Yuri Andrukhovych, for many years now, has been contributing to the Ukrainian literary canon and placing Ukrainian literature on the global stage. From poems to essays to novels, the body of Andrukhovych’s work is thoughtful, imaginative, and experimental. Set Change, a compilation of Andrukhovych’s work translated by Ostap Kin and John Hennessy, is a poetic quest and elegiac journey through Ukraine, the Ukrainian people, and some of Ukraine’s most violent and definitive history. In this collection, Ukraine’s villages, cities, and landscapes are places of rebirth, renewal, and discovery as borders shift, governments rise and collapse, and wars once again threaten a nation’s identity and sovereignty.
‘Midnight Flight from Highcastle’ is a mysterious, Romantic poem that leaves readers imagining foggy, cobblestone streets lit by gleaming lanterns. The poem’s initial line establishes its ethereality: ‘of course this isn’t an earthly paradise no oranges gleam.’ A sense of futility develops in the second line: ‘trails are lost and so are our traces.’ The third and fourth lines act as the first steps in an unavoidable and necessary journey: ‘all we see is a lamplight in castle town / and we need to head down there.’ A mysterious air continues to fill the poem as the speaker observes that ‘running into the darkness’ is an ‘unlikely pleasure’ – an observation that facilitates the adventurous, yet mysterious, sensation. The poem develops even more Romanticism as a distinct separation between urban and nature unfolds: ‘and it’s tight between the trees and dark in this forest burg.’ Nature is personified as the action intensifies: branches are ‘awakened’ and they ‘stretch’, while ‘night greenery turns up the way’. The speaker implies that the darkness is impenetrable: ‘and not a single star just the prick of thorns’. Reinforcing the darkness’s impenetrability, as well as the speed at which the speaker and the others move, is the poem’s lack of punctuation. However, while the poem is as much about running into the darkness, exploring – and even surviving – it, it is also about finding hope. The lamplight is ‘still lit.’ The small glimmer of light reminds the speaker of their purpose: ‘because who we are in this world / beyond the seven ways / we pan for love like gold in a river.’
‘Underground Zoo’ carries with it a deep sense of advocacy and awareness in the context of the current war in Ukraine. During the war’s initial days, Ukraine’s zoos made international headlines. Russians attacked and destroyed many of Ukraine’s zoos, and workers and the public made great efforts to protect the animals. Simultaneously, ecocide raged in Ukraine as Russian forces destroyed biodiverse landscapes and the animals within those environments. As the war continues, ecocide is being used as a weapon of war by Russia, while Ukrainian prosecutors, ecologists, and environmental activists pursue making ecocide part of the crimes with which Russia could face as part of war crimes. In ‘Underground Zoo’ whales, newts, dolphins, lions, antelopes, and even people live in the underground zoo. Activities such as beer festivals and objects like ‘wedding fiddles, lanterns, horseshoes’ hold significance in the underground realm where life continues. The poem’s starkest admission, however, conjures images of destroyed cities like Mariupol, Bakhmut, and Avdyivka: ‘Under the city. Which is long gone.’ The setting is not necessarily an imaginary one, considering large numbers of the Ukrainian population – in acts of defiance and cultural preservation – have transformed underground bunkers and metros into concert halls, schools, sleeping shelters, and other places where Ukrainians remain resilient against Russian aggression.
The collection’s penultimate section, titled Letters to Ukraine, also contains many poetic diamonds that glitter with Andrukhovych’s knack for rendering depression and nature into a call for national survival. The section’s very first ‘letter’, titled ‘1’ is an open admission of deep grief and sorrow. The speaker admits to slipping into grief ‘like a toga or a robe.’ As the poem continues, the speaker acknowledges that the mental illness they have developed is called ‘love.’ A sense of burnout and bewilderment emerges in the third and fourth stanzas, which also act as the poem’s centre. The speaker admits to having written ‘some decent poems’ but that their work is ‘getting worse all the time.’ The speaker confides that they are ‘flat as a sack. Darkening, losing weight, / breathless, lacking light, warmth company.’ As the poem concludes, a plea emerges as the speaker begs, ‘Pray for me at God’s transom window’ and eventually ‘Dear friend, help me, come and save me!’ These lines mirror the pleas Ukraine has continually made to the global political spectrum as its politicians, government, and people beg international communities and Ukraine’s allies for more and more humanitarian, economic, and military support against Russian aggression.
In another letter, simply titled ‘10,’ the speaker describes Ukraine as ‘a country of the baroque.’ It is a ‘pleasure for the eye,’ which the speaker says is the reason ‘the temptation to obliterate everything / is so strong.’ The lines are vague, but one can read them as Andrukhovych’s subtle way of acknowledging Russia’s cultural genocide in Ukraine. The speaker also alludes to a collective acknowledgement that Ukraine and her people have been forgotten on the international stage as the war continues: ‘we’re forgotten and no one talks about us in Europe.’ These lines capture Ukrainians’ disappointment that more support for Ukrainians was not forthcoming. The speaker also alludes to another convention that Russian forces have conveniently used to inflict cultural genocide on Ukraine’s cathedrals, museums, and historical places and to inflict genocide on her people. ‘It’s convenient to torture in palaces and castles, // but it’s tight in chapels,’ states the speaker. The statement is a painful acknowledgement about the Russian takeover of culturally significant places and the conversion of them into places of torture and reeducation, the most recognized being ‘Izolyatsia’, a factory and arts center in Donetsk, Ukraine where Ukrainian writer Stanislav Aseyev spent 962 days before being turned over to Ukrainian authorities in a prisoner exchange. As the poem concludes, Andrukhovych’s lines seethe with quiet anger about the potential erasure of Ukraine and her people: ‘Write, tell me if everyone is alive and well. / Whether angels fly over the Danube, if it’s raining / in Lviv, and if there is still enough blood.’ The lines carry heavy emotional weight as Ukraine faces its third year of war and more calls from the United States to draft eighteen-year-olds.
Yuri Andrukhovych’s Set Change examines Ukraine’s place in Europe and on the global political stage. His poems are a testament to Ukrainian identity and Ukrainian culture’s resilience in the face of seemingly insurmountable odds. Most of all, they reiterate what the Ukrainian national anthem has declared for decades – that Ukraine’s glorious spirit, and her freedom, lives forever.
Reviewed by Nicole Yurcaba
SET CHANGE
Written by Yuri Andrukhovych
Translated by Ostap Kin and John Hennessy
Published by NYRB Poets (2024)
June 2025 #RivetingReviews titles are available to buy from bookshop.org.
Nicole Yurcaba (Нікола Юрцаба) is a Ukrainian American of Hutsul/Lemko origin. Her poems and reviews have appeared in Appalachian Heritage, Atlanta Review, Seneca Review, New Eastern Europe, Euromaidan Press, Chytomo, and The New Voice of Ukraine. Her poetry collection, The Pale Goth, is available from Alien Buddha Press.
Read Nicole Yurcaba’s #RivetingReview of ORPHEUS AND EURYDICE IN NEW YORK by Olena Boryshpolets
Leave a Reply