Ukraine, War, Love: A Donetsk Diary. A belated warning, and a lament

‘The next day, when the city and oblast councils all came down with bad cases of resolutionitis and started moving to have a referendum, join Russia, and entertain other forms of ‘independence’, my colleagues publicly called the local authorities jackals for not resisting.‘

If the fog of war often obscures the human narrative, Olena Stiazhkina’s recently published Ukraine, War, Love: A Donetsk Diary is both a belated warning and a lament. Why wasn’t Russia stopped in 2014? 

This literary chronicle, wonderfully translated by Anne O. Fisher, set against the backdrop of Russia’s invasion and occupation of Donetsk that year, is a poignant—at once upsetting and darkly hilarious—look at a country Stiazhinka clearly loves, albeit with occasional bouts of sarcasm, and anger. 

Stiazhkina, an award-winning fiction writer turned accidental war correspondent, captures the daily metamorphosis of her city with a novelist’s eye for detail and a historian’s grasp of consequence.  

Her diary begins on March 2, 2014, amidst the first wave of pro-Russian ‘protests’, and concludes with a grim coda on August 18, 2014, the day a convoy of Ukrainian refugees faced slaughter under Russian fire.  

Through her prose, we are not just spectators but participants in the surreal and often absurd theatre of war where the ordinary becomes extraordinary. 

The author’s style is both her strength and her shield. Her use of irony is a sharp sword against the absurdity of conflict, much like the locals who attempt to maintain some semblance of normality amidst chaos.  

For instance, her depiction of a building manager shaming occupiers into dismantling their artillery, or a child constructing Lego checkpoints, injects a dark humour that underscores the resilience of the human spirit.  

However, beneath this veneer of wit lies a profound despair and a fierce love for Ukraine. Stiazhkina’s personal anecdotes blend with the larger narrative of a city under siege, painting a portrait of a community where every citizen, from dog-walkers to historians, becomes part of the resistance, be it through action or through the simple act of survival.  

This book serves not merely as a record but as a time capsule, capturing a period when the world’s attention might have been elsewhere, but where every Donetsk resident was acutely aware of their own mortality and the fragility of peace.  

Ukraine, War, Love is thus a love letter to a beleaguered city, a call to remembrance, and an elegy for a time when the last words spoken could indeed be the last. It is a stark reminder that in the cacophony of global politics, the personal stories are often the most pertinent. 

Ukraine, War, Love: A Donetsk Diary is published by Harvard Ukrainian Research Institute.

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