Feb. 5, 2026, 6:48 p.m.
(PHOTO courtesy of the author)
She jokes that she has a "bad temper," so there are no new paper books. Her husband survived the assaults, the hospital, and is now serving in the air defense system, and she volunteers and writes about it, carefully checking every detail so as not to harm. How do we talk about war without falling into the pathos of heroization or cynical devaluation? How to separate the Russian language from the aggressor country? How does Odesa's appetite for life coexist with the daily viewing of disturbing news? And why is it so important to read authors who are "mentally healthy" now? The answers are in a long interview with the poet and writer Taya Naidenko, who is not afraid to call a spade a spade and laugh where others have long been crying.
In 2019, you published a collection of poems called Everything is Given/All the Bottom. Is there a new one in the works?
PHOTO: Oleksandr Sinelnikov
No, not yet. There was a funny story. A year ago, I was approached by an Israeli publisher who offered to publish a book. I even collected material for him-poetry and prose in Russian and Ukrainian about my husband's army life and our life on the home front, "frontline" notes. At the beginning of 2024, I put the book together and finalized everything, but my uncle turned out to have a difficult temper. At first, everything was nice: "We're publishing, printing, collecting." And when I said that I wanted a foreword from Dmytro Bykov (he is my friend and literary teacher), the publisher replied: "You know, Dima just said something about Israel. It was the wrong thing." They said that everyone would be offended. They had just published Bykov's book and were preparing the next one, but he told me: "No, this is not the case, my girl. You don't understand anything in the world."
Then he said: "We will find you another person to write the foreword." Then: "We are also at war in Israel, so I will not pay you anything. All the money will go to the army, not the Ukrainian army, but the Israeli army." Then he started asking me to add more lyrics because he didn't like it.
I have a trick for such situations - I just stop answering. I save time and nerves.
I have had several such stories. I usually joke about it: "I have a bad temper, so I don't have paper books." I have no particular desire to publish them. I don't really understand this system now: a thousand copies are printed, three hundred are sold out. But I can write a post on Facebook, and five hundred people will read it, and it will have the same resonance. There's no need to go to a presentation. I'm happy with that. But if someone suddenly offers, I'm open to it.
Before the full-scale, you said that between hatred of Russians and love of the Russian language, love still wins. Has this feeling changed during the war?
Yes, I said that. But people hear it in their own way, especially gendarmes: I love the Russian language and Pushkin so much that I don't care what Russia has done. Of course, that's not what I meant. I separate the flies from the cutlets. I love the Russian language as much as ever. I still love the Ukrainian language. No matter who does terrible things to them.
I don't hate Russia. It's hard for me to hate something as abstract as a country. In fact, it helps me to keep the belief that it will soon collapse, and this country will not exist. This is not hatred, but a lot of anger and joy from the anticipation that it will be bad. I like to rejoice. I rejoice in advance that everything will fall apart for them, and then they will have to learn to live like human beings. And then everything will be fine.
Do you often go beyond the postcard image of Odesa? What do Odessans want to hear about themselves through literature today?
PHOTO courtesy of the author
It became difficult for me to find the image of an "Odessan". A lot of people left, a lot of people arrived. I remember 2022, when the city was empty, and you were happy to meet a friend. And then it was filled with other people. It doesn't annoy me, I like it, but it's puzzling. I still don't really understand what kind of new Odessan is being formed and what he wants to hear about himself.
The "old" Odessans, of the fifth to tenth generation, want to keep hearing about Odesa humor, Aunt Sonia, and "Odesa is a hero city." I didn't like it even before the Ukrainian Institute of National Memory started to dislike it.
And the new collective Odessans probably want to hear that the war is over. Or is about to end. He definitely wants that.
In your posts, you touch upon the topic of "busification" which is relevant for Odesa. Is this a matter of conscience or a violation of rights in relations with the state?
PHOTO: Natalia Dovbysh
I see a two-way street. I have been living in this country for 42 years, and for as long as I can remember, this has been the case: the state violates our rights, and we, whenever possible, violate its laws. So I generally welcome this as an honest sparring match.
Of course, I like those who went to war more. It's smarter, and I'm always in favor of reason. Going to war is smarter than explaining something, covering your fear with a fight for rights and fake pacifism. Moreover, there are opportunities not to wait until you are captured, but to go and get a job wherever you want. Yes, there is a risk of ending up in the infantry. I find it a little funny when people say there is a risk of ending up in a trench in Donbas. My husband spent a year and a half there, near Toretsk, Pokrovsk, Chasovyi Yar. He survived. Some did not. You may not survive under fire here at night. You never know.
How do you perceive the renaming of streets and the dismantling of monuments? Is this a cleansing of memory or a loss of layers of history?
PHOTO: Borys Yavorsky
This is a very interesting and natural process when it runs its course. Unfortunately, I don't have the feeling that it is running its course. This saddens me. The vast majority of people I talk to (from plumbers to doctors of science) say they don't really understand who the new streets are named after, they don't know these people. When someone says "the Ukrainian people have a request," I think: no, it doesn't seem so. We have not passed the stage of informing. We have not been told: this writer is not close to us, and this writer is close to us. Why is he close? Those who do this seem to have a magical mindset: name a street after someone, and everyone will respect you. But it doesn't work that way. It's annoying. New monuments and names should be meaningful, not simulacra.
For example, I like the monument to Vorontsov. I'm unlikely to picket for it, but I'll laugh if they decide to demolish it. It's so massive, there's a legend that the Red Army tried to break it down and failed. It just fits into the urban context.
It is possible to do intellectual work, to hang a plaque, to organize an annual exposition on how Catherine II harmed the Ukrainian people. This is a different discussion. Or you can just break it down and say: "There was never a monument."
The title of your military series "Old Ear in a New Way" refers to a sense of historical cyclicality. Do you think that society is capable of getting out of this military spiral?
PHOTO courtesy of the author
I have a shaky position: people are interested in my writing about the war, but I am not at war myself. I write 50% as a wife and 50% as my husband. I think it's interesting when one writes from different perspectives, politely, carefully, showing one's own view, but trying to read into others.
I hope that we can get out of this spiral. But then we need to change radically. I see aggression, violence. War is just one of these manifestations. We will probably change so drastically that it will be wild for us to beat a child or react aggressively to something we don't like. When aggression disappears from our arsenal of reactions altogether. But we are developing in this direction, albeit unevenly.
For example, I raised two children for whom physical violence is unacceptable. They try to react to the unpleasant not aggressively, but ironically or simply by leaving: "People are peculiar, we are different, and it's normal." Many of them grew up in Russia, too, and their parents have now taken them out of the country. And there are still many savages who love to fight, to lie brazenly and cynically. For an intelligent person, a lie is always unpleasant, especially such a lie. The most brazen lies I've seen come from people who were in prison for bad articles. The way Putin and many Russians lie now is very similar to that.
You volunteer for your husband's military unit. At what point did it become clear that this was not a one-time help, but a part of everyday life?
PHOTO courtesy of the author
Gradually. First, we collected ammunition for my husband when he was mobilized. I didn't hesitate then, I wrote a call on Facebook. We already knew that he would be sent to the "stormtroopers". We raised about 100 thousand hryvnias and dressed him in the best equipment. He came out of there alive and almost intact - apparently, people wished him good luck and wore his armor.
Then I brought everything to his unit and met their combat medic. He said with a kind of humor: "Well, well, let's see if the helmets are not holes in the first assault. The survival rate there is 20 percent, so watch carefully - this may be the last time you see them." We laughed.
Then this medic began to speak: "But we have such needs...". The supply of medicines is a separate pain. Ridiculous amounts of money are allocated for a first aid kit, but the cost is many times higher: people catch cold, get injured, and lose their medicines. A soldier has received drops in the nose, dripped twice, lost a bottle or thrown it away to lighten his backpack. The first aid kit needs to be replenished constantly, and it is difficult to report to the state. This is the niche that volunteering fills.
What helps you to keep looking for resources?
First of all, I am a believer. Not a churchgoer, but a believer. It's not very popular nowadays. Many Christians are very tied to holidays, the OCU, the UOC (MP). For me, religion is a part of life, but in a different way.
I call myself a Christian. My role model is the Son of God, who came, spoke of love, was killed, and rose again and said first of all: "I still love you, continue to love each other, sooner or later everything will work out." If I called myself that, found meaning in it, then why be surprised when bad things happen. Even the person I look up to ended up badly (although he finally resurrected). No matter what happens, you have to remain optimistic and love. Everything will be fine one day.
When it's really hard, you pick up a book, and it's like a window opening to another reality. Each book is like a window to a magical country, fresh or warm air. There are authors who are mentally very healthy, but they are few. Right now, during the war, I'm trying to maintain this tone - to write about the terrible, but to remain a mentally healthy, adequate person. Oh, how difficult it is. Nowadays, many people write on the emotions of hysteria, pathos, and exposure. Everyone writes like Dostoevsky: "Damnation, sodomy, trash, smoke, nightmare!" And it is very important to write and read something that reminds you of mental health. Terry Pratchett and Jane Austen balance me out as authors.
Your husband was trained, was in the assault forces, got a concussion, was in the hospital, and now serves in the air defense. How does he feel about your openness in your texts about him and his service?
The most difficult thing was not to keep the tone, but to remember what to write about. I have never written anything that could be used to track the movement of troops.
Many of my posts are written as if the event happened the other day, but in fact I wrote about it a month later. I did not consult my husband. I waited until there was information in the public domain (on the brigade's page, in the words of public military) that their units had been relocated. And only then did I remember it.
Your collection is called From Odesa with an Appetite for Life. The texts are mostly written for the full-length. Does this appetite save Odessans today?
Probably, in many ways it does. But this is also what we are condemned for. Now I see a schizophrenic situation. On the one hand, we show: "There was a terrible shelling at night, and during the day people take their children to school, do their hair, go to a disco. Fuck you, not Ukraine!". We like this, we broadcast it as a good thing.
On the other hand, there are moralizers: "How bad! They are dancing at a disco, sitting in a cafe, having sex, while our guys are dying in the trenches!"
To live with this, you need to have a sense of humor. It is connected with intelligence and the understanding that life is not unified. It is difficult for people with binary thinking.
What do you think is more important for people today: your irony, hard truth, or just words of support?
PHOTO: Oleksandr Sinelnikov
Words of support are very much needed, especially now. Even crocodiles like me feel good about it. I'm self-sufficient, I don't get touched by "hugs, hold on," I'd rather laugh. But even I am pleased. Imagine how much people who are dependent on society need it.
It's a difficult choice nowadays: you can't complain, you can't whine, you have to endure all the time. As soon as you complain to someone, they immediately respond: "Here are the guys in the trenches!". It's horrible.
Now, wherever I can, I just sympathize. Even if I don't feel sincere sympathy, I pretend to. I learned this by communicating with Western journalists. At first, I was annoyed by their eternal "I hope you are safe", it seemed hypocritical. But then I realized that this is a rule of behavior, like our "be healthy". And it is still better. It gives a person the feeling that their experiences have a right to exist.
I am now educating myself. For example, I see a man writing: "I've been sitting at home for two years, afraid to go out for bread." My first reaction is to laugh. Then I think: why, a coward has no right to live? Since when does everyone have to be brave? He is unhappy, he is sad. I put a sad emoticon. After all, I am a Christian.
Against the background of this anger, I find your husband interesting - such a happy man...
PHOTO courtesy of the author
He is funny. We are talking, and he says: "At night, we went from 10 pm to 5 am, minus 10, in the field." Я: "Poor guy, did you not freeze your hands?" And he: "No, no, no, I'm fine! At least I'm not in Donbas, where you're afraid to go to the toilet because there are drones and artillery flying around." He is always happy, never complaining. He says: "Lord, you can't put everyone in the trenches and then teach people how to enjoy life from there!"
I also have a positive mindset, looking for a practical solution. If I can't solve a problem, it's not my problem. For example, I can't solve the problem of global warming or hunger in Africa. That's why I don't understand the endless whining: "Damn the government, they stole everything". What do you want? To scream? And who gave a bribe to the TCC officer? Wasn't it you? You did...
At least I understand that I have earned the right to honestly say that I am against corruption. Because when my husband was mobilized, of course, I didn't drink champagne. But I called my friends and asked them how to behave, what to do. 9 out of 10 said: "I know an uncle, we can solve it. It costs so much money, so much paperwork." Everyone was shocked when I said: "No, I don't mean that. I'm talking about advice on how to behave, which can be useful."
My godmother still says: "I'm shocked at you, you took your husband to the military registration and enlistment office yourself!" My husband received a summons on the street, he was told to report within two days. He came and showed me. I said: "Dear, there are 24 hours on the paper". We left the same evening. He went to the military commissariat for two days, and on the third day they took him away.
It's funny when people don't want to follow the rules and then shout: "What an outrage is happening!". If you want the rules to be followed, then follow them. Almost no one is ready for this simple way. A man usually says: "I don't want some f... to profit from what I earn!" Translated from his construction language to mine: I am categorically against corruption.
Ната Чернецька