Volodymyr Rafeyenko is a distinguished Ukrainian novelist. Ten years ago he wrote and published entirely in Russian. Born in Russian-speaking Donetsk, in the east of the country, he won literary awards for his work, including the prestigious Russian prize, given in Moscow.
In July 2014, Rafeyenko was forced to flee his home city after the Kremlin staged a covert takeover. He recalled standing in Donetsk’s central boulevard – named after the Russian poet Alexander Pushkin – as soldiers rolled in. “I saw a military column arrive. I understood that with my beliefs it was time to leave,” Rafeyenko said.
Vladimir Putin said he annexed Crimea and much of the Donbas region to “save” its Russophone population. The claim infuriates Rafeyenko. “It was an out and out lie, aimed at a western audience. My conscience began to hurt. I was 46 years old and didn’t know Ukrainian. I decided to learn it to a level where I could speak and write it.”
Rafeyenko moved to Kyiv leaving behind his job as a writer, literary critic, poet and scholar. “I began to study Ukrainian. It was a principled decision,” he said. Three and half years later, he published Mondegreen, his seventh book, and his first written in the Ukrainian language. His second Ukrainian novel, Petrichor, is out soon.
Since Putin’s invasion, Rafyenko has refused to speak Russian. “I think in Ukrainian. We speak it as a family,” he said.
His decision to drop Russian as a literary tool is part of a trend that began with Ukraine’s post-communist independence. A few writers embraced Ukrainian as a symbolic gesture. But for 20 years Russian-language titles dominated, accounting for 80-85% of Ukraine’s book market.
After 2014, many Ukrainians stopped speaking Russian. Publishing houses added more Ukrainian titles. Last year, after the invasion, they abandoned Russian-language books entirely. Copies disappeared from websites and stores. Thousands of Russian texts sit in warehouses, awaiting disposal.
Kyiv – once a Russophone city – has shifted decisively to Ukrainian, which is spoken in shops, restaurants and homes. Literary discussion has migrated, too. The Lviv book forum – which takes place this week in partnership with Britain’s Hay festival – is in Ukrainian and English. More than 50 writers will participate.
According to Rafeyenko, Ukraine’s linguistic shift reverses a process of Russification. The novelist said his grandmothers were native Ukrainian speakers. “They were forced to learn Russian at school. It was difficult,” he said. “Without Russian you couldn’t get a job or be promoted.” Soviet planners sent Russian-speaking specialists to work in Donbas’s factories, Rafeyenko added, changing the region’s ethnic mix.
His novel Mondegreen tells the post-2014 story of a refugee from Donetsk, Haba Habinsky, who escapes to Kyiv. The book is playful and allusive, with bursts of fantasy and nightmare, in the tradition of magic realism. “My main hero is the Ukrainian language. There are puns and linguistic games. It’s sunny and ironic,” Rafeyenko said.
In 2022, Harvard University Press published Mondegreen in English. The novelist Mark Andryczyk, who translated the work, said the book was an “experiment in identity”. It explores the ways “memory and language interplay in the construction of one’s self”, he wrote. Themes include displacement and transformation. There are cultural and religious references and snippets from poems, folk tales and songs.
His novel Petrichor – the name given to the unique, earthy smell associated with rain – is darker. Rafeyenko said: “The chief personage is war. It’s about the tragic experiences of characters in the first two months after Russia’s invasion, as they try to preserve their lives.” The book – his eighth – is “more powerful” than Mondegreen, he said.
Rafeyenko empathises with fellow Ukrainian novelists who have built literary careers writing in Russian. “It isn’t clear how they will go forward,” he said. For him, the transition was tough: “You are more confident and accurate in your mother tongue than in a learned language. Hearing Russian spoken these days brings me physical pain. For me, it signifies danger.”
Not everyone agrees that Russian has no future as a creative medium. Andrey Kurkov , probably Ukraine’s most feted living writer, writes fiction in Russian. “It’s my mother tongue. Everyone has a right to a mother tongue. It doesn’t matter how well I write Ukrainian. I will never raise it to the same level,” he said.
Kurkov’s books are banned in Russia. He has become a roving cultural ambassador for Ukraine, writing articles for the Guardian and the New Yorker, and giving talks and broadcasts. Last month, he attracted criticism for appearing with the Russian-US journalist Masha Gessen. “Recently someone called me pro-Putin and an anti-patriot. It’s irrational hate,” he said.
Much of Ukrainian literature was originally written in Russian, he pointed out. This includes Nikolai Gogol’s novels and works by Taras Shevchenko, Ukraine’s great bard. Shevchenko’s poems were in Ukrainian but he also wrote in Russian: short stories, poems, two plays and a diary. A “European Ukraine” should accommodate diversity, Kurkov said.
Yuliya Orlova, the chief executive of the publishers Vivat, said the book industry had fundamentally changed. In 2014-15 there was a “renaissance of the Ukrainian book”, she said. Rights to Ukrainian novels were sold abroad. “Foreign literary agencies learned people here speak Ukrainian, not just Russian. You will not believe it, but we had to explain it to them,” Orlova said.
In wartime, Ukrainians read more, she added. Fantasy books and romances were popular. “People are so tired of what is happening they use books as a way to escape from cruel reality,” Orlova said. There had been a surge in demand for non-fiction as well, with a “surprising” interest in books about the current war, and Ukraine’s history.
Vivat recently launched a series featuring 12 “iconic” titles by Ukrainian writers. They include The Forest Song by the poet and the playwright Lesya Ukrainka. “We sell a lot of classical literature,” said Natalie Momot, a 22-year-old sales assistant at Vivat’s bookshop in Kyiv, adding: “People also buy George Orwell. He’s very popular.”
Invasion by Luke Harding (Guardian Faber Publishing, £10.99). To support The Guardian and Observer, order your copy at guardianbookshop.com. Delivery charges may apply.
