Literature as last bastion: Natalka Sniadanko on suppression, solidarity and language in Ukraine

The Ukranian author explains why professional writers simply ‘do not exist’ in her country in this essay about its literature and culture

By Natalka Sniadanko for The Writing Life Around the World from Electric Literature, part of the Guardian Books Network

There’s a café in downtown Lviv near the Armenian church that takes its customers back to the 1980s: little tables on wobbly legs, cakes covered in bright buttercream frosting flowers, then-fashionable liqueurs lined up above the bar—not to mention the unusual way they have of brewing coffee. The woman at the bar taps out sugar and organic coffee into a special little long-handled pot to which she then adds water. Next she sets the pot atop a very anachronistic-looking contraption, a box in which tiny iron filings are heated up on a very low current. Paying absolute attention, she keeps the pot on the device until exactly the right moment, when she stirs its contents with a thin wooden stick. She meticulously monitors her clientele’s movements once the coffee’s served, delivering well-timed instructions to stir again or to pick up the little pot, or, finally to pour it into the little cup. The coffee’s foam must increase threefold before it can be considered ready.

It was here, in 'the Armenian,' that the city’s bohemians would gather in the 70s, 80s, and part of the 90s

Ukrainian literature – or Ukrainian culture more broadly –employs the word 'last' often

The Ukrainian language was reduced in the popular imagination to a 'dialect' of Russian, unable to function on its own

Many publishers are going out of business, and those that linger are still unable to publish debut authors

'Professional' writers who live solely off the work they publish in Ukraine simply do not exist

Ours is a form of proletarian solidarity, but it is powerful and reliable

Related: Sign up to our Bookmarks newsletter

Continue reading...