On Thursday, September 19, the outstanding Ukrainian writer, literary critic and essayist, winner of the Shevchenko Prize, holder of the Order of Princess Olga and the French Legion of Honor, Oksana Zabuzhko, turns 64 years old.
Oksana Zabuzhko thrilled the Ukrainian cultural and literary space with her first novel Field research on sex in Ukrainewhich was published in 1996 and became the first Ukrainian bestseller, as well as the most translated work of Ukrainian prose in the world.
In her work, the writer explores national identity, gender equality and feminism. Oksana Zabuzhko’s works have been translated into more than 20 languages and published in Austria, Bulgaria, Italy, the Netherlands, Germany, Poland, France and other countries.
Ukrainian poet Ekaterina Kalitko is called Oksana Zabuzhko «a voice that shapes and changes Ukrainian culture.”
After the start of the large-scale invasion that the writer encountered in Europe, Oksana Zabuzhko’s voice began to sound even more powerful in the world. A laureate of international awards, a Fulbright scholar and a professor of Ukrainian studies at Harvard and Pittsburgh universities, she uses every opportunity to remind the world of the war in Ukraine. So this year, during a press conference at the Berlin International Film Festival, Zabuzhko turned on an air raid signal to make it clear what sounds millions of Ukrainians hear every day. In 2022, she went on the longest creative tour of her writing career, with a new book. The longest journey 21 countries and 93 cities. In 2023, Oksana Zabuzhko became one of three Ukrainians included in the BBC 100 Women list of the most influential women of the year.
Among Oksana Zabuzhko’s most widely read works is a collection of essays. Let My People Go: 15 Texts on the Ukrainian Revolution (2005), philosophical work Notre Dame d’Ukraine: Ukrainian women in the conflict of mythologies (2007), a novel Museum of abandoned secrets (2009), collection of short stories After the third bell, entry to the hall is prohibited. (2017), collection of essays Planet Wormwood (2020), essay The longest journey (2022), The Tale of Viburnum Sopilka (2024).
In honor of Oksana Zabuzhko’s birthday Life in NV provides 10 of the most important quotes by Oksana Zabuzhko about war, erroneous stereotypes about Russia, Russian and Ukrainian cultures in the West, and the West’s reaction based on interviews and statements by the writer on social networks made after the start of the full-scale invasion of the Russian Federation into Ukraine.
“Ukraine has broken the inertia of defeat, which is really very important. With agony, with blood, with violent breaks of both stereotypes and multigenerational inertia. With pain, with blood, with uprooting, we break paradigms, established norms. And that is why it is unleashed. In principle, we have already started global revolutionary processes, of which we are largely unaware.” (Quote from an interview in Suspilne Kultura)
“The West is in the process of becoming aware and regaining its sense of sobriety. Because for them, February 24 was that rude awakening: rude and cruel, unexpected.” (Quote from an interview with Radio NV)
«I didn’t wake up on February 24. Since 2008, I had been crying out and understanding that this was war. And since 2010, it was absolutely obvious to me that a war was coming, that it was inevitable, that in the Kremlin’s plans it should be a world war. And, of course, it was clear that we were there on the road, we would be next after Georgia.” (Quote from an interview with Radio NV)
«Putin’s success is that he was not arrested earlier. He simply takes the best of what has been cultivated for centuries, starting with the work of Stalin’s Cheka on this very Western front.” (Quote from an interview with Radio NV)
«For me, as a Ukrainian, the attitude of Russian writers was obvious. We were like natives from suburban villages. Every Russian writer has these colonial narratives.” (Quote from a speech on Lviv Book Forum 2023).
«Ukrainians are now being translated, published, invited, having microphones held in front of their noses, not because we are so beautiful, intelligent and talented, but because our country, unexpectedly for everyone, has piled on top of the one before which the whole world has cowered since 1945.” (Quote from Oksana Zabuzhko’s Facebook post).
“Literature is the language of time. It has the power to remain eternal in its essence.” (Quote from a talk at TEDxKyiv)
“We can say that this is the same hundred-year war that has been going on since 1914. And this empire is still not allowed to crumble. And all the time they run together and hold it up, as soon as it starts to fall apart. Whether in 1918 or in 1991-92». (Quote from an interview with BBC Ukraine).
“…My country at war is behind me, the Armed Forces of Ukraine are behind me. My words are backed up by very significant actions of my state. And here, unfortunately, citing the discussions of the 20th century, one can once again be convinced that the difference between a language and a dialect lies in the fact that a language has an army and a navy. That is why people begin to listen with special attention to their arguments precisely after the army and navy defeated those whom everyone fears.». (Quote from an interview for Radio Cultura).
«And in the meantime, who but we should now tirelessly tell the world in every possible way what gulags await it in the event of our defeat and what experts await it in the event of our victory? But to do so we must at least understand, at all levels, that this is also part of military operations, without which they can only be successful over a short distance. (Column for NV magazine).
