On January 7th, while serving on the front lines, Maksym Kryvtsov, a 33-year-old Ukrainian poet and junior sergeant of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, lost his life. He was the author of the poetry collection “Virshi z Biynytsi” (“Poetry from the Trench”), which PEN Ukraine recognized as one of the best books of 2023.
Maksym Kryvtsov was originally from Rivne and studied at Kyiv National University of Technologies and Design. He actively participated in the Revolution of Dignity in the autumn of 2013 and winter of 2014. Maksym joined the Ukrainian military in 2014 when Russia occupied Crimea and several regions in Eastern Ukraine. He volunteered to be dispatched for a front-line service. After he joined the Ukrainian Armed Forces, from November 2014 to October 2015, Maksym fought as part of the 5th Voluntary Battalion Pravyy Sektor (“Right Sector”). From 2016 to 2019, he served as a senior machine gunner in the Rapid Response Brigade of the National Guard of Ukraine (currently known as “Rubizh”). After Maksym was demobilised, he worked as a content manager at the Rehabilitation and Adaptation Center for ATO and Joint Forces Operation (JFO) participants “YARMIZ,” a copywriter at Veteran Hub, and more.
In February 2022, when Russia began its ongoing invasion of Ukraine, Maksym returned to the ranks of the Armed Forces of Ukraine. He continued writing poems and prose. Maksym considered the day of the liberation of the Ukrainian town of Balakleya from Russian occupation to be one of the best days of his life. “All those people who greeted us [Ukrainian army] with applause impressed me,” recalled Maksym.
The death of the Ukrainian poet and defender was reported by his mother on Maksym’s own Facebook page, by Ukrainian film director and writer Iryna Tsilyk, Ukrainian writer Lyubko Deresh, as well as by Lesya Lytvynova, military volunteer and founder of the “Svoi” Foundation. “Through violets, my dearest son will sprout,” wrote his mother, Nadiya Kryvtsova, referring to Maksym’s poems about death. Those poems end with the lines “so that spring would come sooner and the violet would finally bloom”.
On January 7, Maksym’s colleague, writer Lyubko Deresh, announced on Facebook that Maksym Kryvtsov was killed. “Today, poet Maksym Kryvtsov is gone. I had the opportunity to communicate with him and conduct sessions where he was a listener in the veteran program ‘Voices of War.’ “He was such a lively, witty, extraordinarily talented person”, wrote Deresh. He also decided to share an excerpt from Kryvtsov’s unfinished novel.
“When we return from rotations, when we are driving home in our car, we don’t feel happiness, even though we long for the return. Perhaps… We only feel one thing – the emptiness—a shared emptiness for all of us, collective, like the memory. We choke on it and suffocate from its vapours. Anyways… I want to tell you about a high-rise building that houses the office of the Forgetfulness TV channel on its 77th floor. The entire narrative will take place within the most horrifying program in the world, the talk-show called The War…”.
Lesya Lytvynova shared a very emotional message dedicated to the memory of Kryvtsov. In her powerful message, she alluded to those who live in the rear, being able to live in a temporary, relative peace thanks to those who fight in the frontline, condemning those who choose to enjoy civilian life instead of joining the military and protecting their homes.
“Hear, hear, all of you, all of those “were not born for the war”… Nobody was born for it. Maksym Kryvtsov was an exceptionally bright person. He was a poet, not a warrior – but he died. He died as a hero. As a warrior.
Once he is gone, it feels like the entire universe has perished. The texts and poems. New meanings. Unwritten lines. Unlived minutes. Unexperienced feelings. Are you sleeping well? Resting well? Does the morning latte taste good to you?”
Maksym also wrote a poem about his ginger cat, who joined him in the frontline. His ginger companion faithfully fought by his side and later died with him.
The cat knows
every path,
every trench, burrow, and blindage.
It has one secret, though,
when outside, there’s
a terribly loud and menacing chaotic noise
and the earth trembles,
and the ancient giants wake up,
going about their business,
the cat instantly leaps
into a hole in the cladding
and hides somewhere in the depths and catacombs
of a small blindage
and he won’t stick out
anytime soon*
*The poem was translated from Maksym’s Facebook post on January 4.
Maksym Kryvtsov. Photo from his Facebook post on December 29, 2023.
