Taras Prokhasko is a Ukrainian writer, journalist, a representative of the Stanislaviv literary phenomenon, a laureate of the 2020 Taras Shevchenko National Prize for his essay collection "Yes, But...", and a participant in the Revolution on Granite. Prokhasko's works explore themes of identity, memory, and the connection between people and their homeland. His unique narrative style blends philosophical reflection with vivid descriptions of everyday life, making him a resonant voice in contemporary Ukrainian literature.
In this conversation with Taras Prokhasko, we explore themes of memory, the vision of an ideal Ukraine, experiences of war, and the writer's future novel.
Your grandfather was a veteran of the First World War. In your essay "Revocations", you recall going into the woods with him to play in the trenches. You wrote, among other things, "I understood forever how war changes landscapes" and "The First World War — my earliest childhood memory." Given this early awareness, did you have a premonition that a full-scale Russian-Ukrainian war would one day come?
I didn't have any specific futuristic premonition, but from the very beginning of Ukraine's independence — from the start of my own life — I simply knew that this war had to happen. Especially after the events in Georgia, I clearly understood that it would inevitably reach Ukraine. Because there is this very important, fundamental Russian idea: that Ukraine should not exist.
I closely followed all these developments... Do you remember Surkov? I realized that he was voicing extremely important conceptual messages on behalf of the Russian state. And when such things are said aloud, there's no doubt that this expansion is only a matter of time.
I also remember 2014. There was this guy, Andrii Okhrimovych — a poet, a journalist. He hosted a historical radio show and had this saying: "Keep your powder dry." He came from a good, conscious background. And just a few days after the worst of the Maidan events had ended, we were walking and talking — and he said something I had also been feeling very strongly: that this was the first battle won in the future Russian-Ukrainian war. That feeling was already in the air — that all of it was bound to break out somehow.
The Russian-Ukrainian war is often compared to the war in Bosnia, but what makes our struggle so profoundly different?
Indeed, there's a lot in common, but still — it's different. Because this Russian-Ukrainian war is a very archaic war. It's a war for self-identification, for the very foundation of the Russian Empire's existence. This war is deeply imperial and very old. It's about the fact that the Russian Empire rests on the myth of Kyiv — the myth of Rus'. On what is actually Ukraine. And without that "something of theirs," it's like that egg with Koschei the Deathless — where the meaning of their whole existence is hidden. It's that history that shapes the Russians, that justifies their self-image, their spiritual strength, their ideology. And that's why it's incredibly hard for them to accept that it's not actually theirs.
For centuries, they did everything to return themselves here, to Kyiv, and they held on to Kyiv with all their strength. Kyiv is the foundation of what is called Russia.
The Russian Empire is impossible without Kyiv.
That's why this war is sometimes hard to understand for modern people, because it's a war for their own "Rus'" identity. And yes, when they say this is an existential war, as much as that may sound outrageous to us, because for us it's existential in the truest sense (whether we exist or not) — it is, in fact, existential for Russia too, as an empire. Because if it loses this root, it stops being what it imagines itself to be.
Let's circle back to your first profession — biology. I've read that certain plants are capable of "remembering" stress and even passing that memory on to their offspring, to the seeds. If we draw an analogy with human memory, do you think that a new generation — one that hasn't directly witnessed the war — might still carry echoes of it?
When we, as humans, talk about memory, we usually associate it with our consciousness, with images, with certain kinds of conscious knowledge. And on that level, if we're speaking strictly about awareness, then of course a plant is deprived of history or stories — it won't possess memory in that human sense.
But there are other levels — natal, neural, even cellular. On the cytological level, within the cells and all those deeper structures, stress experienced even before a child is born — before they even exist — is still accumulated. It manifests differently: in physiological, chemical, and neurological ways.
But the most important thing that affects those born during war — and I'm not even talking now about conception or genetics, about how the seed itself absorbs all the blows and displacements — the most crucial part is this: whether they want to or not, the parents who've lived through such events become different. And even if they don't speak about it, even if they don't pass it down through stories or instructions, their behavior changes — and children pick up on that. They understand it intuitively. That's how this war seeps into the children.
Because we can't fool ourselves into thinking that all the stress, all the shocks and suffering we've experienced haven't influenced how we behave — even when we feel we're holding ourselves together, even if we think there are no terrifying breakdowns, no deep depression or trauma. Children sense it all the same, just as past generations of children sensed the histories of famine, persecution, and danger carried by their parents. Adults become different.
With your permission, I'd like to ask about your parents. Did the repression they experienced under Soviet authority influence the perspective of your writing?
Yes, of course, their experience influenced the lens through which I write. Moreover, if I may mention something particularly interesting, I had a rather unique experience in the sense that my father was, in the end, repressed as a child. He went through filtration camps. He wasn't sent to the Gulag, but he was stripped of his rights and exiled to Siberia.
But all of that happened to him when he was still a child. And my mother, on the other hand, lived under the constant threat of that happening. Her parents — my grandparents — had the reputation, which meant the authorities (the Soviet regime) were planning to do something to them. But in the end, it didn't happen.
My mother, as a child, experienced that state of waiting for aggression — what we might call, in the truest sense of the word, terror. She lived under the pressure of fear and intimidation.
So when I became more conscious of these things, I became deeply interested in how realized and unrealized repression — actual punishment versus the threat of it — shaped one's inner state, one's entire life, one's worldview as a child. My father, having gone through it, found it somehow easier. He was freer, more relaxed — because it had already happened. He had already lived through it. He saw how his mother was mistreated and all the hardships his parents went through together.
My mother, meanwhile, saw the constant anxiety of her parents. There was surveillance, pressure, persecution — but no concrete repression in the end.
And that, for me, was something incredibly important — to see both active and passive forms of repression, and how they were reflected in my parents.
Your youngest son, Luka, is eight years old. Do you talk to him about the war?
Of course, we talk about it. After all, many of his friends are at war, and some of the people he cared about have been killed. He's very close to children whose parents died in the war. In Ivano-Frankivsk, we really have no right to complain about danger. Watching how we behave as parents, he feels safe. He understands that where he lives, it's not nearly as terrifying as where our friends are.
A lot of people during wartime experience a strong sense of guilt, especially those living far from the front lines. How do you explain this collective phenomenon, and do you think it is related to empathy?
Empathy is good. A sense of connection and compassion is good. But feeling guilty just because you're not under the bombs — that's not something good. It's one of the issues people need to come to terms with. Because this feeling of guilt — of not being where it's the worst, of not going through what others are experiencing — it's not a healthy thing.
It's tied to a kind of egocentrism, even egoism — the desire to be on the same level as those who've gone through real suffering, just to feel equal. In a way, it's like pride.
Guilt makes sense only when you're not doing what you should be doing in your own place. That's when it becomes meaningful. But otherwise, it's a powerful crisis response — a stressful force that destroys many people.
There are also opposite reactions to this. Some people take pride in how well they're avoiding the war, how good they are at turning a blind eye even to the smallest signs of it. And others blame themselves.
I have, let's say, been a volunteer my whole life, starting from my student days. This time, however, I didn't become a volunteer because I understood that I have certain responsibilities here. On the other hand, I'm no longer as agile as I used to be.
Although I realize that everything is relative, just being on the frontline is already a kind of military contribution.
What constantly weighs on me is the thought: Why am I not there?
Your writings often evoke nostalgia, which makes them so touching---they transport readers to times gone by. You share your personal past, but readers are able to relate and see themselves in your stories. Do you think that after the war ends, people will look back on this period with nostalgia? And in this context, could nostalgia have potentially harmful effects?
I clearly understand what my nostalgia is built on. Ukraine we dreamed of when we were young, when we did anti-Soviet things, fighting for freedom and independence — that Ukraine never came to be. We missed it, we failed. There were simply too few of us, we were too weak.
Even before the war, Ukraine had already caused a feeling of loss. Things didn't turn out the way we hoped. The war has smoothed out this nostalgia. Whether it's a personal defeat or Ukraine not being what I imagined it to be, now it's only about her existence.
I imagined her kinder, wiser, more Ukrainian, more dignified. Even the very concept of Ukraine and Ukrainian identity has somehow changed — many elements have appeared that we never even imagined could exist in this dream country. But that's normal and natural.
At the same time, you realize that this Ukraine that will be doesn't need your interventions, recommendations, or wishes anymore. It will be made by other people, with different moods. So nostalgia arises for those times of the Ukrainian revolution, or pseudo-revolution.
You mentioned that you used to have a different idea of Ukrainian identity. How did you see it back then?
Returning to the premonition of war, I understood that it would inevitably have to unfold in some way. There were times when Ukrainians in Ukraine were a minority community. The political and cultural life of the elites was essentially Russian: Russian-speaking, and from that, Russian-mentally.
At one point, Ukraine looked like a kind of Don Oblast — not truly Rus', but more like some Cossacks who spoke Russian, sang who knows what, something not really their own, and who were different because they were more delicate.
Ukraine for a long time was like "Malorossiya" — to speak plainly and simply. It was somewhat more democratic, softer, even in terms of language, because Russian in Ukraine was still different, but still a kind of beautiful part of Russian tyranny.
Has your mission as a writer changed since the start of the full-scale war? Do you feel a sense of responsibility?
Of course, I always feel the responsibility, not only as a writer, but specifically as a Ukrainian writer, which is very burdensome.
The awareness of being a writer comes with responsibility toward language, not just toward society. Because writers work with language and within language.
Naturally, there are many opinions that everything should be different and that all this must be talked about. The topic of war is certainly important, but at the same time, I understand that the most important thing is to continue the line of Ukrainian literature, the Ukrainian language, and history.
Moreover, I realize that people who are fighting, or who are under shelling or stress, need not only what we might call timely literature about the war or the front, but the line of Ukrainian language and literature must not disappear.
From my many years of observation, I've noticed that people tend to read less of what resembles newspapers, especially now, when we are flooded with information. It's crucial that this timeless literature and poetry don't fade into obscurity.
Years ago, you mentioned that when you were young, you read a lot of new books, but now you mostly reread. What are you reading these days?
I reread a great deal. Lately, I've even started reading ancient historians... and I see in all of it an unbroken sense of relevance. We get information about what's happening today from all sorts of sources, but it's fascinating now to read someone like Plutarch — or other historical or mythical Greek texts — and see just how similar everything still is.
How those fundamental, core expressions of human nature remain unchanged. The scenery shifts, the pace of technology changes, the materials change, but the deep, emotional structures stay strikingly relevant.
Ukrainian poet and serviceman Artur Dron recently published a poem whose first line begins, "One day I will become Taras Prokhasko." In the poem, he also writes that life should be lived so that in old age one becomes Taras Prokhasko. To your readers, to me in particular, you are associated with composure and calm. Perhaps that is why Artur, as a serviceman, writes about you, because you inspire calm in these restless times.
This really moved me. But it's not necessarily about me, because no one really knows who I am or what I feel. It's about a certain attitude — what comes out, what you hear from one person or another. In that sense, I'm very glad to hear something so meaningful and important.
It's impossible to deny your own life. You can change it somehow, improve it, but it's about understanding that there is a lot of time. Most of it exists not when we are here, but when we seemingly aren't.
And this infinite time — that is the decisive one. We don't know what will happen there, but we don't have to fear it. Clearly, we shouldn't rush there too soon, but we shouldn't be afraid of it either.
Living with the understanding that something was before us, something will be after us, and we just need to look at the moment we're thrown into, and understand that despite all the choices we value so highly — this freedom of choice we now place on such a pedestal — there is one thing we cannot choose: the time we are born into and the circumstances we find ourselves in.
So we have to understand that this is the only thing given to us. We know what better times are and what worse times are, but we don't know what the past or the future really are. We simply exist, and we need to act in a way that ensures a calm sense of self in the time we have.
Could you please share what you are currently working on, and when we can expect your next novel?
For many years now — very slowly and with long breaks — I've been living with the idea of a novel about a British journalist who, in 1939, spent a few months in Carpathian Ukraine. It's not something tied to the urgency of current events. I've been circling around it for years and have no idea how much longer I'll keep circling, because I'm not in a hurry.
I do understand that I need to finish the book eventually, but I want to do it in a way that I'll truly enjoy. It might happen this fall — or in a few years. I don't know what lies ahead for me, how things will unfold.
But every day, or every other day, I add a few lines. A few paragraphs.
