(Non-)Theatrical Diaries

31.07.2021

the play ‘Demo. Exercises for Beginners’ at the Jam Factory art centre came to mind. The team poses the following question in the play: ‘If not democracy, then what?’ perhaps we are currently unable to imagine anything better than democracy. maybe a republic? a possibility.

2.08. 2021

relatively recently, I wrote a play for the ‘July Honey’ playwriting competition. the results of the competition are traditionally announced in July. here we are in July, all up in the middle of it. the first cold nights have begun. if you sleep without a blanket, you can freeze and catch a cold.

arrived in Kherson. this is my second time in southern Ukraine. my first time was when I went to Crimea before its occupation. i think it was in 2011. now Crimea is incredibly close compared to the distance it is from Lviv. but also incredibly far away given the political realities. someone very dear to me lives there. she is a Crimean Tatar, so she loves Crimea fiercely. she is there. i am here. that's life.

am supposed to be in the village of Oleksandrivka by evening. a village located near the estuary. that's were the residence of the ‘Week of Contemporary Plays’ competition is. will be writing my next text.

21.08.2021

nearly burned alive in the flat where I have been living for the last six months. I was sitting at my computer with my headphones on. I saw my brother rushing around, as if he was looking for something in a panic. I smelled something burning. I took off my headphones and started unplugging all the devices. I called the fire brigade. I opened the windows... In my state of stress, I didn't think that you shouldn't open windows during a fire: the fire burned more intensely because of the oxygen. I ran out into the corridor. then, I don't know why, but I went back into the flat. maybe because my brother was still inside. I guess it's not so sad to die together. just kidding. I guess.

it turned out that the fire in the neighbouring flat had been started by a girl who, after her mother's death, had been clinically depressed and constantly wanted to commit suicide. now she had tried to set herself on fire. when asked, ‘why did you jump out of the burning flat if you wanted to kill yourself?’ she replied that she didn't want to go to hell.

1.01. 2022

at the Culture Congress, I met A.-M.S. there was something there. at least mutual attraction. but on 14 December, she flew to Italy to see her ex. now she writes that she is returning to Lviv. she denies my doubts. she says there is something there.

lately, I have been fascinated by the image of tree roots. in some trees, the roots are larger than the crown. I think about things/phenomena that can be roots for people. I think someday (maybe, but not for sure) I will write a book called ‘I planted a tree.’

11.02.2022

yesterday I turned 30. as Dante said:

"Midway upon the journey of our life,
I found myself within a forest dark,
For the straightforward pathway had been lost."

thought about life. about achievements.. but what is there to think about: an ordinary, average earthly life. achievements: buy my own underpants, have written a couple of articles about theatre, have chronic anxiety, constant self-doubt and boundless nihilism. in the end, none of this matters.

12.02.2022

S.H. said: 

‘If a full-scale war suddenly breaks out, NATO will not stand aside and wait for the conflict to be resolved.’ 

maybe it won't. really hope so.

reading an interview with Irina Starovoit. the interview seems to confirm my thoughts and beliefs that our country is changing for the better. just as plants strive for light, so people strive for something better, ‘higher, brighter, kinder.’ I have long perceived the concept of love as a contingent good, as a beacon, as a vector. it is about creation. and about life. instead, now everyone is saying that there will be a great war. russia has pulled its troops along the entire border. maybe then there is no point in asserting these humanistic truths, because everything can be destroyed in an instant. and the truth will be what remains.

24.02.2022

couldn't sleep for the third night in a row. at four in the morning, my cousin, who lives in Irpin, called. he said that he, his wife and daughter were going to Lviv. 'they' started dropping bombs on Kyiv.

22.03.2022

transcribing a few audio recordings of people who have come from areas where active combat is taking place. trying to keep myself busy somehow. for the first couple of weeks, i thought i had to do something. but what? join the army? maybe. that would be the right thing to do. you can't stand aside when someone comes to destroy your home and kill your loved ones. fear stops you. and you can't admit that to people either. it's as if those who went aren't afraid.

A.-M.S. went to Germany. then she travelled again, to her ex. this time to Belgium. he is ethnically Russian. he joked about the war. but I can't remember the joke. it seems that now it's definitely over. because where else can this moral masochism continue?

14.04.2022

yesterday, Y.S. arrived in Lviv from Pryluky with her daughters. said that Russian troops were outside the city. but they didn't enter the city. said that the mayor was already preparing to welcome the invaders in a red dress, with bread and salt. have to maintain power regardless of what flags fly over the city council. well, that's just like her.

reading Seneca. he talks about ‘time for oneself’ – time spent reading philosophy and reflecting on it. and about the need to engage in dialogue with wise people, keeping your distance from the crowd. we can try an experiment — until the end of this month, spend time with books and not go on social media. want to delete my social media accounts altogether. it feels heavy to be connected to a network that constantly steals your attention, concentration, and time. ‘what is at the bottom is not only scarce, but also of poor quality,’ says Seneca about the irrational use of time.

22.06.2022

read Nietzsche today. he and Freud seem very nihilistic to me. nihilism is good for destroying structures that are no longer fit for life. but living like that, when ‘nothing is true and everything is permitted,’ is also difficult. it's like living in a world that is actively being destroyed and rebuilt at the same time. i thought about it. in a way, we do live in such a world.

27.06.2022

arrived in the village of Hrebintsi, where L.Z.'s parents live. she told me that a young man from the Krypyakevych family had been killed. the historian Ivan Krypyakevych is either the grandfather or great-grandfather of the deceased. she said that all of her friends who were directly affected by the war had gotten visibly older in the last four months.

15.07.2022

they hit Vinnytsia. small children died. hardly feel anything when I hear news like these. I have to think about them, imagine their lives from photos, read something about them to feel something. have to practise empathy so as not to become callous and cynical in my indifference. but my emotions are already dulled. my anxiety level has long since passed the waterline. so indifference is now a kind of protection against going mad. it would probably be a social catastrophe if one part of the population, living in more or less good conditions, became indifferent to the other part of the population, which is less fortunate.

had a call with Elina Finkel today (a director from Germany whose mother is from Odessa). told me that in the play I sent her, it would be good to reveal more about how the difference between the two worlds, the Russian and Ukrainian worldviews, is constructed. interesting to see how these paths diverge. guess I'll have to rewrite the whole play. or maybe not. in general, i feel like writing plays doesn't interest me that much anymore. hard to explain why. sometimes i think that the power of words against metal and plastic falling on you is a very weak argument.

8.08. 2023

a long time has passed without a single entry. I had no desire/need to write.

thinking about quiet. quiet in every sense of the word. first and foremost – the quiet that begins with silence. but what is silence? body language? social media? actions? how does quiet manifest itself there?

13.08.2023

was in Kyiv. saw my parents. they are getting old. sometimes it's scary to look at them. at how merciless time and life can be.

S. ( younger brother) went to Kreminna yesterday, where Russia has gathered 100,000 mobilised troops. says that after watching a video of a Ukrainian prisoner being beheaded, he is afraid to go. but still instead of collecting the dead and wounded in a Kozak armoured vehicle, he is asking to join the infantry. A. (sister) says that our father has started drinking when he hears all these stories about our brother.

27.05.2024

today I finished writing the text about the opera ‘Gaia-24’. I didn't have much time. missed the deadline by a couple of days. but now I'm not sure if this text is any good. I feel like I lack education. lack competence in what I do. I have mixed feelings: frustration, anger at myself, a desire to flee the profession. it's better to ‘not do anything’ than to ‘do nothing’.

O.D. (playwright, curator of one of the playwriting competitions) called me a human institution today. it's nice, of course, but I'm a rather mediocre institution. basically, like the average Ukrainian institution. unstable. constantly at risk of disappearing from the slightest turbulence.

28.05.2024

Bogdan Kozak died in the night. I promised to visit him when I had time, but it never happened. now we'll see each other there. I'll come, and he'll say, ‘well, dear, how are your affairs? what's new?’ and I'll start telling him where I've been, what plays I've seen, and he'll say what those plays should have been like. because nothing is as it should be. he'll say that the ‘golden youth’ doesn't understand anything. we don't understand. the further we go, the less we understand.

also today I read the history of Sumer. bought myself a book published by Folio. there, history is measured not in hundreds of years, but in thousands. ‘only at the end of the fourth millennium did the Sumerians learn to do this or that.’ one event per millennium. it's enough to drive you crazy. what can we say about our lives, which don't even last a hundred years? and then there are wars. ‘not mandatory,’ but they have always been there.

9.06.2024

read Berger's ‘How We See’. he analyses oil painting from the perspective of ‘the powerful of this world’. in one of the paintings (Holbein's ‘The Ambassadors’), we see two wealthy men surrounded by luxury items, surrounded by things that are valuable to them: an arithmetic textbook, a harp, a globe, etc. they look indifferent, as if they no longer see anything interesting in this world. Berger talks about colonisers as wealthy and powerful people. In contrast, the colonised and the poor were portrayed differently: they are happy to serve, they always have a shadow of stupidity on their faces and a silly smile.

thinking about these ambassadors and Ivan Uryvsky's play ‘Mary Stuart.’ the audience in the stalls consisted of people who could afford tickets costing between one and a half and two thousand hryvnias. they were dressed as if they had come to a vampire ball. their gazes correspondingly vacant. but not indifferent, like Holbein's ambassadors. after all, how can one remain indifferent when the young hero so aesthetically pulls torn stockings off the very attractive and sexy Mary Stuart on stage? but there is a catch – she has been sentenced to death. and the hero-lover does not save her. he came to satisfy himself. it all looks very attractive. the imagination begs to recreate it all in erotic fantasies...

very good. but I'm probably not the target audience. And anyway, I need to go and wash and put my clothes in the laundry.

20.07.2024

back on social media.

wrote an article about Tartuffe at the Zankovetska Theatre. the piece was critical. just like everything else I've been thinking about this theatre lately. and about national theatres in general. 

25.07.2024

if only there was someone wise and strong who would say, ‘come on, step by step. I'm here for you.’ But there is no one around. only you and an endless list of questions. 

lately, I have been very critical of whatever is happening in our theatres. theatre is not just entertainment. I guess we need to invent another form of criticism. and then — ‘blow it to kingdom come.’ need to leave the theatre. but where to?

30.07.2024

sent an application to the unmanned systems battalion 'Murchyky'. 

22.08.2024

morning. sitting on a bench in the courtyard near the TCR (Territorial Centre of Recruitment). in the three weeks since I made my decision, I have observed that all this heroism in society, all these correct opinions, they are just for show. in most cases. in truth, people are only concerned about their own comfort. if you work in the theatre, you cannot publicly say that what matters most to you is your deferment, that you are ready to cross the Tisa just to be safe. but perhaps this is the logic of a healthy psyche in a healthy person. 

25. 08.2024

Y.S. recorded a voice message today:

"I wish everything would change and you wouldn't go. I'm worried. it's all weighing on me a bit. recently, R. and I had a slightly tense conversation during rehearsal. we started talking about this topic and she said, “I'm so glad that Oleksiy is joining the army”. that pissed me off. I told her, “I'm not happy at all...” si that's how that went. (laughs. exhales heavily). we agreed that she probably feels respect rather than joy. because I very much doubt that she was happy when her husband went. In short, if everything changes, although that's very, very unlikely, then I'll be happy.

this is what i replied:

"I'm here. right here. you can always call or write. it's an interesting thing, this connection. with some people, it never goes away. it doesn't matter how many kilometres separate us. that's how it is with you. I'll be back. more mature, wiser... I hope wiser. I have to write books there. one of them will be a collection of fairy tales for your little girl. I'll call it ‘fairy tales for Maya and Eva’ (if your sister names the baby Eva). the borders will open , we'll all go to Bali or wherever we want. I'll write to you and send you videos and photos. everything will be fine."

‘everything will be fine,’ my ex wrote to me from Berlin when she was leaving me. maybe she was right, and everything will be fine in the end. with or without us.

11.08.2024

going to the military base today. i’m a theatre critic. a writer. a poet... what am i doing?..

Andriy Synyshyn ([author's note:] actor, mobilised at the start of the full-scale invasion, died in the spring of 2025) said: ‘іleep when you can. it doesn't matter where. and don't get too attached to people.’

12.09.2024

girls talking among themselves:

–isn't your boyfriend upset that you joined the army?
– he was killed.
(silence)
– i'm sorry.

was sitting in the barracks – a room with beds for a hundred people – and thinking about whether theatre has any relevance to my location. my body is a carrier of theatrical culture. and now it has been placed in a different environment. perhaps I am disappearing as a structural unit of the theatrical process in the country? or the opposite? that's why the phrase ‘extended body of theatre’ came to mind. theatre is not just the walls of certain buildings. after all, theatre people don't sit within those walls 24/7. so what is theatre when it cuts into other structures and matrices? I think theatre is very much about politics. and no less important. if you approach it seriously.

16.09.2024

those who had a place to stay in Kyiv were allowed to leave for the weekend. I went to visit my sister. I met my niece. she was born on 8 September. my sister named her Eva. despite the circumstances, life goes on. 

17.09.2024

the initial shock of the change in reality has passed. my consciousness is still resisting accepting it, but there is nowhere to resist. the contract has been signed. it feels as if all these events are happening to someone else. and I am watching the events from a very close distance and can turn off this film and go home at any time.

27.09.2024

we are going to the shooting range. i have started to communicate with people a little, but i like this distance. there is a temptation to scale it up. there is something good about not talking. simplicity. purity. form and aesthetics appear where everything superfluous disappears: words, movements, objects... sometimes even people.

9.10.2024

we went through the obstacle course. after heavy physical exertion in a group, you feel people completely differently. everyone is tired, so no one pays attention to others. everyone rests as they wish: some chat, some listen to music, some lie down to take a nap on the sand. despite all the discomfort, despite the exhaustion, sometimes I have clearer thoughts and a calmer state of mind here than I did in the theatre.

11.10.2024

in the spring of 2022, I helped an unknown woman in Lviv get from point A to point B. On the way, she told me something about herself, about her daughter who teaches French to children in France. We talked like old friends. She invited me to visit. I added her and her daughter as friends on Facebook. And then I forgot about this meeting.

A week ago, someone wrote to me. Only now did I realise that it was that lady's daughter. I will call her Athena here, because she said she wants to stop all wars on earth. She herself said that this is her alter ego. Today she wrote the following:

"I don't want to get into philosophy right now. I don't think either of us needs that. You're tired, you need to rest somehow. I really wish you had that opportunity and... Of course, there's a lot to talk about. About choice, about the individual, about the collective, about sacrifice, about enjoying life, about sacrificing your life. Well, yes... maybe in a different context we would talk like that. But now we are in such different contexts that I can't bring myself to tell you everything I think about... about these things. In essence, our contexts speak for themselves: you are at war, and I am in Paris. These are different choices, and if we can respect... I don't know. Regardless of the differences in our choices, treat each other with respect and love. Then, perhaps, the wars on our planet will end. If you do that — accept your choice to be there and mine, and those like me, not only women but also men, then... I believe it will continue to unfold. I embrace you. Thank you very much for this conversation".

17.10.2024

met with Sensei (a friend from the brigade I will soon be serving in). he is in training. retraining to fly the ‘Vampire’ drone. we sat chewing salad at the petrol station just before curfew. we talked. about nothing really.

30.01.2025

we go on combat missions every day. i get very, very tired. i want to sleep. i want to wash. or better yet, go somewhere in the Carpathians and sit all night in a hot tub. watch the dawn. listen to the silence.

but what can you do. everything in this life comes to an end. including soup.

2.02.2025

constantly think about a thought I read in a book by Jungian psychoanalyst James Hollis: ‘ultimately, no one can give you what you need. only you can do that.’ checkmate.

14.04.2025

time goes by. goes by. goes by. no one knows when it will all end. sometimes I think... or rather, I dream about the future, what it will be like. where will I go. who will be there with me. speaking of ‘there with me’ — many people have disappeared from my life. everyone has their own pain. ‘who has it easy these days?’. you can’t argue with that.

Dan once said, ‘don’t ever think that you’re fighting for them’. i don’t think that. i’m fighting for my values. for my friends. for my family. for myself. ultimately, everything we do, we do for ourselves.

17.05.2025

sitting at my position. we're waiting for the car to pick us up. listening to music. ‘Dances’ by Sadsvit. once, A.-M.Sh. and I were riding the 32 trolleybus, which runs between the main building of Ivan Franko National University and Subotivska Street. we were listening to music. she played the song ‘Silhouettes’ on my phone. later, when we parted ways, the player’s neural network pulled up this track. since then, Sadsvit has been a kind of portal to the past. a portal to another world.

25.09.25

today marks the end of the era of paper books. during my year of service in the Ukrainian Armed Forces, i haven't moved around that much, but any extra thing is not only a hassle, but also a potential loss. once upon a time, my library made me feel at home. now it's two heavy boxes that I have nowhere to keep. two boxes that went to Lviv today to wait for me from the front.

sent the parcels and went to work. to war as if to work. it's hard for my friends to hear what I call home and what I call work. we had a somewhat difficult journey to our position. on the bright side, I shot some nice footage in the forest with my GoPro.

26.09.25

sometimes I try to come to terms with what reality is. what I want is unavailable. and therefore unreal. right now, reality is mice, the stench of those mice, enemy drones, autumn, cold, a week without being able to wash. starting to get used to it. but you can improve your living conditions with what you have at hand.

27.09.25

dreamt that I was talking on the phone with an acquaintance. he said he was coming over, so I should be home. at that moment, my house was stormed. among them was this acquaintance. they put handcuffs on me. the guy I was talking to on the phone loosened them a little and showed me that I could take them off completely if I wanted to. I went out onto the balcony. no one stopped me. I thought that now I could escape. but I couldn't escape. because then I would have to keep running away.

my first association was with a dugout. I could leave whenever I wanted. I could go on holiday and not come back. I could choose a different life. I could have done things differently. I could have. But I didn't.

28.09.25

six in the morning. the sun has just risen outside. i spent the whole night in my sleeping bag. i even crawled up to the monitors like a caterpillar in a cocoon. maybe someday a warrior or some other noble creature will hatch from this sleeping bag. for now, it's a sleepy critic trying to keep warm. when i said a month ago that autumn had already begun because i saw the first yellow leaves, i wasn't being very smart. it turns out that winter has begun, or i was very wrong about autumn back then.

picked up my phone. I started scrolling. I came across the news that Egypt is amassing troops near Israel. they've arrived. but really, it's no surprise.

29.09.25

just got a call from the command post. we need to bring a bottle of water to the infantry position. during the day, I saw five bottles. but the guys said that mice had chewed through the bottles and there was almost no water left. A bottle of Prozora costs about twenty hryvnia. A drone with a battery costs 15-20 thousand. the most expensive water in the world - that Prozora. and mice just ruin it like that. they have no god in their hearts.

3.10.25

today in Kharkiv. I'm sitting in café Pakafuda. as a friend of mine said to me: ‘if you haven't been to Pakafuda, then you haven't been to Kharkiv.’ she also mentioned Krystal, but Krystal is quite a depressing place, reminiscent of post-Soviet canteens. you have to get used to that kind of stuff.

actually, this is my second time in Pakafuda. I first visited the café on 9 May 2024. at that time, I was a member of the jury for the national ГРА award festival and came to see the Nafta theatre's competition performance ‘Rainbow on Saltivka’. in the early hours of the morning, the city came under a guided bomb unit (GBU) shelling. then the offensive on Vovchansk began. at the award ceremony, theatre director Artem Vusik said that only one person from the jury had the courage to come to the frontline city to see the performance. I understand him. after all, I was going to Kharkiv (there was still an opportunity to see this performance in Kyiv), because that's the right thing to do. how can you say ‘we are Ukraine’ when you travel around Ukraine that is safe and comfortable for you? in general, our bodies — how we place them in that space — can tell a lot. and these stories will be truer than what we say.

5.10.2025

today, to work. since last time, I've prepared better for the cold — I bought a heated blanket and gloves. I need to take a jacket too. also heated. I was given one last year.

6.10.2025

just now, during take-off, a mouse ran over my head. It was climbing on the logs covering the dugout and did its dirty business.

russian troops are making some progress in our direction. the DeepState map does not reflect the real state of affairs. they find blind spots and infiltrate these areas. as a result, some of our positions end up behind enemy lines. the line of combat has long since ceased to be a line.

the last time I fired a gun was almost a year ago, when I was undergoing basic military training. we went to the firing range once, but I only fired a couple of shots there. that doesn't count. in fact, I wouldn't want to shoot again. I would hand in my rifle. I would throw all my camouflage gear in the attic in the village. I would go and buy myself some nice clothes. I would buy a ticket to a distant warm country. I want to be somewhere near the sea. but I guess I'll have to ask to go to the training ground to refresh my memory of how to shoot. .

9.10.2025

sick. third day. my body is going into energy-saving mode and doesn't want to do anything. today we flew almost to the southern edge of Vovchansk. in just a few weeks, they have pushed back the defences of the western part of the city. it all looks bleak.

Larysa Venediktova once commented on the situation when data was revealed about the mother of the owner of ATB, who worked in a Soviet psychiatric hospital and tortured political prisoners: ‘Why are you surprised? What will happen if you see the whole reality, not just parts of it?’ it seems to me that to be surprised by this evil is to not accept it. although Sontag called it political immaturity. being surprised that russian troops are going to kill because they simply can... it surprises me. or rather, no. it doesn't surprise me. i just can't understand this logic. i can neither understand nor accept it as normal. I see what is actually happening. but why.. I guess if I understood, I would be awarded something like the Nobel Prize.