Independent From Almost Everything

For weeks I have been preparing a book about my cat.

I planned to give it to you today.

Today arrived, the book did not.

And I am sorry for not coming here with the gift you did not know you would get.

Say it out loud and it sounds absurd. A man in Kyiv, on the 35th anniversary of his country’s independence, deciding that his contribution to the date is a book about his cat.

Tolik, my partner of life these days, is the most independent creature I have ever known. He occupies my apartment according to laws he wrote himself. He chooses when affection begins and when it ends.

He decides which part of the bed belongs to him, which usually means most of it. He walks across my keyboard while I write and looks offended when I suggest the keyboard had another purpose.

He does not know the concept of asking permission.

And this creature who belongs entirely to himself has become the safest place in my life. My inspiration, my company. The love of my life.

The independence in my lap.

Give a gift subscription

That was what I wanted to bring you today, something warm and ordinary. Something that belongs to life. Large newsrooms cover what is being destroyed here, and few people are assigned to what survives.

He has been near me the whole time, occupying whatever corner interests him, interrupting the work that is supposed to be about him.

He has no understanding that August 24 is meant to carry historical weight.

And while I assembled it, I understood that his was not the only independence in this apartment.

Nobody gave me a column. No publisher decides whether my thoughts deserve a reader. No institution tells me which subjects I am qualified to approach.

Someone who never travelled abroad, and who learned English initially from old tapes of Beatles songs.

And people came.

You came.

Many of you first met me through a few sentences on your screen on Notes.

The articles are the heart of this journal. They are where I spend my time trying to understand what I am living before putting it in front of you, and your comments and observations have become a central part of that process.

There is independence in doing this entirely on my own terms, and still having your attention.

We also celebrate the freedom to choose who stands beside us.

I do not write for engagement, and I am not here to become a voice feeding a platform. I write to occupy space in your mind, so that Ukraine keeps existing there.

Independent from anyone who might ask me to edit these words in order to fit a narrative.

And I have learned that closeness can be independent of distance. Many of you live thousands of kilometers away, yet distance has never prevented you from caring about this country.

Independent of whatever the outcome of this war will be. When you are inside a war you never know the end, and some things are never entirely independent of our courage to keep fighting.

At the same time, independent even of how you subscribe to this journal, because my commitment is to leave it completely free and open to anyone. I understand this work as a public record and available to anyone who comes here to read it.

Your attention is independent too.

You decide where to place it, and the fact that you place some of it here is an honor.

I could have rushed Tolik’s book just to have it ready for August 24, but I prefer to give you the book I imagined, so hopefully I will come back here in the next few days to share it with you.

Completely free, like every other book I have published. You can take your copies here:

Books by Lyubov and Viktor Kravchuk

Tolik does not know any of this.

He is asleep now.

—Viktor

🇺🇦

Thank you for standing here with us on this Independence Day.

If this journal has meant something to you, today is a meaningful day to stand behind it.

Give a gift subscription