"I was on a mission in the Izyum Region with a human rights organization that documents war crimes," says writer Victoria Amelina.

- We went to Volodymyr's father's house, and at that moment he remembered that Volodya had hidden his diary on the eve of the abduction." 

Volodymyr buried the diary in his garden.

And he gave an assignment to his father: to dig up the records when the village is liberated. 

"He took a shovel and we went to the garden to dig up this last message that the writer wanted to convey, knowing in fact that he was going to die," says Victoria. 

The writer's diary with a description of the horrors of the occupation lay in the ground for half a year.

Currently, it is stored in the Kharkiv Literary Museum.

This unique artifact will be able to tell future generations of Ukrainians what a terrible price was paid for our independence. 

"The last phrase he wrote at all: "Today, on the day of poetry, a crane's key greeted me in the sky.

And through their deaf ears it seemed to be heard: everything will be Ukraine.

I believe in victory," Volodymyr Tetyan Igoshina quotes. 

They decided to place Volodymyr Vakulenko's diary alongside the exhibits of the generation of brilliant Ukrainian writers who were treacherously destroyed by Moscow almost a century ago.

"The same Stalinism continues, only under new conditions," Valery Filimonikhin, a researcher of the history of political repressions in Ukraine, draws parallels.

- In some speeches of the leaders of Russia, there are methods and orders from the 1930s.

Just change the date." 

During the full-scale invasion, the museum workers had to save the memory of the "Shooted Revival".

They hastily evacuated evidence of the Kremlin's previous crimes from Kharkiv.

"On the morning of February 24, some of the employees were able to come to work to pack the exhibits.

All the exhibitions were dismantled," Tetyana Igoshina recalls. 

Just like the current aggression, the Bolshevik occupation, which happened a century ago, was not supported by almost anyone in Ukraine.

Artists who shaped public opinion were especially hostile to the invaders.

"Soviet authorities needed to put really talented people, geniuses at their service, and this is the most difficult thing.

Because, first of all, they defended the Ukrainian idea, says director Taras Tomenko, who researched the topic of "The Shot Revival". 

In order to conquer the freedom-loving people, Moscow invented an insidious technology - the so-called Ukrainization policy.

Ukrainians who were ideological communists and leaders of Soviet policy were appointed to all key positions of power.

For the first time in a long time, the Ukrainian language was not banned.

The Soviet authorities even supported Ukrainian avant-garde art.

And freedom of expression gave rise to one of the most talented generations of artists in our history.

"They were cool not only for their time.

The literature of the 1920s is undoubtedly world-class literature," Tetyana Igoshina is convinced. 

"Writers had an extremely large audience.

The editions that Ostap Vyshna had were millions of editions, says Taras Tomenko.

"These are people whose word was worth more than gold." 

But for Moscow, the Ukrainian revival was only a way to identify the most talented patriots - in order to later destroy them all.

After all, Stalin decided the future fate of Ukraine a long time ago... 

"He wanted to implement his policy of merging nations," Valery Filimonikhin testifies.

- That is, complete Russification of Ukrainians.

This is a terrible totalitarian regime that does not recognize any laws.

Neither human, nor divine, nor judicial, nothing." 

One of the leaders of the revival, the brilliant Mykola Khvylovy, was the first to understand the Moscow plan.

When he saw with his own eyes the horrors of the Holodomor of 1932-33 - the genocide of Ukrainians organized by the Stalinist regime.

"That's why Mykola Khvylovy shot himself.

He shot himself as soon as he realized what was happening," writer Victoria Amelina says about the Khvylovoi tragedy. 

"There was this shot that no one expected.

The closest friends were gathered.

Everyone thought that he was going to read his new novel, director Taras Tomenko tells about the day of his suicide.

- After seeing the scale of the Holodomor, he wanted to shout out to the world.

People were not released from Kharkiv, there was no Internet, no television, no one talked about it.

The newspapers did not write about it." 

After Khvylovy's death, other artists also saw the true face of Moscow.

But it was already too late: the Ukrainian cultural revival was drowned in the waves of daily arrests.

Eighty percent of Ukrainian artists were killed during the 1930s.

Almost the entire generation of our revival.

"Together with the repression of these writers, we lost their works.

They were withdrawn from libraries, from sales.

It was dangerous to keep them even in private book collections, - Tetyana Igoshina cites merciless facts.

"In addition, we have lost what these writers could have written if they had stayed alive." 

Only artists who betrayed their own ideals were able to survive.

They had to turn into mankurts, who passionately praised the serial killers of their people. 

"For example, Tychyna - he was not shot, but he was morally broken.

And he was forced to write "The Party Leads" and all the 9 volumes he wrote after that, Taras Tomenko believes.

"But this was not the same writer, not the same Tychyna.

And living with this tragedy was probably more difficult than simply shooting him." 

Many geniuses of the "Shooted Revival" were destroyed in Solovki.

Until the end of the 90s, even relatives did not know where to look for their graves.

Until the crime scene was revealed by the Russian historian Yuriy Dmitriev.

"In 1997, Yuriy Dmitriev actually uncovered a mass burial in the Sandarmok tract in Karelia.

In the period from October 27 to November 4, 1937, the first stage, which consisted of 1,111 people - mostly representatives of the Ukrainian literary, scientific, and artistic elite - was shot, Valery Filimonikhin cites the terrible facts.

- In 2016, one criminal case was opened against Dmitriev, then a new criminal case, which ended with a 13-year prison term for him.

That's what it means to expose the historical truth in modern Russia." 

In 2022, modern writer Volodymyr Vakulenko added to the list of artists executed by Moscow.

However, this time the enemy failed to break us.

"The thought that runs through all of Volodymyr's records is the absence of any panic, fear.

He is not surprised by the events that are happening," says Tetyana Igoshina, an employee of the Kharkiv LitMuseum.

It seems that we have learned the bitter lesson of the past - only under the Ukrainian flag is a real Ukrainian revival possible.

Not shot.

Our revival is happening right now - while each of us chooses the future victory in our own way.