Exploring the post-Soviet landscape of the Ukrainian east in a complex journey of loss, hope, and history
In 2014, the Russian army, with support from local militants, occupied parts of Ukraine's two easternmost regions - once the beating industrial heart of the Soviet Union - where coal extraction has since exhausted both the human population and the natural resources. In late 2016 Oleksandr Mykhed set out on a research trip to explore the deep history and contested present of the area from the perspective of a fellow countryman who'd never been there.
Mykhed brings us on a painful yet hopeful journey across the Ukrainian east, sharing conversations with locals, snippets from archival documents, and the complicated perspectives of prominent cultural figures, such as writer Serhiy Zhadan, historian Olena Stiazhkina, and philosopher Ihor Kozlovsky, who was imprisoned and tortured for nearly two years.
I Will Mix Your Blood with Coal invites us to meet generations of coal miners. To learn about the Belgian and British investors who founded the east's industrial cities. To remember the harrowing events of the First and Second World Wars and the incalculable brutality of Soviet history. To see the activists who are even now working to improve the country. To hear sweet memories of a lost utopia that never existed. Mykhed provides a unique portrait of life in the east during the war, before the full-scale invasion that would change everything.
Intro
I.
Kostiantynivka. .
Pokrovsk. .
Dobropillia. .
Lysychansk. .
Sievierodonetsk. .
Bakhmut. .
Three Fountains and Two and a Half Exhibitions
Ihor Kozlovsky: 'Regional myths were fitted like costumes that were supposed to conceal the lack of ideas and generate a mythical reality.'
Kostiantynivka. 2.
Kyiv. .
II.
Kostiantynivka. 3.
Bakhmut. 2.
Alevtina Kakhidze: 'When I'm introduced, 'Here's a Donbas artist,' I have the urge to say, 'Hello, as you can see, I don't have horns.'
Pokrovsk. 2.
Dobropillia. 2.
Chthonic Shubin and Holy Barbara
Pokrovsk. 3.
Roman Minin: 'The main point of pride of the residents of the Donetsk region is their ability to survive.'
Kyiv. 2.
Bakhmut. 3.
Lysychansk. 2.
The War, the Welsh, and the 'Wild Fields' Startup
Serhiy Zhadan: 'If we don't want to separate off the east, we need to get to know it'
Lysychansk. 3.
Sievierodonetsk. 2.
The Miners' Tribe and the Truth of Literature
Kyiv. 3.
III.
Lysychansk. 4.
Bakhmut. 4.
Pokrovsk. 4.
Olena Stiazhkina: 'The GULAG was no longer needed. Camps were pointless because the camp was embedded within me.'
Sievierodonetsk. 3.
Pokrovsk. 5.
Kostiantynivka. 4.
Dobropillia. 3.
Kyiv. 4.
Volodymyr Rafeyenko: 'It's important to understand that it wasn't regional peculiarities that caused this war, and it wasn't the Ukrainians who brought it on.'
The Romanivka Farmstead
The East
The Return
Outro
Afterword to an Invasion
Bibliography
Oleksandr Mykhed is the author of ten books and a member of PEN Ukraine. He has written for publications including The Financial Times, Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, and The Guardian. Mykhed is currently serving in the Armed Forces of Ukraine.
Tanya Savchynska is a literary translator whose writing and translations have appeared in The Los Angeles Review of Books, Asymptote, Apofenie, and elsewhere.
David Mossop is a professor of linguistics who translates from several Slavic languages into English. He was awarded an outstanding achievement award by the Bulgarian Translators' Union in 2022.
