Andrey Kurkov: chroniqueur of a country under attack
Forum on European Culture 2025
Andrey Kurkov was in the middle of writing a new novel – a detective story set during the Russian Revolution – when, on February 24, 2022, Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine. Kurkov was warned that he was on a Russian list of prominent Ukrainians to be arrested. He fled his home in Kyiv for western Ukraine, to Lviv. The manuscript was left untouched for a long time. War was no time for something as frivolous as fiction.
Yet Kurkov kept writing: essays, opinion pieces, speeches. Tirelessly, the author continues to act as an ambassador for a free and independent Ukraine, impressing upon his Western audiences that Ukraine and Russia are two completely different countries – historically, culturally, and, not least, mentally. And of course, there is his diary, in which Kurkov chronicles daily life in a country under attack, published as Diary of an Invasion. A year later, a sequel appeared: Our Daily War, in which Kurkov delicately captures the absurdity of war.
Recently my old friend and neighbour, the musician Liosha Aleksandrov, was walking along Yaroslaviva Val, one of Kyiv’s loveliest streets, when the air raid siren sounded, yet again. Before his eyes, people hurried out of the cafés and the doors were locked. Only the local beauty salon continued to work and, through the window, Liosha watched the lone salon employee continuing to give her client a manicure. One would like to think that beauty is more important than life!
Our Daily War
Andrey Kurkov is one of the most prominent contemporary Ukrainian writers. He self-published his debut novel just two weeks before the fall of the Soviet Union. As the economy collapsed, Kurkov sold his book on the streets. His first international success came with Death and the Penguin (1996), a satirical novel about a post-Soviet society in which an obituary writer takes care of a penguin after the local zoo goes bankrupt. Since the full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Kurkov’s darkly comic novels have found a large new readership. His work has now been translated into 41 languages.
That success carries a certain bitterness, Kurkov has said in interviews. Europeans should first learn more about Ukraine, he believes – because empathy without knowledge is shallow empathy that will not endure. Yet Kurkov did finish the novel he had started. Is there a future for fiction again?
Andrey Kurkov is considered to be one of the greatest contemporary Ukrainian writers. His work, including novels like Death and the Penguin and Grey Bees, is dark, humorous and satirical. As a keen observer of post-Soviet society, Kurkov proved to have prophetic qualities. What role does literature have in times of war?
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Who’s afraid of art? Now that tyrants are on the roll and more and more people in the West seem to be falling for the autocratic alternative, De Balie brings together over 40 international artists, writers, and thinkers. During Forum on European Culture, we celebrate the subversive power of art and literature. It is no
