The book of reports by Cândida Pinto and David Araújo, which has been on sale since last week, was not promoted with the usual launch ceremony. For the noble reason that the duo returned to the country that is the subject of the work and where it was dragged into the outbreak of the Russian invasion a year ago.
In 27 chapters, RTP reporters portray the invaded country and its people in a series of reports conducted between February and May 2022, which took them from Kiev to cities that would later be decimated and occupied by Russian forces, such as Mariupol. and Severodonetsk, others visited shortly after the expulsion of the invaders, such as Bucha, Irpin, Hostomel and Borodyanka, others where the Russian tricolor was not flown, such as Kharkiv, Kramatorsk or Zaporizhia, or even Bakhmut, which continues to resist the attacks of mercenaries and the Russian army.
Without ever losing the journalistic language or falling into sentimentality, there’s room to explore some behind-the-scenes themes that wouldn’t otherwise fit the format of a television newsreel. There is a chapter devoted to it fixers (the handyman who arranges transportation, translation and everything else) and in which the first, Ilya, is said to have left on the 24th to join the army; another about hotels, or rather about the people they give life to; or the latter, devoted to the messages in the form of photographs that the image reporter sent to his teenage daughter.
The conversation with DN takes place over the phone, during their lunch in Kiev, but the record is lost due to lack of memory in the recorder. It is a laughable setback compared to the difficulties and trials that the protagonists of Ukraine Insubmissa go through on a daily basis, which the authors describe through a sober and professional record as is their trademark, and added by new layers that a book allows, of photographs from one to the text of the other.
The recorder’s lack of memory also contrasts with the lively style of the book, whose protagonists and events are described in great detail and integrated into context. “I wrote when I was still hot,” says Cândida Pinto.
The seasoned journalist – who makes her debut here in a reportage book after reading the story of Snu Abecassis in Snu and private life with Sá Carneiro – explains to those who are not familiar that the texts of the reports released have been completely rewritten, since the language is different. David Araújo, who lavishly illustrates Ukraine Insubmissa, also distinguishes the language and time of photography in relation to television reporting, and of course that in the background. After all, the image reporter and photographer, co-author of Stories Behind History: Venezuelais sent by the TV station.
Challenged to choose one of the Ukrainians they encountered who best embodies the spirit that gives the book its title, Cândida Pinto prefers to emphasize the collective. David Araújo ends up choosing the betrothed couple chosen for the cover of the book. Despite serving in the Territorial Defense Force, the reservists exchanged their allegiance not for a cleric but for a commander, proof that life goes on with the necessary adjustments – unlike the horrors we witnessed in Bucha or Borodyanka . “Love is being together in peacetime but also during war. When we go to war together, there couldn’t be a bigger problem,” the bride, Anastasia Moshim, told reporters.
A year later, Cândida Pinto notes that the government’s efforts to fight corruption – a central point for starting negotiations on accession to the European Union, among other things – are not just a flash in the eye and are reflected in everyday life come. to live. For David Araújo, the determination of the Ukrainians was not broken, but he notes that the citizens do not want to go through the same thing again.
Nonsubmissive Ukraine
Candida Pinto and David Araujo
Don Quixote
320 pages
Source: DN
