Dialogues on War. Olena Huseinova and Pawel Pieniazek
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Dialogues on War. Olena Huseinova and Pawel Pieniazek

On February 24 the armed forces of the Russian Federation carried out a full-scale invasion of Ukraine. Today, the whole world is talking about it. In order to comprehend the events of the last days, we are launching a series of conversations #DialoguesOnWar.

Ukrainian and foreign intellectuals talk about the experience of the war and share their own observations.

Speakers of the 30th episode:

Olena Huseinova, journalist
Pawel Pieniazek, journalist

Video of the conversation

Text version of the conversation

In order to comprehend the events of recent days, PEN Ukraine has launched a series of conversations entitled #DialoguesOnWar. On October 6, Ukrainian journalist Olena Huseinova held a conversation with the Polish journalist Paweł Pieniążek. This is a transcription of key moments from their conversation.

Paweł Pieniążek: Hello everyone. I wanted to ask the first question about the mood dominating in Ukraine at the moment. I think there are two main things here: on the one hand, the Armed Forces of Ukraine have been very successful in the Kharkiv region, which I managed to visit, as well as in the south and Donbas. On the other hand, there is this constant threat, especially in the foreign media, about a possible nuclear attack. How does all of this affect the mood in Kyiv and Ukraine in general?

Olena Huseinova: First of all, greetings everyone. I am very happy to take part in this conversation. I hope that we will manage to deliver some important messages about what is happening in Ukraine.

It seems to me that we have to differentiate the thoughts and feelings every Ukrainian has. When I am talking about the mood, is it something I am thinking or feeling? I believe everybody remembers September 30, when the Kremlin announced the illegal annexation of four Ukrainian regions. At this point, it is a reflex for all Ukrainians: we know that anything, including bombings, can happen after Putin’s speeches. I came back from my twelve-hour shift and just could not fall asleep because I was scared to miss the possible declaration of WWIII. This was very irrational, but I know that many people in Ukraine have this ‘fear of missing out’.

At the moment, we have much less irony and much more willingness to control the situation. For example, in my purse I have a rubbish bag, a pair of rubber gloves, a bottle of water, and a mask. Nobody wants to be taken by surprise, everyone wants to be prepared. Is it our mood or is it more of an emotional thing? 

At this point, we are all trying to reflect. There was a certain amount of euphoria when we were reading about the liberation of the Kharkiv region and the first kilometres of land liberated in the Kherson region. It is very important to be happy about this news, but it is equally essential to recognise the price and remember the losses we endured along the way. Ukrainians are balancing between all these feelings. We are trying to be prepared, to understand our panic, and to control our joy.

I know that you recently came back from Ukraine. You visited liberated territories. What kind of mood is dominating there?

Paweł Pieniążek: When people saw any representative of the Ukrainian state or any person associated with Ukraine, be it a soldier, a journalist, or a railroad worker, I saw joy and hope in their eyes. Hope was dominant in the people’s mood.

In Balakliya and Izium, there was joy. People had the hope that their normal life was coming back, that the active fighting in their region ended. No one was talking about the nuclear attacks back then. In Kupyansk, it was different. The city was still under pretty close shelling, so over there there was a lot of fear. The proximity of the war made people think about its horrors coming back. A lot of hope, but also a lot of trauma because people have lived through terrible things: hiding in their basements, being tortured, and losing their loved ones. I expected that after all the horrors, people would look at the situation in a more reserved way, but their joy was sincere. I have not seen anything like that yet.

Back in August on the podcast The Book Shelter (“Книгосховище”), you shared with us three books that will help us after the war. After February 24, I could not listen to music or read anything. For a long time, I did not because my attention span was very short and concentrating on a book was a problem for me. How did you manage to read in this situation?

Olena Huseinova: Thanks a lot for this question and for listening to this podcast. More than 20 episodes of The Book Shelter are out now. I wanted to use this name for one of my programmes back in 2017, but, according to the editor, the name was pessimistic and had the potential for scaring people. And she was right. The programme ended up being called Top 7, and the idea was to share with our listeners seven books to read next week. The programme existed from 2017 until February 2022, it was very popular with the audience and had a lot of feedback. I remember the penultimate episode – it was about books debunking the myth about the strength of the Russian army. It was already in the air. But when you find seven proofs busting this myth, it gives you hope.

Then the full-scale Russian invasion happened. I know that feeling very well when you are a professional reader unable to open a book and read a single sentence. I had it for a long time, and I started reading again only when I realised that I need to work on my speaking more, as I had not spoken as much as I did in the first days of the full-scale war. So, I simply opened a book of poetry by Yevhen Pluzhnyk and began to read aloud. That is how I overcame the inability to read. Then it was easier for me to read complicated and painful books: Hanna Arendt, the Nuremberg process, and all things WWII. I have discovered for myself a new author, a German writer Uwe Timm. He has a story called “Die Entdeckung der Currywurst” (“The Invention of Curried Sausage”). It describes life in Hamburg in post-war Germany. The author was about five years old when Germany capitulated, his father was in the Luftwaffe and his older brother, who was a soldier in the Waffen SS, died in Ukraine in 1943. Uwe Timm writes a lot about how redemption in the generation of his father and older brother never happened in Germany. There was a lot of talk not about how they had allowed the war to happen, but how they had managed to lose. This reading made me realise how much work we will have to do after the war. 

When I address my listeners, I often remind them that it is not a fairytale that is awaiting us after the victory. We are going to enter a very scary world and we have to learn our lessons and do our homework for the future. 

Paweł Pieniążek: Definitely, I agree with you when you say that the future is always there. For me, this realisation is one of the big changes that have happened since 2014. Back then, it seems to me, no one was thinking about the future. When I went to Iraqi Kurdistan in 2016, I visited a university there. Even though fighting was still going on there, they had already written academic papers on how they were going to manage their autonomy. There was very little of that in Ukraine.

Olena Huseinova: Actually, I might have a theory about why it was like that. To a great extent, the archetypes of battles and those who fought them were based on our rebel folklore and literature in the school programme. There, the fighters were ready to give up their lives for freedom and hoped that their successors would be able to put an end to this struggle. The experience of actually obtaining victory was lacking in songs and literature. 

But I would like to come back to 2014 and the aspect of being a witness to the war and the ability to recount your experience afterwards. How did you decide to become a journalist and tell people about war? Was it somehow connected to the events of 2014?

Paweł Pieniążek: Yes, of course. I would not say that it was a decision, it just so happened. Most of the things I do now came to me accidentally.

In 2008 or 2009, I was studying in the Ukrainian Linguistics Department at the University of Warsaw. I was coming to Ukraine regularly, I lived there. Even before the Maidan started, I started writing about Ukraine for different media. I understood that the Revolution of Dignity was the most important event of recent years in the region and that I needed to be there. I arrived in Kyiv in the first days of the Euromaidan in 2013, around November 27 or 28. The following April, I went to Donetsk. At the time, most people did not realise that the war was about to begin. I, personally, was not ready for it. I arrived in Donetsk and my colleague, a Polish journalist, said that extremely important events are happening in Sloviansk and we have to go there immediately. We boarded a train and went. That is how I found myself in a city where the war started. Professionally, I grew up with this conflict.

I was never interested in the military aspect of wars. Of course, I have learned lots of things military-wise. However, during the first years of the war I became proficient in Soviet and post-Soviet arms used by Russia, so now I have to learn about the new Western weapons. I am much more interested in an anthropological approach. What happens to human destiny in the war? What does it mean when war comes into your home?
‘Civilian’ is a special category different from all others in war. Civilians do not go to war, the war comes for them and influences their lives the most. I found out that when people try to tidy up their homes and backyards after a missile attack, they are trying to preserve their normal life and show that they still have control over it. The war is coming to people’s homes, setting its own rules, and people are trying to counter them. I believe that these aspects of life during war are the most important, and even optimistic.

Olena Huseinova: As you know, I work with my voice. I do not leave my studio and do not work in the field. But I know that radio is the only medium that can reach occupied territories. We know from our local reporter that people in Kherson are listening to us. This is an incredible feeling and also a great responsibility. The war is in its eighth month now and I am still unsure whether I am doing everything right. People usually listen to us at night, so I have to make sure that my voice is not too high and loud. I have to balance optimism and try not to scare people. I do not know how it should be done correctly. It is not something a journalist should say, but I am trying to be sincere. 

Paweł Pieniążek: Actually, a journalist has to be sincere. It is very important. 

Olena Huseinova: And to simply give people information that is there. This is a very dangerous part. For example, we kept repeating information about the evacuation from the occupied territories many times every hour. We never knew whether people were able to catch our signal or how long the connection was going to last. All those green corridors, the meeting points, the bus stops… We were repeating the details constantly. Later on, people who had managed to get out, told us that they were getting all the news from Ukrainian Radio. They found out that Kyiv was not occupied from our reports. These are the things about which I am still unable to talk calmly. It still feels weird to me. And I am very grateful to all the journalists who managed to take to the streets and to work in the field as events were unfolding.

Paweł Pieniążek: Why does it feel weird?

Olena Huseinova: Because there is the feeling of shame. Shame that I do not know anything about taking to the streets, leaving cities like Mariupol or Bucha, or looking for the road to Zaporizhzhya from Berdyansk. I can only imagine how scary it is.

Paweł Pieniążek: No matter how basic my statement may sound, I am convinced that it is a good thing that not everyone has had these experiences. You need to be happy that you know about all of this just in theory. 

When I was talking to people about the first days of the full-scale Russian invasion, everyone said that they were constantly on the phone and kept watching the news even though they were a part of it. This is a very interesting paradox: you can be in the very centre of the situation and still need to look for external information about what is happening next to you. 

Olena Huseinova: I know that you write mostly for Poles. Here in Ukraine, we tell incredible private stories of people and the experiences they have been through. For example, one of my friends survived the occupation of Bucha. To light a fire for cooking, she had to burn the motivational book she translated. When telling these stories, you have to understand what goal it has to achieve and then frame it accordingly. What is the goal of your stories? How do you want your audience in Poland to react?

Paweł Pieniążek: I grew up and spent most of my adult life in Poland. It sometimes upsets me that people seem to have a prepared answer to anything. When asked what they would do in the situation of war, they confidently say that they would go and fight, they would stay in the country, or they would leave. But these are very theoretical questions you cannot answer unless you face them personally.

In most of my work I am trying to show that the choice in front of you is not always obvious. You cannot envisage it. Choices are ambiguous, they are not black and white in the way that people want to see them. I may seem somewhat critical, but I am trying to tell people’s stories differently and break this wall in my articles. What I like most about books is that I can understand the motivation behind the characters’ actions. I love books where a person's choice is not obvious, and this is what I am trying to convey in my articles.

Edited by Cammie McAtee