I wish Russia was an island
My husband and I grew up in the countries that neighbor Russia. In this essay, I’m sharing how Russian colonialism and aggression personally affected us and our families.
Recently, I had a conversation with my Ukrainian husband about what it is like to never face the circumstances when you have to leave your native country. What is it like to live on your land for generations? What is it like to have your family's house and belongings not taken away or destroyed? What is it like to pass on wealth and not start from scratch every time? What is it like to live without the trauma of having family members killed, persecuted, starved to death, or jailed for years on fabricated claims? What is it like when your ancestors were able to reach their potential, grow their businesses, achieve career goals, and become entrepreneurs, teachers, scientists, artists, or anyone they wanted to be instead of being robbed, jailed, killed, heavily limited by censorship or having their achievements stolen?
What is it like to know your family tree and your ancestors, to have photos of them, because they were not wiped out, their identities weren’t lost, their photos weren’t destroyed, and their names weren’t rewritten and changed by Russian oppressors? What is it like to develop your country without having all achievements constantly set back by invaders, colonizers, and Russian-paid politicians? What is it like to not fear for the safety of your parents and grandparents and not hurriedly move them to a foreign country one day, leaving everything they had behind, in order to keep them safe? What is it like to celebrate your culture, speak your language, and not constantly fight for its right to exist?
We don’t know what it is like. I was born in Belarus. My husband was born in Ukraine. Unfortunately, our countries border Russia.
Both of us moved all the way across the ocean in order to have a safe place where we could build our life, have a family house without fear that it will be destroyed or taken away, and achieve success in careers and business without fear of losing all our accomplishments and savings at once. We want not to be persecuted for embracing our culture and heritage, raise our future children free from Russian influence and colonialism, pass our wealth to them so that at least our kids won’t have to start from scratch, and ensure safe retirement for our parents in the future. But what if we didn’t have to move across the world to have the basic things taken for granted in other countries?
What if Russians focused on developing their own country instead of invading and exploiting their neighbors? What if they developed their own culture instead of wiping out the cultures of others, appropriating accomplishments, and stealing ideas, discoveries, and cultural artifacts? What if they cherished and preserved their nature instead of exploiting it and invading other countries to get a grip on their resources?
It's 2023, and we are having the same discussion with my husband as all generations in our families had before us. Our ancestors resisted, endured hardships, and made enormous sacrifices so we could be born and live today. They wanted our lives to be different from theirs. They thought that their suffering wouldn’t be in vain. They couldn't have imagined their great-grandchildren fighting the same battles.
Right now, just as a hundred years ago, it is the same aggressor, the same danger, the same fight for your right to live on your land, speak your language, celebrate your culture, and be free. I believe with all my heart that this time, Russian colonialism and aggression will be finally stopped once and for all.
***
My great-grandfather built a beautiful house on the hill. He wanted his grandchildren to play in its rooms. He thought of family gatherings, weddings, and birthdays, To be celebrated under the house’s roof. My great-grandmother sang Belarusian songs to her kids. She dreamed of her grandkids singing them with her. She embroidered countless beautiful clothes and pillows. She thought her family would treasure it for years to go. My husband’s great-grandmother married a very good man. They had two wonderful kids and a little dog. She thought they had years of happiness ahead. She dreamed of a good life for the people she loved. My husband’s great-grandfather loved Mathematics and Ukraine. He became a professor and wrote many works. He dreamed of teaching his kids and grandkids. He thought he would see them learn and grow. The house of my great-grandfather burned down. And no one remembers the songs of his wife. No one even speaks Belarusian anymore. We’ve never seen great-grandmother’s embroidery in our life. The husband’s great-grandfather was arrested and sent to Gulag. His family was robbed and kicked out of their house. He never came back and was buried in the cold foreign ground. The family was shattered and fought very hard to survive. It may look like our families just had bad luck. It seems like all those stories are not connected at all. Colonization, oppression, repressions, Gulag. Russia is a cancer that never stops to grow.
Warmly,
Darya
Email: daryazorka@substack.com
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Very sobering. Buried within the essay are some questions that all of us in the "west" should be asking. Even yesterday, in the New York Times, a letter was presented to its readership, co-written by several well known academics, that basically said Ukraine should surrender and that the "west" provoked Russia. As if Russia was provoked to invade Poland, Finland, Belarus, Estonian, Hungary, Checkoslavakia(?) etc...
For myself, the war has ripped the last veil from my eyes about the dangers of unchecked hubris. Thanks to the internet, essays like yours can reach more eyes instead of being filtered by the so called free press.
Many of boomers/Gen-x'ers grew up and watched the pre sanitized versions of videos taken after Auschwitz was liberated, scenes of battles of people and machinery on a scale that would even with today's graphics technology be difficult to reproduce. But, for many of us, the great wars and the economic maelstroms that surrounded them eventually gave way to a happy ending.
That kind of thinking is what I believe is behind the so-called peaceniks, they just don't understand, they want the happy ending to continue, return to business as usual and IMHO it has to take a massive amount of hubris to ignore the scale of suffering invoked and promoted by ruzzian imperialism and it needs to be stopped.
What's been missing, is people like yourself being heard. Modestly, it seems like eastern Europeans are way ahead of the curve about what needs to be done, and we in the west must finally stopped procrastinating when confronted with hypocrisy. Why was Russia allowed to head the UN security council, why is Switzerland manufacturing munitions with their well known neutrality stance. Maybe Merkel acted in good faith when committing Germany to Nordstream, but there is no doubt that liberalized trade does not lesson the harshness of authoritarian regimes. And, yet...no doubt , many ruzzians are banking that people like Elon Musk who wants access to ruzzian lithium resources will in the future repeat the mantra, like Friedman's McDonald analogy, repeatedly, and enough to potentially cause the "west" to forget what is going on today.
I've been thinking of your essays, very few of us can shape how events are shaped in the near term, but in a free society people can make a difference in the long term. It's extremely disturbing how close we are coming to a potential low grade nuclear war.
I read this quote by a Ukrainian government official, shortly after the start of the 2022 invasion
"you either have moral clarity around what needs to be done or you start to have moral culpability for the consequences of your inaction...."
My greatest concern is not Ukraine losing, but how many people just don't seem to understand the stakes. Last night, I got up in the middle of the night, walked into the living room and found my wife watching on Hula "Catherine the Great"...It's a parody type show, but still even a basic reading of her life history showed she was not so great, and that she promoted serfdom while claiming to support the enlightenment.
I wish I had the eloquence to reciprocate in kind the things you are showing, but all I can say is that it is making me "think" ....
I hope we all, Russias neighbours in particular and you especially, get to experience a world without the cancer node of corruption and medieval mentality that Russia is. I had high hopes, after the USSR was no more, but the mafia state won. It seems that their citizens get an ego trip about scaring much of the rest of the world and that makes up for their shitty lives. Hopefully it won't last much longer.
I have a wet dream where they're forced to give up their atomic weapons, which of course is the core of their power. Without them I don't think the rest of the world would let them cause nearly as much damage as they have been, just as this war probably would not have happened if Ukraine didn't give up theirs for "security guarantees".