Keeping a Diary at the End of the World
When Russia invaded Ukraine, the writer and photographer Yevgenia Belorusets began to journal about her experience living in Kyiv. The resulting account, which she published online in real time, provides insight into the conflict that more straightforward news coverage has failed to capture. It is, as she put it in an interview with my colleague Gal Beckerman, “a very complex picture of reality at a moment when war has turned everything incredibly awful.”
Belorusets’s urge to document and reflect when catastrophe strikes is not unique. Anne Frank’s is perhaps the most famous example. More recently, , as individuals grappled with the awareness that they were living through history. Some hoped to supplement the eventual archive, while others simply desired an outlet for their anxiety. Regardless of intent, the resulting works are strange, quotidian reports shot through with deep fears about the surrounding tragedies. Reading the series, which features fictionalized diaries from young girls living through significant moments in American history, : It models how to live in moments when global anxieties butt up against mundane concerns.
