Umělec války – Butčenko Maxim (2016)

The book The Artist of War is a partially autobiographical story of contemporary Ukraine in 2014, centered around two brothers, one of whom fights for the Donbas separatists organized by pro-Russian forces, while the other lives in Europe and supports Ukraine's independence and sovereignty. The story begins in the aftermath of Euromaidan, when the regime of former president Viktor Yanukovych fell, and ends with the heavy fighting in eastern Ukraine. In each chapter, one can observe how Russian propaganda manipulates people, why the population that considered themselves Ukrainians suddenly changed their minds. It illustrates how the mechanisms of persuasion and media manipulation currently function. This is all seen through the life stories of the residents of Donbas, accompanied by details of their everyday lives and complicated mentality. "The airlessly depressing everyday lives of the miners from Luhansk open the book and form its main backdrop until the very end. Throughout, the reader is left with a sense of uncertainty about what is more terrifying for the locals – ordinary life or war. This makes the book even more interesting; one begins to evaluate hundreds of shades of black as types of bitter chocolate," reads one review of the book. The book seeks to answer an important...