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Ukraine Quotes

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Ukraine Quotes

“Peace is not so much a political mandate as it is a shared state of consciousness that remains elevated and intact only to the degree that those who value it volunteer their existence as living examples of the same... Peace ends with the unraveling of individual hope and the emergence of the will to worship violence as a healer of private and social dis-ease.”

“Since the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989, historians have become both more accurate and more honest—fractionally more brave, one might say—about that 'other' cleansing of the regions and peoples that were ground to atoms between the upper and nether millstones of Hitlerism and Stalinism. One of the most objective chroniclers is Professor Timothy Snyder of Yale University. In his view, it is still 'Operation Reinhardt,' or the planned destruction of Polish Jewry, that is to be considered as the centerpiece of what we commonly call the Holocaust, in which of the estimated 5.7 million Jewish dead, 'roughly three million were prewar Polish citizens.' We should not at all allow ourselves to forget the millions of non-Jewish citizens of Belarus, Russia, Ukraine, and other Slav territories who were also massacred. But for me the salient fact remains that anti-Semitism was the regnant, essential, organizing principle of all the other National Socialist race theories. It is thus not to be thought of as just one prejudice among many.”

“Появилась даже такая шутка: Украина — это страна, где люди говорят по-русски, а Россия — это страна, где люди молчат по-русски [141].”

“Єсть на світі доля, А хто її знає? Єсть на світі воля, А хто її має? Єсть люде на світі — Сріблом-злотом сяють, Здається, панують, А долі не знають,— Ні долі, ні волі! З нудьгою та з горем Жупан надівають, А плакати — сором. Возьміть срібло-злото Та будьте багаті, А я візьму сльози — Лихо виливати; Затоплю недолю Дрібними сльозами, Затопчу неволю Босими ногами! Тоді я веселий, Тоді я багатий, Як буде серденько По волі гуляти!”

“I want to make buns too!” four-year-old Peter declared firmly. “Then help me knead and roll the dough,” Grandma Iryna suggested, “and I’ll shape and bake all sorts of tasty treats from it.” “Deal!” She lifted her grandson onto a sturdy chair at the edge of the table so he could reach the dough comfortably, then pinched off a small lump for him. “I’ll knead my piece, and you’ll knead yours — together we’ll finish faster,” she said. “Watch me and do the same.” Glancing at his teacher, the boy eagerly began working his dough. Soon he was covered in flour from head to toe. Iryna only smiled and encouraged him, kneading her own dough with skillful hands and humming gentle folk rhymes. — Volodymyr Shablia, Stone. Book One Context note: Set in rural Ukraine before war and repression tear childhood apart, this scene captures a fleeting moment of safety and love — a grandmother teaching her grandson patience, trust, and joy through the simplest ritual of home.”

“I will die in Moscow, not seeing Ukraina. Before death, I will ask Stalin to extract my heart, just before I am burnt in the crematory, from my chest and bury it in my native land, in Kyiv, somewhere above the Dnipro on the mountain-hill. Fate, send happiness to people on this ruined and bloodstained land! Disappear, hatred! Evanesce, poverty!”

“Europeans the Poles or Balts coming in here … we brought here knowledge with us and our culture with us, but we assimilated … assimilated is not one way, it’s a two-way street. - Fred Ritzkowski, German”

“Bang!” The explosion thundered right beside him. Danilo’s body was thrown aside like a rag doll, and his mind shut down instantly. What happened next, Red Army soldier Shablia neither saw nor heard. The sounds of battle, the shouts of men, machine-gun fire, shell bursts — even the massive shockwave when the bridge and dam were blown up — could no longer reach his consciousness. Author: Volodymyr Shablia: Context note: This passage describes the moments of Danylo Shablia's last battle during the chaotic retreat of the Red Army, emphasizing the sudden, impersonal nature of events in World War II.”

“On February 24, 2022, Russia launched a full-scale war against Ukraine, the first full-scale kinetic battle in the struggle between Autocracy, Inc., and what might loosely be described as the democratic world. Russia plays a special role in the autocratic network, both as the inventor of the modern marriage of kleptocracy and dictatorship and as the country now most aggressively seeking to upend the status quo. The invasion was planned in that spirit. Putin hoped not only to acquire territory, but also to show the world that the old rules of international behavior no longer hold.”

“Я взявся перетрушувати баул і серед хламу витрусив з нього книжку. Це була збірка вибраних віршів Сєрґєя Єсєніна. Тобто якийсь руский, їдучи в Україну вбивати нас, у дуже стислий перелік найнеобхідніших речей, поряд зі штанами й аптечкою, взяв зі собою книжку.”

“Ми не вважаємо за доцільне заперечувати цінності російської культури. Толстой, Достоєвський і Чехов були великі письменники. Поезія Блока і Пастернака, музика Чайковського й Шостаковича заслужено має світовий розголос. Але не робіть їх нашими рідними. Ми шануємо вершину російської поезії - Пушкіна рівно в такій же мірі, як вершину портуґальської поезії - Камойнша, а Толстого - як Фльобера або Драйзера. І цінностями російської культури не закривайте нам того факту, що поки росіяни не визнають нашого права на абсолютно самостійне й незалежне від них ні політично, ні господарчо, ні культурно існування - вони наші вороги.”

“Once again, the Empire of Russia has defeated the nation. It is important to recognize it now, when Russia is suffering a moral, military and, broadly speaking, civilizational defeat in Ukraine. The attack on Ukraine is a fiasco of the still-born idea of ‘the Russian world,’ russky mir, as one lot of Russian speakers bomb, torture and shoot other Russian speakers; as they burn Orthodox churches and demolish Russian-speaking cities of Mariupol and Kherson. This is not a war for Russia but for the re-establishment of the Empire, a war of revenge on Ukrainians (it is even crueller, because they are considered ‘one of us,’ ‘our brothers’) for daring to think that they could break away and follow their own path.”

“Nothing is easier than stamping your foot and shouting: ''That's mine!’ It is immeasurably harder to proclaim: ‘You may live as you please.’ We cannot, in the latter end of the twentieth century. live in the imaginary world in which our last, not very bright Emperor came to grief. Surprising though it may be, the prophecy of our Vanguard Doctrine that nationalism would fade has not come true. In the age of the atom and of cybernetics, it has for some reason blossomed afresh. Like it or not, the time is at hand when we must payout on our promissory notes guaranteeing self-determination and independence—pay up of our own accord. and not wait to be burned at the stake, drowned in rivers, or beheaded. We must prove our greatness as a nation not by the vastness of our territory. not by the number of peoples under our tutelage, but by the grandeur of our actions. And by the depth of our tilth in the lands that remain when those who do not wish to live with us are gone.”

“Тільки не від кого незалежна самостійна Україна забезпечить Ваші права і інтереси. Геть московську неволю! Геть комісарів московських! Хай живе Українська Народна Республіка! Вся влада українському народові!”