5 From the editorial office 7 Irina Evsa Watch to the end. Verses 29 Ivan Ampilogov New life. Stories 59 Mikhail Sleep In the land of hydrogen and sulfur. Verses 70 By Karine Harutyunov From all trees, eat and drink. Essay 116 Alexander Kabanov Instead of Viy — Homer. Verses 132 by Ty Naydenko Old ear in a new way. Chronicles of wartime 150 Boris Hersonsky Live with an eye. Poems 160 Victoria Gorina Four short stories 173 Lyudmila Hersonskaya Wild birds. Verses 186 Yuri Smirnov. Fly, something, fly! Verses 226 About the author This collection contains the works of ten Ukrainian poets and prose writers writing in Russian. These works were created after the invasion of Russian troops in Ukraine and have already been published in the magazine “The fifth wave.” Many authors have expanded their publications, supplemented them with new poems and essays — especially for the collection. The authors themselves, of course, cannot be attributed to either the fifth or any other wave of Russian emigration - they were born in Ukraine and continue to live there. Since the beginning of the war, Russian-speaking Ukrainian writers have found themselves in a particularly vulnerable position due to the fundamental inability to publish in Russia and significant difficulties in publishing their works in Ukraine. Russian Russian is their native language, and although most (if not all) of the authors are fluent in Ukrainian, they still continue to write in Russian, confirming the thesis that the Russian language (as well as any other) does not belong to any one country, and even more so - to the state, but to everyone who thinks, speaks, reads and writes on it. However, this thesis is not obvious to everyone, and therefore, in the current conditions, it requires civic and aesthetic courage to remain in Ukraine and love it, to write and publish in Russian. In addition to linguistic and geographical unity, there is another feature that unites the authors of the collection: they write from within the tragedy experienced by their country. In the texts of anti-war, anti-militaristic authors living in Russia or who recently left it, reflection on the themes of shame, collective and individual guilt prevails, which is why the picture of the present they paint often appears graphic, black and white. Ukrainian authors have the freedom and knowledge to talk about things that are not visible from the outside, to distinguish the shades from which the artistic whole of the modern world is formed — complex and voluminous. We are sure that readers will appreciate their efforts to create this world. March 1, 2025