"Please do not give me shelter, give me your hand"

Ukrainian poet and writer, Victoria Amelina, died recently from wounds inflicted by a Russian missile strike in the East Ukrainian city of Kramatorsk

- Amelia Glaser

IN August 2022, the Ukrainian writer, activist and war crimes investigator, Victoria Amelina, posted a poem on Facebook based on her testimony from Mariupol.

Strange scorching summer
Filled with sea people
Their memories dismantled
Into souvenirs
Photographers for German papers
Journalists for the Times
Prosecutors
Investigators
Archivists
For future museums of the City
Of which only a sea remains
And some sea people
Whose memories are collected
As souvenirs

The images form a kind of palindrome: investigative reports from the war framed by people’s personal memories.

Victoria Amelina, (1986-2023), died on June 1 from wounds inflicted by a Russian missile strike on a restaurant in the East Ukrainian city of Kramatorsk.

With Amelina’s death, the world lost a fearless, thoughtful individual, whose writing probed the limits of memory and belonging. Take this excerpt from one of her novels, published in my home university’s journal Alchemy a year ago:

“A dog can show you, like on a map, the pulse points and entire spots of pain in this city. The forties lie at a shallow level. And a bit deeper—the events of World War I… There are no names, no nationalities, or class affiliations that can be read. Instead, you have to ascribe traces of vague human words on this vivid map. They must be collected, like breadcrumbs, from a few tour guides, chatty neighbors, and popular radio broadcasts.”