DO YOU BELIEVE THAT YOU WILL DIE? OH, YES, “MAN IS MORTAL. I AM A MAN, CONSEQUENTLY...” NO, NOT THAT;
I KNOW THAT; YOU KNOW IT. BUT I ASK: HAS IT EVER HAPPENED THAT YOU ACTUALLY BELIEVED IT? BELIEVED DEFINITELY, BELIEVED NOT WITH YOUR REASON BUT WITH YOUR BODY, THAT YOU ACTUALLY FELT THAT SOME DAY THOSE FINGERS WHICH NOW HOLD THIS PAGE, WILL BECOME YELLOW, ICY?..

no, of course you cannot believe this. that is why you have not jumped from the tenth floor to the pavement before now, that is why you eat, turn over these pages, shave, smile, write…

This text belongs to the author of the world's first dystopia, We, written during the brutal years of the "Red Terror"— two years before the fascists came to power in Italy and long before Orwell's famous Animal Farm (1945) and 1984 (1949). It was with our re-reading of Zamyatin's novel in 2024 that the transformation of the main theme of this issue began. Initially announced as Plunging into Unity, it eventually evolved into Biutiful. Little Tragedies from the Lives of Mortals.

In the third year of the war in Ukraine, we realized there was nothing left to “plunge into.”
The front pages of European newspapers no longer frequently feature images of bombed hospitals or graves in Ukraine.

These were first replaced by more “spectacular” (read: monstrous) photographs from Gaza, and then by portraits of fire victims from Los Angeles, which are designed to make the completely hardened Western average person shudder and tear themself away from aperitivo and seasonal sales.

International alliances, treaties, resolutions, agreements, memoranda, foundations, seminars, symposia, biennials, and cultural manifestos—all these mechanisms under the auspices of peacekeeping organizations noisily and pompously convene, condemn, document, and issue decrees, creating the illusion that everything is under control…

The only surviving fact of human unity that we have at the moment, what still connects us all, regardless of our hatred or love for one another, religious, material, gender and any other aspects, is that the life of each of us is finite.

No matter how much we hate other people's idols and gods for the sake of saving our children, no matter which rulers rise to replace the last, feeding us cynical and stupid lies about a bright future on TV, we will all die.

So, Reader, this is what we will talk about in this issue. About death. About the fear of dying, about the guise in which it comes to us, what we feel when we know that it is inevitable.

SeveRAL artists not only illustrate the chapters of the magazine, but are also the authors of the texts: seven monologues. Seven “little tragedies” that never make the news because they happen every day, everywhere, to everyone. Against the backdrop of global wars, disasters, strikes and coups, they become invisible. But in a world where “little death” is respected, there is no place for the “Great War”.