VIKTORIIA KRASNIKOVA
VIKTORIIA KRASNIKOVA
Viktoria Krasnikova is a Ukrainian poet born in 2005 in Kyiv. She is currently studying at the SGH Warsaw School of Economics. She is a laureate of the 2025 Oles Honchar International Ukrainian-German Literature Prize for her poetry collection manuscript “Lacrimosa ad hortum”, a winner of the “Young City Readings” competition (Lviv UNESCO City of Literature, 2025). Her works have been published on various literary platforms, as well as in literary journals and anthologies, poems have been translated into Lithuanian. She also practices translating contemporary Polish poetry into Ukrainian and is preparing her debut poetry book for publication. In her own verses, focuses on exploring optics of perception, features and limits of human vision (from artists bio).
Right: A visual interpretation of Krasnikova's poem "My Sorrow Garden for her Video Poem project.
LYUBA YAKIMCHUK
Lyuba Yakimchuk was born in Pervomaisk, Luhansk oblast, in 1985. She is a Ukrainian poet, screenwriter, and journalist. She is the author of several full-length poetry collections, including Like FASHION and Apricots of Donbas, and the film script for The Building of the Word. Yakimchuk’s awards include the International Slavic Poetic Award and the international “Coronation of the Word” literary contest. Her writing has appeared in magazines in Ukraine, Sweden, Germany, Poland, and Israel. She performs in a musical and poetic duet with the Ukrainian double-bass player Mark Tokar; their projects include Apricots of Donbas and Women, Smoke, and Dangerous Things. Her poetry has been performed by Mariana Sadovska (Cologne) and improvised by vocalist Olesya Zdorovetska (Dublin). Yakimchuk also works as a cultural manager. In 2012, she organized the “Semenko Year” project dedicated to the Ukrainian futurists, and she curated the 2015 literary program Cultural Forum “Donkult” (2015). She was a scholar in the “Gaude Polonia” program of the Ministry of Culture and National Heritage (Poland). In 2015, Kyiv’s New Time magazine listed Yakimchuk among the one hundred most influential cultural figures in Ukraine (from authors bio). Below are two poems by Yakimchuk, and you can view her complete collection here.
DIED OF OLD AGE
granddad and granny passed away
they died on the same day
at the same hour
at the same moment —
people said, they died of old age
their hen met its end
and so did their goat and their dog
(their cat was out)
and people said, they died of old age
their cottage fell apart
their shed turned into ruins
and the cellar got covered with dirt
people said, everything collapsed from old age
their children came to bury the granddad and granny
Olha was pregnant
Serhiy was drunk
and Sonya was only three
they all perished, too
and people said, they died of old age
the cold wind plucked yellow leaves and buried beneath them
the granddad, the granny, Olha, Serhiy and Sonya
who all died of old age.
BY LYUBA YAKIMCHUK
VICTORIA AMELINA
Victoria Amelina was born on January 1, 1986. In her school years, she moved to Canada with her father, but decided to return to Ukraine soon afterwards. In 2014, Victoria Amelina made her debut as a writer with the novel The Fall Syndrome, or Homo Compatiens which was included into top-10 books of the LitAccent 2014 rating. Amelina’s novel Dom’s Dream Kingdom was published in 2017 and awarded as the best book of the year according to Zaporizhzhia Book Toloka and shortlisted for LitAccent 2017 Prize, UNESCO City of Literature Prize, and European Union Prize for Literature. Victoria's prose, poems and essays have been translated into many languages, including English, Polish, Italian, German, Croatian, Dutch, Chezh, and Hungarian.
Victoria Amelina is the founder of the New York Literature Festival, which takes place in a small town called New York in the Donetsk region. Due to the full-scale Russian invasion of 2022, instead of the festival, the team launched the "Fight Them with Poetry" initiative to help supply the Ukrainian Army units defending the region. Since 2022 Victoria Amelina has been collaborating with the Ukrainian teams to document Russian war crimes and advocate for accountability for the international crimes committed by the Russian Federation and its troops on the territory of Ukraine and other countries. She also authored the non-fiction book, War and Justice Diary: Looking at Women Looking at War.
On June 27, 2023, Victoria Amelina was seriously injured during a rocket attack on Kramatorsk by Russian troops. On that day, the writer was in the city center with a delegation of Colombian journalists and writers. On July 1, 2023, Victoria Amelina passed away at the age of 37 in a hospital in Dnipro (from authors bio).
TARAS SCHEVCHENKO
MY TESTAMENT
When I am dead, bury me
In my beloved Ukraine,
My tomb upon a grave mound high
Amid the spreading plain,
So that the fields, the boundless steppes,
The Dnieper’s plunging shore
My eyes could see, my ears could hear
The mighty river roar.
When from Ukraine the Dnieper bears
Into the deep blue sea
The blood of foes … then will I leave
These hills and fertile fields —
I’ll leave them all and fly away
To the abode of God,
And then I’ll pray …. But till that day
I nothing know of God.
Oh bury me, then rise ye up
And break your heavy chains
And water with the tyrants’ blood
The freedom you have gained.
And in the great new family,
The family of the free,
With softly spoken, kindly word
Remember also me.
BY TARAS SCHEVCHENKO