10.4081/btvb.2023.73
Dear Editor,The editorial "Science in Ukraine is 'bleeding'" brings to mind, by a curious harmony of concepts, Paolo Nori's book Sanguina ancora. L'incredibile vita di Fëdor M. Dostojevskij [...].
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Gaetano Torlone
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Bleeding, Thrombosis and Vascular Biology
Bleeding
The metaphor of Ukrainian science “bleeding”
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Bleed Thromb Vascul Biol
Gaetano Torlone
2023/04/04
10.4081/btvb.2023.73
Pontifical Academy for Life, Vatican City
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Bleeding
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Nori P. Vi avverto che vivo per l’ultima volta. Noi e Anna Achmatova. Milano: Mondadori; 2023.
The metaphor of Ukrainian science “bleeding”
https://www.btvb.org/btvb/article/download/73/59
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                                                                                        LETTER TO THE EDITOR

The metaphor of Ukrainian science “bleeding”



Dear Editor,                                                      cannot be circumscribed to a defined geographical territory,
                                                                  is comparable, by contrast, to the attempt – we would say
     The editorial Science in Ukraine is bleeding, recently       almost childish – to censor all forms of Russian art after
published in your journal Bleeding, Thrombosis, and Vas-          the invasion of Ukraine on 24 February last year, attempted
cular Biology (BTVB),1 brings to mind by a curious har-           censorship of which Paolo Nori himself was a victim. The
mony of concepts, Paolo Nori’s book Sanguina ancora.              nonsense of this attempt lies in the fact that science, like
L’incredibile vita di Fëdor M. Dostoevskij.2 In English it        art, has no homeland, it is homeland itself, paraphrasing an
would sound something like: It’s still bleeding. The incred-      expression by Anna Achmatova.
ible life of Fyodor Dostoevsky. What struck me was not                 Science, as the capacity to know, to learn, is evoked by
only the shared concept of bleeding, but also the common          the image of the book. And it is significant that the Nature
Russian homeland of Prof. Komarov and Dostoevsky, as-             article opens with this very image. The books neatly
suming one still considers Ukraine as the Little Russia of        stacked on library tables of the Taras Shevchenko National
the tsarist period.                                               University in Kiev, look like evacuees in the underground
     The bleeding mentioned by Igor Komarov, the Ukrain-          bunkers of air-raid shelters who, in silent order, are waiting
ian chemist quoted by Nature, is obviously a metaphor, just       for the emergency to cease and to return to their homes, to
as it seems to be a metaphor of metaphor when you made            their shelves. It makes one think of the hand that placed
it your own in your editorial through the Ukrainian scien-        those volumes there, of the devotion with which those
tist’s cry of pain, so that you wrote that as scientists and      books were placed, one on top of the other, of the feeling
clinicians supporting a journal devoted to bleeding, we           of pity, almost as if they were people, of the love of knowl-
cannot remain silent.                                             edge, the love of the future, and therefore of hope, of the
                                                                  new generations to which those volumes are destined. And
     Even Nori in the more recent Vi avverto che vivo per
                                                                  one sees in that passionate will, the hand of Guglielmo of
l’ultima volta. Noi e Anna Achmatova dwells on the absurd-
                                                                  Baskerville who risks his own life to save the books of the
ity of the Russian-Ukrainian conflict on more than one oc-
                                                                  Benedictine abbey library from a fire in U. Eco’s famous
casion.3 In truth, using expressions that are not too severe
                                                                  novel The Name of the Rose.
or accusatory, but simply of dismay, Nori describes the con-
                                                                       The order and care with which the books have been
flict as something so absurd and meaningless that one can-
                                                                  arranged contrasts violently with the chaos and rubble left
not understand it. Nori’s most recurrent expression in this
                                                                  by the bombs. Bombs that have destroyed and unfortu-
regard is, significantly and simply, I feel like crying.          nately continue to destroy, homes, offices, hospitals, li-
     The bleeding of which Nori speaks is also a metaphor.        braries, laboratories, research centers. Bombs that make us
It is not bleeding from a war wound, from an act of destruc-      feel like insects and that continue to wound and bleed our
tion. On the contrary, it is the bleeding of a wound of the       rational human nature.
soul triggered by a positive event. The event is the reading                                                 Gaetano Torlone
of Crime and Punishment and in particular the moment                                 Pontifical Academy for Life, Vatican City
when the protagonist, Rodiòn Romànovič Raskòl’nikov,
asks himself but am I like an insect or am I like Napoleon?.
A question that, adopted by Nori, leads him to look into the      REFERENCES
existential abyss that causes him a wound that, indeed, still
                                                                   1. de Gaetano G. Science in Ukraine is “bleeding”. Bleeding,
bleeds – The same existential abyss, perhaps, into which
                                                                      Thrombosis, and Vascular Biology 2023;2:69.
this absurd war has thrown us all.                                 2. Nori P. Sanguina ancora. L’incredibile vita di Fëdor M. Dos-
     The act of denunciation of the Nature article and your           toevskij. Milano: Mondadori; 2021.
BTVB Editorial, with their expression of international sol-        3. Nori P. Vi avverto che vivo per l’ultima volta. Noi e Anna
idarity in the name of a science that has no boundaries and           Achmatova. Milano: Mondadori; 2023.




                                     Bleeding, Thrombosis and Vascular Biology 2023; 2:73
