In the past, when Ukrainians had to leave their country – whether emigrating or going off to war – they would always take a piece of soil with them as a connection to their beloved land. Today, it would be difficult to smuggle even a tiny piece of Ukrainian land through customs, and we all have smartphones with pictures of the places we love. But we still look for something symbolic to keep while we’re miles from home.
Grandma’s vyshyvanka
For me, it’s my grandma’s embroidered shirt, which always reminds me of western Ukraine, where she grew up, worked and where one night in the late 1940s she – together with her husband – were deported to Siberia by the Soviet government simply for being Ukrainian. My grandparents always hoped there would be an independent and strong Ukraine, but sadly my grandma never lived to see it.
Read the full Kyiv Post’s coverage of Independence Day here
She died years before I was born in 1991 – in a new country that my ancestors had been fighting for centuries.
When I think about Ukraine, it’s all about wounds and victories.
Many of those wounds are still raw, as Ukraine has constantly been a battleground for rival empires. Later came the heart-wrenching defeat of Ukraine’s national movement in the 20th century, the Soviet-orchestrated famine that killed millions of Ukrainians in the early 1930s, and then the collapse of the Soviet Union, which allowed the country to become independent, but with a kleptocratic neighbor that didn’t hesitate to stab it in the back in early 2014.
People attend the military parade to celebrate 25 years of Ukraine’s independence on Aug. 24. (Volodymyr Petrov)
Despite all the hardships, Ukraine has proved to all its ill-wishers that it can survive: through the economic turmoil during the first years of independence and two revolutions, followed by the war against Russia.
Strength from blood
My country became stronger with the blood of every soldier that has died in the Donbas over the course of the last two years. At a time when Crimean Tatars are being abducted and tortured in Russian-occupied Crimea, Ukrainian lawmakers have finally been pushing through much-needed legislation to transform a corrupt country into a self-reliant state. It’s not always an easy task, and many in my country’s elite still try to resist. But we’re moving forward – a clear sign that we’re no longer in Russia’s political orbit.
While in the United States, I was constantly asked to tell people about Ukraine. Sometimes I felt like a myth buster.
“Kyiv is a pro-Russian city, right?”
“Why do you say there’s a war with Russia?”
“Forgive my ignorance, is Kyiv located in Crimea?”
“Are there actually any tanks in eastern Ukraine?”
Lots of people still call my country “the Ukraine,” don’t understand why I freak out every time I see my home city’s name spelled as “Kiev” and truly believe that the war against Russia is a “civil war.”
Ignorance persists
Those could be little things, but they end up creating a snowballing impression of … total ignorance.
This is partly the fault of Ukraine for not creating an image of the country that is more than just nuclear disasters and cheap beer.
We also hosted the European soccer championship in 2012 and make the world’s most environmentally friendly space rocket, the Zenith 3SL. Nevertheless, for many, we are still “the Ukraine,” burdened by a Soviet past when the country was “the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic.” And while the United States is “the home of the brave” and Canada is “strong and free,” Ukraine (in the best-case scenario) is a country “that is close to Russia.”
There are many things Ukrainians would like to learn from their U.S. counterparts – being more open and initiative-driven, not to stress out every time a stranger asks a question in English (or any other language), and to smile more. I admit that its hard to do that last thing, when the country is suffering from Russian aggression, which started with the Kremlin’s Crimean land grab.
What is a Ukrainian?
But right now there’s a chance to show the world what it means to be Ukrainian.
Being Ukrainian means to know your country’s history and are proud of it, while not portraying it in a kitschy way. We don’t wear flower crowns and baggy Cossack-style pants on a regular basis, even though it’s a part of our history we will always cherish. We have multi-brand stores and like shopping. We are not awed by IKEA, even though we still don’t have one. Ukrainians do wear traditional clothes and embroidered shirts on national holidays: it’s a way to remember where we came from.
We don’t spend all the time on the farm, tending chickens and pigs, even though Ukraine is known as an agricultural country. And we don’t eat salo for breakfast.
We do have information technology specialists, world-class doctors, and athletes that have already won eight medals at the Rio Olympics, including two gold. Ukrainian roots can be found in PayPal and WhatsApp and the Ukrainian-developed app Looksery, which was acquired by U.S. company Snapchat in 2015. (Recently one person asked me whether we have air conditioning in the office.)
We are not Russians
We are not Russians, even though we live next to them. Our traditions and history were intertwined for centuries, and the Russian language was a prerequisite for admission to high education and well-payed jobs in the Soviet Union. Years have passed, and my grandparents would be delighted to know that today Ukrainian is the official language, even though we know Russian and can speak it fluently.
Ukrainian and Russian might sound similar to a foreigner, but it was never “the same language.” Historians argued that Ukrainian has survived more than 100 prohibitions over 400 years, only to witness Russian President Vladimir Putin claiming to protect those speaking Russian in Ukraine in early 2014.
The war has once again showed us that being Ukrainian means having to take arms if there’s a danger of losing our land. In the years to come, I hope my wounded nation will once again gain victory over its enemies, and let everyone in the world know what it means to be, in the words of our national anthem, a Cossack nation.
