There is a “special mystique” about the death of Victoria Amelina, a 37-year-old Ukrainian writer, according to her colleague Volodimir Yermolenko, president of Pen Ukraine, an association that defends writers and fights for freedom of expression, of which she was also a member. “While working as a war crimes investigator, Victoria died for one of those crimes, and Kramatorsk is definitely one of those crimes,” he says, referring to the June 27 Russian bombing of the eastern Ukrainian city that eventually claimed Amelina’s life .
Yermolenko, calm but remorseful, is attending the funeral of his friend from the side at St. Michael’s Monastery in Kiev this Tuesday afternoon. He adds that one of Amelina’s best-known works during the war was also surrounded by a certain mysticism. Writer Volodymyr Vakulenko buried the manuscripts of his diaries at his home in the Kharkiv region before being arrested and killed by the Russians last year. Amelina, who saved these writings and encouraged their publication, finally died last Saturday, July 1st, Vakulenko’s birthday. “They never met in person, but their lives did intersect,” says Yermolenko.
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Two hundred people attended the last farewell to Victoria Amelina in the capital. Many carried bouquets of all kinds, which were placed next to the coffin after the ceremony. The last farewell and the funeral of the writer will take place on Wednesday in her hometown of Lviv near the border with Poland. A large group of colleagues will also accompany them there.
Victoria Amelina had traveled to the eastern Donetsk region with a Colombian delegation that had come to Ukraine to present the Aguanta Ukraine solidarity campaign to the local population. On the afternoon of June 27, he had dinner with the writer Héctor Abad Faciolince at the popular Ria restaurant in Kramatorsk; Sergio Jaramillo, former peace envoy of that country, the reporter Catalina Gómez and the group’s driver, Dima. He was one of those who approached this Tuesday, his face streaming with tears, to caress the national flag that covered the writer’s coffin.
Participants in the funeral of Victoria Amelina this Tuesday in Kiev.Luis de Vega
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There was not only pain floating around, but also disbelief. Some of those present had spent the last few hours in the Dnipro city hospital, where, after several days in a coma, his death was pronounced. Everyone is aware that they have been at war continuously for almost a year and a half since Russian President Vladimir Putin launched the great invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. But when death hits you up close, it’s what most compels you to realize that the macabre bombing lottery leaves no one behind.
Amelina, like many other new generation writers in Ukraine, changed her life last year. Without quitting his craft – he also wrote poetry about the war – he focused his work on solving the crimes committed by the invading forces, examining the testimonies of the victims, and traveling to the places where the local troops went to find evidence find. Liberation from the yoke of Russian occupation.
Some of Amelina’s peers realize that after her death there is no choice but to move on, and that the best way forward is to honor her legacy with new investigations into these crimes and to clean up every crime scene where the war has left its mark has.
A woman during the funeral of Victoria Amelina this Tuesday in Kiev.Luis de Vega
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