Missile strikes on Pushkin
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The other day, a colleague wrote about the destruction of the school in Komyshuvas, Zaporizhzhia region, where he studied. Like many of us, he still remembers in detail how he went to the 1st grade – he forgot his pen and wrote with a pencil, and then in junior high school he studied for “fives”. Like many of us, my colleague has many memories of his first school. And the fact that she is no longer there, he perceived as a personal tragedy. And I understand him well. Because recently, the same personal loss happened in our family, when the Russians hit another “military object” or “decision-making center” – an ordinary village school in the village of Pokrovske in the Dnipropetrovsk region. It so happened that my mother studied at this school for 10 years. She fondly remembers this period. She told how she and her classmates left various secret marks on their desks – secretly so that the teachers would not see them. And when they graduated, they found these marks and said goodbye to them. Because they really loved their school – like all small rural educational institutions, where everyone knows each other, and the teachers live in the neighborhood and come to visit on weekends and holidays. My mother’s class teacher was a teacher of Russian language and literature. Although more than 50 years have passed since he graduated from school, his mother still remembers his surname and patronymic: Petro Stepanovych Tereshchenko. And he remembers his appearance: tall, thin, not very handsome, like a bird, because when he recited something, he waved his hands like wings. The children nicknamed him that – Chernoguz. But the teacher compensated for his appearance and clumsiness with the passion with which he talked about Russian writers and poets – Belinsky, Griboyedov, Pushkin and Chekhov. And when he read poems, the class froze – it was so insightful and sensual. How not to fall in love with Russian literature with such a teacher? Could Petro Stepanovych or his students have predicted that in a few dozen years the school in Pokrovsky, where he spoke so lovingly about Russian culture, would cease to exist due to an insidious missile attack? The same Russians, to whom he instilled a respectful attitude in his pupils.
[PHOTOREP]
According to the Ministry of Education, as of July 2023, 180 schools were completely destroyed in Ukraine due to Russia’s military aggression, and more than 1,300 were damaged. Educational institutions in traditionally Russian-speaking cities of Ukraine – in Donetsk region, Kharkiv region, Zaporizhzhia, Mykolaiv region – received the most. Until recently, Russian language and literature were also studied there and Pushkin’s poems were memorized. With every Russian missile that hits a Ukrainian school, there are fewer and fewer who speak Russian and read Russian books. The occupiers are doing everything so that the very names of Russian writers and poets cause a gag reflex and a desire to throw their books in the trash or light the stove with them. By destroying our schools, they are destroying the myth of the greatness of Russian culture with their own hands. Which, in fact, was a myth from the very beginning. I don’t know if my mother’s school in Pokrovsky, the “Red School” in Komyshuvas and hundreds of other schools mutilated by Russian barbarians will be rebuilt soon. But I know for sure that neither my mother, nor I, nor my children will ever read another line from the works of Pushkin or Lermontov, Chekhov or Tolstoy. Because our tears for the lost schools will dry up. And hatred of enemies and everything related to them will remain for centuries. Victoria Chirva, journalist, specially for UP.Zhyttia Publications in the “View” column are not editorial articles and reflect the author’s point of view exclusively.
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