“As I am writing this essay, the funeral of Ukrainian poet and children’s writer Volodymyr Vakulenko, who was abducted by the Russian occupiers back in March in his native village of Kapitolivka near Izyum, is taking place in Kharkiv.
“All these months, and after the Russians were pushed out in September, the search for the writer continued. Finally the news came that Volodymyr’s body had been found in a mass grave in the Izyum forest, among hundreds of other victims. He was buried there in early May; two bullets from a Makarov pistol were found in his body, which had been left in the street for a month after he was shot.
“Volodymyr lived in the village with his 14-year-old autistic son and was taking care of his father after a stroke. He kept a diary, which he buried in the garden near the house shortly before the abduction.
“When the de-occupation of the Kharkiv region began, the diary was literally unearthed by Ukrainian writer Victoria Amelina. It is now being preserved in the Literary Museum in Kharkiv and its contents will soon be published.
“This is the history of Ukrainian literature nowadays: when Ukrainian writers look for the bodies of other Ukrainian writers taken away by the Russians. It is when a writer with a shovel digs up the diary of another writer who has been murdered.”
We are haunted by the dead poet’s diary, dreaming in the garden…
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