History is being forged these days the old-fashioned way. With artillery shells flying overhead. With tanks stamping over soil already soaked with blood from centuries of conflict. With old-fashioned, non-cyber, heavy-machinery war.
When history is being forged the old ways, thousands are killed, thousands lose loved ones, thousands are traumatised for their entire life, on all sides of a war. But this post is mainly about the opposite - how LIFE was forged out of historic events over the very same territory.
The life of my mother.
My grandfather was a Russian soldier in the Red Army, stationed in Ukraine at the start of WWII.* As Hitler's army progressed swiftly, slaughtering and burning through entire villages, my grandfather was captured, alongside thousands of others. He then managed to escape the POW camp.
His life was saved by a Ukrainian family. He hid in their rural home for a number of years. As you undoubtedly have guessed already, my grandmother was a member of that Ukrainian family. This is how war and hardship led to a love story and a family of seven (six if we don't count an uncle of mine that died in a tragic incident as a teenager).
My grandfather continued to hide even after the end of the German occupation. Stalin had given an order that no Russian soldier should allow himself to be captured alive. Staying alive as POW implied collaboration with the enemy and was punishable with death for treason. After the end of the war, the young family migrated to Kirgizia (now Kirgizstan). They returned to Ukraine in the late 1950s, following the death of Stalin and the regime's renouncement of his crimes.
Even though most of her life she spent in Bulgaria, home for my mother was always Yasinovataya, about 25 km north of the center of Donetsk. Despite having lived in Russia only during her university years, she was fanatically Russian. Never spoke to us a word of Bulgarian or any language other than Russian. During the last couple of decades of her life, watching Russian TV was how she spent most of her time. Putin for her was a superhero. She died in November 2020.
Relatives tell me that the family home in Yasinovataya has already been destroyed. The truth is, war has been going on in these places already since 2014. A different war. Hybrid war, with little green men, cyber-attacks, TV crews, etc. But war with casualties and destroyed property, nevertheless. Now, we are having an old-fashioned war, with thousands of troops, lots of artillery, insignia and all.
Ordinary lives should not be forged by history. History should not be forged by war.
Let's hope that Putin's absurd attempt to forge history the old-fashioned way fails. Let's hope that as little as possible further blood is spilled on the already oversaturated black soil of Ukraine. Let's all do what's in our hands to prevent further bloodshed in order to redraw state borders, in Ukraine, or anywhere else, for that matter.
My deep sympathy and sorrow go to friends, family and everyone else that might get involved on either side of this totally absurd conflict.
* This is a piece of oral history, past across generations, so I don't vouch that the details are 100% correct. But the details are of little importance in this story.
Originally posted on Facebook on 24/02/2022.
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