Donbas

Text of the day: “When they caught me I thought, maybe this is it. But the Cossacks used to say, ‘a good dying is when you don’t run’. You meet it head on. They believed if you die like that, the land takes you in — you don’t vanish, you become part of it: soil, wind, river. When the horses gallop, you’re in the sound of their hooves. The steppe remembers the good ones, they feed what comes next. That’s the good death.” (Sashko in Olga Braga’s Donbas)

Cossacks death Donbas Eastern Europe landscape mysticism nomads Olga Braga sacrifice Theatre 503 Theatre 503 International Playwriting Award Ukraine war