VOICE OF WAR

challenge

It's scary to ask about the war

The war that has been going on in Ukraine since 2014 has forced a significant part of civilians of all ages and professions to take up arms. Even if they have survived physically, they still suffer from the traumatic experience and even more from the inability to explain this experience to others.

Civilians often do not understand what the combatants had to go through. And sometimes we are just afraid to ask those who were there about the war, or we do not know how to do it.

solution

Write what you feel

We decided to give veterans the opportunity to tell their stories, and society — to hear what a war "without filters" is. In 2017, the project "Voice of War: School of Journalism for ATO Veterans" was launched.

30 veterans — men and women of all ages and professions - joined the school. We developed a special course on writing skills to teach veterans to better use the power of the word. The course was taught by writers Serhiy Zhadan, Kateryna Babkina, Rostyslav Semkiv, Michael Shchur, Roman Zinenko and other well-known publicists. Some of the lecturers already had combat experience themselves.

"These stories are written in such a way that you "shake". Those who saw the war with their own eyes found the strength to describe it — without unnecessary introductions, prologues, pathos. They wrote as they feel today: painfully, frugally in relation to words," Serhii Zhadan commented on the works of veterans — students of the course.

After the beginning of the full-scale invasion, the need to articulate military experience became even more acute. In 2022, we launched a new stage of the project, which was joined by 20 veterans. Writers Lyubko Deresh, Oleksandr Mykhed, Kateryna Babkina, Elina Slobodyanyuk, Rostyslav Semkiv, Oksana Zabuzhko, Victoria Amelina became teachers of the course on writing skills this time.

The new course lasted 2 months and consisted of 5 lectures and 11 practical workshops. A special feature of this school was support groups with the project psychotherapist, where participants could share their own emotions and experiences. At the end of the course, the participants, together with mentors, created an essay about the war.

result

A step towards truth and social adaptation

After two months of classes in the first iteration of the project in 2017, the veterans completed their own stories — 29 of them were published in the book "The Voice of War: Veterans' Stories". The book gives Ukrainians a chance to better understand those who defended them. The voice of the veterans sounded honestly and without distortion. And not only in Ukraine: in the spring of 2018, the book was presented at the International Book Salon (Salon du livre) in Paris.

The book is available in the electronic version:

"Someday, when I become an outstanding writer, they ask me: how did you start writing such good stories and novels? I will answer: as a classic of world literature, I have a mother and a father. My mother is the war, and my father is the Voice of War project," Vadym Pavlovskyi said in 2017. He began to write after forty, having behind him also military experience.

The Voice of War 2017 Project in Numbers

30 veterans attended the course
22 veterans — co-authors of the book
29 stories-novels about the war
24 lecturers — writers and journalists

3 media partners (UP Zhittya, Hromadske, LB.ua)

In 2022, the objective of the course was to encourage veterans to acquire new writing skills to work through memories and experiences in texts. Dmytro Lysun, the participant, wrote: "Your course has become a catalyst for my writing. Two pages of original text have already turned into 60 pages!"

In total, the participants created 22 essays, of which 6 were translated into English. All works were collected on the platform https://2022.voiceofwar.org/. The best works were also published in leading media, such as The Village Ukraine, Ukrainska Pravda, UkraineWorld.

The Voice of War 2022 Project in Numbers

20 veterans attended the course
22 stories-novels about the war
16 lecturers — writers and journalists
5+ media partners (UP Zhittya, Rubrica, The Village)

Course outcomes include:

More than 70% of the participants noted that the school of writing contributed to their social adaptation.
84% agreed that support groups helped with stress management.
100% noted that thanks to the school they improved their literary skills.
Graduate Oleksandr "Teren" Budko has already published his own book "The Story of a Stubborn Husband", and graduate Svitlana Penkova, the wife of the deceased warrior, — a collection of memoirs "Ukrainian Hummingbirds". The title of the book was inspired by the writer Oksana Zabuzhko, who was a lecturer at the school.
The course of literary skills for veterans and active military personnel of Ukraine "Voice of War" was shortlisted for the Kyiv International Advertising Festival 2023.

P.S. Voices of heroes who continue to live in words

Unfortunately, some of the school participants died in the war after the full-scale invasion of the Russian Federation. The stories left by them will become important testimonies and will preserve the memory of the heroes who gave their lives for Ukraine.

Among the graduates of the first school and the authors of the book are Iryna Tsvila and Bijan Sharopov, who died defending Ukraine in 2022. On February 25, 2022, Irina passed away — she died during the heroic defense of Kyiv, in April 2022, Bijan died after being ambushed by Russians in the Kharkiv region. On June 27, 2023, during a rocket attack in Kramatorsk, Victoria Amelina, the trainer of the course and a Ukrainian writer, was injured and later died. In November 2023, writer, national guard and project participant Maksym Petrenko died in the war.