Ulysses among drones: Kyiv stages Azov soldiers' wartime Odyssey

Ulysses shouts battlefield updates over a radio, then negotiates through the smoke with a camouflaged Polyphemus. An attack drone passes above the stage while Greek soldiers sleep in khaki sleeping bags. At Kyiv's Ivan Franko Theatre, Homer's Odyssey has become a story written and performed by members of Ukraine's Azov corps.

“We are not staging Homer,” Darya Legeyda, who plays Penelope, told Agence France-Presse. “Our Odyssey is about our heroes, even though we draw on archaic, mythical and deeply meaningful themes.” The production turns the poem's longing for Ithaca into the longing of displaced people for territories occupied by Russia. It also evokes the fear felt by families waiting for loved ones at the front, missing or held captive.

For the soldiers, the play's grief is personal. The pain of fallen comrades who have not been buried troubles the modern soldiers just as it troubles Odysseus. Danylo Mireshkin, who plays the soldier Ulysses, described reliving that experience repeatedly as the hardest part. He called it a sacred duty, while acknowledging that it cannot always be endured.

“

We are not staging Homer. Our Odyssey is about our heroes, even though we draw on archaic, mythical and deeply meaningful themes.

The production forms part of Azov's cultural initiatives, and its proceeds will support prisoners of war. It retells the unit's history with considerable artistic license, moving Odysseus from the Mediterranean to Meotida, the ancient name for the region whose modern capital is Mariupol on the Sea of Azov.

Mariupol is central to the play's symbolism. Azov forces resisted the city's siege for days during Russia's full-scale invasion before surrendering to the play's Russian Cyclops, hoping to return home like Odysseus. Four years later, many remain in prisons in Moscow. For many Ukrainians, the soldiers remain a national symbol of resistance. A banner calling for the liberation of Azov fighters hung above the theatre before the performance, which itself nearly fell victim to an air-raid alert in Kyiv.

“

It was the hardest part. Reliving that experience again and again. It is a sacred duty. But you cannot always do it.