How writers and parents can #StandWithUkraine
[Content warning: the first link in this post contains graphic and disturbing images of a mortally wounded child.]
I was writing about something else this week.
Then I saw the horrific CNN article about the six-year-old Ukrainian girl mortally injured in a Russian shelling in the port city of Mariupol. Paramedics tried to save her but could not. The photos are graphic and sickening. Her death was senseless, Putin’s actions abominable.
I take in the peaceful, snow-covered street outside my office window. I live nearly 5,000 miles from the girl’s mother, whose agony as she stares into the camera lens is something no parent should have to feel or confront.
As I write this, the UN has confirmed that at least 13 children have died in the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
13 children whose parents love them as much as I love my child and you love yours.
There is no antidote for war but peace. However, peace isn’t magicked into being. Peace is an intentional act, and one of the best means of facilitating it, I believe, is art and creation.
But the bandwidth to create art is not evenly distributed among artists and societies at any given time. If a foreign power was shelling my neighborhood, I’d be focused only on getting my daughter and family to safety—not revising my novel.
I ask myself, then:
As an artist and citizen of the U.S. watching with horror and fury the reports of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, what can I do from 5,000 miles away to support the people of Ukraine? To lift up their writers and artists, their parents and children?
You are likely thinking the same thing. If so, here are some ideas for what we as writer-parents can do to help the writers, artists, and families of Ukraine, today and moving forward.
Support Ukrainian writers and artists
-Buy their work-
Perhaps the most salient way to support writers and artists, especially in times of crisis, is to purchase their work. (Many popular titles are now on backorder, but that doesn’t mean they’re not worth the wait—and your purchase still helps support the author.)
Book Riot released a list of “11 Ukrainian Books Available in English Translation” with links to purchase the works.
The article’s author, Leah Rachel von Essen, makes the important point that not enough books have been translated from Ukrainian to English—and that many books that have been translated are now unfortunately unavailable or out-of-print.
This makes organizations like TAULT, which I mention below, essential in the dissemination of Ukrainian literature.
(I love that this list offers two “bonus” write-ups of Ukrainian children’s books.)
In 2021 Lit Hub published “Love Ukraine as You Would the Sun: 10 Ukrainian Books Worth Reading in English.” Some of the titles are the same as those listed in the Book Riot article, but not all.
-Read their work-
If you don’t have the funds right now to support Ukrainian writers and artists, here is some great material you can access for free. (Of course, sharing the work of these writers gives others the chance to support them.)
Poetry by Serhiy Zhadan, who is perhaps Ukraine’s most well-known poet and novelist internationally
Poetry by Lyuba Yakimchuk and a CBC interview with the poet
Webinar featuring writer, journalist, and screenwriter Andrey Kurkov and his novel Grey Bees
A write-up on filmmaker and mother Iryna Tsilyk’s feature-length documentary The Earth Is Blue as an Orange, which won Sundance’s Directing Award for World Cinema Documentary in 2020.
Conversation in The Rumpus with author Oksana Zabuzhko
Interview in The Nation with Ukrainian publisher Anetta Antonenko
Learn about PEN Ukraine and its literary mission. (PEN Ukraine is one of 146 PEN centers worldwide.)
While Outlook India’s roundup of “11 Ukrainian Writers You Must Read” doesn’t share links to the authors’ works, it does offer short bios of the featured writers as a solid jumping off point for further reading.
-Share their work-
Democracies thrive when people are vocal and participate. As a corollary, then, literature (and the written word in general) is an essential tool of democracy.
In sharing the stories of those suffering oppression, we elevate them above the voices of those seeking to oppress. As Filipino author and professor Miguel Syjuco argues in his post in World Economic Forum, accountability from our leaders “can only be demanded if our voices have consequence.”
We can all do our part to share Ukrainian authors’ and artists’ work on social media, pay their work forward once we’ve read it, and find opportunities in public discourse to highlight Ukrainian work we admire and/or that challenges our perspective.
The more people who engage with the works of Ukrainian authors, the louder, more widespread, and more consequential their voices and ideas become—and the more power they have to fight the oppressor.
Donate to / Support
[Please be sure to research and vet any organization before donating.]
-Ukrainian families and children-
UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR)
Donate here if you’re in the U.S. and want to make a tax-deductible donation.
Voices of Children, a Ukrainian foundation that has been offering “psychological and psychosocial support to children” suffering from “the consequences of armed conflict.”
This NPR article has a non-exhaustive list of other organizations asking for assistance to address the humanitarian crisis.
-Ukrainian medical aid-
Razom, which means “together” in Ukraine, was founded in 2014 by supporters of Ukraine who were unable to be in the country during the Revolution of Dignity/Maidan Revolution. Their Emergency Response fund is now providing critical medical supplies to Ukrainians in this time of Russian invasion.
According to their Facebook page, United Help Ukraine (UHU) is providing “life-saving individual first aid kits (IFAKs containing blood-stopping bandages and tourniquets) and other emergency medical supplies to the front lines.”
If you use cryptocurrency, Ukraine DAO, co-founded by Russian Pussy Riot member Nadya Tolokonnikova, is donating all proceeds to Come Back Alive, a fund that distributes food, medical supplies, and other necessary services to civilians and the Ukrainian military.
-Ukrainian literary and cultural organizations-
TAULT—the Tompkins Agency for Ukrainian Literature in Translation—was founded in 2018 by literary translator Zenia Tompkins and is “a nonprofit literary agency and translation house devoted to the visibility and availability of contemporary Ukrainian Literature in the English-speaking world.” Donate to TAULT’s essential work here.
Visit their “Author Heroes” page to read about Ukrainian writers “who have temporarily laid down their pens to assist in the defense of their homeland.”
The Ukrainian Museum-Archives in Cleveland, Ohio, aims to “preserve and share Ukrainian culture and the immigrant experience.” Visit their website to learn more about their history and collection, and follow this link to donate.
The Ukrainian National Museum of Chicago works to “preserve and share the Ukrainian Immigration contribution to Chicago’s cultural tapestry.” They ask that people consider becoming a member in light of these trying times. The link to donate is on their About page.
The mission of Harvard’s Ukrainian Research Institute is “to foster greater understanding of Ukraine and Ukrainian related topics.” Contributions support many research initiatives including scholarships for students, research support for visiting scholars, and the publication of the journal Harvard Ukrainian Studies.
If you’re in NYC or the greater NY area, visit The Ukrainian Museum in the East Village, which is “committed to acquiring, preserving, exhibiting, and interpreting articles of artistic or historic significance to the rich cultural heritage of Ukrainians,” and the Ukrainian Institute of America, located on the Upper East Side and “dedicated to promoting the art, music, and literature of Ukraine and the Ukrainian diaspora.”
Both organizations offer educational and artistic programming as well as exhibitions, collections, and more. (The Ukrainian Institute of America has assembled a list of ways you can support Ukraine and its people during these tragic times.)
Create art while we can
If peace is an intentional act, then peace is not a given.
We can’t afford to take peace for granted and instead must choose each day to exercise our freedom of speech, our freedom to peaceably assemble, our freedom to create.
The more committed we are to creating the work that speaks to us, the work that we believe in, and to celebrating the work of other voices that deserves lifting up, the more creation we’ll have to turn to in times of destruction.
And creation can be cumulative—the more we create, the more we want to create. The more we practice peace, the more we want to practice peace.
When we take up the reins of our own freedom to create, we honor the voices of creators and artists who’ve been stripped of their freedoms. We create in the name of peace.
#StandWithUkraine🇺🇦
—Erin
If you know of additional resources to help the people and artists of Ukraine, please post them below in the comments.
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