Rebirth in the Ash Heap of istoriya

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While some interpreted the speech Vladimir Putin gave right before he began the full-scale war against Ukraine as a desire to return the Soviet Union to power, the Russian dictator actually described a false history that the Soviets “invented” modern Ukraine. Putin has given other reasons for invading Ukraine, none of which are very coherent. He has still not called what he’s doing to Ukraine a war, instead referring to it as a “special military operation.” In other words, the Russian words coming out of Putin’s mouth are false. Yet the effect of them is the very real destruction of Ukraine. While he hasn’t used the well-known phrase about the so-called “ash heap of history,” a phrase used by public figures as disparate in their views as Ronald Reagan and Leon Trotsky, it’s probably the most accurate description of what Putin wants to do to Ukraine.

One of the “reasons” for such wrongheaded thinking and diminution of Ukraine by Putin and others is that many Ukrainians, including President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, have spoken Russian as their primary language at least until the beginning of the full-scale war. Often this linguistic context is difficult to explain to people who are ignorant of the history of colonialism or who know such a history but all the same refuse to see Russia as a colonial power. So, Dominique Hoffman, the translator of the American edition of Olena Stiazhkina’s Cecil the Lion Had to Die (Harvard University Press, 2024) has her work cut out for her. Stiazhkina wrote a novel that depicts people from Eastern Ukraine who transition from speaking Russian in the 1980s to speaking Ukrainian in the 2010s, most of all as a response to the Russian aggression in Eastern Ukraine at that time, aggression which turned into full-scale war in 2022.

Stiazhkina is a historian by trade, and the title of her novel refers to another historical event which occurred at the same time as many of the events of the novel, specifically the killing of a Zimbabwean lion by the name of Cecil in 2015 by an American hunter. In the novel the event is described as something that had to happen “in order for things to improve.” Whether such Darwinistic thinking is true or not, it’s juxtaposed to the linguistic transition that Eastern Ukraine has been undergoing for most of the last decade, a transition that the original novel itself depicts, being written in Russian from the beginning, then Ukrainian, and moving in and out of the two distinct languages throughout. Indeed, this linguistic shifting depicts how many Ukrainians can change from Russian to Ukrainian even sometimes within one sentence.

So how does one translate such a novel into English for an American audience? What kind of precedents are there? Leo Tolstoy’s War and Peace begins in French. In one edition of the original, the French is translated into Russian in footnotes. While Constance Garnett’s translation didn’t use footnotes, other later translations, such as those of Aylmer and Louise Maude, did. Distinguishing that characters speak French is significant to the class politics of the novel. For one thing, speaking French is an immediate and unequivocal sign that the speaker comes from the aristocracy. In other words, it gives a reader access to Tolstoy’s class consciousness. James Joyce had other reasons for including the multiple languages of Ulysses without any footnotes or other kind of gloss. After all, why should an Irish person have to translate Irish Gaelic into the language of their oppressor?

In 1907, Joyce wrote an article for an Italian journal describing the prosecution of Gaelic-speakers in English-speaking courts in colonial Ireland. More than a century later, in “Encounters With Translation: a Globalectic View,” Kenyan writer and translator Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o, who has written extensively about decolonization, describes a similar linguistic situation in the African continent: “The fact is that the majority in Africa, or generally in the formerly colonized world, live as outsiders in their own country. Call them foreignized nationals. In short, the languages of the majority are marginalized to give the centre to languages spoken by a minority class.” Of course, the Ukrainian situation has its own unique aspects. But many of these decolonial ideas can apply. And Ngũgĩ is not the only public intellectual to compare the Irish with other colonized peoples. The writer and unionist Bill Fletcher, Jr., co-founder of the Ukraine Solidarity Network, makes such a comparison between the colonization of Ireland and that of Ukraine.

So Ukrainians who speak or, at least, spoke Russian can be/could have been considered “foreignized nationals,” speaking a minority language that has nonetheless been traditionally centered in Ukraine, especially in the eastern part of the country. Following readings of Aristotle as well as Marx and Engels, Ngũgĩ writes in another essay that, “Translations take the universal in one particularity to express it in another particularity.” Hoffman had to translate a Ukrainian particularity into an American one. This task shows the power at the core of the art of translation. Especially in the context of the current full-scale war, the original novel, which came out in a Ukrainian edition in 2019, must clearly depict this Ukrainian particularity. How do Hoffman and Harvard University Press do so in American English? By using a black background and white font for the Russian parts.

The effect is like a photographic negative. It shows the way language can change in what has been a multilingual society. While the presentation might appear simple, it’s welcome in order to convey a translingual literacy about the linguo-historical situation of Eastern Ukraine.

Nonetheless, the simple visual effect might appear to some readers as a reduction of that linguo-historical situation. Is it like Richard Feynman’s idea of the falsity of knowledge which only involves naming a concept without actually understanding anything else about it? Understanding Ukraine requires acknowledging all of the languages Ukrainians speak as well as the change that Ukraine’s languages have undergone because of political events.

As one can see from a top view of the book, while Cecil the Lion begins with mostly Russian, it progresses into mostly Ukrainian. The narrative begins in 1986 in the Lenin District with the naming of local children after the German Communist Ernst Thälmann. Understandably, this setting would have centered the Russian language. The narrative moves in and out of the consciousness of a character by the name of Fink, who has German heritage. Despite his heritage, Fink doesn’t identify as German: “Heinrich Fink, also recorded himself as Russian and went by the name Gennady.” Even a character born in Ukraine records himself as Russian in this setting. In other words, names are unreliable markers of characters’ identities.

And, of course, identities change. Yet it doesn’t matter whether Fink identifies as German or not. “He was born in Ukraine in 1940, so, before he could be a German for even a little while, he was instantly a Fascist.” Names also carry the trauma of history. Ukrainians’ experience of World War II results in a changing of names, even recorded nationalities. Fink wants to honor his heritage and that of other German-Soviets, especially when they’re children. He wants them to have a life beyond the bullying chants of: “Dumb, dumb Fritz, foul fascist: Hitler, Hitler, dirty Kraut, looked around, his eyes popped out.” While many see only ruin, the “ash heap of history” where German culture lies after World War II, Fink has an idea that “you can also be born of ashes.”

The uneasy balance Fink must strike in relation to his German heritage in the Soviet Union in 1986 is similar to how Russophone Ukrainians must now strike a balance with their use of the Russian language—language of the “Ruscists”—if they choose to continue such usage. As with World War II and many German speakers, many Ukrainians have abandoned the Russian language and culture altogether. After all, Russian is the language of the hegemon, the colonizer, the aggressor, the language of the evil “orcs” invading and warring against Ukraine.

Here’s the word “orc,” used to refer to Russians who have occupied where the character Ernest remains in Eastern Ukraine: “The orcs stole and outlawed everything. They didn’t just steal the trains. For some reason they fucking pilfered the nights, too—from 2300 to 0500 hours. Well, and everything else, too. So nothing matters anymore. Except maybe time.” The idea comes from how J.R.R. Tolkien’s orcs are corrupted elves, so the term specifically refers to how Russian invaders are corruptions of Ukrainians. In this case, the fictional figure of the orc can refer to how the position of the Russian language has changed in the contemporary Ukrainian context. It’s important to note that Ernst is himself using Russian to make this statement about Russians. Whatever the reason may be, it’s important to note how the language a Ukrainian uses doesn’t necessarily indicate their political affiliations.

And while a person might speak in one language for various reasons, the language in which they think doesn’t have to be presented socially. Cecil the Lion often involves free-indirect discourse, and yet even as the narrative transitions in and out of characters’ inner thoughts, we see the Ukrainian characters’ language change. Even by the third chapter, transitions in and out of Ukrainian and Russian are happening on this level. Fink and a character named Kristina are in Munich in 2019 discussing their past, death, history. The narration begins in Russian, as if that’s the language of thought for this character. And the dialogue begins in Russian too. But they switch to Ukrainian and discuss language use and learning new and different languages, most likely referring to the German they would need to live in Munich:

When I fight with my son, it’s always only in Ukrainian. He already knows that if I switch to Ukrainian, it will go poorly for him. I talk to doctors and hairdressers in Russian. With Stefik, though, either was fine. He studied all the languages. Do you know how it was at his high school? They studied English, French, Italian…

This passage in free indirect discourse is in Ukrainian, while the first chapter, also with Fink, is in Russian. More than thirty years later, Fink has transitioned to Ukrainian. Fink wants to present as Ukrainian even in his inner thoughts, even to himself alone.

Many writers, such as Dmitry Bykov, with the dark dystopian vision of Russia in his novel ZhD (translated as Living Souls by Cathy Porter), have discussed the way Russian culture involves a sort of “self-colonization” or submission to authority. However, it can be argued that Ukrainian culture, and the Ukrainian language as representative of it, refuses and resists this process, even more so now because of the full-scale war. In another chapter of Cecil the Lion taking place in 2019 in Kyiv, a teacher confronts Fink about an eight-year-old named Dina’s use of the term “Ruscists” in a class assignment. During the conversation, the teacher switches from Ukrainian to Russian while haranguing Fink, most likely to invoke some kind of outdated authority associated with the Russian language. The teacher calls Dina’s writing “war propaganda” and goes on to quote Russian propaganda about the war, saying that “we” Russians and Ukrainians are “brothers,” using the Russian word in this otherwise Ukrainian sentence. Fink’s reply: “If you’re anything, it’s sisters.”

Fink then imagines an essay called “My Teacher is Vata,” the feminine version of the word “vatnik,” which refers to somebody who’s pro-Russian. Fink’s thoughts connect “vata” with the German word “Watte,” meaning cotton and referring to the padding of the kind of coats Soviet prisoners wore. This word, Fink notes, won’t mean anything in twenty years. In other words, the ideology represented by this word will be gone and is already that of “dinosaurs.” In the novel’s original text, Fink uses that same Russian word, “bratya,” that the vatnik teacher did in her harangue, as if playing back a recording of what she had just said out loud while she was complaining about “war propaganda.” Later in this same conversation, the teacher speaks Russian, but this time the language is presented with Ukrainian letters:

А? – відстрибує назад учителька. – Что? Ви мнє угрожаєтє? Я сєйчас же…Нємєдлєнно к діректору! Ето ж што ж такоє?! Нє позволю!

In the translation, this nuance is not captured, as the teacher’s lines appear in white text on a black background, simply marking them as Russian. The formatting changes in the translation mark how the language can shift when the vatnik teacher is trying to flex some kind of old-school, Soviet muscle, to prevent and criticize the “war propaganda” of a little girl. But what they do not capture is how the Ukrainian alphabet takes hold of the conversation; whatever power the vatnik teacher is trying to grasp is, in turn, losing its grip as the alphabet changes.

Needless to say, little Dina’s days at this school are numbered. There’s another hint at how the Russian language, even individual Russian words, represent hegemony, colonization, and brutal, censorious, and dictatorial authority for young Ukrainians like Dina, as well as for old ones like Fink:

Fink goes to the principal. Dina is waiting for him in the classroom. She’s worried that no one will pick her up; she’ll be abandoned and left forever at this “stupid school where they put children in the ugol.” And Dina doesn’t know what that “ugol” is or what happens there. No, she does know that ugol is the Russian word for corner, but why you have to stand there, and how it’s supposed to be a punishment when it gets you out of writing or listening to the teacher—no. She doesn’t understand that.

Yes, Dina knows this Russian word associated with punishment that, to her, isn’t punishment because the teacher, to her, isn’t a teacher but rather a dictator. While Fink needed to transition from Russian into Ukrainian, Dina has used Ukrainian as her primary language since day one. Perhaps even the vatnik teacher, who nonetheless uses mostly Ukrainian with Fink and Dina, sees the writing on the wall, so to speak.

On the other hand, to deny any connection with Russian culture is perhaps to deny history in some ways. While it’s understandable that Ukrainian is the primary language of Ukraine as a country, it nonetheless bears consideration that Russian is the primary language of many Ukrainians. In another chapter, Lyosha—who’s on leave from fighting in the war and receiving meals upon meals from relatives who perhaps feel guilty toward him—“hides behind” the “childhood rule” translated as “Don’t talk with your mouth full.” While this particular rule is not printed in black in the translation, it comes from Russian (“когда я ем, я глух и нем” or kogda ya yem, ya glukh i nyem). In the original, Stiazhkina has this phrase in Russian words with Ukrainian letters (“когда я єм, я глух і нєм” or kohda ya yem, ya hlukh i nyem). Here is another Ukrainization. While it would be possible to say this expression in Ukrainian, it’s in Ukrainized Russian. Is it perhaps because it’s an old and somewhat outdated expression, one which often goes unheeded these days?

Lyosha most likely learned this childhood rule in Russian, so he would repeat it in Russian. Yet the alphabet in which he says it follows Ukrainian rules. Hoffman uses “Don’t talk with your mouth full” as an expression that is common in English but that is also old and traditional, perhaps even outdated, and often not heeded. Again, to have the expression in Ukrainian letters shows how Ukrainian can take in and reflect the colonial history of the relationship between Ukrainian and Russian cultures while nonetheless maintaining and enforcing its own identity. Such simple framing of Russian in the Ukrainian alphabet works against the false designation by Putin that Ukrainian is merely a dialect of Russian. With this simple spelling in Ukrainian, Stiazhkina can position the Ukrainian language as the dominant one, to which the Russian language is a quaint and traditional place from which to draw momentarily helpful but perhaps often unheeded bits of advice.

While Lyosha uses Russian words, it’s clear that a shift has happened, just as a view of the pages of the book shows a clear transition from black background/white letters (Russian) to white background/black letters (Ukrainian), the conventional way text is presented in books, of course. In other words, Russian is acknowledged—but as a negative. A negative can still provide information, can inform the history of Ukraine, but it’s not the main way of presenting information. Just as a photographic film negative can have useful photographic information, it’s not the photograph itself.

One doesn’t want to be caught on the wrong side of this dichotomy. In a chapter which is a letter from the character Bohdan to another character, Halyuska, there is an example of what it’s like on the wrong side of history. Bohdan has reluctantly gone to Moscow to be with his pro-Russian mother, and yet his letter is written in Ukrainian. However, midway through the letter there is an indication that the letter has been translated. At about the middle of the text Bohdan requests that Halyuska translate him from Russian, suggesting that there is a version of this letter which the reader does not see. Bohdan is similarly self-reflexive about his choice of pronouns, calling attention to his shift from the second-person “you,” which can sound accusatory, to the collective first-person “we.” He writes: “Did you notice how I got rid of that adolescent ‘you,’ and have boldly manifested myself through ‘I,’ and appropriate other people through ‘we?’ That ‘we’ that I never really had.” This reference to a collective identity that he feels cut off from—his people—highlights his loneliness and sense of estrangement in Moscow. On the other hand, this appropriating “we” is prevalent in Moscow, in the Russian language, of course. While Bohdan’s habits of speech may be inflected in this way by his environment and linguistic milieu, he nonetheless maintains that his manner of speaking, his accent, distinguishes him as Ukrainian—and this without conscious effort. He points out that: “The fricative Ukrainian ‘h,’ which was never my issue, slips out now from time to time. It slips out and draws me homeward.” In closing, Bohdan describes being called a “khohol,” a derogatory Russian term for Ukrainians. Bohdan finds himself feeling anger at this term and at the way Russians talk about Ukrainians. He asks whether this anger means that he’s not “hopeless.”

History appears to happen in these kinds of domestic places and often has to do with small and domestic feelings such as everyday anger. Cecil the Lion is told through depictions of such feelings and the situations in which they arise. The sometimes implicit but often explicit object of such conversations is death and history. Yet Stiazhkina chooses to depict the impacts of history in narratives of individuals rather than those based on statistics and other sets of data. This approach is reminiscent of the novel Second Hand Time by Nobel Prize-winner Svetlana Aleksievich, in which one of the characters refers to statistics concerning large numbers of people, soldiers, and casualties as “Big History,” saying: “This is Big History. I have my own little history.” The important distinction here is on the Ukrainian word istoriya, which can be either a personal story or capital-H History. An example of such an istoriya in Cecil the Lion is in the chapter “Maria Shot at the Divan,” which describes the collection of pins Maria kept throughout her life as a way of describing her character, somebody for whom trite sentiments are indispensable:

Maria had collected the pins. For her birthday, she’d receive special albums with white foam pages to hold her pin collections of “Hero Cities,” “Soviet Automobiles,” “Historic Places of Our Motherland,” pins from her favorite cartoon series Nu, pogodi! (Just You Wait!), the coats of arms for random cities, Cheburashka, Pushkin, Soviet Masters of Sports. There were also pins that would shapeshift from one picture to another.

One could call such objects the shlock of history. They often shed their original value over time and gain a new and different one. They can often tell more about history than grandiloquent textbooks. Maria herself didn’t understand why she collected them at the time. Later she thinks, “Where are they now, anyway? Where are all those albums with their smell of sadness and longing? Where is that monument to hopelessness and compliance? Where is all that complicated, stupid, pointless mess?”

The mess here is the ash heap of history. It is the place where Putin and those who support him seem to want to put all of Ukrainian culture. Yet the mess is also bodily. It has a smell to it. It is an established “monument to hopelessness and compliance.” What Ukrainian literature—in the Ukrainian language—can offer is to take in all of this historical detritus and from it synthesize something new. In other words, the “ash heap” can also be—like it is for Fink at the beginning of Cecil the Lion—a place from which to be born.

Ian Ross Singleton is a writer of fiction and criticism and a translator of Russian and Ukrainian literature. He teaches Writing and Critical Inquiry at SUNY Albany and serves as the Nonfiction Editor of Asymptote. His debut novel Two Big Differences, about the Ukrainian Revolution of Dignity, came out in 2021 and can be found at 2bigdifferences.page. During the summer of 2024, he attended the Translating Ukraine Summer Institute in Wrocław, Poland.