The Harvard academic on writing while grieving – and where his country goes from here
efore my first reporting trip to Ukraine, one of my seasoned war correspondent colleagues had two pieces of advice. First, not to miss the delicious coffee and pastries you can find in Kyiv . Second, that it was absolutely necessary to read Serhii Plokhy’s 2015 book. I did, and it unwound 2,500 years of complex, fascinating and often tragic events, all the way from Herodotus’s accounts of the ancient Scythians to the Maidan protests in Kyiv a decade ago.
History is normally written from the calm, distant purview that a scholar attains when chaotic events have resolved themselves into some recognisable shape or pattern. It is not usually interrupted by grief for a family member killed as a result of those still-unfolding events. At first, he says, he resisted the idea of a book about the invasion, produced during the invasion. To write such a volume would be “to go against the basic principles of the profession”.
“I found myself in the same situation as a lot of Ukrainians,” he says. “After the shock passes, you ask yourself: ‘OK: how can I help?’ And actually a sense of being involved helps you to survive emotionally. Then you think about the kind of help you can offer. You think about [rock musician]who goes and sings to the troops. You think of the guy who goes to the army recruitment office, takes a rifle and goes for training.
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