Guest-edited by Mark Lipovetsky & Kevin M. F. Platt

To those who have told post-Soviet russophone authors “you don’t belong,” they respond with writing that stakes a claim to life on their own terms, to dignity, and to a language that is as much theirs as anyone else’s.

Evgenia Isayeva’s banner reads: “My heart bleeds. / I sense that it is pointless to make an appeal to reason, so I appeal to your hearts. / Every day in Ukraine, women, children, and the elderly are dying. In bombing raids, from starvation, because they are trapped under debris or cannot get medicine. Their graves with hand-made crosses are visible in courtyards and children’s playgrounds. Thousands of wounded and mutilated; millions of lives ruined. If you can find any justification for this, then your heart is blind. / Find in yourself the strength to show mercy and compassion. / Don’t support the bloodshed!”