„Świat nigdy nie będzie taki, jak przedtem”. Zobowiązanie etyczne wobec Innego w tekstach Serhija Żadana
“The World Will Never Be the Same as Before”. The Ethical Obligation Towards the Other in Texts by Serhiy Zhadan

Summary/Abstract: The author takes a closer look at the texts by Serhiy Zhadan, which include the motif of war and the attitude towards the Other. In doing so, she refers to his poetry: Drohobych, Life of Maria, Templars, Antenna, List of Ships, and the most recent: Psalm to Aviation 58, as well as the story: The Orphanage. Despite the fact that the majority of Zhadan’s poems refer implicitly to war operations conducted since 2014 in East Ukraine, the text originated already in the course of a war that has engulfed the entire country. In her summary Wiera Meniok writes: “I am close to finishing this essay. Dawn approaches slowly. It is 19 March 2022, the twenty fourth day of a war unleashed in Ukraine by the Russian aggressor – a terrorist state, an imperial regime of evil. Kharkiv is situated far to the east of my Drohobych, and dawn in Kharkiv is already more translucent and brighter. I am thinking about Serhiy Zhadan and his town, standing amidst ruins and bleeding, but consequently becoming even stronger. Words from Który skrzywdziłeś (You Who Wronged), the well-known poem by Czesław Miłosz: “Do not feel safe. The poet remembers. / You can kill one, but another is born. / The words are written down, the deed, the date”, come to my mind. Serhiy Zhadan is still in Kharkiv and fights for his town. He writes a war chronicle on his official Facebook site. Tens, hundreds of thousands of people daily await his entry. He writes; therefore he lives. He writes; therefore Kharkiv stands.

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