Studia Ucrainica Varsoviensia

Poetry, War, and Trauma: Poems from Ukraine

2025, 13, No. 13

Subarno Chattarji

0000-0001-5170-994X

University of Delhi, Department of English

DOI

10.31338/2299-7237suv.13.4

Publication date

25.06.2025

Publishing model

open access

License type

CC BY 4.0 Int.

Field

Humanities

Discipline

literary studies

Language of publication

Polish, English

Downloads

PDF 440 KB

Article

Number of views:109

Number of downloads:65

Crossref citations:0

Altmetric score:0

Abstract

While there is a long genealogy of war poetry across the world, the relationship between poetry and war is often misunderstood insofar as poetry is perceived as private, personal, and lyrical meditations removed from the world. This misconception was furthered by a misinterpretation of Theodor Adorno’s injunction against writing poetry after Auschwitz. This paper refers to Adorno and Auden to contextualize the place of poetry in times of war. It locates war poetry within theoretical frames of trauma, witnessing, memory, and memorialization. The paper analyses war poetry from Ukraine in English translation, from the Russian occupation, beginning in 2014 to the current war in Ukraine. The poems discussed deal with the ways in which Russia’s occupation and invasion have destroyed everyday lives and communities, ruptured any conception of peace, and instilled long-lasting trauma. Many poems focus on civilian lives since civilians have been deliberately targeted. Through a study of a handful of Ukrainian war poetry we perceive not just the devastation of a country, its lands and peoples, but also resilience and determination, and the necessity to keep bearing witness in and through poetry.

Keywords:

Bibliography

Armstrong C., "Trauma and Poetry," [in:] The Routledge Companion to Literature and Trauma, edited by C. Davis and H. Meretoja, New York, 2020.

https://doi.org/10.4324/9781351025225-27

Auden W. H., "In Memory of W. B. Yeats," https://poets.org/poem/memory-w-b-yeats (accessed 10 July 2024).

Auden W. H., "September 1, 1939," https://poets.org/poem/september-1-1939 (accessed 10 July 2024).

Auden W. H., Forewords and Afterwords, New York, 1974.

Barskova A., "Afterword: On Decomposition and Rotten Plums: Language of War in Contemporary Ukrainian Poetry," [in:] Words for War: New Poems from Ukraine, edited by O. Maksymchuk and M. Rosochinsky, Boston, 2018.

Bishop C., "Trauma and Photography," [in:] The Routledge Companion to Literature and Trauma, edited by C. Davis and H. Meretoja, New York, 2020.

https://doi.org/10.4324/9781351025225-31

Bond L., "9/11," [in:] The Routledge Companion to Literature and Trauma, edited by C. Davis and H. Meretoja, New York, 2020.

Caruth C., ed., Trauma: Explorations in Memory, Baltimore, London, 1995.

https://doi.org/10.56021/9781421413525

Cohen J., Interrupting Auschwitz: Art, Religion, Philosophy, New York, London, 2003.

Cole S., "Enchantment, Disenchantment, War, Literature," PMLA, Vol. 124, No. 5, October 2009, pp. 1632-1647.

https://doi.org/10.1632/pmla.2009.124.5.1632

Davis C., Meretoja, H., "Introduction," [in:] The Routledge Companion to Literature and Trauma, edited by C. Davis and H. Meretoja, New York, 2020.

https://doi.org/10.4324/9781351025225

Dean C. J., "Witnessing," [in:] The Routledge Companion to Literature and Trauma, edited by C. Davis and H. Meretoja, New York, 2020.

https://doi.org/10.4324/9781351025225-10

Fassin D., Rechtman, R., The Empire of Trauma: An Inquiry into the Condition of Victimhood, trans. R. Gomme, Princeton, Oxford, 2009.

Felman S., Laub, D., Testimony: Crises of Witnessing in Literature, Psychoanalysis, and History, New York, London, 1992.

Gibbs A., Contemporary American Trauma Narratives, Edinburgh, 2014.

https://doi.org/10.1515/9780748694082

Hirsch M., "Projected Memory: Holocaust Photographs in Personal and Public Fantasy," [in:] Acts of Memory: Cultural Recall in the Present, edited by M. Bal, J. Crewe, L. Spitzer, Hanover, London, 1999.

Hix H. L., ed., Counterclaims: Poets and Poetries, Talking Back, Maclean, Dublin, 2020.

Humenyuk B., "When HAIL rocket launchers are fi ring," [in:] Words for War: New Poems from Ukraine, edited by O. Maksymchuk and M. Rosochinsky, Boston, 2018.

Humenyuk B., "Not a poem in forty days," [in:] Words for War: New Poems from Ukraine, edited by O. Maksymchuk and M. Rosochinsky, Boston, 2018.

Humenyuk B., "TESTAMENT," [in:] Words for War: New Poems from Ukraine, edited by O. Maksymchuk and M. Rosochinsky, Boston, 2018.

Kalu A. C., "Angelus," Broken Lives and Other Stories, Athens, 2003.

Kaul S., Of Gardens and Graves: Essays on Kashmir, Gurgaon, 2015.

Khersonska L., "I planted a camellia in the yard," in Words for War: New Poems from Ukraine, edited by O. Maksymchuk and M. Rosochinsky, Boston, 2018.

Meretoja H., "Philosophies of Trauma," [in:] The Routledge Companion to Literature and Trauma, edited by C. Davis and H. Meretoja, New York, 2020.

https://doi.org/10.4324/9781351025225-2

Musakovska Y., "Who said that the words have no value now," trans. E. Yevtushenko, [in:] "The endless and innocent birdsong of the sky is for you," 28 March 2022, https://chytomo.com/en/the-endless-and-innocent-birdsong-of-sky-is-for-you-the-newestukrainian-war-poems/ (accessed 8 July 2024).

Ritivoi A., "Aff ect," [in:] The Routledge Companion to Literature and Trauma, edited by C. Davis and H. Meretoja, New York, 2020.

https://doi.org/10.4324/9781351025225-13

Shevchenko T., "To the Dead, To the Living, and To Those Yet Unborn, My Countrymen All Who Live in Ukraine and Outside Ukraine, My Friendly Epistle," The Poetical Works of Taras Shevchenko, trans., C. H. Andrusyshen and W. Kirkconnell, Toronto, 1964.

Spear H. D., Remembering We Forget, London, 1979.

Templeton A., "What's the Use? Writing Poetry in Wartime," College Literature, Vol. 34, No. 4, Fall 2007, pp. 43-62.

https://doi.org/10.1353/lit.2007.0051

Tsilyk I., "The Ouroboros Path," 23 August 2022, [in:] Ukraine 22: Ukrainian Writers Respond to War, edited by M. Andryczyk, Dublin, 2022.

Yakimchuk L., "Caterpillar," trans. O. Maksymchuk and M. Rosochinsky, [in:] Words for War: New Poems from Ukraine, edited by O. Maksymchuk and M. Rosochinsky, Boston, 2018.

Yakimchuk L., "the return," trans. O. Maksymchuk and M. Rosochinsky, in "The endless and innocent birdsong of the sky is for you," 28 March 2022, https://chytomo.com/en/the-endless-and-innocent-birdsong-of-sky-is-for-you-the-newest-ukrainian-war-poems/(accessed 8 July 2024).

Zabuzhko O., "In Conversation with G. Godwin," Ukrainian Institute London, 22 February 2023, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vdKWVQtOXOs (accessed 10 July 2024).

Zhadan S., "To get together and talk," The Massachusetts Review, 24 March 2022, https://www.massreview.org/node/10334 (accessed 8 July 2024).

Zhadan S., "Poetry after Bucha: Serhiy Zhadan on Ukraine, Russia, and the Demands War Makes of Language," trans. I. S. Wheeler and R. Costigan-Humes, 2022, https://lithub.com/poetry-after-bucha-serhiy-zhadan-on-ukraine-russia-and-the-demands-war-makesof-language/ (accessed 1 June 2023).

Similar publications