Victoria Amelina’s life ended too soon, but just like a shooting star in the night sky, she was able to light up the world around her. An acclaimed Ukrainian novelist and poet, she was thinking of writing a new novel, but when Russia launched a full-scale invasion on February 24, 2022, she felt that the time was not right for the novels and decided that witnessing, recording, and investigating war crimes was a more urgent task. Later she turned to nonfiction and started working on a book about women documenting war crimes, called War and Justice Diary: Looking at Women Looking at War, which she was writing in English.
A beautiful, slender, long-haired blonde, abundantly gifted, smart, and fearless–a vivid proof that the spirit of the 60s lives on.
Victoria was born in Lviv in Western Ukraine into a Russian-speaking family. At the age of 14, she immigrated to Canada with her father, but soon after decided to return to Ukraine. She graduated from the Lviv Polytechnic National University with a degree in computer science and worked in information technology for a decade before dedicating herself to full-time writing. After the Maidan revolution, she started speaking Ukrainian.
Award-winning author
In 2014, Amelina made her literary debut with a well-received novel "The Fall Syndrome, or Homo Compatiens." Litakcent included it in its top ten books of the year, and in 2015 it was shortlisted for Ukraine's Valerii Shevchuk Prize. Then, in 2017, her second novel, Dom’s Dream Kingdom, was published by the Old Lion Publishing House in Lviv. It was shortlisted for several Ukrainian and international literary awards, including the European Union Prize for Literature, and in 2021 won her a Joseph Conrad literary award from the Polish Institute in Kyiv. Amelina’s prose, poems and essays were translated into many languages, including English, Polish, Italian, and German, to name just a few.
Putting fiction-writing on hold
In the months following Russia’s full-scale invasion. Victoria joined Ukrainian human rights organization Truth Hounds and went through training as a war crime investigator. She traveled very near the frontline and visited the towns and villages in Eastern Ukraine recently liberated by the Ukrainian army to record the testimonies of the victims and document atrocities committed by Russian occupying forces. At that point, she put fiction writing on hold and turned to non-fiction and poetry. “That’s what war leaves you,” she said in a quote posted on the Goethe Institut Romania website. “The sentences are as short as possible, the punctuation a redundant luxury, the plot unclear, but every word carries so much meaning. All this applies to poetry as well as to war.”
Victoria was known to give herself completely to her causes. For example, she dreamed of permanently establishing a literary festival she launched in a small town of New York in the Donetsk region, the place where her husband and his family came from.
“Executed Renaissance”
As a Pen International member, she also worked tirelessly to raise awareness about the dangers facing Ukrainian writers, poets, and artists, and appealed to the international community to recognize the fact that Ukrainian culture was a target and could become a victim of Russia’s brutal war. She often evoked the so-called Executed Renaissance, the generation of Ukrainian writers, artists and intellectuals who were part of a 1920s cultural renaissance in Ukraine, and who were imprisoned and killed (often executed) by the Soviet regime in the 1930s, and the rich culture that was destroyed, including manuscripts and literary magazines. Since Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine she said on many occasions that she felt like a ”new Executed Renaissance” was happening all over again.
Saving Volodymyr Vakulenko’s secret diary of the Russian invasion
It was Victoria who saved the diary of Volodymyr Vakulenko, a poet and children’s author who was tortured and murdered by Russian occupiers. She found it under a cherry tree in his garden. The diary's pages were damp after being in the ground for months. Amelina took it to a literary museum in Kharkiv, where it was subsequently restored. With her help, Vakulenko's diary was published under the title, I Am Transforming: A Diary of Occupation. It includes his selected poems and a preface by Amelina. Every time Victoria told Vakulenko's story, she said Russia should not be allowed to get away with killing Ukrainian writers again.
Unfinished book
When she was awarded a year-long Columbia University fellowship in Paris, Victoria was conflicted about going, because she felt torn about leaving Ukraine. She finally accepted the scholarship because it would allow her to finish her latest non-fiction book, which she described as "a diary of about a dozen women, including myself, pursuing justice." She planned to move there with her 12-year-old son in the fall, and started looking for a school and an apartment in a nice neighborhood. But that was not to be.
Her incredible journey was brutally interrupted by the Russian missile strike on the eastern city of Kramatorsk. On June 27, Victoria accompanied a delegation of Columbian writers and journalists to the popular Ria restaurant. They all survived the attack. She was fatally wounded and died 3 days later from her injuries in the hospital in Dnipro.
Generous, talented, and funny
Victoria seemed to have this uncanny ability to connect, empathize and show kindness to people of any age, ethnicity, or background. So it is no wonder that she touched the hearts and minds of so many people. Those who knew her well are still racked by shock and disbelief that Victoria is gone. But while they mourn the loss of a friend, they also speak of how inspired she made them feel and how blessed they were to have known her.
“Tribute to the remarkable individual”
On September 30, Arrowsmith Press organized a memorial reading for Victoria Amelina, hosted by Brookline Booksmith and co-sponsored by Harvard Ukrainian Research Institute, where a number of writers, poets, publishers, lecturers and public figures gathered to commemorate Victoria’s life and literary legacy. Brookline Booksmith was Victoria’s favorite bookstore when she lived in Massachusetts for a year. Arrowsmith Press has also published an anthology titled Nothing Bad Has Ever Happened. A Bouquet for Victoria Amelina, edited by Askold Melnyczuk and dedicated to “this remarkable individual by writers from Europe, Latin America, Ukraine, and the US”. In it 19 poets, writers, publishers, translators, academics, and journalists from around the world shared their recollections of Victoria and reflected on her legacy. The book also contains two essays written by her.
In a tribute to his late colleague and friend, Askold Melnyczuk, writer, publisher, and event organizer, said this: “Walking through Harvard Square on a sunny morning, I marveled at the contrast: the blue sky, students arriving, hints of autumn in the air. Surrounded by the joyful exuberance of normal life, I couldn’t help thinking of the price others pay to make sure it stays this way, and wondering how that might change.”
Indeed.
A public memorial reading was held on September 30th, 2023 at Brookline Booksmith (YouTube).
Sirens
By Victoria Amelina
Air-raid sirens across the country
It feels like everyone is brought out
For execution
But only one person gets targeted
Usually the one at the edge
This time not you; all clear
(Translated by Anatoly Kudryavitsky)