What is the response to the constant declarations of neutrality in a person who fled from Ukraine to Switzerland because he found himself unable to shoot at the “enemies”? What is it like to be a person who has lost everything – his family, friends, job, daily life – living in a country that kindly welcomes refugees from Ukraine on the one hand, but shies away from taking a clear stand against the aggressor on the other? 

The words that served as a mental starting point for my text, written in the form of a questioning indictment, are a quotation attributed to Dante Alighieri: 

The hottest places in hell are reserved for those who maintain their neutrality in times of crisis. 

Melinda Nadj Abonji 

The complexity of Melinda Nadj Abonji’s prose text, which she wrote specially for this piece of music, and her profoundly human way of asking questions – have served as the basis for all the decisions I have taken as a composer. The text is spoken, with now strict, now freer rhythms, but always closely bound to the musical progressions. At three points, however, the music in a sense takes the upper hand – namely, in the sung settings of three poems by Ukrainian poet Iryna Shuvalova. They were written in the spring of 2022, shortly after the Russian invasion, in Nanjing (China), where the poet lived at that time. My attempt to reflect Melinda Nadj Abonji’s and Iryna Shuvalova’s powerful models in my music also influenced the criteria on which my own musical language is based. Limiting myself to the specialised idiom of “new music,” which still largely distinguishes itself from other kinds of music through the negation and avoidance of such elements as e.g. rhythmic flow, becomes even more difficult to justify in the face of a crisis. It therefore seemed all the more important to me to create and focus on the connecting aspect of music. 

Stefan Keller 

Here! 

My name?
Misha Andreevich Sologubov, from Odessa and Saint Petersburg. Been in Zurich, Switzerland, for a year now. Pardon? Yes, I was a teacher in Odesa, in love with the Russian language and literature. I became an expert in despair and paranoia, in false questions and in my half-starved cat whom I forgot to feed. Did I fight? Yes, I mean... no. Couldn’t force myself to shoot at my Russian brothers and friends. That’s right, I’ve been declared a traitor. You think I should have shot myself? I drew a circle with chalk in Odessa’s main square, lay down inside it, and put a gun to my head, so I did! Poor devil went all bonkers. The guardians of public order had me carried away. Where to? Where the nutters walk their rounds. Misha Andreevich Sologubov, says the doctor, you can go, your mind is quite sound. All you lack is a sense of what is really important. I fixed my bicycle chain and hung a curtain for the shower (a task I’d always been putting off), polished the furniture, then hid the key to the flat away, just in case. The cat? I took it along, of course. There were problems at the border, it wasn’t vaccinated. Should I vaccinate myself against rabies too? The border guards looked funny at me, as if the world could be any fun without a joke. And yes, the database was right that my cousin Katya Petrovna had already been living in Zurich for 5 years. That’s right, I live with her, sharing a room with my cat. Pardon? She’s a translator. Residence permit B, me? I have protection status S. It’s crazy, by God, how can one grant temporary protection status? I’m a student again now, I’m learning every day. I’ve spoken German since childhood, that’s an advantage, I admit. I work part-time for a hairdresser, put shampoo on the hair – those various hairstyles are really impressive! I sweep the cut hair away, whole hair piles – that’s what I say to my boss, and he laughs: That’s not how you say it in German. German is famous for word combinations, but not all words can be combined, he says, not if you want to sound really like a Swiss. He’s genuinely sorry, he says. About what? All this, that we can no longer live in our own country. He calls me Miguel because I remind him of an old school friend. Do I mind? No, Misha doesn’t mind variants of his name. Katya and I? We share the recent news. One day I must watch them, the next day she does... Why? These images exhaust us: dead houses, dead people, dead animals, dead transmission networks, Putin’s words, police batons, “special military operation,” “fight against fascism.” Who we are? A Ukrainian-Russian family, from Odesa and Saint Petersburg, so I tell my boss, who takes much interest in fact. Do I have relatives in both countries? Of course I do! And friends? Friends too! Yes, he says, it’s a shame, and he’s glad Switzerland is a safe haven. What?! I simulate a coughing fit so as not to burst out laughing, because it reminds me of Patriarch Kirill I of Moscow, who loves to go skiing in that safe haven. What? No, it’s not fake news, we have good sources: Katya, the cat, and I. We sit on the sofa after work, sharing grief, despair, rage and frenzy that have different names, such as the Russian oligarchs: Timchenko, Shamalov, Melnichenko, Kirill I; Ukrainian oligarchs: Yanukovych, Kolomoisky, Bogolyubov. Shvaytsariya, Switzerland – she is pious and discreet when she needs it. Sanctimonious, as Katya puts it, the bank of all scoundrels, Miguel replies when his boss asks him how he likes it in Switzerland. He raises his open scissors in the air: Then why are you here? Why not somewhere else? The boss looks kind, pleasant, and just, a bit like God – before his scissors start cutting again and the pile of hair grows around him. That’s a good question, Miguel says, completely justified. Perhaps it’s because we want to see the patriarch in his ski suit, well. Miguel can’t help laughing – he likes the joke. As for the boss, he clears his throat and sends me home a teeny weenie bit earlier. Miguel seemed a bit tense, why? he says to a customer. The boss seems polite though a teeny bit brutal. But Miguel already knows from Katya that this is a characteristic Swiss trait: a friendly brutality. And he has already learned that one should not –not always at least – say what he really feels. 

Melinda Nadj Abonji 

translation from German: Tomasz Zymer 

while you sleep
it's easier for me when you sleep
because it seems to me that while you sleep
you can't die

after all, asleep,
you're already so close
to the other world
where there's no shooting anymore

and also because while you sleep
I'm not asleep
and so in some sense
I'm standing guard

if not guarding you
(you're so far away)
then this day
this light

six hours ahead
I carry this morning sun like a bannery
that waves

over the land of the living
and the land of the dead

their border guards
have hung their rifles in the trees
and lie down lazily in the grass

these two countries
have not yet severed
diplomatic ties


earrings
getting ready to leave for work
I suddenly catch myself wondering
if I ought to wear
simpler earrings

if today
someone dies there
what will i do

a tearful
angry
helpless
fool

in these cheerful things
in these colorful things


the unspeakable
look look look
here here
it lies
the unspeakable

heavy
as a loved one's
dead body

long
as night when
they're bombing

take the unspeakable
under its blood-soaked arms
pull it
leave tracks

in the morning may
these red tracks
be seen
from afar

Iryna Shuvalova
translation from Ukrainian: Amelia Glaser and Yuliya Ilchuk