677 days of the life of a refugee and a citizen

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“I know that one day I will have to ask myself the question: who am I? Make a choice, who do I want to be. A victim or a winner? A refugee or a citizen?” – together with my children, I listened to the words of my peer, the President of Ukraine, on the evening of December 31. It was almost 10pm GMT on my watch. It was getting close to midnight in Ukraine.

Zelenskyi’s New Year’s speech left a bitter feeling of frustration, and especially this fragment. He pushed me away from the solemn uplifting New Year’s moment that should bring hope to where I had already made my important existential choice: on the morning of February 24, 2022. When I put the children in the car, I said goodbye to my husband, my house in Buchan, my neighbors, and headed off into the unknown.

I then gave up all my identities, which in a peaceful life, a modern person changes almost every moment: being a feminist, a glamorous erotomaniac, a professional, a procrastinator, a citizen and a cosmopolitan at the same time in the 21st century is as natural as changing dresses for pants and shoes during the day on crocs At 6:30 in the morning on February 24, I… no, I didn’t choose, but I squeezed all of myself into one and only role – the role of a mother.

A poster describing the rights of female military servicemen during World War II. Photo: Imperial War Museum, © IWM Art.IWM PST 14530

And when the next crisis comes, I return to this choice as a support that does not give me the opportunity to lose focus, to scatter in endless questions: “Who am I now here in obscurity, let even this obscurity be called the wonderful word “England?“.

Victimhood is an identity I do not choose. And after the victory, will I be able to forget, give up this identity and acquire the “winner” identity?

And is citizenship just an identity? Did I stop being a citizen after fleeing the war? Have you stopped paying taxes, donating, and keeping your children in touch with the Ukrainian language and history? The president thinks so. At least that’s how it seemed to me this New Year’s Eve…

“We’re in this together.” Photo: Imperial War Museum, © IWM Art.IWM PST 10019

On the morning of January 1, my children and I decided to visit the Imperial War Museum in London – it was one of the few that was open. In the subway, I took out my phone to pay for the fare and at that moment it announced an air alert in Ukraine. I deliberately do not turn off these notifications, because for me they are part of being involved in my country. I thought, is this a sign that I remain a citizen and not just a refugee?…

The War Museum immerses you in the history of the 20th century as the century of war and has an impressive narrative exposition about both Worlds and, separately, about the Holocaust. On the first day of 2024, he revealed to me important experiences – the scary odds and mud of the positional war of the First World War on the Western Front. And the experiences of civilians from large British cities who survived World War II and German bombing. Experiences of mothers who evacuated their children to strangers in the villages, and returned to London to work at a defense plant. The experiences of children who survived this evacuation are happy and not so stories of help from strangers, wandering and exploitation of child labor. Childhood in the darkness of war.

“Don’t do it, mother, leave the children where they are.” Photo: Imperial War Museum, © IWM Art.IWM PST 3095

And also the information campaign of the British government, which proved to mothers that they are making the right choice by saving their children. That they do not become worse mothers or worse citizens. “Each of you makes a significant contribution to the victory and salvation of future generations of British people” – posters and leaflets told them.

I stayed in this part for the longest time. “And what does Ukrainian military propaganda tell me?, I thought. – Nothing“.

Millions of Ukrainian women fleeing the war do not exist for the authorities as recipients of communication. Maybe because the Ukrainian authorities have not investigated in these two years what is better: to return Ukrainians in order to save the labor market from the crisis, or not to return them, so as not to overload the social security system, electricity grids and water canals?

“They also fight.” Photo: Imperial War Museum in London.

In government communications, there is mostly a generalized object “refugee”, which is easy to use “literally”. How to shade the pathetic “citizen” with poverty.

This opposition cements a great division among a number of all, which destroys our unity as a community: who fights and who does not; who survived the occupation and who did not; who experienced air attacks and who did not; who left and who stayed; who returned to the de-occupied cities and who, like me, does not risk reliving the experience of fleeing a second time. The only thing that all of these people, separated by circumstances and experience, need is sympathy from the authorities, formulated in fairly simple, clear messages…

I thought about the technology of splitting in the exhibition about the Holocaust in the War Museum. It begins, not surprisingly, with Russian Jewish pogroms. The experience of these pogroms was used by the Nazi authorities in Germany in the 1930s to consolidate and deepen the split between Germans and Jews who had lived in the neighborhood for centuries. To level sympathy, empathy, closeness, to confirm otherness and to convince of the needlessness and hostility of this otherness.

“Mothers, send them away from London. Give them a chance for greater safety and health.” Photo: Imperial War Museum, © IWM Art.IWM PST 0076

This division was created by words. Words that divided society into “them” and “us”. On citizens, and those who are allegedly not worthy of this citizenship…

I don’t know when the day will come when I decide to stop being a refugee. But every day, for 677 days in a row, I ask myself this question. When will Russia fall apart? When will the Russian army be driven to the borders of 1991? When will safe shelters be built for Ukrainian schools, or when will Ukrainian children be provided with equal access to education? When will Ukraine be provided with enough “Patriots” so that fragments of Russian missiles fall not on the heads of Ukrainians, but somewhere on the border Russian villages?

I think that the President also does not know the answer to these questions. If he said it honestly, it would give me hope that he is at least a little bit on my side. Although I understand that he is not interested in me now. We are of the same generation as him. I once, like him, switched to Ukrainian, I once, like him, believed in the Ukrainian idea and chose Ukrainian identity. So I understand him.

Although, without a doubt, without his honesty, I will not cease to be a citizen of Ukraine.

Cover photo: Halfpoint Images via Getty Images.

Tatyana Pushnovaeditor of UP. Culture, specially for UP. Life.

Publications in the “View” section are not editorial articles and reflect exclusively the author’s point of view.

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