‘I have just bought my first gun’: the war diary of late Ukrainian novelist Victoria Amelina, introduced by Margaret Atwood
The author had turned to documenting the conflict in her homeland before she was killed by a Russian missile. Margaret Atwood introduces an exclusive extract from the book she was working on when she died
In the middle of a war, there is little past or future, little perspective, little accurate prediction: there is only the white heat of the moment, the immediacy of perception, the intensity of emotions, including anger, dismay, and fear. In her tragically unfinished book – written from the centre of Russia’s appalling and brutal campaign to annihilate Ukraine – Victoria Amelina also records the surrealism: the sense that reality has been skewed as in a nightmare, that this cannot be happening. Bombed kindergartens, with Soviet cartoon characters smiling down from the walls. But there are also moments of courage, of companionship, the shared dedication to a cause. In this war, Russia is fighting for greed – more territory, more material resources – but Ukraine is fighting for its life; not only its life as a country, but the lives of the citizens of that country, for there is little doubt about what the outcome of a Russian win would be for Ukrainians.
This is the context in which so many Ukrainian artists gave up their primary art to dedicate themselves to the defence of their country and their fellow citizens. Victoria Amelina was among them. Before the war, Amelina was a talented and well-known literary writer. She was, as we say, award-winning. She published novels and children’s books, travelled internationally, and started a literary festival. But all that changed when Ukraine was invaded. She turned to war reporting, researching war crimes for the Ukrainian organisation Truth Hounds, interviewing witnesses and survivors.
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