Pro Patria Mori: To Die for One's Country

Stephen Komarnyckyj on how Ukrainian poets are remaking the art of war poetry

After the English poet and soldier Wilfred Owen (1893-1918) came under gas attack he wrote a poem that shaped how Britain saw World War One. The title Dulce et Decorum Est, taken from the Latin poet Horace who said “It is sweet and fitting to die for one's country”, is ironic. The narrator watches one of his comrades being gassed:

            In all my dreams before my helpless sight
            He plunges at me, guttering, choking, drowning.

Owen and his fellow poets saw the war as a tragedy that should never happen again. Yet,   trench warfare has returned to Europe. Ukrainian poets crouch in dug outs or bomb shelters writing verse. However, their poetry is very different to Owen's. Why? Byline Times looks at Ukrainian history and four Ukrainian poets to answer this question.

The full scale Russian invasion of Ukraine that began on 24 February 2022 is only the latest attempt to wipe out Ukrainian identity. The Russian government states openly that it plans to destroy the Ukrainian state and Russians have hated the Ukrainian language for centuries.

Simply put, Kyiv the capital of Ukraine is the heartland of an ancient kingdom called Rus from which Russia claims its origins. The existence of Ukrainians disproves the Russian claim of descent from Rus, so the Ukrainian language, the descendant of the spoken language of the Rus heartland, must be destroyed. Russian imperialists have occasionally tolerated Ukrainian culture as a tactical move while teaching Ukrainians to despise it.