Festival & Award · 2026-06-29
Ukrainian radio monologue from the battlefield: an actor at the front
Shaped from a front-line soldier's stage monologue, the Ukrainian audio drama "Ненароджені для війни" (Unborn for War) has won the BBC Audio Drama Awards' prize for best European radio drama, and also reached the podium at Prix Europa.
The piece is based on a solo performance by Yevhen Avdyeyenko, a soldier of the Third Assault Brigade (an Honoured Artist of Ukraine who has served at the front since February 2022). Kyiv's Black Square (Chornyi Kvadrat) improv theatre staged the front-line stories as "military stand-up," in black humour; the full proceeds of the performances go to the Third Assault Brigade. It is directed by the theatre's artistic head, Anatoliy Neyolov.
The radio version was produced by Radio Kultura, a channel of Suspilne (Ukraine's public broadcaster), directed by Svitlana Svyrydko. It won the BBC Audio Drama Awards' best European radio drama (announced in March) and placed second at Prix Europa, with special mentions. It can be heard via the "Nasha Klasyka" (Our Classics) project, on the Megogo audio platform and on Radio Kultura.
It is not an isolated case: according to detector.media, several similar Ukrainian audio dramas have appeared during the war — Volodymyr Holosnyak's "Kolishni" (The Former Ones, 2024) and "Batko" (Father, about those who fled Mariupol), and Alina Sarnatska's "Plemia chekannia" (Tribe of Waiting), which echoes Homer's Odyssey. (Source: detector.media)
Sources: detector.media · Chytomo
This article was machine-composed under human supervision.