Why Ukraine Speaks to Us
Their brave fight is their 1776. The bright eyes of the first generation of Ukrainians born in democracy is our hope to find OUR way home again.
Sometimes in our life’s journey we cross paths with someone we like very much; something about this person immediately connects with us at a deep level, the horizon not yet defined. Unfortunately, for many reasons, we may never see this person again. But we don’t lose sight of them. In some moments along the way, thoughts of him or her bubble up, triggered by feelings of hope sprung and lingering from the original meeting.
I met Vera Andrushkiw in the spring of 1994 on assignment by Wayne Magazine, the alumni periodical of Wayne State University, for a story on Ukraine. At that time, she was a lecturer in Ukrainian and Slavic languages. But her real story was in her passionate work and leadership as the director of the Business School’s new exchange program with the Lviv Institute of Management in Ukraine. In it she had found her true calling. In those post-glasnost years and the democratization of former Soviet satellite states, Ukrainians were emerging into the light and feeling the possibilities of a new democracy, a free-market economy and so much more.
Vera, who was 51 at the time, was the perfect person to lead this mission. She was only a year old in 1943 when she, her brother and parents fled Ukraine and both the Russian Army and the Nazis. After six years in a refugee camp in Europe, the family eventually landed in New York City where she grew up, went to college and earned a teaching degree. She always kept close to her native country where most of her relatives remained. With her strong Ukrainian identity, an infectious smile and boundless energy, she became a beacon for the freedoms and possibilities she cherished with all her heart.
While studying at the University of Kviv in 1993 to polish her spoken Ukrainian, Vera couldn’t help but notice the other riders on the bus staring at her. She recalled the remark of one woman she overheard sitting nearby with her granddaughter: “Natasha. Remember this auntie. Look at her. She is not like other people. She is smiling. She has a positive attitude.”
At the time it was only two years since Ukraine declared its independence — not nearly enough to expect big progress. With no shortage of challenges facing the Ukrainians, observers wondered if democratization would take hold. “Democracy is proceeding in Ukraine slowly but surely as people become exposed to the freedoms those of us in the West take for granted,” Vera told me. “Although people on the street still have little eye contact, the biggest change is in their mentality.
“Ukrainians are trying to rid themselves of the fear they had,” she continued. “There’s no longer this command from Moscow. You have to have initiative. That’s the main problem in this transition period. The worst aspect of the Communist system was it destroyed human dignity. The whole system was based on fear and intimidation.”
Vera returned to Ukraine late that year for 10 days just before the Russian election results became known. Russian nationalists had made a surprisingly strong showing. “The news sobered up the Ukrainian people,” she said. “Russian instability is of great concern to Ukraine. I felt the anxiety this time. It’s not only about security. It’s about the question, ‘What will happen to us in all aspects of life?’”
I wrote notes listening to Vera, but at that time in my life I was like so many of us in the U.S. taking our freedoms for granted. I was more struck by her infectious personality than with the meaning of what she was saying. You’d think that my own grandmother, born and raised in Odesa, would make Vera’s acquaintance particularly relevant to me. But I was under the spell of the myth that Tanta Bessie was from Russia — not a Ukrainian but a Russian Jew. Alone she had left her family behind fleeing from antisemitism and pogroms to America and democracy in the early years of the 20th Century. We carried on a false assumption fed by our deep fears and memory of the pogroms that Ukrainians were all antisemitic. We could have thought the same for Russians. But Russia was an Ally in the war. Tanta Bessie never saw her family again. Her family, their deaths during the Russian Revolution, was never mentioned and never part of our consciousness, at least, me, my sister and our first cousin’s generation’s.
Decades after meeting Vera Andrushkiw, Putin amassed Russian troops on Ukraine’s border. Like everyone else, it got my attention. Then came the unprovoked invasion on February 24. I thought of Vera and dug for the magazine article to remind me what Vera had shared so long ago — why Ukraine was so important. Finally, I found the article in my files. I tried to locate her by Googling her name. She had moved from Wayne State to become vice president of external relations running the Partnership in Communities program at the U.S.-Ukrainian Foundation in Washington D.C. Two years ago, I read, she received an honorary doctorate from Ukrainian Catholic University for her life-long work as an American educator and leader in Ukrainian affairs. More recently, she was involved in the study and education of the Holodomor-genocide of 1932 to 1934, when an estimated 32 million Ukrainians died of man-made starvation imposed by the Stalin regime.
But before I could get her phone number, I stumbled on her obit. She had passed at the end of March 2022 at the age of 79. I missed her only by days.
Why does a country only several years ago most of us could not name its capital hold such import to us in the West? Ukraine’s fight is existential speaking directly to all of us in the West. In the early days of the war I sought ways I could help the Ukrainians. What would be the best and most effective way considering my passion, family history and connections to Ukraine, and my particular skills as a writer? My mission was personal. In dealing with Ukraine’s vulnerability and response in the face of the on-going human tragedy and Russian atrocities, I was digging up my own past. The horrific color images of war on cable news echoes the trauma and genocide in Europe from World War II that affected my own family I was finally learning to face and absorb.
Eventually I found the perfect answer, a way to connect me directly to Ukrainians dealing with the hellish daily impacts of Putin’s war. I discovered a critically important organization, Engin Program, matching English speakers with Ukrainians to improve their English speaking skills. The personal and cultural connections and support that me and thousands of other volunteers, mostly Americans, have forged together with Ukrainians is making a tangible difference, strengthening powerful personal relationships between the West and Ukraine. My Ukrainian “buddies” — Oleksii and Igor who I meet weekly on Zoom — do not believe me when I tell them I am learning and growing more from them than they are from me.
I can only imagine the intense feelings Vera may have experienced learning of the Russian invasion of her native country days before her death. She worked so hard and closely with hundreds, perhaps thousands, of young Ukrainians excited about their opportunities to be a part of the democratization of their country. All they had built was now being violently attacked in the cruelest most inhumane ways.
It is easy to fall into despair for what is occurring in Ukraine. But that would give in to the belief that Vera’s lifework was in vain. She had experienced the struggles of Ukraine in those early days when the pale of Russian rule continued its hold over the people. It would take a generation and more for its hold to loosen. During those many trips back to Ukraine since 1993, without doubt Vera shared the excitement and smiles in the faces of Ukrainians, especially the generation born in democracy, however fledgling, finding the light and possibilities in new found liberties that frees their minds to wonder and create. I cannot help but wonder that the light and vision they hold has fed the remarkable courage by Ukrainians to risk their lives in the fight for their country’s independence.
(Stay tuned for the upcoming blog on my two Ukrainian buddies and experience with this remarkable Ukrainian program called Engin.)
