"Only if I die in this war will I become a classic author," Maksym Kryvtsov joked to a friend on a summer evening last year.
It was intended as black humor, but the junior sergeant's fatalist quip has begun to come true.
Kryvtsov, a machine gunner, poet, and photographer, was killed on January 7 aged 33, reportedly as a result of an artillery strike on his position in the Kharkiv region. His funeral is scheduled to be held on January 11 in Kyiv.
His first and only book, Poems From The Battlefield, sold out just hours after news of his death broke. Now, a second print run of the publication, which was named by PEN Ukraine as one of the best books of 2023, is due to be released on January 11. The reprint has already racked up over 6,000 preorders.
Vladyslav Kyrychenko, the owner of the publishing house that first released Kryvtsov's work, told RFE/RL that the young poet "was a very warm and bright guy, like a small sun."
He added that the artful young Ukrainian, who regularly volunteered at summer camps for children, did not have the persona of a typical warrior.
"No one who met him for the first time believed that this was a guy who held a gun in his hand," Kyrychenko said.
Kryvtsov first volunteered for military duty soon after the 2014 Russian annexation of Crimea but later returned to civilian life. When the Kremlin launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, Kryvtsov again signed up to fight.
The theme of contrast between military and civilian life is a frequent motif through his work. RFE/RL has been granted permission to reproduce excerpts from three of his untitled poems below:
He moved to Bucha in mid-March 2021
rented a small apartment in the basement and got a cat
whose fur was the color of the fudge on eclairs.
He went to English classes, to the gym and to confession
he loved to watch the snow fall
and the street disappear in the fog.
He listened to Radiohead, old albums of Okean Elzy,
rain, thunder and the beating of a girl's heart
with whom he fell asleep in a small basement apartment
and woke up in a small basement apartment
kissed her warm face
snuggled up to her sticky body
dived with his palm into the waves of her hair
and floundered there like a fly on a web.
She left him in the fall
as the birds leave the forests
as the engineers leave the factory at the end of the shift
and went to Poland
to stay there.
He took the cat that looked like a pastry
and said: cat, you have to go
with us, as the morning
as your life
as a disease
Happened, cold as ice
War
the lesson called "Quiet Life" is over.
The street disappears in the fog
It rains,
they don't listen to him at all
the cat ran out into the field and his name is taken by the wind.
On the cross, as if on an ID card, it is written:
Here lies number 234, rest in peace.
When he falls asleep
slowly stretches his front legs
he dreams of summer
dreams of an undamaged brick house
dreams of chickens
running around the yard
dreams of children
who treat him to meat pies
my helmet slips out of my hands
falls on the mud
the cat wakes up
squints his eyes
looks around carefully:
yes, they're his people:
and falls asleep again.
"I'll turn my life around,
I promise."
Written with a marker on the wall of a
popular spot in Kyiv,
There is coffee, pastries, stylish clothes, music, and balconies with an incredible view.
I've seen
how the fog embraces the skyscraper
gently and quietly.
"Love doesn't exist,"
written on another floor of this spot.
Nor does the sea,
nor does air,
nor do dreams,
nor me,
but the coffee here is good.
Someone added below:
"Sunshine, what made you think that way?"
Listen, I'll tell you what:
the swamp, through which reaching the dugout is tough
shells falling nearby,
a frozen rope tightly knotted around a neck
parts of a person
scattered
lost in the field
whimsically and unkempt
a dream that forces you to scream
rain when you have a few days left to wait for change
and the sunshine
that descends into the basement
because of the air alarm
indeed,
who made you think that way, sunshine?
A short vacation,
a few days on the road,
I meet friends,
mold clay,
for the first time in two years, I bake a cheesecake
which turned out just OK,
with my friend, we watch
as the winter cat catches a street mouse
holding on,
I can breathe
a girl crosses the road
holding a big skinny dog on a leash
the last floors of Khrushchyovka apartments emerge somewhere
like butterfly swimmers
twinkling with garlands
a little more
and I wish to become a part of
the ordinary city again
walk a big dog
fry some eggs
drink coffee in charming bookstores with tall shelves
it's dangerous
it's very dangerous
a calm life is an illness
throw away those thoughts
like worn-out slippers
run away from here
to your dugout
to your swamp
to your shells
I'll turn my life around
I'll turn my life around?
I promise.
Tributes have poured in for Kryvtsov as many Ukrainians point to the now long list of artists whose lives have been cut short by the Russian invasion.
"They are killing the best of us," one commentator wrote.
Profits from sales of Kryvtsov's poetry book will be split between the late soldier's family and a fund to purchase books for the Ukrainian military.
