Ukrainian paramedic and former POW Taira to publish first poetry collection

Ukrainian paramedic, veteran and former prisoner of war Yuliia "Taira" Paievska will publish her first poetry collection, Nazhyvo (Live), in late June, featuring works written after her release from captivity. The cover of the book was designed by Vladyslav Yerko.

Source: international literary corporation Meridian Czernowitz, which will publish the book

Details: "This is not just poetry. This is Mariupol in flames. This is captivity and torture. This is life on the edge and love despite everything. These texts didn’t ask for permission to exist. They are about survival against all odds," the corporation stated.

One of the first to read Paievska's poetry was Ukrainian writer Serhii Zhadan, who said: "These are poems in which, despite their obvious poetic self-sufficiency, the author’s biography, fate, and life path nevertheless emerge ominously and painfully. (…) This, it seems, is exactly how true poetry works – combining the universal with the personal, the general with the private, the hidden with the public."

Paievska herself shared that she had always written poetry, but now, after experiencing captivity, it has become her form of therapy.

Quote from Paievska: "It’s only now, after gaining the incredibly tough experience of war, captivity and torture, that I truly have something to say to the world. I didn’t plan to publish these poems. But some things come alive and exist as if on their own. The poems in Nazhyvo didn’t ask for permission to exist. They are not gentle. They are not sweet. They are about survival against all odds." 

Details: Pre-orders for the book are open until 27 May. The first presentations of the collection will take place at the Meridian Kharkiv and Meridian Zaporizhzhia Poetry Readings on 28-29 June.

Yuliia Paievska is a Ukrainian servicewoman, paramedic and volunteer. She was the commander of the Taira’s Angels volunteer ambulance corps and the evacuation department of the 61st Military Mobile Hospital from 2018 to 2020.

Since 2014, as a paramedic, she has taken part in the Revolution of Dignity [a series of protests in Ukraine in 2013-2014, sparked by the government's decision to halt a European Union association agreement – ed.] and the war in the eastern part of Ukraine. On 16 March 2022, Yuliia Paievska was captured as she was evacuating women and children from Mariupol towards Zaporizhzhia by bus.

In 2025, Ukrainska Pravda awarded Paievska a UP100. Power of Women award.

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