How did you start writing scripts for nativity plays?
I studied at the Kyiv-Mohyla Academy. There, we founded a Catholic student society called Obnova. In 2012, we decided to stage a nativity play and needed to write a script. Together with my friend Anna Kholodnytska, we thought through the plot, and I wrote the text. Then, as now, most of my nativity scenes were written in verse form, with only larger Christmas plays in prose. It was a puppet nativity play. I wrote the script, we sewed a large screen, and bought puppets worn on the hands. At the time, we did not realise that this format was a classic of Ukrainian nativity tradition. In their day, students of the Kyiv-Mohyla Collegium also went from place to place with a two-tiered structure and puppets. The upper tier featured saints and the Virgin Mary, while the lower tier was reserved for secular characters.
These were the earliest nativity scenes in Ukraine. Over time, they evolved into street theatre. Ukrainian nativity scenes have always had one defining feature: they reflected the realities of everyday life — in other words, the current socio-political situation. In his research on the subject, Ukrainian nativity scholar Ivan Franko cites excerpts from plays of various periods. Alongside the Holy Family and the three kings, one can find representatives of professions that existed in Ukraine at the time, as well as soldiers — particularly foreign soldiers during periods of occupation. Beyond the story of Christ’s birth, the scripts addressed issues that deeply concerned people, such as social inequality, poverty and occupation.
Obviously, there are key characters without whom it is difficult to imagine a nativity scene: the Holy Family, the kings, the shepherds. But can some of them be changed?
For instance, in modern nativity scenes, the characters of Sura and Moshka, who were once common, are now largely absent.
Is this due to political correctness?
Not only because of that, but also because these characters have become outdated. In the past, Moshka was based on a local innkeeper — a cunning, enterprising Jew who earned money selling alcohol — and was portrayed negatively. Today, Jews do not evoke such associations among Ukrainians. On the contrary, they are citizens of our country, just like ethnic Ukrainians and representatives of other national minorities, and they make a positive contribution to the development and defence of the state. After all, the President of Ukraine is of Jewish origin, and this does not trouble society in the slightest.
You say that nativity scenes should reflect reality. It is therefore only natural that modern texts focus on war.
I wrote my first nativity scene about the war in 2015, after part of Donbas had already been occupied. In the plot of that production, God instructs the angels to announce the birth of Christ to the people, but sends them not to Bethlehem, but to Donbas, Ukraine. The angels are afraid, having heard that there is a war there, yet they still dare to fly to the Donetsk Region. There, they are met by Ukrainian soldiers, who at first do not recognise them as angels and instead suspect that they are saboteurs who have “lost their way”. The angels tell the Ukrainian defenders that they have come because it is there — in a trench in the Donetsk Region, in a Christmas stable — that Christ is being born. The soldiers then tell both the angels and the audience how they celebrate Christmas in the trenches, and how deeply they miss their families waiting for them at home. The embodiment of evil in the nativity play is, naturally, the modern Herod and his devils — Vladimir Putin and Russian propagandists.
Since 2022, when my husband began serving as a volunteer doctor, all my nativity scenes have been about the war. They cannot be otherwise today. The Church teaches that God is born to us every year, each time within new realities. Ukrainians, therefore, experience Christmas within these changing socio-political circumstances.
Your well-known nativity scene, which was performed across Europe, is dedicated to the Holodomor…
In 2023, marking the 90th anniversary of the Holodomor, I wrote a nativity scene entitled Christmas with Gareth Jones, which tells the story of Christmas during that tragedy. Gareth Jones was a renowned British journalist who was the first to inform the world about the Holodomor in Ukraine. He was killed in 1935. According to the plot, God sends him, together with the Christmas angels, to Ukraine in 2023. Jones says to God: “I do not know why we are going there. I was there in 1933. Millions of people died. I do not think anyone is left alive.” Nevertheless, he takes a bag of bread and, together with the angels, descends to Ukraine at Christmas.
What does he see there? Ukrainians have not only survived — they are sowing, reaping and harvesting, and they are helping other countries where there is no war, yet people are starving. He realises that over these 90 years Ukrainians have come a long way, understanding that by defending themselves, even in wartime, they are able to save both themselves and others.
I would like to emphasise that during the Holodomor there was no war in Ukraine, yet several million people died. Thus, we are not merely recounting the tragic story of the Holodomor — a grave crime against Ukrainians — but also telling a story of how Ukrainians are overcoming this trauma and moving forward, helping others. Gareth Jones expresses this in the play:
It is truly astonishing
What you have done, people.
I thought that in this country
There would be nothing left,
No one left,
Because almost everyone had been exhausted.
And then you died,
And returned to life again and again.
Because you rose again, people,
I remember Christmas.
But there was also resurrection —
Now I know this for certain.
This nativity play was originally written in Ukrainian. We staged it in Vienna in English, translated by American-Austrian writer Mark Klenk and artist Olha Zhminko, and there is also a Spanish version, translated by journalist Alina Mosendz. The Spanish adaptation was created with Latin American audiences in mind, particularly countries to which Ukraine has been supplying grain for years. This play is not only a story about the birth of Christ — although that remains its central theme — but also a way to tell the world about our history, culture and the war in Ukraine. It serves as a tool of cultural diplomacy. Together with partners and representatives of Vienna-based civil society organisations, we staged this nativity scene in 2023 at the OSCE headquarters for an audience of around 150 diplomats from 17 countries.
Is this the script that was put up for auction for charity?
Yes. I joined the Mariupol Drama Theatre’s Theatre Ramstein project — a platform that brings together the global theatre community in support of Ukraine — which has relocated to Transcarpathia, and put this nativity play up for auction.
Has it ever happened that a play wasn’t staged for some reason?
There have been several such cases. One script tells the story of Christmas in Odesa at the beginning of the full-scale invasion. In it, the Christmas kings arrive in the city and see boats sailing among sea mines, carrying bread from Odesa. Before reaching the stable, they stop to buy gifts at the famous Privoz market, which has since suffered serious damage. Another nativity play that has not yet been staged is, in essence, a large-scale Christmas drama entitled Fellner and Helmer Return. The original text was written in Ukrainian and translated into German by the well-known translator Hanna Hnedkova, and into English by the aforementioned Mark Klenk. Last year, we began preparations to stage it in Vienna, but at the final stage the process was halted when the Roman Catholic parish where the performance was planned decided not to proceed, as the script addresses not only Christmas but also the war in Ukraine.
The play is primarily aimed at European audiences. Its protagonists are two Austrian architects, Ferdinand Fellner and Hermann Helmer, who were among the most prominent architects in Europe a century ago. Their Viennese firm designed around 200 buildings across Europe, including approximately 40 theatres. Among them are the Odesa Opera House and the Chernivtsi Theatre, as well as theatres in Berlin, Prague and several in Vienna. They also designed the centre of Kamyanets-Podilskyy, the George Hotel in Lviv and many other buildings in Ukraine. In other words, Ukrainian architecture is an integral part of the broader European architectural heritage created by these masters. In my nativity play, God sends Fellner and Helmer to Ukraine on Christmas Day to take part in its reconstruction. I was inspired to write this story by the destruction of the Mariupol Drama Theatre, under the ruins of which around a thousand people lost their lives, and I felt compelled to tell the world about it.
Throughout the play, the architects — who represent Europeans within the nativity scene — argue about whether they should go to Ukraine, how much they should help, and what the consequences might be. In the end, however, they exclaim: “They want to destroy our Odesa Opera House!” One can easily imagine how this sounds to European audiences: “our” Odesa Opera House — and it truly is theirs, because they built it. The Christmas scene in the play unfolds amid the ruins of the Mariupol Drama Theatre, and the Virgin Mary sings the poignant Stabat Mater instead of a lullaby. I hope this nativity play will be staged next year. If any Ukrainian theatre wishes to produce it, I am open to cooperation.
I remember you wrote about Dmytro Shapovalov, the ‘boy with the apple’, who was released from captivity. He was a character in your Christmas play. And soon afterwards it became known that he had died…
This nativity play is dedicated to the composer Mykola Leontovych and is entitled The Swallow Has Flown In. According to the plot, a hundred years after his death, the composer travels through modern Ukraine and sees how his Shchedryk is sung everywhere and how widely known it has become around the world. The Holy Family also journeys through Ukraine, recounting their time in the occupied territories, where people secretly sing Ukrainian carols behind closed windows. This is one of my favourite nativity scenes.
In this nativity play, one king is a freed prisoner of war, the second is a man who managed to escape from the occupied territory, and the third is the son of a fallen Ukrainian defender. Naturally, they bring gifts. The son of the deceased brings the newborn Jesus his father’s sheepskin coat to keep Him warm. The man from the occupied territory brings a Ukrainian flag hidden in a jar. And the man released from captivity brings an apple — the most precious thing to him, something he had dreamed of for years while in captivity. Later, I learned that he had died. It was unbearably painful.
Nativity scenes must clearly reflect our reality. But does such pain not clash with the joy of Christmas?
Christmas is probably the most beloved holiday for Christians. It would seem that sadness has no place where there is such great joy. I have a nativity scene in which the birth of Jesus is announced by three Ukrainian defenders who died just before Christmas. They say that they did not have time to celebrate, even though they wanted to very much, but they are happy to descend from heaven on this day because they miss Ukraine.
We saw, people,
The heavenly mansions,
But we want to return
To the wonderful meadows,
Steppes and fields,
The Crimean mountains
And the Carpathians —
We will mourn this
For eternity.
These men are in paradise, in a bright and beautiful place where there is everything a person could desire. Yet they long to set foot on their native land at least once more.
We understand that Christmas is celebrated by the wives and mothers of fallen Ukrainian soldiers, as well as by soldiers in the trenches. That is why there is always a note of sadness in Christmas joy. At the festive table, according to tradition, Ukrainians leave a place for those who are not with us. We pray for the living, the fallen, the dead and the missing. They are all with us at Christmas, and they will remain with us forever.
I also have a nativity scene created to thank Ukrainian defenders. The script is very short — just eight minutes — because I wrote it specifically for military hospitals. My friend Viktoriya Hayduk organised a visit with this nativity scene to the Kyiv Military Hospital, where wounded soldiers are being treated. We wanted to bring joy to those thanks to whom Ukraine still stands, lives and celebrates Christmas.
Your husband is also on the front line. I suppose there is an element of your personal story in your work.
My husband, Oleksandr Homenyuk, is a military orthopaedic surgeon and traumatologist. In the early days of the invasion, he volunteered to go to the front line. He served near Avdiyivka during the most intense period, from March 2022 to February 2024, when the withdrawal from Avdiyivka took place. He later published a book — a military doctor’s diary — entitled Fragments from Avdiyivka. Instead of Fairy Tales for My Son. He continues to save the lives of the wounded on the front line. I do not have a separate nativity play dedicated to military medics, but yes, the theme of war is deeply personal for me.
Incidentally, we met thanks to a nativity play. In 2015, in the first nativity play I wrote about the war, he played one of three Ukrainian soldiers serving in Donbas. They sang Sad Holy Evening — already with a modern version of the lyrics written by me — which includes the lines: “Dad is in Donbas, he does not eat dinner there, he defends his native land in the trenches, in the open fields.” Time passed, and my husband went to Donetsk Region to defend Ukraine, where he and his comrades sang this very carol.
Do you manage to be together for Christmas?
Yes, we do. I remember when he came home for Christmas in December 2022. We celebrated wearing embroidered shirts. I wore a shirt that his grandmother had embroidered in a concentration camp in Norilsk. I remember thinking how many years had passed, how many great tragedies Ukrainians had endured — including my family and my husband’s family, our grandfathers and grandmothers. And now their grandchildren are at war. The enemy is the same. And once again, we sing Sad Holy Evening…
What are your expectations for Christmas this year? Perhaps you have a vision of a joyful, triumphant nativity scene?
For me, every nativity scene ends with our victory. Like this one, for example:
The star in the east, bright and clear,
In the world called paradise,
Everything is beautiful in that paradise.
Not Father Frost, but St Nicholas,
The Ukrainian Church,
The native language,
Christmas in December, carols.
In that paradise, there is only one question:
Does the star shine over Bakhmut?
And how does Kherson celebrate now —
Liman, Izyum and Soledar?
No stargazer has ever seen
Such a Christmas in Ukraine.
There has never been such a Christmas,
Although the war has lasted ten years,
Only now have we realised
That we have only one Ukraine.
And all the shepherds are heroes
In that trench on Christmas Day.
More weapons as gifts —
Give us more, so that there will be enough,
Because Mariupol is still waiting,
And Simferopol is not yet ours.
But every Ukrainian knows
That their time will come too.
In Donetsk, they will sing Shchedryk,
Our nativity scene will come to Luhansk.
They are waiting for us, waiting,
Because this is our Ukrainian steppe.
Ukrainian winds blow there,
Ukrainian grass rustles,
Birds sing the Ukrainian anthem.
And there will be people. Give us a moment
In that paradise of freedom —
The Ukrainian people will spread their wings.
Christmas will come, and there will be joy.
And there will be real joy here.
I have no other wishes for Christmas except that everyone will be alive, that our defenders will return home, and that we will win.
