Oleksandr O. Vozniuk

He grew up in a family of a priest, his father being the rector of the Church of All Saints of the UOC-KP in Lubny, Father Georgiy. He graduated from the Lokhvitske Medical College and entered the Glukhiv National Pedagogical University. After the first year, he went to military service and later signed a contract. He wrote poetry, played musical instruments, and led an amateur art group in his unit. The war found Oleksandr in Crimea, in the village of Perevalne, where he was serving when Russian troops began to seize the territory of Crimea. Since 2014, he has been on the eastern front. This poem, for which a video was made, Oleksandr dedicated to his friend Yuriy Zahrebelyny. What is this word — "war," What does it represent, Probably where people died, Probably where fates are broken, Where there is devastation and much pain, Where they fought for the right to be free, There everywhere are ruins and much pain, There are many unknown bodies in the field, There everywhere is shooting, explosions, fire, There everywhere is only fear, there everywhere is only pain, There they tightly grip a rifle in their hands, There the whistling of bullets and explosions of grenades can be heard, And everywhere the land is burning, my Motherland is crying, Here I was born, here I live, If necessary, I will die too, But I will stand, but I will fight, Better to die than to surrender in vain, The price of all this is tears and pain, Those tears will flow from the sky like a river, From mother's eyes and from father's soul, They are waiting for us, and we are here, at war, But we will all return home someday, There mom will greet us with the words: "Alive!", And all those guys who were with us there, We remember you, we have not forgotten you, We did not give our lives in vain, We all fought there for a clear sky, For truth and faith, for our children, For the tears shed by fathers and mothers, We cry for you, we mourn for you, And we will not let war be here anymore!