Diary of an Invasion

by Andrey Kurkov

This journal of the invasion, a collection of Andrey Kurkov's writings and broadcasts from Kyiv, is a remarkable record of a brilliant writer at the forefront of a 21st-century war.Andrey Kurkov has been a consistent satirical commentator on his adopted country of Ukraine. His most recent work, Grey Bees, is a dark foreshadowing of the devastation in the eastern part of Ukraine in which only two villagers remain in a village bombed to smithereens. The author has lived in Kyiv and in the remote countryside of Ukraine throughout the Russian invasion. He has also been able to fly to European capitals where he has been working to raise money for charities and to address crowded halls. Kurkov has been asked to write for every English newspaper, as also to be interviewed all over Europe. He has become an important voice for his people.Kurkov sees every video and every posted message, and he spends the sleepless nights of continuous bombardment of his city delivering the truth about this invasion to the world.

Genres: Nonfiction, Ukraine, War, History, Memoir, Politics, Russia

304 pages, Paperback

First published October 10, 2022

About the author

Andrey Kurkov is a Russian and Ukrainian writer who writes in Russian (fiction) and Ukrainian (non-fiction).

Kurkov was born in the small town of Budogoszcz, Russia, on April 23, 1961. When he was young, his family moved to Kyiv, Ukraine. In 1983 Kurkov graduated from the Kyiv Pedagogical Academy of Foreign Languages and later also completed a training in Japanese translation.

Among Kurkov's most famous Russian novels are 'Smert postoronnego' (1996, translated into English in 2001 under the title 'Death and the Penguin') and 'Zakon ulitki' (2002, translated into English in 2005 as 'Penguin lost)'. Kurkov's only Ukrainian non-fiction book is 'Ruh "Emanus": istoriya solidarnosti' (2017).

Reviews

[Wouter Faes · Rating 5 out of 5]

The author describes how the illegal invasion of his homeland by Russia has changed his life and that of his friends , how being a refugee in your own country changes your thoughts and inner world. Apart from describing the absurdity of war, it is a testimony of and tribute to the courage and resilience of Ukrainians. A must read.

[Vishy · Rating 5 out of 5]

I got 'Diary of an Invasion' by Andrey Kurkov as a present from one of my favourite friends. I loved all of Kurkov's books that I've read before and so was looking forward to reading this one.

'Diary of an Invasion' is Andrey Kurkov's diary written during the ongoing war in Ukraine. It starts a few months before the war and describes the events leading up to the war and Kurkov's own everyday, personal experiences. It ends at a time a few months after the start of the war. The diary runs for around six months. Around the time the diary ends, the expectation was that the war will get over before winter or latest by spring. But now we know that the war has dragged on into the second year with no end in sight. Kurkov says in his epilogue that he is continuing to work on this diary and we can expect a sequel.

Kurkov's diary first came out online. I'd read parts of it and found it insightful and I'd wanted to read it properly. Now I'm glad to have read it from the beginning. The diary is insightful in the way it describes the events that led up to the war. It delves into a bit of history and it is very informative to read. It is also inspiring in the way it describes how ordinary Ukrainians have continued to live their everyday life inspite of the war and show everyday acts of heroism. It also describes the kindness of strangers, people who help others in need because they've been displaced because of the war. Kurkov himself is living in a stranger's apartment after he had moved away from his home, and his landlady tells him that he can stay in the apartment however long he wants and he can use everything that is there in her home. His own kids help refugees everyday. This is how the world survives, a country runs, because of the kindness of strangers.

There are many fascinating characters who populate the story. There is Kurkov's friend Svetlana, who is not able to leave Kyiv. She sends a message to him – "I decided to say goodbye just in case. They have warned that there will be a terrible shelling of Kyiv. I'm going to stay in my flat. I'm tired of running through the basements. If anything happens, remember me with a smile." I cried when I read that. There is Tetyana Chubar, a 23-year old single mom. She is the commander of a self-propelled cannon (an armoured vehicle something like a tank) and she has four men under her command. She paints her nail yellow and blue, and she hopes to paint her combat vehicle pink one day. These are just two of the many fascinating, inspiring real-life characters who stride through the book.

One of my favourite writers A.J.Cronin gets a mention in Kurkov's diary. But not in the way we might expect. That particular passage goes like this –

"In this difficult, dramatic time, when the independence of my country Ukraine is at risk, the works of the great Scottish writer Archibald Joseph Cronin, who brilliantly combined the talents of a doctor and a writer, help me a lot. I make use of all five volumes of his work, published in Moscow in 1994 by the Sytin Foundation publishing house. It does not matter what the stories are in these books. I do not read fiction now. I use the five volumes to rest my computer on, so that my Zooms and Skypes follow the rules of television, so that the laptop's camera is located at my eye level."

An interesting thing about Kurkov's diary is that it appears to be written in English. There is no translator's name on the title page. If this is true, then this is probably Kurkov's first book in English. I don't know whether this is a sign of things to come – whether some of his future books will be in English. He wrote one more book after this, a novel called 'Jimi Hendrix Live in Lviv', and that was not in English but it was translated. So it will be interesting to see how things go on this front.

Kurkov's diary is beautiful, moving, inspiring, heartbreaking. It is not often that we get to read a diary in the middle of a war, in which the author of the diary gives an insider's view of things. I'm sad that this diary exists because of the war, but I'm glad that Kurkov decided to share his thoughts and insights with us and takes us deep into Ukraine in the middle of the war-torn zone and shows us how life is. We get a live account of events as history is being made.

I remember the first time I heard of Andrey Kurkov. It was many years back when his book 'Death and the Penguin' suddenly started gaining popularity among readers of translated fiction. Its satire and dark humour appealed to many readers. But since then things have been very quiet. I didn't know any reader who had read any of his other books (with one or two exceptions. My own first Kurkov book was 'A Matter of Death and Life'). Then the war started, and at around the same time, the English translation of Kurkov's book 'Grey Bees' came out, and because of its contemporary theme closely linked to the happenings in Ukraine, it became a huge hit. From someone who was only moderately known outside of Ukraine, Kurkov suddenly became a literary superstar. Everyone wanted to know about the war and about the current situation in his country and he was invited to give talks and interviews across Europe and North America. Now he is being called 'a latter-day Bulgakov', 'a Ukrainian Murakami', and 'a post-Soviet Kafka'. The New York Times has called him 'Ukraine's greatest novelist'. Kurkov must be smiling wryly as he reads all this, and he must be finding it hard to resist sharing a darkly humorous quip or two. He must be thinking about the time when he carried copies of his novels in a suitcase and how he used to try to sell them on the street and in other public places, and he must be wondering how from such humble origins he has suddenly become Ukraine's greatest novelist. Life is endlessly surprising. I hope though that while the iron is still hot, the Nobel committee awards him the Nobel Prize for literature. Tom, Dick, and Harry, and Jane, Jill, and Mary are winning the Nobel Prize these days. Even Bob Dylan has got one. Kurkov deserves it. We'd love to see a first ever Ukrainian Nobel Prize winner in literature.

I'm sharing below some of my favourite passages from the book. Hope you like them.

#FavouritePassages

"I am waiting for the opportunity not just to return to a peaceful Kyiv but to return to my library, to my desk, to the archives I was using to write my latest novel, to my plans for the future, to the world that I have been creating around me for decades, a world that made me happy. I could not even imagine that this happiness could be destroyed so easily. I thought that my happiness was not material but a state of mind, like the energy arising from eye contact with another person. I am someone who loves and appreciates life, the rays of the sun, the blue sky, the stars of the summer night sky."

"Another sleepless night. But no sirens. I woke up every hour and listened to the silence. Not because I was waiting for a siren to force me out of bed, in order to get dressed and run out into the yard, but because now a night without sirens somehow feels more dangerous, more ominous."

"Some people seem to need an extra rush of adrenaline to live a normal life. I do not need this. I would rather be in our village now, watching the onset of spring, the first flowers and cherry blossom. If I were in the village right now, I would visit my neighbours Nina and Tolik twice a day, maybe more often. We would listen to the distant explosions of shells and try to understand which side they were coming from."

"My friends in Lviv no longer pay any attention to the warnings and no longer run out of their houses to look for bomb shelters. They are tired of being afraid. The disappearance of fear is a strange wartime symptom. Indifference to your own destiny sets in and you simply decide that what will be will be. Still, it remains hard for me to understand the attitude of parents who allow their small children to play nearby to a multi-storey building while shells are hitting other buildings not so very far away. Is it possible to think this way about your own children too – what will be will be?"

"We have a small garden and we hope that we can plant potatoes and carrots for ourselves. For us it is a hobby, but what kind of hobby can you have during a war? If the Ukrainian army manages to drive the Russian military away from our region, we will try to return to Lazarevka, to live a normal life again. Although the term "normal life" now seems but a myth, an illusion. In actuality, there can be no normal life for my generation now. Every war leaves a deep wound in the soul of a person. It remains a part of life even when the war itself has ended. I have the feeling that the war is now inside me. It is like knowing that you live with a tumour that cannot be removed. You cannot get away from the war. It has become a chronic, incurable disease. It can kill, or it can simply remain in the body and in the head, regularly reminding you of its presence, like a disease of the spine. I fear I will carry this war with me even if my wife and I some day go on holiday – to Montenegro or Turkey, as we once did."

"Can war be a time for self-improvement, for self-education? Of course it can. At any age and in any situation, even in wartime, you can discover new aspects of life, new knowledge and new opportunities. You can learn to bake paskas in a damaged stove. You can get a tattoo for the first time in your life at the age of eighty. You can start learning Hungarian or Polish. You can even start learning Ukrainian if you did not know it previously."

"When war approaches your home you are left with a choice – to evacuate or accept occupation. A person starts thinking about this choice well before the first explosions are heard on the outskirts of their city or village. War is like a tornado. You can see it from afar, but you cannot easily predict where it is going next. You cannot be sure whether it will blow your house away or only pass nearby, whether it will uproot a few trees in your garden, or blow the roof off your house. And you can never be sure that you will remain alive, even if the house itself is only slightly damaged."

"Recently a strong wind of up to 70 k.p.h. has been blowing across Ukraine. A strong wind usually changes the weather and cuts off electricity simply by breaking the power cables. No electricity supply usually means a break in communication with the outside world - no Wi-Fi or T.V. and no way to charge a mobile telephone. All that remains is a candle and a book, just like two hundred years ago. As was the case then, a candle is more important than a book. And cheaper! When the electricity went off that night in hundreds of villages because of the wind, tens, if not hundreds of thousands of Ukrainians burrowed into the drawers of their tables and sideboards looking for candles. Everyone's world was reduced to the space that can be illuminated by a candle. Forced romance won out over high-tech reality."

"For many people, history has long ceased to be a science and has become part of literature. It is edited just as a novel is edited before it is published. Something is added, something thrown out, something is changed. Some concepts are polished and smoothed, some ideas are made more prominent while others are played down. As a result of this editing, instead of comprising familiar past events, a new "formula" arises and the significance of the events is altered, as is their influence on events today. Certain politicians are very fond of commissioning new editions of history so that the history better fits their ideology and their ideological discourse."

"They say that people remember the bad things more often than the good. Not me. I remember well what has pleased and surprised me in my life, but what I did not like or what has hurt me has been forgotten, left at an almost inaccessible depth in the well of memory. In this we see the instinct of self-preservation, although it works in a special way. We protect our psyche from bad memories and support it with good memories. In our memory, we can idealise the past so that nostalgia soon sets in, even for times that we would not have wished upon our worst enemy."

"Since arriving in western Ukraine, we have started eating much more bread than before. My wife and I used not to eat much bread except when we were in the village. Village bread was always tastier than the city stuff. In the Ukrainian countryside there is a long tradition of having plenty of bread on the table and of eating it with butter and salt or dipping it in milk. Bread dipped in fresh cow's milk is also given to little children – and they love it. Our boys have always enjoyed fresh bread. They like making and eating sandwiches. In our village shop, we would buy our favourite Makariv loaf – a soft, white, brick-shaped bread. It was baked at the well-known Makariv Bakery in the town of the same name which is twenty kilometres from our village. Occasionally, you can find this bread in Kyiv, but only in small corner shops, not in supermarkets. I have been thinking about that Makariv bread for several days now, recalling the taste. While remembering it, I taste blood on my lips, as when I was a child and someone split my lip in a fight. The Makariv bakery was bombed on Monday by Russian troops. The bakers were at work. I can imagine the fragrant smell that surrounded them the moment before the attack. In an instant, thirteen bakery staff were killed and nine more were injured. The bakery is no more. Makariv bread is a thing of the past."

"Today I finally paid the electricity, gas and Internet bills for our village house. It is empty and there is no-one to use either the Internet or the electricity. It has been announced that there will be no fines for people who do not pay their utility bills on time, but I want to support the utility services. They must survive to see a return to normal life. If no-one pays their bills during the war, there will be no salaries for the employees of the gas service and electricity utilities, which means their life will become a double hell. Many people now buy and pay for what they do not need because they know it helps others. Thousands of people buy online tickets to the zoo in the city of Mykolaiv. The zoo is closed, shelled by Russian artillery. There are no visitors. But the animals are there and they need to be fed. This charitable ticket-buying allows the zoo to buy animal feed at this difficult time."

"A couple of days ago, I finally decided to register on Tik Tok, partly because materials on the platform are becoming a frequent topic of discussion among my friends on Facebook, but mostly because of one young woman by the name of Tetyana Chubar. Tetyana is 23 years old, blonde and 160 cms tall. She is divorced, with two small children. None of this would matter if it were not for one more fact : she is the commander of a self-propelled cannon – an armoured vehicle something like a tank – and she has four men under her command. She also manages to paint her nails yellow and blue and maintains her TikTok account under the nickname "Princeska - 13". She used Tik Tok to publicise the difference between a tank and a self-propelled cannon and to announce her dream of painting her combat vehicle in "pink camouflage". I can imagine only one situation when pink camouflage might work, if the vehicle ever stopped in a field of pink roses. Nonetheless, her command allowed her partially to fulfil her dream. She has been given permission to paint the interior of the combat vehicle pink. Tetyana has already bought paint for the job. I wonder how the four men under her command will take this? I do hope they do not object. It is both an honour and a responsibility to have a clockwork commander whose Tik Tok site is followed by hundreds of thousands of people. Tetyana has admitted to reporters receiving many messages from men who say they are in love with her. In any case, I wonder if those men are now at home or at the front? In any case, they probably understand that were they to win her hand, they would always be out-ranked by Princeska-13.
***
Having registered on TikTok to follow the account of artillery officer Tetyana Chubar, I have started worrying about her too. I am willing her to emerge victorious from each new artillery duel and I would gladly support her quest to paint the self-propelled cannon pink all over – albeit after the war, of course. I think this will not only be her biggest reward but will be the icing on the cake for all her TikTok followers."

#EndOfFavouritePassages

Have you read Andrey Kurkov's 'Diary of an Invasion'? What do you think about it?

[Nika · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is an absolute must-read for anyone who would like to get a good overview of the first six months of the full scale war in Ukraine that was started by Russia on the 24th of February in 2022. The author manages to tick pretty much all the boxes I would have been expecting from this book: it’s personal, while managing to stay factual, it transfers all the different ranges of emotions, while managing to also offer concise hard facts. If you’re Ukrainian and you’re reading it, you’ll be able to go through all the significant events that happened during that time and be reminded of the iconic myths that already mark this iconic era. Most importantly, I found that it portrayed Ukrainians really well. How it’s not only the military fighting Russia on the front but the entire nation uniting against this war, each person helping as much as they possibly can.

A dramatic experience makes for a dramatic perception of the future. But, as if by some divine joke, in the Ukrainian national character, unlike in the Russian one, there is no fatalism. Ukrainians almost never get depressed. They are programmed for victory, for happiness, for survival in difficult circumstances, as well as for the love of life.
p. 14

Chronologically, it runs from December 2021, just before the start of the war, until mid-July 2022. This made it hit even closer to my heart, since the period before the New Year and around Orthodox Christmas was the last time I have visited Kyiv and seen my family there. It also put feelings into words that I found hard to express myself. It answered some questions that I had subconsciously been turning around in my head. What does it feel like when war starts in your country? How does it change you as a human being?

On February 24, 2022, all citizens of Ukraine found that their lifetime had been cut brutally in two, into the period “before the war” and that “during the war”. Of course, we all hope that there will be a period “after the war as well”.
p. 214

Every war leaves a deep wound in the soul of a person. It remains a part of life even when the war itself has ended. I have the feeling that the war is now inside me. It is like knowing that you live with a tumour that cannot be removed. You cannot get away from the war. It has become a chronic, incurable disease. It can kill, or it can simply remain in the body and in the head, regularly reminding you of its presence, like a disease of the spine.
p. 166

The book made me cry, it made me relive anger, frustration and sadness. Even before finishing it, I knew that the rating here would be easy – a solid 5/5 ★. I have highlighted so many paragraphs, passages and quotes in it, as well as having taken along other book, movie and author suggestions. It felt like it would be appealing to a broad variety of readers – those that have so far followed every single little detail of the war but also those who stopped keeping track at some point and would like to recreate a global picture. So many parts will also give a satisfying answer to those, who are still asking – “What’s the difference between Ukrainians and Russians? Don’t you share the same culture? Is Ukrainian even a different language?” After proving THAT Ukrainians and Russians are different, how the languages are extremely distinct, the author explains the main differences further as well as WHY they exist.

During World War II, there was a slogan in the Soviet Union that said, “For the Motherland, for Stalin!” The soldiers who died did so for the U.S.S.R. and for Stalin. […] Now the Russians are dying, “For the Motherland, for Putin”. Ukrainians die only for their Motherland, for Ukraine. Ukrainians don’t have a tsar to die for. […] Ukraine is a country of free people.
p. 161

This review could go on and on due to my fascination with so many parts of it. Even the multiple typos I came across didn’t have enough weight this time to result in a reduction in the rating! I would suggest this book to each and everyone who is interested in Ukraine, the currently ongoing war and the people’s stories behind it. I’m really glad about having discovered the author and am looking forward to reading more of his books. To sum it all up, I will leave one last quote here:

Taken together, this is not only a chronicle of Russian aggression in Ukraine but a chronicle of how the war imposed by Russia – and Russia’s attempt to destroy Ukraine as an independent state – have contributed to the strengthening of Ukrainian national identity.
p. 15

[Kamila Kunda · Rating 5 out of 5]

“Ukraine has given me thirty years of life without censorship, without dictatorship, without control over what I wrote and what I said. For this, I am infinitely grateful to my country. I now understand very well that if Russia succeeds in seizing Ukraine, all the freedoms that the citizens of Ukraine are so used to will be lost, together with the independence of our state”, reflects Andrey Kurkov at some point in his “Diary of an Invasion”. Oftentimes, though, he dismisses such pessimistic thoughts by affirming Ukrainian spirit and the will of Ukrainians to fight and defend their country at all costs.

Kurkov began writing this diary in the last days of December 2021 when fear of the imminent war was already slowly seeping into all corners of Ukraine and people’s hearts. For the next months he reported his own activities, those of people dear to him as well as complete strangers. Between descriptions of daily life as internally displaced people, as Kurkov and his wife became, to a certain extent, are his thoughts on Russia, Ukrainian culture, the role of memory, history and books. There is some level of repetition from time to time as he comes back to the same topics, sometimes with new insights or impressions, sometimes confirming what was once said.

I was especially interested in reading his views on identity politics, role of language, historical trauma and erasure of culture. Kurkov worries - or rather wonders - what will happen to Ukrainian culture if so many children and young people are refugees abroad and may not come back to Ukraine after the war ends. What will it mean for their sense of identity? Will they see this war as the central axis for the determination of national and linguistic identity?

“Diary of an Invasion” is a marvellous book, one that demands to be read. Urgent and timely but at the same time universal, it is a testament of an insider’s attempt to comprehend and report from the midst of the war.

[Alessandro · Rating 5 out of 5]

Half diary, half essay collection. A fundamental read especially for those who have been following the invasion less closely. Worth noting that it's not a translation, but the author's own voice in English. It's important to listen and amplify Ukrainian voices. Слава Україні.

[Crazytourists_books · Rating 3 out of 5]

It is a very hard book to review for a number of reasons.
First, it's a diary (not a personal one, but still), and how can someone rate a diary?
Second, it's a diary written during the first months of the russian invasion in Ukrain. It is written during war. And how can you rate a book with such emotional weight?
Third, I believe that Putin should leave Ukraine alone.
Nevertheless, this is a book intended for international readers, and I will write a couple of thoughts about it; It does give valuable insight into the relations between the two countries over the centuries. The historical, geopolitical, and cultural information provided are very interesting and very needed and help the reader understand this war a bit better.
On the other hand, Kurkov's mind wanders from subject to subject, and there are countless repetitions, and that's a bit annoying.

[Peter · Rating 4 out of 5]

Superb. In a way, the pre-February 24th parts felt especially relatable.

[Armando · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is a very emotional ride and a personal account of the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Author Andrey Kurkov starts by sharing his diary entries a couple of months before the war and then finishes the book towards the end of the summer of 2022. While not a front lines account of the war, this book captures the startling reality of being a refugee forced to flee your country. Kurkov beautifully and tragically captures the spirit and attitudes of his fellow country men and women through his writing, most notably through this description that stuck out to me:

'Now the invasion of the Russian hordes is once again pushing Ukrainians to the west. But the refugees keep looking back, both physically and emotionally. They want to go home, even if their homes are no more.'

I believe this book is incredibly important to read, especially for Westerners as this provides an up close and personal account of the war, from someone who is Ukrainian and has lived in Ukraine most of his life, and is well known there as an Ukrainian author. Some of his takes on the war and western responses to it were quite refreshing.

Yeah, not a lot more than I can say or sum up other than saying that this book is incredibly important.

[Sam · Rating 3 out of 5]

Bit of a hard book to review. On the one hand, it's written by a Ukrainian in the first part of 2022 (i.e., the beginning of the war), so I want to be supportive, and nice, and complimentary. On the other hand..."a diary" implies some kind of chronology of events. Instead, I think this is actually just a series of essays which can be read at any point, in any order, with no bearing of the events in which they are written.

The guy was forced to flee his home and hide in a village while bombs smashed his apartment building in Kiev (very sad) but that's all he really describes in terms of the war's progression. There's no flavour of winning, losing, summer offensive, winter stalemate...the ebbs and flows of war... It's just him waxing lyrical at, frankly, very random things. I don't know if Ukraniain writing has a particular style, but like the book, each chapter is a law unto itself and you never really know where it's going.

For example, one chapter starts off talking about Russia deploying combat dolphins to Sevastopol Bay. And you, the reader, are like, killer Russian dolphins, got it.
But then it goes onto Ukrainian dolphins being moved from Kharkiv to Odesa because they'll be used to treat people with autism. So then you're like, oh, healing dolphins, got it. Less than a page later we've jumped to Transista and how there's a load of guns there. And just as you're like "well are the dolphins gonna use the Transista guns?" the writer breaks off to talk about a public holiday called Grobki which celebrates the people killed in war (it's unclear which set of dolphins are dead at this point). Then, we get into the church (that supports Grobki day) and the differences between Ukrainian Orthodox Christianity and Russian Orthodox Christianity. At this point you find yourself googling "can an armed autism dolphin become pope?" and by the time you've tuned back in, we're on to Chernobyl and how the Russians will all die. Then the chapter ends.

Most of the time I joke and over exaggerate in these reviews but in this case, all of what I said is literal, see page 208-214. The leap from subject to subject is incredibly jarring ("like war?" *he shrugs poetically*). If you're really desperate, by all means read the whole thing, but you'll get just as much a flavour by reading 20 pages at random and giving up after that. There's no beginning, middle or end... Like war I suppose *shrugs dramatically before being shot by Flipper with a Klashnikov*.

[Danny Jacobs · Rating 5 out of 5]

Deze week was het exact een jaar geleden dat Rusland Oekraïne binnenviel. De voorbije drukke weken las ik Dagboek van een invasie van Andrej Koerkov, een van de belangrijkste hedendaagse schrijvers van het land.
Het boek begint op 29 december 2021. Een groot deel van de wereld maakte zich vooral druk om de nieuwste variant van het coronavirus. Dreigend genoeg, maar in Oekraïne was er een andere dreiging die steeds meer naar de voorgrond drong. Rusland was bezig om met veel materiaal en manschappen een enorme legermacht op te bouwen aan de grens. Je wordt vervolgens als op een roetsjbaan geslingerd door het eerste halfjaar van de oorlog.
Koerkov brengt feiten, analyseert en maakt beschouwingen. Veel ontzag voor dit boek, het houdt je gevangen, het boeit van begin tot eind. En toch zou je willen dat het nooit geschreven zou zijn. Oorlog is verschrikkelijk, het brengt niets goeds, het vernietigt levens en steden.
Voor wie het kan verdragen. Lezen!!

[Dee Eliza Pea · Rating 4 out of 5]

This took me a while to complete but it was so worth it. I read my first fiction from Kurkov this year and quite enjoyed it. He is a matter of fact and strangely dispassionate writer but it doesn’t mean he is devoid of compassion or empathy. The novel was mildly satirical but also kind of sweet. A pet penguin (named after Kurkov’s real life brother) figured prominently.

When I saw someone reading this at the cafe in the spring, I thought it might be a good introduction to Ukraine (a country I know little about) and the war from the Ukrainian perspective. I’m so glad I did. This is written just before and during the first 6 months of the war. Kurkov and his family become IDPs in their own country and he essentially journals that experience. He is furious and anxious and grim but also full of cautious patriotism and hope for his country. While key events we know from the news are referenced, Kurkov also covers the mundanity and minutiae of war. What people do in the in between. He also talks history and politics and culture but also about his neighbours and shops and cinema and the plight of animals. I found it really enlightening to have his perspective on Russian aggression, Putin’s motivations, European politics as it pertains to Ukraine and Ukrainian daily life (the culture of Ukrainian borscht! Easter bread! Eurovision! Life in metro stations. The people who stay.) But most interesting was Kurkov’s discussions about the status of Ukrainian literature and the attempted cultural destruction of Ukraine by Russia.

I heard Kurkov on CBC the other day as a speaker with PEN. He must get so annoyed when people call Ukraine his adopted country and/or ask him how it feels to be a Russian language author living in Ukraine. He has lived there basically his entire life! Most Ukrainians also speak Russian! One point he makes throughout the diary is how this is changing now because of the war and that what it means to be Ukrainian is actually further solidified and entrenched by war. That Russian tries to erase all history and culture that does not conform to the Russian narrative but that Ukrainian culture will prevail, and really this, no matter what happens with the war itself is the true victory.

[Philip Larmett · Rating 4 out of 5]

I have two copies of Diary of an Invasion. The English version is now in the possession of my Ukrainian partner of the last 10 years. I have finally brought myself to finish the Dutch translation. I think I needed two years to create some distance.
Kurkov's earlier Ukraine Diaries is still on my bookshelf in the apartment we left behind in Kyiv. Like Andrey and his wife, we also left Kyiv in rather a hurry in February 2022; in our case just before the new hostilities started.

The account begins on New Year's Eve 2021, when the latest strain of the coronavirus, Omikron, was creating headlines. And I find it quite apt, as this describes the mood of Kyiv as the city rolled from one crisis to another; the all-out Russian invasion no longer just devastating far off regions to the East, but now threatening the city we called home for 14 years.

A long diary entry is devoted to a January visit to Hermanivka, where the guest of my Dutch friend Arie van Der Ent and his Ukrainian wife Juliette.

More detail here than the last borscht at home in Kyiv on the evening before the Russian invasion. Guardian journalist Luke Harding, one of Kurkov's guests that evening, starts his own book "Invasion" at this point.

Now in the relative safety of Amsterdam, I managed to retrace and relive some of the events of the first half of 2022, this time through Mr Kurkov's account. Many lives were upended, including my own. And there is much unfinished business, not least retrieving our things from our own apartment in Kyiv.

I think I've read enough for the moment of 2022. We appear to have reached a stalemate in Ukraine; Zelensky and his army are more or less holding their own, in the face of daily missile attacks anywhere in Ukraine. The world's media attention has rolled on to the more "pressing" issue of Israel, Gaza and now Iran.

I wonder how long before the more blinkered American right will understand that the very same missiles and Shaheed drones that were sent to Israel this weekend are sowing death and destruction in Ukraine. And why is international intervention on behalf of Israel immediate and without question, whereas similar support for Ukraine is met with foot-dragging, obstruction and delay in Berlin and Washington?
But that's very rhetorical.

[Michael Samerdyke · Rating 4 out of 5]

An interesting "first draft of history" book.

It is interesting to see Kurkov wrestle with Putin's use of Russian culture as a weapon. He also shines a light on how the internet has affected warfare. (Certain soldiers are celebrities. Misinformation spreads quickly.) Also there are a lot of details about being an "internally displaced person."

What also is interesting is what is not here. Zelensky is hardly mentioned. Indeed, his predecessor, Poroshenko seems to be mentioned far more (and not in a good way). Germany looms large in this book, almost as a "silent partner" of Russia, while the USA is rarely mentioned. Biden is only mentioned twice in a book that covers the first half of 2022.

The most surprising thing from reading this book is that the war continues. "Diary of an Invasion" makes you feel as if the crisis can't go on beyond New Year's 2023.

[Mihai Dascălu · Rating 4 out of 5]

I watched Kurkov on CNN during the first months of the invasion and everything he said made sense to me. The diary starts with the 29th of December 2021, which, in itself, is a good piece of history. I liked the book, but, unfortunately, it is about war, and not any kind of war, but war with Russia. We, eastern Europeans, know very well who our big neighbor is.

[Christiana Martin · Rating 4 out of 5]

Hard to read but I couldn’t put it down. This book varies between a personal narrative of the author (just prior to and for 5 months after Russia’s full scale invasion of Ukraine) and short essays/tangents on topics relevant to Ukraine and the war. Having previously read and enjoyed his novel, Grey Bees, this felt at times like a “meet the author” behind the scenes looks at his life and story, mixed with the devastating realities of a country at war and a civilian population under threat.

[Lomki Avulours · Rating 4 out of 5]

Tandis que le méprisable monstre Poutine tente de ré-écrire l'Histoire avec le sang d'innocents, l'écrivain ukrainien Andrey Kurkov consigne avec ironie et humilité les petites histoires de ses compatriotes et les mille manières de continuer à vivre et résister sous les bombes. Un témoignage sur la vérité et le courage des gens ordinaires. A lire.

[Teen · Rating 5 out of 5]

Very well written account of the Russian aggression in the past year. Koerkov stayed in Ukraine and draws the reader across the border to make them feel what it’s like to be under attack

[Annalise Saponara · Rating 5 out of 5]

Incredibly compelling and impossible to put down!

[Dmitry · Rating 1 out of 5]

(The English review is placed beneath the Russian one)

Так мало нынче в Ленинграде греков,
да и вообще — вне Греции — их мало.
По крайней мере, мало для того,
чтоб сохранить сооруженья веры.
А верить в то, что мы сооружаем,
от них никто не требует. Одно,
должно быть, дело нацию крестить,
а крест нести — уже совсем другое.
У них одна обязанность была.
Они ее исполнить не сумели.
Непаханое поле заросло.
«Ты, сеятель, храни свою соху,
а мы решим, когда нам колоситься».
Они свою соху не сохранили.
(С) Бродский

Прежде всего, необходимо указать, что автора данной книги война коснулась чуть-чуть т.к. он уехал из Киева, как только начались боевые действия. Поэтому все дальнейшее события, показанные в книге, являются пересказом либо СМИ, либо историй его друзей и знакомых. В отличие от описания авторами личного опыта в таких книгах как War Diary by Yevgenia Belorusets и Escape from Mariupol by Anne K. Howard, в этой книге нет описание того, свидетелем чего был непосредственно автор. Уже одно это ставит под сомнение ценность данной книги. Более того, мне не понятно, почему автор уехал, ибо то, что он пишет, подразумевает, что такие люди как он, не бегут от врага. Почему сотни киевлян остались в городе и многие даже приготовились его защищать, а автор покинул город? У меня вот ответа нет. Всю показную ненависть которую автор якобы испытывает к русским (или россиянам?) он вложил в эту книгу. Однако даже тут получилось очень слабо.

Тут нужно сделать важное пояснение по поводу личности автора. Автор является этническим русским. Так как я прекрасно знаю русских, то читал я книгу с улыбкой, ибо многие моменты написаны очень по-русски. Знаете, это беда всех новоявленных украинцев, которые ещё вчера были р��ссиянами и жили в Москве: чтобы показать, что теперь они «украинцы», они что есть силы поливают помоями свою прежнюю родину, из которой они пару лет назад уехали. Делается это всегда публично и только с одной целью - показать, как сильно они ненавидят Россию и россиян. Иногда добавляют и Путина, но многие ещё вчера целовали ему ботинки, поэтому их показная ненависть к Путину очень заметна. Но основные усилия они прикладывают именно к тому, чтобы «быть украинцами больше чем сами украинцы». Автора этой книги, конечно, нельзя сравнить с тем же Ганапольским, ибо как я понял, большую часть жизни автор прожил именно в Украине. Однако - вот неудача - автор является этническим русским. И вот чтобы доказать что он «свой», он пишет то, что как он считает, хотят услышать украинцы от этнического русского.

Автор рассказывает, как в детстве он отказался учить немецкий язык и выбрал английский, потому что не мог учить язык бывшего врага. И вот, пишет автор, в Украине тоже дети будут говорить: я не буду учить русский язык, это язык врага.

When in the fourth grade we were asked to choose a foreign language for study at school, I flatly refused to go into the German language group. “They killed my grandfather Alexei,” I said.

В этом предложении есть одна проблема, о существовании которой знают очень не многие. Я приведу цитату из книги «Fragile Empire How Russia Fell In and Out of Love with Vladimir Putin».

‘He once announced to me: “I don't want to study German anymore.” I asked, “Why?” He said, “My uncle died at the front and my father was made an invalid at the front by the Germans. I can't study German. I want to study English instead.”

Кому принадлежат эти слова? Кто, как и автор, отказывался учить немецкий, потому, что его родственник воевал с немцами? Не догадываетесь? Слова принадлежат Владимиру Путину.

Но вернёмся к книге. Далее приводит в пример своих детей, которые только с ним говорят на русском, а между собой договорились говорить только на английском:

They still speak Russian to me, but they have no interest in Russian culture.

Разумеется, досталось и русской культуре, но лично он, всё же будет продолжать читать русскую (или только советскую?) классику, но остальные люди в Украине больше никогда не будут читать и слушать всё то, что ассоциируется с россиянами, Россией и русскими.

Yet I do not give up reading my favourite Soviet writers, with whom I grew up. I do not reject Mandelstam or Andrei Platonov, Boris Pilnyak or Nikolai Gumilyov. Most of them were shot by the authorities.

Ну, вы поняли общий посыл, да? Я всё думал, а зачем он это пишет, ведь книга-то на английском? Американцу абсолютно наплевать, на каком языке говорят украинцы. Недавно я прочитал книгу по бизнесу Swipe Scan Shop by Katherine Schaefer, в которой Киев находится в России. Город Киев – в России?! Так зачем автор так много времени потратил на то, чтобы объяснить читателям, что всё русское, включая русский язык, будет заменено английским, если американцы даже не знают, в какой стране располагается Киев? А потом я вспомнил, что книга автора под названием «Ukraine Diaries» была единственной книгой переведённой на русский язык и доступной в России, в которой давался довольно непредвзятый (но поверхностный) взгляд на события во время Майдана 2014. Другими словами, автор написал книгу не для американце, которые думают, что Киев находится в России, а для россиян, предполагая, что и эта книга будет переведена на русский. Ну, Андрей, ты шикарен! Я, конечно, надеюсь, что эту твою макулатуру не переведут на русский язык и не будут продавать в России, ибо книга – дрянь.

Книга мне не понравилась и не понравилась не только по причине того, что это пересказ историй услышанных автором от других людей, а также из СМИ, а тем, что автор мелочен и инфантилен. Его страну, в которой он прожил полжизни, разбомбили, а он пишет о том, что теперь в Украине не будут читать Лермонтова и Толстого. И это всё что автор смог найти в качестве ответа?! Я не хочу огорчать автора, но в России мало кого волнует, на каком языке говорят украинцы, и будет ли кто-то в Одессе слушать песни Цоя и музыку Чайковского. Автору просто нечего сказать россиянам и это самое печальное. Пожив столько лет в Украине и будучи этнически русским, автор не находит правильных и взрослых слов, которые были бы не только нужными, но и сильными. Он несёт какой-то бред в духе, в Украине запретят Бродского, Пушкина и Достоевского и русские умрут от злобы. Андрей, ты в своём уме, ты что пишешь?!

Ok, но что в таком случаи могли бы сказать «взрослые» люди, с которыми произошла подобная трагедия? Такие люди бы дали то, что, к примеру, дал Навальный россиянам – идею будущего, т.е. идею будущей Украины, но только не того что страна, как один большой нелегальный иммигрант из Сирии, на кривой козе проберётся в ЕС, а идея равная тому, что говорили в Польше о том, какую нужно будет построить страну после краха коммунизма. Я говорю о совершенно чёткой и ясной идеи, ради которой люди бы стали терпеть все тяжести судьбы и к чему бы стремилось всё общество. В Южной Корее, после войны, когда страна находилась в полной разрухе, был популярен такой лозунг: давайте сделаем Южную Корею самой процветающей.

During the massive industrialization in South Korea schools would repeat “Our country doesn’t have natural resources. So what does that mean?” and the kids would reply “We have to study”, and the teachers would say “The human mind is the best recourse” or something like that.

Но выкинуть книги Маяковского и Булгакова намного проще, чем создать «город сад». Я это понимаю. И автор это понимает. Поэтому он пишет то, что как он думает, понравиться украинцам, и разозлит русских, но что потребует минимум усилий, минимум жертв и уж точно не затронет «больших дядь и тёть» в большой политике и большом бизнесе.

Но больше всего меня поразил пафос автора и особенно вот эта его фраза:

Ukraine will either be free, independent and European, or it will not exist at all.

Мне кажется, такие слова может произносить только тот, кто реально рискует своей жизнью, а не человек который за тысячи миль от Авдеевки сидит в Европе в удобном и мягком кресле в полной безопасности.


First of all, it should be pointed out that the author of this book was only slightly affected by the war, as he left Kiev as soon as the hostilities started. Therefore, all further events shown in the book are retellings of either the media or the stories of his friends and acquaintances. Unlike the authors' descriptions of personal experiences in such books as War Diary by Yevgenia Belorusets and Escape from Mariupol by Anne K. Howard, this book does not describe what the author witnessed directly. This alone calls into question the value of this book. Moreover, it is not clear (to me) why the author left Kiev because what he writes implies that people like him do not flee from the enemy. Why did hundreds of Kievers stay in the city, and many even prepared to defend it, while the author left the city? I don't have an answer. All the ostensible hatred that the author supposedly feels for Russians he put into this book. However, even here, it turned out to be very weak.

Here we need to make an important clarification about the identity of the author. The author is an ethnic Russian. Since I know Russians well, I read the book with a smile because many points are written in a very Russian way. You know, this is the misfortune of all new Ukrainians, who yesterday were Russians and lived in Moscow: to show that they are now "Ukrainians", they do their best to slag off their former homeland, from which they left a couple of years ago. It is always done publicly and for one purpose only - to show how much they hate Russia and Russians. Sometimes they also add Putin, but many of them kissed his shoes yesterday, so their ostensible hatred for Putin is very noticeable. But their main efforts are precisely to "be Ukrainians more than Ukrainians themselves". The author of this book, of course, cannot be compared to the same Ganapolsky because, as I realized, the author has lived most of his life in Ukraine. However - here's the bad luck - the author is an ethnic Russian. And so, to prove that he is "one of us", he writes what he thinks Ukrainians want to hear from an ethnic Russian.

The author tells how, as a child, he refused to learn German and chose English because he could not learn the language of "the former enemy". And now, the author writes, children in Ukraine will also say: I will not learn Russian, it is the language of the enemy.

When in the fourth grade we were asked to choose a foreign language for study at school, I flatly refused to go into the German language group. “They killed my grandfather Alexei,” I said.

There is one problem with this sentence that very few people know about. I will quote from the book "Fragile Empire How Russia Fell In and Out of Love with Vladimir Putin".

‘He once announced to me: “I don't want to study German anymore.” I asked, “Why?” He said, “My uncle died at the front and my father was made an invalid at the front by the Germans. I can't study German. I want to study English instead.”

To whom do these words belong? Who, like the author, refused to learn German because his relative fought the Germans? Can't guess? The words belong to Vladimir Putin.

But back to the book. Then, he gives the example of his children, who only speak Russian with him but have agreed to speak only English among themselves:

They still speak Russian to me, but they have no interest in Russian culture.

Of course, Russian culture has also suffered, but he personally will continue to read Russian (or only Soviet?) classics, but the rest of the people in Ukraine will never again read or listen to anything associated with Russia, and Russians.

Yet I do not give up reading my favourite Soviet writers, with whom I grew up. I do not reject Mandelstam or Andrei Platonov, Boris Pilnyak or Nikolai Gumilyov. Most of them were shot by the authorities.

Well, you get the general idea, don't you? I kept thinking, why is he writing this since the book is in English? An American doesn't care what language Ukrainians speak. I recently read a business book called Swipe Scan Shop by Katherine Schaefer, in which Kiev is in Russia. The city of Kiev is in Russia?! So why did the author spend so much time explaining to his readers that everything Russian, including the Russian language, will be replaced by English if Americans don't even know what country Kiev is located in? Then I remembered that the author's book called "Ukraine Diaries" was the only book translated into Russian and available in Russia, which gave a rather unbiased (but superficial) view of the events during Maidan 2014. In other words, the author wrote the book not for Americans who think that Kiev is in Russia, but for Russians, assuming that this book will be translated into Russian. Well, Andrei, you are awesome! I certainly hope that this waste paper of yours will not be translated into Russian and sold in Russia because the book is trashy.

I did not like the book and did not like it not only because it is a retelling of stories heard by the author from other people, as well as from the media, but because the author is petty and infantile. His country, where he lived half his life, was bombed, but he writes that now, in Ukraine, they will not read Lermontov and Tolstoy. And this is all that the author could find as an answer?! I do not want to upset the author, but in Russia, few people care what language Ukrainians speak and whether someone in Odessa will listen to Tsoi's songs and Tchaikovsky's music. The author simply has nothing to say to Russians, and this is the saddest thing. Having lived so many years in Ukraine and being ethnically Russian, the author does not find the right and mature words that would be not only necessary but also strong. He speaks some nonsense in the spirit of, Brodsky, Pushkin, and Dostoevsky will be banned in Ukraine and Russians will die of anger. Andrei, are you out of your mind, what are you writing?!

Ok, but, in such a case, what would the "grown-up" people who have experienced such a tragedy have to say? Such people would give what, for example, Navalny gave to the Russians - the idea of the future, i.e., the idea of the future Ukraine, but not that the country, as one big illegal immigrant from Syria, would sneak into the EU on a crooked goat, but an idea equal to what was said in Poland about what kind of country should be built after the collapse of communism. I am talking about a clear and unambiguous idea for which people would endure all the hardships of fate and for which the whole society would strive. In South Korea, after the war, when the country was in total devastation, the popular slogan was: let's make South Korea the most prosperous.

During the massive industrialization in South Korea schools would repeat “Our country doesn’t have natural resources. So what does that mean?” and the kids would reply “We have to study”, and the teachers would say “The human mind is the best recourse” or something like that.

But throwing out books by Mayakovsky and Bulgakov is much easier than creating a "garden city". I realize that. And the author understands it. That's why he writes something that he thinks will please Ukrainians and anger Russians, but that will require minimum effort, and minimum sacrifice and certainly will not affect "the big guys" in politics business.

But what struck me most of all was the pathos of the author, especially this phrase:

Ukraine will either be free, independent and European, or it will not exist at all.

It seems to me that such words can only be uttered by someone who risks his life, not by a person who is sitting in a comfortable and soft armchair in Europe thousands of miles away from Avdeevka in complete safety.

[Kat · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book was very informative and showed a different side to the war against Ukraine. It showed not only the big clear effects of the war, but also how the war trickles into the small things in daily life. A very beautiful and painful read.

[Astrid · Rating 3 out of 5]

The book was OK. I expected more from it.

[Joanna · Rating 5 out of 5]

Diary of an Invasion by the Ukrainian writer, Andrey Kurkov, consists of personal diary entries, texts on various subjects, wartime notes and essays spanning the period of seven months, starting at the end of December 2021 with the last entry recorded in July 2022. This is a chronicle of one person’s feelings, thoughts, emotions during the time of the Russian aggression in Ukraine. This is also a portrayal of the Ukrainian society, Ukrainian culture, and Ukrainian nationhood. Despite the continuous attempts by the Russian aggressor to destroy the Ukrainian nation, Kurkov writings show the strengthening of Ukrainian national identity.

In Diary of an Invasion, Kurkov presents the importance of the history and how the ongoing war should be traced not only decades but centuries back to understand the current tragedy happening in front of our eyes in Ukraine. This is particularly important for those unfamiliar with the region of Eastern Europe who are unable to look at this war through Eastern European lenses or where anti-American or anti-Western sentiment dictates their support for the atrocities committed on behalf of the Russian Federation.

“This war is not about the Russian language, which I have spoken and used in writing all my life. This war is about the aging Putin’s last chance to fulfil his dream of recreating the USSR or the Russian Empire. Neither one nor the other is possible without Kyiv, without Ukraine. Therefore, blood is shed, and people are dying, including Russian soldiers. (…) Putin has often stated publicly that, for him, the greatest tragedy he has experienced is the collapse of the Soviet Union. For most Ukrainians, it was not a tragedy. Rather, it was an opportunity to become a European country and to regain independence from Russia’s Empire. (…).”

Kurkov’s thoughts on an extremely important question for Ukrainians, as well as many Eastern Europeans, regarding the historical memory and historical trauma are compelling and important. Kurkov explores the suppression of collective trauma and how historical injuries affect the construction of national identity. He discusses at length the case of Ukraine, Russia as well as Lithuania.

He points out that historical truth and trauma are returned to the people through works of art, literature, and cinema.

“The more powerful these mediums are, the longer the works remain relevant to the people, and, in the end, the best of them fall into the cultural canon of historical experience.”

Diary of an Invasion is a snapshot of diverse Ukrainian society, mentioning Ukrainians of Armenian, Korean, French, Japanese origins, the cultural and social differences between Eastern Ukraine and Western Ukraine. It is a portrayal of people’s traumatic experiences from the first days of a full-scale invasion when the elderly and disabled people were trying to find the shelter and unable to leave the shelling as they had no other place to go or no one to help them or they are simply tried to leave; especially when it comes to the refugees and internally displaced peoples from Eastern Ukraine who already had to flee their homes once before as a result of the war in Donbas. There are descriptions of the lengthy queues on the borders, overcrowded trains with the elderly unable to board the trains.

Kurkov also explores the role of the church in the current war, the Moscow Patriarchate versus the Ukrainian Orthodox Church, as well as the linguistic identity and forced aggressive russification that has occurred throughout the history in Ukraine and other countries in Eastern Europe.

When we are talking about the historical trauma and we only take into consideration the 20th century, Eastern European nations suffered disproportionally. In case of Ukraine, there is trauma of the Holodomor of the 1932 – 33 (when estimated 4 to 5 million of Ukrainians died – the Holodomor was a man-made famine inflicted by the Soviet Russia on Ukraine in order to eliminate Ukrainian independence movement and punish those opposing the collectivization; the Holodomor is recognized as a genocide against Ukrainian people by the Soviets). There is trauma of the relatives sent to the Gulag, forced deportations of over 1.8 million of Ukrainians resisting the collectivization, communism. There is trauma of forced deportations of the Crimean Tartars which to this day informs their conduct. There is trauma of ‘the executed Renaissance’ – the murder of Ukrainian intellectual elite amidst Soviet terror in the 1930s. Kurkov does not doubt that if Russia takes over, there will be another executed generation of Ukrainian writers and politicians – those for whom life without free Ukraine does not make sense. There is trauma of pogroms of the Jewish population. Throughout the diary Kurkov provides many examples of the repetition of history – many comparisons between Russia’s current destructive war to when Bolsheviks attacked Kyiv or when Nazi Germany attacked the USSR.

“[…] one historic trauma that of forced deportations, gave rise to another historic trauma, the fear of hunger. “

With regards to historical trauma in Russia, Kurkov writes:

“In the Soviet Union, the historical memory of Russians was formatted as the memory of heroic victors. (…) The Russian people have been deprived of their historical injuries and released from their worries about past injustice. The more than twenty million victims of the Gulag have been forgotten, which is why the Gulag and the Stalinist repressions have not become a historical trauma for the Russian people. These injuries have not changed the worldview and attitudes of the Russian people, nor did they change their identity. (…) The fact that the crimes of the Gulag (…) are not a historical trauma for Russia today, proves that Russia has not yet recovered from the past, that it suffers from an analogue of the Stockholm syndrome (…).”

“Not all Russia is a collective Putin. The unfortunate thing is that there is within Russia no collective anti-Putin.”

I highly recommend Diary of an Invasion, especially to those unfamiliar with the history of Ukraine and Eastern Europe. I would also encourage you to first read a good history book of Ukraine.

Also, please refer to the list, I previously prepared, of the contemporary Ukrainian writers which might of help for those interested in learning more about the current situation in Ukraine.

[Darya Silman · Rating 3 out of 5]

Diary of an Invasion is a collection of essays written from January to July 2022 by a Russian-speaking journalist and writer, Andrey Kurkov.

Ukraine's fate - and many more countries beyond Ukraine - was divided into 'before' and 'after' by February 24, 2022. Diary of an Invasion also has two nominal parts, demarcated by that date. The first part reads like a detective book, where the reader knows from the very start who the killer is, so the central mystery is not about whodunnit but what led to the offense. Andrey Kurkov presents a personal perspective on the subject, capturing the minutiae of his life. The first part's entries are short. The answer to the question of 'why,' as multifaceted as anything in international politics, spills into the second part, which consists of longer pieces and includes ruminations on Putin, the Soviet times, Ukrainian history, etc. Logically, the work focuses on changes the war brought to everyday life.

The writer is a Russian-speaking Ukrainian, as I am a Russian-speaking Estonian. The author rightfully observes that Putin's policy of promoting the Russian language/culture by force backfired. While Ukrainian became the language of education in Ukraine a few years ago, Estonia is implementing the same principle right now, squeezing the life out of the local Russian culture. The academic exchange between Estonia and Russia has stopped. Kindergartens and schools are switching to Estonian, irregardless of children's health issues (as a mother of a special kid who speaks in neither language, this topic hits hard). Just yesterday, I noticed the awkwardness with which our Tallinn University advertised the faculty of Russian philology for future students. "The bonus of the faculty is the constant stream of lecturers from other countries: Latvia, Poland, Hungary," said an Estonian-speaking lecturer— with no mention of Russia.

In extreme situations like war, the duality of Russian minorities in ex-Soviet countries, being not the local, yet being not the 'real' Russian, leaves them no choice but to choose one side/one point of view and vigorously stick to it as if no intermediate options exist. The pressure to pick a side is high. Yet another example: on Instagram, a Russian woman criticized our Riigikogu for paying attention to minor problems (Russians listening to Russian songs on New Year's Eve on the central square) and ignoring big ones (new taxes and increase in old taxes, the economic recession, the cut of subsidiaries for large families). Estonian commentators asked her to speak in Estonian or go to live in Russia if she didn't like life in Estonia.

As the author points out, even Aleksandr Pushkin, who lived 200 years ago, is now connected with Putin. Russia (and, in general, everything and everyone Russian) is Putin, and Putin is Russia.

This comparison strongly reminds me of Hitler, who killed himself because he couldn't imagine Germany under foreign rule.

The book complements the study of the war's first months as a personal ground-level view. As with any essay collection or memoir, it can't be taken at face value. The task of informing and analyzing the conflict from all sides lies in academic research, such as The Zelensky Effect by Olga Onuch and Henry E. Hale.

[Kevin Crowe · Rating 5 out of 5]

The Ukranian novelist Andrey Kurkov has been keeping a diary since December 2021, before the Russian invasion of his country and has continued to keep a regular diary. The first volume of his diaries takes us up to July 2022. Kurkov, a Russian speaker who has written all his novels in Russian, is the sort of person that Putin claims to be "saving" with his invasion. But, as Kurkov points out, most Russian speakers in Ukraine support the efforts to get rid of the invaders; he also points out that Zelensky, the Ukrainian leader whose courage has inspired so many people, is himself a Russian speaker.

We are used to watching or reading about the various battles and military campaigns, and we regularly see on our screens images of burning buildings, fleeing refugees and even shots of dead bodies. But diaries can take us further into the horrors of the war, especially when as well written as Kurkov's. This diary, which contains Kurkov's views and observations at the time they were recorded (rather than being reflected on at a later time), is often angry, often satirical, often sounds tired, but is always strong in the belief that Ukrainians have the right to determine for themselves what their country and its future should be.

The entries often focus in on otherwise mundane things and domestic issues, because even in war people have to find ways of living. He describes people finding ways of coping, of growing vegetables, sourcing meat, cooking food, finding the essentials for life. He describes the quiet, unsung, anonymous courage and sense of community of ordinary Ukrainians. He also talks about the minority who use the war for their own purposes: the scammers, the thieves, the black market. He also writes about things we can so easily forget about: what happens to people's pets? How are disabled people transported to safety? the shortage of paper, and so on.

He also talks about the importance of culture and about his belief that writers, musicians, artists and actors are as much a part of the war effort as the soldiers and politicians. Kurkov himself uses his considerable literary and linguistic skills to spread the word about what is happening in Ukraine. He mentions the success of Ukraine at the Eurovision Song Contest as an example of how the arts can improve the morale and motivation of Ukrainians. Another example, one that Kurkov doesn't mention because it happened after the last entry in this first volume, is that of the Ukrainian national orchestra performing live at this year's BBC Proms.

To really understand what is happening in a war-torn nation, we need to listen to those who are experiencing the war first hand on a day by day basis. Kurkov provides this perspective. I look forward to more volumes of his diaries. Kurkov has said that he has put aside the novel he was writing before the invasion in order to use his skills for the benefit of his country.

[Theediscerning · Rating 4 out of 5]

Mr States the Bleedin' Obvious says, I would much prefer not to have had this book to read, but I didn't mind reading it one bit. Yes, it would of course be a better world if Putin, curse his cotton socks, had not built his inferiority complex up so much he invaded Ukraine, a country I had stumbled into entering and leaving six times each, and therefore this volume did not exist. But he did, and it does, and it's really readable, as you'd probably expect. I'm one of the 'ignore the MSM news, but only cos it's bloody depressing' kind of people, so I know the bare bones of the whole war, but here, in notable, convivial manner, are heartfelt essays pointing to an optimism our news media cannot really instil, and discussions of things that probably haven't even entered the kind of MSM I might read or watch. Digging the trenches in Ukraine ended up in major Bronze Age discoveries, which have just had to be re-earthed until peace. We get horrid talk of shopping centres being vaporised, and farmland polluted by UXBs for decades to come, but also talk of anything from bees to varying alcohol prohibitions, and from tractors to dentistry.

The Ukrainian heart is still there, and while several mentioned due dates for the war's end have already passed in vain, things are almost bizarrely un-warlike. People are back on the beaches and sandy riverbanks, the cinemas only stayed shut for a few months, and life is still pretty much going on, in some rarefied form. Lucky we had a dress rehearsal for that, then, eh? This normality is perhaps a surprise from these pages, as is perhaps how bonkers Zelenskyy is allowed to seem in the chapters preceding the actual invasion – I don't know if I infer it correctly, but I am sure Kurkov finds, like me, some of his policies and decisions quite absurd. Finally, there is a kind of a promise of sequels to this, although with Ukrainian literature only produced outside the country (we need an update on that plan to recycle all the Russian books in the place as otherwise there is no paper pulp) any such books might be delayed until the Ukrainians get the chance to read them too. They do, after all, deserve it more than I, especially if it indicates the victory we all wish for them. A strong four stars.

[Ruben · Rating 4 out of 5]

Andrey Kurkov, one of Ukraine´s best known authors, kept a diary before and after the Russian invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. It roughly covers the first 6-7 months of 2022. Actually, it is not really a ´diary´ in the traditional sense, but rather a collection of vignettes and writings to friends of things that interested Kurkov at the time and that he wants to tell you about.

The book starts before the invasion and you get a good idea of what pre-occupied Ukrainians: Covid was petering out, protests were going on over a new healthy school menu imposed by Zelensky, there are sections on religion, food, TV-series, the book industry, language. And of course, in the background, the looming threat of war. But as long as it hasn´t started yet, life goes on. It is interesting that Kurkov doesn’t seem overly enthusiastic about Zelensky (a native Russian speaker, just as Kurkov) before the invasion, and actually also in the remainder of the book there is no real indication that he has changed his views.

Everything changes with the full-scale attack on 24 February 2022. Kurkov and his wife leave Kyiv, first for their country house, later for the more western Lviv. He is angry, but stays calm and tries his best to keep in touch with friends and family many of whom have become internally displaced persons. The diary entries now become mostly a description of Ukrainian life in a country at war. It never becomes dramatic or tragic, he does his best to keep it serious but light.

There were also things I liked less about the book. For example, it is full with lots of generalities about Ukrainian character, all positive. And also, Kurkov seems like a very nice person and an interesting intellectual that is lovely to listen to, but he remains a writer of fiction and so when he enters into geopolitics, international trade, weaponry, etc. I sometimes felt he was on thin ice. This is a book of non-fiction, but those are usually written by experts in the field. Anyway, this was quickly forgiven. At the end of the book, end of Summer 2022, Kurkov promises a Part 2 – I would definitely read that.

[Sarah Sinclair]

Residing in the headspace of Andrey Kurkov was very pleasant

The book is dedicated to the soldiers of the Ukrainian army. The writing focused on the unique ways the war affects life for Ukrainians, while highlighting Ukrainian history and cultural figures, and condemning Putin. The ‘journal entries’ range from 12/29/21 to 7/11/22, giving a look at the anticipation of the beginning of hostilities and what is clear now to be only the first several months of war; all the while Kurkov wrote hopefully of an end. I too still hope Ukrainian victory is near.

“There are more manifestations of patriotism on Facebook than in the real world. I do not know the reason for that.” (75)

“War breeds death and at the same time awakens the humanity in people.” (115)

Notable topics:

Tik Tok of Tetyana Chubar: __princeska_13_
-the commander of a self-propelled cannon; 23 yo divorced mother of 2

Exchange of POW is also an exchange of dead soldiers: black body bag for black body bag
-family who is missing a relative shares their DNA
-on big explosions, when nothing remains, no identification is possible - forever missing [entertainment center in Kremenchuk]

A lot of discussion about I.D.P., himself included, and their relocation within Ukraine or elsewhere in Europe (latter mostly being women, children and pensioners; men under 60 who don’t have proof of enrollment in a foreign university or medical statement saying unfit for war are not allowed to leave the country)

How war has affected dental treatments in occupied territories & Russia

Professional race car drivers training military drivers; donated pick up trucks are driven all along front throughout the night, without headlights; on Russian side they use old Soviet military vehicles

[Nastia Nizalova · Rating 5 out of 5]

I had no idea what to expect and had my reservations at the start of the book.
Paraphrasing Kurkov himself, at some point you start looking for internal enemies. And that's understandable.
The thing that gave me pause even before starting to read is the review quotes on the cover of the British publication likening Kurkov to a post-Soviet Kafka and a modern day Bulgakov. I understand that rusophilia is a tough beast to slay, but surely comparing a modern Ukrainian author writing about the war with Russia and the Soviet nostalgia with an imperialist writer and smacking a post-Soviet label is in bad taste.
However I decided to give it a chance. There were quite a few things within the historical context provided I actually didn't know. Even though I kept guard, looking out for hidden pro-russian beasts, I was compelled by the delivery. I loved the rational explanations to somewhat complex reality it has become way too easy to simplify, the labor and emotional resilience this takes is commendable. As of September 2023 the events of the book may be a bit outdated, but the context is nevertheless invaluable and can provide a very good understanding especially to westerners who might not have followed the events of the war so closely.
This is the first book of Kurkov I read, although I've heard of him before as one of the few Ukrainian authors who have a presence in the global literature community and has English translations. Some list called him the most well-known Ukrainian author. I must say neither I nor most of my Ukrainian friends have heard of him, though some Western friends have.
I would love to read more of his books though.

[Ratko · Rating 3 out of 5]

Очекивао сам да ће ово бити заиста један интимни дневник, лична исповест човека који се суочава са ратним страхотама, међутим, Курков се определио за другачији приступ.

Он шкрто описује лична осећања, готово успутно, а више се бави набрајањем вести, прегледом дешавања на фронту, извештаја о бомбардовању, давањем цртица из живота расељених Украјинаца или оних опкољених, који живе у подручјима захваћеним борбама. То јесте важан материјал, али више делује као систематизована хроника за потребе информисања, а мање као књижевно дело које претендује да има дубину и лични печат.

У суштини, ово је скуп колумни које је писао за западноевропске медије, а не могу се отети утиску и да је писао онако како би просечан западноевропски конзумент вести/читалац желео да прочита – поједностављено, црно-бело, уклопљено у добро разрађени наратив о Источној Европи и Русији.

Разумљиво је донекле да у овако екстремним ситуацијама нема много места нијансираном приповедању и суптилности и разумљиво је да, пошто су ови записи настајали у реалном времену, буду пристрасни. Ипак, оно што не могу да оправдам, то је огромна количина мржње према ономе што не би смело да има никакве везе са ратом и политичким одлукама - а то су, руски језик, руска култура, руска уметност.
Посебно је индикативно да се сам Курков, етнички Рус и дугогодишњи двојезични аутор, ако не сасвим отворено, онда прећутно залаже за бојкот руске културе. То ми је сасвим у супротности са позивом писца.

Све у свему, „A Diary of an Invasion“ није књига коју сам очекивао. Као документ једног времена можда има вредност, али као књижевно сведочанство — тешко.

[Hornthesecond · Rating 4 out of 5]

This diary contains the thoughts and reflections of an erudite and intelligent man as his countrymen responded with impressive courage to an attempted surprise attack by Ukraine's much larger, more populous, and more militarily powerful neighbour. The military progress of the war is mentioned more in passing than in a detailed and consistent way, it's not that kind of a diary. Most entries are more focussed on what is happening to the Ukrainian people and their culture and its institutions, also Kurkov's friends - many of them internally displaced - and Kurkov himself and his family. That's good though. After all, if you want a record of the military history then you can look to books written by military historians. For a more cultural, anecdotal, and personal diary, Kurkov is your man.

I think that if you've read Kurkov before and like his style and/or if you're interested in language and culture then I think you're very likely to enjoy this book as I did. I do find that, because of his style, I tend to read Kurkov in relatively short chunks, but I do find his observations and digressions very interesting. My only concern having read this book is that if you asked me to relate individual stories from the book, I can probably count on one hand how many of them I can actually remember. Still, if he has time in between his other work writing and speaking to support Ukraine internationally, I hope that he will find the time and energy to publish his next set of diaries. If he does so, I will certainly read them, and indeed look forward to doing so.