Galina Miklínová for Ukraine

"THE ARSENAL BOOK FESTIVAL” 

I have known Ukraine mainly through literature – from the books of Jan Drozd – my grandfather. He had lived there since 1922 when he moved to Uzhhorod with his parents at the age of seven and remained there until 1939. In Ukraine he also met my grandmother, they both worked as teachers in Uzhhorod. 

In the late nineties our grandfather invited us granddaughters, me and my sister, to join him for a trip following in his footsteps in Ukraine. I couldn’t go because I had to study for my final exams. 

When the directress of the Czech Centre Kyiv Lucie Řehoříková invited me to Ukraine I was looking forward to it. I had never been there and it felt like the trip was long overdue. The Ukraine of my imagination was still like from my grandfather’s novel “The Long Night“. Poor, sleepy, poetic… A God-forgotten piece of land. And on the other side there was Maidan…  

Kyiv surprised me though. An architectonic masterpiece, a city full of life, energy, freedom which I remember from Prague in the nineties. The friendly but professional atmosphere at the great Arsenal Festival, the book fair rightly called the Frankfurt of the East. An underground pub. The main boulevard without cars for the whole weekend. Life and playfulness. I don’t know what Ukraine is like in real as my stay was way too short for that. But what I know for sure is that I want to come back! It felt like home.  

Kyiv 2018