Ukrainian Marine in Russian Captivity Retold All Seven Harry Potter Books to Cellmates. He Knew the Books by Heart
1495 days in Russian captivity — without contact with relatives, without understanding what was happening in Ukraine. In the darkness, where it seemed nothing human remained, a children's fairy tale, full of deep philosophical meanings, helped Oleksandr Ivanov survive and preserve his inner strength, writes BBC Ukraine.
32-year-old Oleksandr is a huge fan of "Harry Potter". He had read J.K. Rowling's cult fantasy books so many times that he practically knew them by heart. And in captivity, while passing the endless time, when he had already thought through all his thoughts, he began to retell the novel to his cellmates — page by page, chapter by chapter — in a whisper, so that the guards wouldn't hear.
“I always stopped at the most interesting part, like in TV series,” Oleksandr says. “And as soon as the opportunity arose again, the guys asked me to continue the story.”
Thus, Oleksandr inadvertently repeated what many famous prisoners had done in their time. Vasyl Stus read his poems to cellmates in camps when he was forbidden to write, Italian writer Primo Levi retold Dante's "Divine Comedy" to other prisoners in Auschwitz, and the hero of Ivan Bahriany's novel "The Garden of Gethsemane" recounted "Madame Bovary" in his cell.
BBC News Ukraine spoke with Oleksandr a few days after his release. He returned to Ukraine during the last prisoner exchange between Ukraine and Russia on May 15. Along with him, 205 Ukrainian servicemen returned home.
Currently, the serviceman is undergoing rehabilitation and awaiting a long-anticipated reunion with his wife Nelly and eight-year-old son Demid.
Mariupol
Oleksandr was born in Kyiv. Already in school, he decided to link his future career with military affairs — he first graduated from the Kyiv Military Lyceum, and then from the Military Institute of Kyiv National University. After graduation, he joined the 501st Marine Corps Battalion. Thanks to his knowledge of English, he served for half a year in the Ukrainian contingent in Kosovo, and then received the position of head of the financial service of the 36th Marine Brigade in Mykolaiv, holding the rank of major.
In Mykolaiv, he met his future wife Nelly — also a servicewoman and just as fervent a "Harry Potter" fan as he was.
Oleksandr and Nelly met the beginning of the full-scale war 600 km apart. He was on rotation in Mariupol, while she was at home in Mykolaiv with their three-year-old son.
Oleksandr first recalls the smell of Mariupol at that time — "the air permeated with death." He remembers the gray days in the bunker at the Illich Plant, where no sun reached, black bags with people in the corridors, and the tally of dead, wounded, and missing, as well as desperate attempts to break through.
At dawn on April 12, 2022, he called his wife for the last time and told her they had decided to surrender.
“He said: 'This will be our last connection with you, because we have such a choice,'” Nelly recounts. A few days later, the last SMS message came from his number. He wrote that he was alive, that he was in Olenivka in the "DPR" in captivity, and that she should no longer write to that number.
Neither Oleksandr nor Nelly could then imagine that they would see each other again only after four long years of uncertainty. The worst thing about captivity is not physical abuse, but how they try to break you morally, Oleksandr recounts.
“Physically, what? You went out for a check, 5-10 minutes, and came back. But the psychological aspect continued not only during the checks,” says the serviceman.
The Russians constantly said that Ukraine as a state no longer existed, that its territory was constantly being shelled and people were dying there. They also did not deliver letters. Oleksandr recalls how once a guard was ordered to distribute letters to prisoners, and he defiantly started burning them.
In four years, Oleksandr only managed to send his wife one voice message — he was allowed to dictate three sentences, and the next day he received an equally short reply from her. She said they celebrated their son's birthday, went to the cinema, and visited a children's room.
“I then understood that if children in Mykolaiv (not far from the front) go to the cinema, it means that everything is fine in Ukraine,” Oleksandr says.
He spent three years of his captivity in a penal colony in Mordovia. There was a small cell for eight people, where they had to stand for most of the time. It contained a toilet and a sink with cold water, a small bar of soap, a tube of toothpaste, and a roll of toilet paper for everyone for a week.
Once every three to four days, there was a walk of two to five minutes. Hot meals were provided three times a day, but their quality and quantity were such that Oleksandr lost 30 kg during his captivity.
In the last year, things became a little easier; there were almost no checks, during which prisoners were usually abused, and they even started receiving letters from loved ones. Meanwhile, Nelly in Ukraine was collecting information about her husband bit by bit.
Mostly, everything she knew about Oleksandr, his movements, and his physical condition was told by servicemen who were exchanged. In captivity, they memorized the phone numbers of their comrades' wives and called them after their release.
“And so a picture formed for me: aha, he was here, then he was in this place, then in this one. That's how I learned about his health, about his thoughts,” says Nelly.
And then other news began to emerge. Rumors reached Nelly that Oleksandr was retelling "Harry Potter" from memory in captivity.
“I wasn't surprised,” she smiles. “But I was happy. If he's retelling 'Harry Potter' there, if he's in such a mood, then things aren't so bad.”
“Prisoners of Azkaban”
Oleksandr became acquainted with Rowling's series of novels about the boy wizard quite unexpectedly.
In 2005, when he was in the sixth grade, he decided to participate in the children's TV game "The Smartest," which was then hosted by Russian TV presenter Tina Kandelaki. One of the preparation topics was two fantasy worlds — "The Lord of the Rings" and "Harry Potter." Oleksandr chose the latter.
He passed the selection from 7,000 candidates but was eliminated in the first round of the game, yet the Harry Potter saga captivated him forever.
He eagerly awaited the release of each subsequent part of the novel, and devoured the fifth book, "Order of the Phoenix," in literally one day.
Later, reading "Harry Potter" shortened his long journey from the Left Bank, where he lived in Kyiv, to the university in the Holosiivskyi district.
“In the morning, the road to one end of the city, in the evening — back; I needed to pass the time somehow, and I kept reading and rereading 'Harry Potter,' and that's how I ended up knowing it by heart.”
He immediately recites in the voice of a master storyteller: “Harry, there is a room in the Department of Mysteries that is always kept locked. It contains a power, simultaneously very terrible and very pure. This power can destroy your world. It can give you a strength that no one will ever give you in life. The name of this power is love.”
This is an excerpt from the fifth part of the novel, when Dumbledore tells Harry about his power, Oleksandr explains. He adds that he might not retell the description of the Whomping Willow in detail, but most of the dialogues — completely.
But how did the idea of telling this story in captivity come to him?
Oleksandr recalls that one of the psychological pressure tactics in captivity was the prohibition to talk to each other.
Prisoners spent almost all the time from wake-up to lights-out standing silently in their cells. To the toilet — on command, three meals — and that's it; then you stand and remain silent again. And a radio continuously plays propaganda broadcasts about the history of Russia.
“Yes, you're constantly in your thoughts,” says the serviceman. “First there were some dreams about the future, then for a month and a half you start making some plans for yourself, then for a month or two you recall all moments of your life… But then a moment comes when you simply have nothing left to think about.”
So one day, Oleksandr shared with his comrades that he was a Harry Potter fan, and they asked him to tell them what the book was about.
“And I said: I can't leave anything out. We're sitting here anyway, so I'll tell you everything,” he recalls.
Nelly also recounted an incredible story of how her husband retold the books about the boy wizard one after another in captivity, and how it helped him and other Ukrainian prisoners of war to hold on.
“We believe that 'happiness can be found even in the darkest of times, if one only remembers to turn on the light,'” she wrote by hand in English, adding: “Alex became such a light for many others.”
To draw attention to this story, in February, TSN journalists filmed a report about Nelly writing a letter to British writer J.K. Rowling.
J.K. Rowling did not respond, but the miracle Oleksandr and Nelly had hoped for still happened.
“A desperate person first knocks on open doors, then on closed ones, and if there's no answer there either, they start knocking on imaginary, fantastical doors,” Oleksandr says. “I don't rule out that those magical doors answered.”
On May 15, Nelly received a message on her phone from the Coordination Headquarters for the Treatment of Prisoners of War.
Upon seeing it, she burst into tears — Oleksandr was returning home.
“I told my son that dad had been exchanged. He started jumping so much, I hadn't seen such joy in him before, he hugged me and couldn't understand why I was crying.”
While Oleksandr is undergoing rehabilitation in Kyiv, they talk on the phone daily — because they have so much to tell each other. And very soon, the family will finally be able to embrace.
Meanwhile, Oleksandr eagerly devours the news, trying to catch up on everything he missed. He also receives hundreds of messages of support and packages with Harry Potter merchandise from people who learned his story.
“I cannot express in words what this means to me, and how grateful I am to everyone, how proud I am to be part of this country,” he says emotionally.
Back in 2022, Nelly got a tattoo with a famous phrase from the novel, in which Severus Snape professes his loyalty and eternal love for Harry's mother: "After all this time? — Always." Oleksandr has the same tattoo.
“With this phrase, I then told myself that I would wait for Sasha as long as it takes,” says Nelly.
“After all this time? — Always.”
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