The book tells step by step how the European-style metropolitan city survived the occupation and freed itself from the invaders.
On Thursday, January 26, a unique chronological book about the battles in Irpen was presented in the walls of the Kyiv History Museum. It has a symbolic name – “Battle for Irpin”, its author is Ukrainian political technologist and writer Petro Shcherbyna.
According to the author, the book is the first collection of stories of participants in the defense of the outpost city, namely civilians, who, together with the “Atovites” and officials, took up arms and formed the territorial defense of Irpen.
“First of all, this book is an attempt to make the first chronology of the war events that took place in Irpen almost a year ago. I am not a historian and I do not pretend that this book is a definite line: that it was exactly like that and exactly those fought. This is just an attempt to set a certain historical discourse around those events,” the author said in his introduction.
In the middle – more than 200 pages of a step-by-step reproduction of those terrible days – from February 24 to March 28, when the city, which had already received the status of a hero, was liberated. Each story is illustrated with historical shots of the participants themselves and photographers who documented everything around them.
Heroes of recent Ukrainian history who fought for the capital city joined the presentation “Battle for Irpin”. In particular, head Irpen Oleksandr Markushynwho, having no military experience, led the territorial defense of Irpen since the beginning of the escalation of the war.
“For me personally, this is not just a book. This book contains the destinies of people and their devoted lives. For the first three days, Irpin was defended exclusively by territorial defense. Then the military, GUR, etc. joined. We didn’t run away from the city, we didn’t abandon the population of 100,000. We rescued and evacuated 95% of the residents: this is a huge job. I am sure that the history of the defense of Irpen will be described in history textbooks and military books,” said Markushyn.
The author notes that he will definitely make a second edition of this book-chronology, which will be supplemented with the life stories of the immediate heroes of those complex events.
It should be noted that the book was published at the expense of taxpayers and printed by order of the State Enterprise “Center for the Protection of the Information Space of Ukraine” based on the results of open art competitions of the Ministry of Culture and Information Policy of Ukraine for free distribution by the publishing house “SUMMIT-KNYGA” in an edition of 1,000 copies.
Dasha HRYSHINA
