Ilya Kaminsky on Ukrainian, Russian, and the Language of War

In this excerpt from a 2017 essay, the poet Ilya Kaminsky reflects on Russian aggression against Ukraine and considers, among many things, one scholar’s refusal to speak Russian in his classroom as a form of protest. “I couldn’t stop thinking about Boris’s refusal to speak his own language as an act of protest against the military invasion. What does it mean for a poet to refuse to speak his own language?”