Rzeka dzieciństwa

This book consists of six essays written in a very personal tone. Andrzej Stasiuk takes a trip along the River Bug, which marks the border between Poland and Ukraine and Belarus, and also travels to its source. A small stretch of this river has special significance for Stasiuk, because it flows near the village where he spent his summer holidays as a child. For obvious reasons, it’s a “magical land” where not just the beauty of the landscape is enchanting. But Stasiuk doesn’t indulge in nostalgic reverie or idealise the “river of childhood”. At one point he notes that “horses were released [onto the lovely meadows by the Bug]: a chestnut and a grey, and their names are war and death”. Of course he means the war that has been ongoing in Ukraine for the past two-and-a-half years. His expedition to the Bug also made him aware that the eastern borders of today’s Poland have been the scene of brutal struggles since time immemorial – the waters of the beautiful, wild river have always been mixed with blood, and its current has carried many a corpse. Nor is it possible to forget that the Nazis established death camps in the east of Poland, at Bełżec and Sobibór. So Stasiuk shows the Polish-Ukrainian borderlands as a region that’s to some extent under a curse. He also describes his endeavours on behalf of Ukrainian refugees, and shares thoughts on the Russian aggression.

The book’s strongest virtue is its effort to remain ambivalent: the river of childhood is sacred, but at the same time cursed. A return journey to something that’s emotionally moving and enchanting is also a trip to something that bears the stamp of death, destruction and danger.