I am an unabashed Europhile. I lived there 17 years and know it well. It’s doing very nicely, thank you. What follows are a couple of paragraphs from an article written by a Ukrainian mother, Victoria Amelina. It’s about her expanding discovery of the meaning of “home”. She grew up in UKR, but speaking russian. She went to Moscow once and discovered that Russians considered her a “little russian”, not Russian. Russia was not “home”.
If you want to understand why UKR is fighting hard to join the EU, this is it. They don’t want to just feel european, they want to *be* european, they want to be in Europe. That means joining the EU.
This is Victoria’s story…
In Ukraine, everything changed in the first days of December 2013, at the beginning of the Revolution of Dignity, when protesters took to the streets after President Yanukovych rejected closer ties with Europe in favour of Moscow. After the police severely beat students on Independence Square in Kyiv, it became clear that this was a time to prevent Ukraine from turning into an authoritarian state like Russia or Belarus. Everyone who felt like a free Ukrainian had to take the risk of heading to the Maidan. But what if others didn’t have the courage to join the demonstration? Then the few brave ones would be powerless against police violence. To take to the streets of Kyiv, we had to take the risk of trusting each other.
Eventually, up to half a million people showed up. That’s when we knew we could count on each other. Ukraine finally felt like home to me, too. Home isn’t a magical, perfect place, but a place where, if you are being beaten by the police, you can be sure that your neighbours will show up to take a stand for you.
Those years of the initial Russian invasion, 2014–2015, were a time when many Ukrainians felt betrayed not only by Russia, but also by the west, for not coming to our aid. We were Europeans under attack, but it was mainly our problem.
In November 1956, the director of the Hungarian news agency sent a message via telex to the world, shortly before Russian artillery wrecked his office. It read: “We are going to die for Hungary and for Europe.”
The Czech writer Milan Kundera started his 1984 essay The Tragedy of Central Europe with this message. As one of the leading figures of the 1968 Prague Spring, Kundera understood what the brave Hungarian had meant by dying for Europe. As a Ukrainian writer in Kyiv in 2022, I can’t stop thinking about Kundera, writing in exile after the Prague Spring failed. We, Central Europeans, are ready to fight for Europe, even if at times our love may be unrequited.
Europe didn’t come to Hungary’s rescue. Nor did it come to the Czechs’ rescue, or the Ukrainians’ in 2014. If being a Central European means being betrayed by Europe, Ukraine is certainly a member of the club.
Even when we got to Prague airport, I wasn’t sure what would happen. The Czech border officer glanced at our passports and then looked at us. She was more interested in the expressions on our faces than in our passport details: maybe she was new at the job and hadn’t yet seen people whose country was being bombarded by the Russian Federation. I think she was looking at us with compassion. Then she just stamped our passports without asking any questions. And I realised that she knew; the whole world was looking at us. I started crying and couldn’t stop, and when my son asked why I was crying, I replied:
“Because we are home.”
“But this is not Ukraine,” he argued.
“This is Europe,” I answered, as if this word “Europe” should explain everything to my child.
We were falling, and our fellow Europeans were ready to catch us. The limits of home may have just expanded, I thought.
At the Polish-Ukrainian border, I witnessed indescribable desperation and fear. Little kids were pulling heavy suitcases, their frightened grandmas and mothers looking even more disoriented than them. I heard screams in the crowd as people were squeezed in the crush, and the loud voice of the border guard trying to get the refugees’ attention and prevent a tragedy. Yet all these people were going to be accepted and even welcomed into the EU. They might not have known it at the time — cold, hungry, and fearful at the border — but at that very moment the boundaries of their home, Europe, were being expanded to include Ukraine.
Europe was home, and it proved to be a space where we could count on each other, as Ukrainians counted on each other at the Maidan in 2014.
…
I believe that what happened to Ukrainian refugees was more than just an act of kindness. It was a change in perspective, a change in the story of Europe, and ultimately a change in the borders of what Ukrainians and other Europeans consider their shared home. Ukrainians are now fighting not just for Ukraine, but for Europe as well.
— — — — —
Victoria was murdered by a russian missile, June, 2023, while she and others were at a popular restaurant.
“https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/jul/07/victoria-amelina-obituary”
