Templars | Serhii Zhadan

And so they return from the war, to which many of them were called, and notice that the war was actually going on only for them. And that now only they will have to be responsible for her. And the gap between their responsibility and their war is filled with fierceness and anger, but also faith and perseverance. And only the one who remembers where it all started can overcome this chasm. And most importantly, he knows how everything should end.

"The Templars" - 39 poems about the war that no one declared, about the pain that no one can cope with, about the love that no one can refuse, and the hope on which everything rests.

Alexander Roitburd

I was flattered and interested in the offer to illustrate Serhiy Zhadan's new book. In a sense, we all live in the Age of Desire. Today Serhiy is perhaps the most important figure of new Ukrainian literature. In addition, I perceive him as a voice of reason and a model of the honest position of a writer in our tattered time in our already self-reborn country in torment. I decided not to literally illustrate specific texts, but to create a kind of suite based on my own works from different years, the images of which—according to my feelings—resonate with Serhiy's poetry. As far as it was possible to judge you.

Illustrations by Alexander Roitburd