1980–2022
Yurii Ruf
Poet, founder of Dukh Natsii
A poet and scientist from Lviv (real name Yurii Dadak), founder of the literary and educational project Dukh Natsii (“Spirit of the Nation”) and long-time host of the Kholodnyi Yar festival. On 24 February 2022 he volunteered for the 24th Brigade; he was killed in Luhansk Oblast on 1 April 2022.
Key accomplishments
- Poetry collections Crimson Lyrics (2012), Time of Revolution (2014), At the Turn of Epochs (2015, dedicated to the soldiers of the Russo-Ukrainian war) and Vanilla or Steel?! (2021)
- Founded the NGO “Literary and Educational Project Dukh Natsii” (2015)
- For many years the regular host of the Kholodnyi Yar festival
- Candidate of Technical Sciences (2008) and associate professor in the sawmilling technology department of the Ukrainian National Forestry University
- Order for Courage, 3rd class (posthumously, decree No. 334/2022 of 14 May 2022)
Who he was
Yurii Dadak was born in 1980 in Berezhany, Ternopil Oblast, into a scientist’s family, and grew up in Lviv. He finished Lviv Lyceum No. 93 in 1997 and in 2002 graduated from the Ukrainian National Forestry University in woodworking technology. In 2008 he defended a Candidate of Sciences dissertation on capturing dust in wood processing and became an associate professor in the department of sawmilling, joinery and wooden building products.
His story
He began writing poetry at 14, and in 2011, while preparing his first collection, Crimson Lyrics (Bahriana liryka), he took the pen name Yurii Ruf. Then came the collections Time of Revolution (2014) and At the Turn of Epochs (2015), which is dedicated to the soldiers of the Russo-Ukrainian war and names military units and battles, the children’s book The Storyteller (Kazkovyk, 2018) and Vanilla or Steel?! (2021). Ruf criticized poetry that, in his view, portrayed Ukrainians only as victims, and saw his own patriotic, military-themed poetry as an answer to it. In 2015 he founded the NGO “Literary and Educational Project Dukh Natsii”, which became popular in nationalist circles, and for many years he hosted the Kholodnyi Yar festival.
On 24 February 2022 Ruf volunteered for the 24th King Danylo Separate Mechanized Brigade and fought his first battle as early as 3 March; his unit fought around Popasna in Luhansk Oblast. He was killed by enemy mortar fire on 1 April 2022. He was buried at Lychakiv Cemetery in Lviv and posthumously awarded the Order for Courage, 3rd class.
Why it matters today
Ruf combined science, poetry and service: an engineer and researcher, he wrote poems to raise fighting spirit, and when the full-scale invasion began he went to the front himself. Streets in Lviv, Khmelnytskyi and other cities bear his name, and in 2024 a mural in his honor was unveiled in Lviv.
