuances and doubts, playfulness and frivolity. However, I want to believe that it will not lack the courage to talk about pain and joy, about light and darkness, about powerlessness and hope. It will not be afraid to bear witness to those who need love and understanding. In fact, I suppose that this will be literature of love and understanding. After all, this literature will be written by people who are currently being deprived of precisely that — love and understanding," said the artist.
He added that the language in which books are currently written in Ukraine “is the language of people who are trying to protect their lives and their dignity, their voice and their right to speak.”
As reported by Ukrinform, Serhii Zhadan became this year's winner of the Austrian State Prize for European Literature, awarded by the country's Ministry of Culture. The prize is worth €25,000.
The official award ceremony took place on July 25 with the participation of Federal Minister of Art and Culture, Vice-Chancellor Andreas Babl, as part of a festive event during the Salzburg Festival.