What Ukrainian teens have to say about the war

The email arrived at 10:11 AM on Thursday morning.

“Dear Ms. Schalit,” it read. “I just received 16 brief essays by 15-17-year-old lyceum students from Kyiv and its suburbs on what they plan to do after the war ends. They’re written in English, and the teacher says she only made a few minor corrections. They’re attached. Might you be interested in running them – possibly with a brief intro by me? best, Alexander Motyl”

I tore through the attached essays, even though I was in the middle of a meeting. Once I read them, I dropped everything I was doing and wrote back to Motyl, a scholar of Ukraine, Russia and the USSR at Rutgers University – Newark. He also happens to be a novelist, poet and painter, and I could tell he saw the same thing in these essays that I did: a fresh and direct account of the experience of war. It’s not something we’ve heard so far, and I wanted us to publish them.

Motyl leads readers through the students’ essays in “Ukrainian teens’ voices from the middle of war: ‘You begin to appreciate what was common and boring for you.’” It’s impossible to pick a favorite, but here’s one that combines innocence and a kind of canny outrage that seems entirely appropriate for these half-children, half-adults:

“I think that the war will be over when God says, because everything depends on him. Also when the President of Russia is removed or when all the supplies run out and all the soldiers retreat. When the Russian economy will be completely destroyed and the revolution will begin. When everyone will stop being afraid of the President of Russia and will oppose him.”

This week we also liked articles about the “Hispanic Paradox,” free-roaming cats and 529 college savings plans.