Life Went on Anyway
By Oleg Sentsov
Translated by Uilleam Blacker
On the 27th of February, 2014, Russia began its first invasion of Ukraine when it took over the Parliament of Crimea and captured strategic sites across the province. By the 18th of March, Putin’s annexation of Crimea was complete. Now overshadowed by the present horrendous and barbaric full-scale war, the first incursion nonetheless claimed a number of victims. Among them was Oleg Sentsov, a Russian-speaking Ukrainian filmmaker and writer from Crimea, who was arrested in May 2014 in Crimea on suspicion of "plotting terrorist acts." His offense was participating in the Euromaidan demonstrations that led to the overthrow of former Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych and helping deliver supplies to trapped Ukrainian troops during Russia's occupation of Crimea. After months of torture and a mock trial in which he refused to renounce his Ukrainian identity, criticized Putin and the oligarchs who sustained the Russian dictator, and defiantly told the court: “I am not a serf. I cannot be transferred with the land.” He was sentenced to 20 years in a Russian prison camp. |
I first became aware of his imprisonment in 2017 when he was given the PEN/Barbey Freedom to Write Award. In May of 2018, he went on a 145-day hunger strike to protest the incarceration of Ukrainian political prisoners in Russia. The protest did not go unnoticed. Amnesty International and both the E.U. and the United States pressed Russia for his release. Finally, in September 2019, he and a number of other Ukrainian political prisoners were released in a prisoner swap. He is now fighting on the front against the Russians.
Almost miraculously, Sentsov managed while in prison to write. In 2015, an autobiographical series of short stories was published In Kyiv. Then on the eve of his surprise release Life Went on Anyway, the English edition of these tales, was published by Deep Velum Press, translated from Russian by Uilleam Blacker.
I read the collection probably around 2020, and after the latest Russian invasion, read them again with a somewhat different perspective. What before appeared as rather charming tales of growing up under the Soviets, and then in the chaos after independence, with more than a fair amount of sardonic humor, now took on a new meaning. I now read these vivid tales as testimonies to identity. A Ukrainian identity. The engaging stories of dogs, school, being bullied, the death of his father, his mother’s affair, and his attempts to make sense of it all, are used as a way of understanding who he is as a Ukrainian. The attachment to the land, to place, to his fellow human beings is profound. And this sentence, written originally as a reflection on being away for fifteen years from the small town life he conjures up so admirably, now takes on a whole new meaning: “The places are the same and the people are supposedly the same, but everything is different.”
Almost miraculously, Sentsov managed while in prison to write. In 2015, an autobiographical series of short stories was published In Kyiv. Then on the eve of his surprise release Life Went on Anyway, the English edition of these tales, was published by Deep Velum Press, translated from Russian by Uilleam Blacker.
I read the collection probably around 2020, and after the latest Russian invasion, read them again with a somewhat different perspective. What before appeared as rather charming tales of growing up under the Soviets, and then in the chaos after independence, with more than a fair amount of sardonic humor, now took on a new meaning. I now read these vivid tales as testimonies to identity. A Ukrainian identity. The engaging stories of dogs, school, being bullied, the death of his father, his mother’s affair, and his attempts to make sense of it all, are used as a way of understanding who he is as a Ukrainian. The attachment to the land, to place, to his fellow human beings is profound. And this sentence, written originally as a reflection on being away for fifteen years from the small town life he conjures up so admirably, now takes on a whole new meaning: “The places are the same and the people are supposedly the same, but everything is different.”
— Christopher Sawyer-Lauçanno
On March 3, 2022, Deadline published this statement by Sentsov from the front, with a picture of him garbed in battle gear and holding a rifle:
My name is Oleg Sentsov. I am a Ukrainian film director. In 2014, I was unlawfully imprisoned in Russia and sentenced to 20 years of imprisonment for fighting against Putin regime and annexation of Crimea. Back then, the whole film industry stood up to support me. And I am immensely grateful for it. Now I’m asking you to support my country. Exactly two weeks ago, my movie, which I shot after I was out, was released in Ukraine. For a week now, I have been standing in the trenches as a participant of the territorial defence of Kyiv, which is a part of the Armed Forces of Ukraine. Life has changed in an instant with the fall of the first bomb on the territory of Ukraine. Everything we knew about Hitler’s invasion has now become real again. My motherland is mercilessly shelled from the land, sea and air. Russian bombs are falling on Ukrainian children. Millions are sitting in bomb shelters. Millions are suffering from being cold and lacking food. My country is being ruined, but our spirit is strong. We are going to fight until our victory. Stand with Ukraine! We will stop Putin together! Thank you, Oleg Sentsov |