Writer, poet, and musician Serhiy Zhadan is known as an advocate of Donbas in Ukraine. Thanks to Zhadan’s work, many people have come to know this eastern region of the country – with its working men, slag heaps, steppe, and love of freedom where, as one of his poems puts it, “everything that passes through your conscience beats in time with your heartbeat”. Zhadan’s 2010 novel Voroshilovhrad, titled after the old Soviet name for the city of Luhansk, was seen as a manifesto of Ukraine’s 1980s and 1990s generation.
Reform Watch
Open Democracy: Serhiy Zhadan says ‘Donbas is more about revival than ruins’
A damaged school gym wall riddled with bullet holes, pictured in the town of Opytne on June 12, 2019.
