The Buried Book That Helped Ukraine’s Literary Revival

After Russian forces took control of his village in 2022, Volodymyr Vakulenko, a well-known Ukrainian author, sensed he might soon be arrested. So he buried his new handwritten manuscript in his backyard, under a cherry tree.

Best known in Ukraine for his cheerful and lyrical children’s books, Mr. Vakulenko was seething with anger at Moscow’s occupying forces. As his village lost cellphone service and news from the outside world dried up, he filled his new work with reflective, sometimes morose, descriptions of life under Russian control: people neglecting their flower beds, cooking on campfires as utilities failed, and even fraternizing with the Russians.

Soon enough, Russian soldiers indeed arrested Mr. Vakulenko, and his body later turned up in a mass grave.

Six months later, a fellow Ukrainian author, Viktoria Amelina, learned of the buried book, dug it up, wrote a foreword and sent it to a publisher. But she too was killed, in a missile strike on a pizza restaurant.

In May, in a final blow, Russian missiles blew up the printing plant in Kharkiv that had published the work. That strike killed seven employees, wounded 22 others and took out about a third of Ukraine’s overall book-printing capacity.

Despite the anguish that accompanied it, the book, “I Transform: A Diary of Occupation and Selected Poems,” ended up on shelves of Ukrainian bookstores and is on sale today. Rescued from the dirt, the book stands as a symbol of an enduring Ukrainian literary life even as Russian forces try to snuff it out.