Anthology "The ARC" #1

Thanks to the lives of the newest Ukrainian heroes who gave themselves for the sake of our country, we are gradually freeing ourselves from the burden of the imperial past, establishing ourselves in our own orbit. Mass shelling, with which the neighboring aggressor state tests our resilience, brings not only death, but also gradual liberation. Today's "dungeon children" who spend hundreds of hours in shelters — sculpting airplanes with a teacher, drawing graphs with a teacher, or falling asleep to the sound of sirens in their parents' arms — will be the first generation that will not have to burn out the influence of the "Russian world."

In their free time, they, these children of war, sing in the streets, play musical instruments, organize charity fairs, and print parts for drones on 3D printers — in every way participating in the approach of victory. They are unfamiliar with the concepts associated with the figures and symbols of the former empire: the writer Vladimir Korolenko, whom Mykola Mikhnovsky refused to shake hands with, is unknown to them; it is unlikely that they will ever stand in line for the concert of the CIS singer who finally sang in Ukrainian in 2022; and are likely to look down upon any attempt to revive nostalgic imperial cultural realities.

For these children, such contexts do not exist, they are unimportant, and therefore have finally lost their influence and meaning. The modern generation is a new clean page, a tabula rasa, a chance chosen by the courage of Ukrainian defenders at the front and their suffering in enemy cells, an opportunity to build a bridge between Ukraine, which is stuck in the past, and the one that is moving forward into the future.

The anthology includes stories by Marichka Melnyk, Viktoria Antonenko, Maria Mitsyo (1959–2022), Serhiy Sumlenny, Oleksiy Dubrov, and Janusz Bugaiskyi, as well as illustrations by Zhenya Polosina, Daria Fedorenko, Oleksandr Tereza, Andriy Yermolenko, Oleg Smal, Olenka Zagorodnyk, and Mykhailo Alexandrova , Yulia Maistruk.

The editor-in-chief of the tertiary publication is Ulyana Suprun. The producer is Marko Suprun.