 History is taught in many ways and I have chosen what I hope and believe will be one of the most effective in order to help my students at Wisconsin International University of Ukraine (WIUU) understand the history that is a part of their heritage.
I required my sophomore students to ask their grandparents, "Where have you been?" or put another way, "Tell me about your life?" I reminded them," a shortened pencil is better than a long memory." My students' essays provided many answers to these questions about their grandparents' past in order to comply with a Service Learning project I had assigned them.
The interviews necessary to satisfy course requirements uncovered stories of events that occurred during the communist period of the former Soviet Union. My Ukrainian students became not only passionate about this subject of the "living history" of their elders, but they proved to be very articulate in recounting the stories. At least ten themes emerged with quotable quotes from fourteen of my students.
Aftermath of Bolshevik Revolution
 Tanya Pavlova revealed her great grandmother's story that she learned from her grandmother: "In 1930 my grandmother's father was dispossessed by Bolsheviks. He was called a "kulak" because of having too big of a household. His family lost everything, including some of their lives. My great-grandfather was sent to prison, where he sickened and died. Part of the family was sent to Siberia; another part to Arkhangelsk to camps for 'Enemies of the State.' Only because my great-grandma married a poor man before these events was she able to escape being sent to Siberia."
Holodomor - the Forced Famine of 1932-1933
Dmitriy Mykhaylusenko penned what he knew about the Holodomor: "People were treated like cattle and some of them became insane. I heard kids ate dirt and wheat seeds together because they thought it would grow up in their stomachs and they wouldn't be hungry anymore." Maryana Bobyliak wrote that the starvation period was a "black spot" in Ukraine's history, "My Grandma has her own story of how they used to eat grass and how they had one cow that lived, not in a shed, but in their house with all six people. That cow saved their family." Maryana continued, "People who worked in granaries said that grain was purposely strewn with some kind of green powder. People died on the roads. They took them into a wagon like some pieces of wood and put all of them into one grave."
The Great Patriotic War - Red Army
 After the Holodomor tragedy, within ten years there was The Great Patriotic War (better known in the West as World War II) where the storytelling continues about the Red Army valiantly fighting the Nazis or fascists. Katya Khandogina reflected that her great grandfather went to build barriers against German tanks and probably an enemy projectile killed him. "His body was never found and unfortunately the family knows nothing about the details of his death and cannot bring flowers to his grave." Renata Kozak artfully carved out these words, "The story of my grandparents out of a million others is a small stroke on the large, bloody painting of WWII."
WWII - Partisans
But then there were the Partisans whose WWII activities are framed as brave souls holed up in the forests close to Byelorussia who simultaneously fought both the Nazis and the Red Army. Roma Shatov noted what his grandmother told him about helping the Partisans: "Fortunately, Ukrainian Partisans found us. They were very surprised that two little girls were willing to help them. After some time of discussion, the head of the Partisan detachment, Olexiy, gave us the first task to carry the letters to the villagers. We were running home with those letters as if it were our birthdays. After sometime of helping our Ukrainian Partisans, we became like a small bridge betweens the Partisans and the villagers. This bridge gave an opportunity to transfer priceless information."
World War II - German soldiers
Also, a theme that kept surfacing in my students' writings, besides the German atrocities, were the kind acts of certain German soldiers toward Ukrainians as individuals, families or whole villages. In some cases, a German soldier warned people ahead of time that their village would be torched. In other situations, a caring German fed a whole family or the German invaders did not destroy a church. There are even reports of a firing squad that did not shoot villagers already lined up for this fate.
Tanya Pavlova told of her grandmother's return from Donbas to be met with German sympathy. "In thirty-one days they managed to get to Putivl, which was occupied by Germans. The Germans had transformed her former home, the biggest in the village, into a hospital (by the way, it remained a hospital until 1980). Inhabitants recognized her and told the occupying Germans that she was the owner of the house that they now used. To her astonishment, she was given one room there. My grandmother remembers how one German doctor gave her a big piece of chocolate and showed the photo of his family, whom he missed but had to stay here because of the war. 'He always said that both Hitler and Stalin must be shot' my grandma remembers."
However, many grandparents were forced into German labor camps and tried to escape the Germans who needed extra human power to support their Nazi war effort. Ulia Sotnik's great-grandfather had been captured by the Germans and in 1947 walked home through all of Europe to Ukraine to rejoin his wife and see his daughter for the first time in seven years. It took Ulia's grandmother a whole year to call him "Father" once they were reunited.
Aftermath of WWII
 |
| WIUU class that conducted the Internews | For Julia Levenko's grandmother, life did not become easier after the war. "Years 1946-1947 brought a famine due to a bad harvest." There was barely anything to eat. There were no potatoes and the bread was available only to those with special cards. The children received 300 grams of bread per day each, the father was allotted 700 grams because he was working, and the mother got nothing because she had no job. However, even this 1.3 kg was nothing to be greatly appreciated since it was of very poor quality. Jane Shcherbakova's grandmother also keenly felt the lack of food after WWII stating, "Everyday my mother cooked soup out of grass that is called Loboda; usually people put it in salad. Now whenever I see it, I want to throw up."
Tears in Her Eyes
In the course of meeting their assigned tasks, students were met with many tears, stories that suddenly went silent because of great emotion in the retelling and voices that might become very strained by the emotions brought forth by memories. Roma Shatov noted: "I didn't want my grandmother to cry, and I could imagine how hard it was for her to remember the time of war." Maria Polishchuk's grandmother said, "I was left without parents at the age of 13. My parents were hiding a Jewish family in the basement of their house and had to pay with their lives and the lives of their children." By chance Maria's grandmother was absent when the German soldiers murdered her family. Maria ended with, "She stayed alive but till now when she tells us about those days she can't help herself from crying."
Anna Myshlyakova's grandmother told some things, "but many stories about the terrors she had to go through she still keeps secret." Anna's grandmother had witnessed her father as well as others in the village being burned alive as punishment for being Partisans. Anna reflected, "I cannot blame her for not telling anything before. No one would like to remember such things."
Importance of Education
Julia Batarchukova also shared her thoughts about the importance of education, based on what her grandmother told her about her great grandfather who died heroically in the Great Patriotic War. Consequently, her great grandmother was left without the breadwinner to feed their six children. This bereaved mother was caught getting extra bread from a guard and both were sent off to Siberia where she died. "The Soviet authorities were ruthless and sent all six children to different charity houses. Five years later when Aleksey, the eldest brother, became eighteen years old, he managed to travel across the country searching for his brothers and sisters." Even though it was difficult, the siblings were all reunited under the care of Aleksey, who deprived himself of an education while he worked at a plant. Julia continued, "My grandmother highly appreciates everything her brother did for them, saying, 'He gave us a chance for a better life. He forbade us to work and insisted on our excellent studying. Aleksey was absolutely right. We all entered the universities and all of us got a ticket to a better life.'"
Grateful Grandchildren
Finally, one other theme that emerged was respectful appreciation for their elders. Sergey Petrov confessed that he and his peers take everyday conversation for granted while elderly people often feel very isolated due to distance, sickness that keeps them bedridden or the death of friends. Some of the elderly do not have the pleasure of talking to anyone for days on end. Sergey wrote, "This simple fact explained all the excitement Evdokiya had when I came to her house and asked permission to talk to her about her life."
Others view their elders as important as if returning to a distant past. Alex Evstigneyev believed that we should "value these people as an inexhaustible resource of knowledge and life experience." Roma Shatov's grandmother quoted a Ukrainian idiom of a "white bar after a black bar," which portrays the indomitable Ukrainian spirit of believing that good things always happen after bad things.
Call to Action of Current Ukrainian Government
The Ukrainians are waiting for the good to happen and perhaps impatiently expecting the present form of government to mete it out. George Onyschuk claimed: "It is offensive to me that our country cannot ensure a proper old age to its heroes and they have to live out their days receiving scanty pensions." Katya Khandogina was realistic: "I realized that the government did not think about people who fought for our land. The leadership of the Soviet Union always repeated that everything is for the people but nothing was done to improve their lives. The deaths of thousands of people are on their consciences."
The question of "Where are you going?" may be asked of Ukraine after a look at its thousand-year history. Having just read Henryk Sienkiewicz's historical novel, Quo Vadis, written in 1895, I now understand why a Ukrainian woman recommended this book to me several years ago. After the 1917 Bolshevik Revolution, Sienkiewicz's book seems almost prophetic about how Stalin's iron rule of 30 years would try to destroy Ukrainians. Reading Sienkiewicz's book makes one realize that Emperor Nero's acts against his own Roman citizens pale in comparison to the millions of Ukrainians who perished under the hammer and sickle. Yet, the nationalistic spirit of Ukrainians is unquenchable even today.
I want my students on their own initiative to continue to write with shortened pencils about the memories of their grandparents. Not only should the current Ukrainian government be challenged with the question of "Where are you going?" but also the Ukrainian youth of today should help to correct the injustices from yesteryear and be able to know where they are going, hopefully to a better and brighter future.
Kristina Gray teaches at Wisconsin International University of Ukraine in Kyiv. All photos appearing with this story (except that of the students) were provided by those interviewed from their own family collections.
|
