Earth

Then shall the dust return to the earth as it was:
and the spirit shall return unto God who gave it.
Ecclesiastes 12:7–14

What is the earth to each of us?

Birth. First steps. A mother’s touch. Shelter. Love. The unravelling of new worlds. The rooting of kin. And then – inevitably, by the ancient rhythm of human history – there comes one who seeks to seize the earth. And with it, life, and the meaning that life contains…

Earth is passion. It is the ground for which wars are waged. And yet, it is also that which sustains the human race, that which defines our very being. Without our land, we are nothing – for we are, in essence, the ancestral soil from which we come.

Bound by a shared linguistic seed – zemlia in Ukrainian, žẽmė in Lithuanian – this powerful word has inspired the meeting of two theatrical projects. Ukrainian director Ivan Uryvskyi’s “Žẽmė”, staged at the dawn of Russia’s full-scale invasion at the National Kaunas Drama Theatre, now finds its counterpart and spiritual continuation in the homeland premiere of “Earth” at the Lesya Ukrainka National Academic Drama Theatre. It is a dialogue – between nations, between cultures – united by a common yearning for freedom.

Olha Kobylianska, that luminous icon of Ukrainian modernism, deliberately chose as the title of her most significant work a word both compact and boundless – EARTH – as though foreseeing the tragedy of the First World War.

This story could belong to any land, to any people, for human nature has changed little since time began. We, who dwell in the third millennium, carry within us the seeds of both goodness and evil. What they shall grow into, however, depends upon the choices we make.

“…The 25-year-old son of the peasant Kostiantyn Zhyzhyian from the village of Dymka, in the Siret district, was conscripted into military service in 1891, joining the 41st Infantry Regiment. After two years of exemplary service, he was discharged this autumn, to the great joy of his ageing father. However, the father’s joy was short-lived: on the 12th of this month, the father travelled to Chernivtsi, and in his absence, someone shot and killed his son at home,” these terse lines from the crime column of the “Bukovyna” newspaper dated 23 November 1894, record an incident that occurred in a village well known and dear to Kobylianska, involving a family with whom she was personally acquainted. A man was murdered – a son to both mother and father – and soon the village was gripped by a grim rumour that the killer was none other than his own brother…

Ivan Uryvskyi: “The tale of a single family becomes a microcosm of the universe. Familial strife, betrayal, love – these are eternal themes, as old as humanity itself. The word “earth” conceals a multitude of meanings, and this play offers but one interpretation among many.”