Ukraine – History Repeats Itself

The Impact of There on Here and Why We Never Left the ’80s

“In wartime, truth is so precious that she should always be attended by a bodyguard of lies.” – Winston Churchill

From the time of me writing this piece to the time you read it, the situation in Ukraine will have evolved. The news is no longer changing by the day, it’s changing by the hour. And none of it is good.

I’m not a political expert of any sort. I’ll also never claim to be a historian. But, the one thing I can claim is my roots.

I was born in Kiev, Ukraine.

Back then it was the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, or the CCCP. Soviet Union for short. It was the coldest of the Cold War when we left and then settled in Chicago. Nearly thirty years later, back in the Fall of 2005, I went back to visit and walked the streets of my beautiful birth city, admiring the glorious parks, the gorgeous architecture and the robust energy. Cars and cranes everywhere, Kiev, to me, was the most splendid city in the world. I was there in the shadow of the Orange Revolution and you could tell the pride the natives had in their eyes.

It was a bit disarming getting reacquainted with the geography of my family’s legacy realizing that the words I grew up hearing and speaking while living there no longer existed. Under the Soviet Block, I grew up speaking Russian. By 2005, most of the city spoke Ukrainian. Except for the old ladies that sold your tickets for the tram trains. They still spoke Russian. Perhaps they were too tired to learn Ukrainian. Or, just maybe, they’ve seen too much history repeat to bother.

It wasn’t, for all practical purposes, until I watched last year’s National Geographic show The ’80s: The Decade That Made Us that I finally began to comprehend the pure detest Americans had for my birth land. And since all the republics were under one umbrella, regardless of where we were from, we were branded as Russians. In fourth grade, a boy in my class, on the playground, referred to me as “Commie Girl.” That kind of memory doesn’t erode.

Additionally, last year’s debut of The Americans, the fantastic FX drama set in the early ’80s about Russian spies masquerading as the perfect American family, seems far more relevant this year than it did last. Timing is, after all, everything.

In all the travels I’ve done and all the culture I’ve been exposed to, I never, to this day, can understand this:
How can, one day, a place be peaceful and civilized and the very next day suddenly break out into war? How does this happen? What are the instigating forces? How does timing come into play? Is it all spontaneous combustion or, rather, years of strategic planning?

Today we are on the brink of WWIII. I don’t say this lightly. I don’t say this wishfully. I say this because the combination of recent events, which are all rooted decades ago, all point into this direction. Much of Europe is still flooded with unemployment, specifically within the educated and broke youth. Merkel is doing her best to salvage the damage through austerity measures (Ireland balanced its budget this past December) but in many countries of the EU, nationalism (racism) permeates the landscape and the psyche.

Alliances with the Middle East (oil) have been carefully defined. And the spectacle in Sochi (front) was nothing more than a camouflaged invitation into a politically paradoxical universe where, like some sort of dystopian Disney World, nothing is really what is seems. Not once you pull back the curtain, rusty, but still very much made of iron. The last time we had this level of staged global sports performance was in 1936 Olympics, held in Berlin, hosted by you know who. I won’t even say his name. And we know where that took us.

This month, Ukraine asked the U.S. for fiscal help and the U.S. (at first) declined. Last week, the people of Crimea voted on independence from Ukraine and, instead, voted for Russian alliance. Today, things in that part of the world are less stable than the ice the skaters just slid on. Putin insured it.

Ukraine, the bridge between East and West Europe, and strategically located on the Black Sea (where my family had vacationed annually) has seen this before. When I was just in Dublin this February and stumbled on the National Museum of Ireland, which, located on the grounds of former military barracks, included a wing for military history, I read about how the Brits sent the Irish soldiers to fight everywhere and, just over 150 years ago, this included fighting in the Crimean War (1853 – 1856). Because, back then, the East and the West of Ukraine couldn’t come together, not on politics, values, religion or on the future.

And, so, as Ukraine is torn between Putin and Merkel, with Obama on her side we are, again, back to where we once were: Brezhnev vs. Thatcher, with Reagan on the Iron Lady’s Side. The players may have changed, but the chess board is still very much the same. The Progressive West vs. the Inward East. Or so the perception goes.

Some people I know have gone on record to say that Crimea never belonged to Ukraine to begin with. That the media is showing one-sided propaganda. And that U.S. and foreign firms have more confidence in investing in Russia vs. Ukraine. These things could all be true. Today, if I played the stock market I’d be investing in companies with U.S. defense contracts. Because things will get far, far worse before they ever get better.

Cleveland, not short on European immigrants, has a robust Ukrainian population and back when all this began to publicly escalate, I asked folks to chime in and share their opinion.

Lucya Kotelewec had lots to share, not just historically, but, also, personally. “My parents came as newlyweds to the United States in November 1956 from Belgium where they lived in shared barracks in D.P. camps. They arrived in NYC with only $20 in their pockets and eventually ended up in Tremont.

“My Dyedushka (grandfather) Wasyl Michailovich would be so proud of the people of his beloved country rising up against oppression…Ukraine has been attacked, pillaged, taken over and dominated by other countries and regimes for centuries it struggled against all odds to stand up for itself to keep its identity and it was all due to the brave individuals… the peasants, the poets, authors, artists, mothers and fathers etc. that refused to be suppressed and fought against the regime mostly underground during those times but today they continue overtly in full view of the world to fight the tyranny.”

Continued Kotelewec, “That they will not stand down and will not give in to the oppression of their country. In many ways the Soviet regime still continues today, many of the current leadership were former Soviet Party members. (Putin is KGB.) Not until all vestiges of Soviet doctrine is eradicated will there be true freedom. The brave Ukrainian people will fight until they are truly free and in charge of their own destiny.

“We still have many family members in Ukraine. I worry about their future. This is an international crisis. If Putin is not stopped, we may end up in a new world dynamic that will be vastly different from what we know. We should all be very worried…This time the whole world is watching. This time they will not be silenced.”

The whole world IS watching. But the problem is that it’s watching the wrong news. As with the most recent Olympics and so many other foreign developments, American channels are neither giving the whole story nor are they showing the different perspectives of the development.

For me, on a very personal level, the true heartbreak occurred in Mid-February. This year, I celebrated my first European birthday since my family left the Soviet Union. Granted, Ireland isn’t anywhere near Ukraine. But, I was also closest to my geographic origins than during any other birthday since Carter was president.

Being in Europe and watching my birth city, during my birth month, burn to the ground, numbed my senses. Because none of it made any sense. It’s why I wrote this piece now. And not then.

Since the first drafting this piece, just one week ago, Putin annexed Crimea, Obama ordered sanctions against Russia, Russia’s been banned from the G7 and Turkey shot down a Syrian jet. The real March Madness has begun.

Reprinted with permission and gratitude from Cool Cleveland.