Note: In Ukraine, the stork is seen as a symbol of family, loyalty and patriotism.
By Dr. Jaclyn Maria Fowler
Department Chair, English and Literature
War is brutal – on infrastructure and on people. As the Russian military destroys Ukrainian homes with its indiscriminate bombing of civilian areas and interferes with the basic human needs of food, water, electricity, and heat, research tells us that the people of a free Ukraine will experience depression, stress, and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).
In response to this research, Anastasiia S., my student from Ukrainian Catholic University (UCU) who has loaned me her war journals, said that in Ukraine “there [was] no depression or PTSD in the first days of war. Shock, panic, excitation, euphoria, anxiety, despair, hope, optimism are more typical reactions. Then after [a] couple of days you feel exhausted, but still, it is not depression.
“There is no time for crying or living a loss and grief. Our social media full of posts about civilians and military heroes who are no longer alive. We comment “Вічна пам’ять героям!” (Eternal memory to the heroes) and live on.”
The Realities of Everyday Life in Present-Day Ukraine
Now in Ukraine, the routines of everyday life are disrupted. For many, sleep has become more and more elusive due to physical interruptions like air-raid sirens or time spent in shelters. A gnawing, growing and deeply penetrating sense of impending doom creates a vicious cycle of ever more fitful sleep, more stress, more depression, and expectations of what events might often precede what actually happens.
“All night, I heard sirens, sounds of ambulances and car alarms, which didn’t exist. My ears detected some sounds in the street and added sounds of war,” Anastasiia wrote in her journal. “At 6 o’clock, we heard real sirens. We didn’t sleep normally for two nights, so [we] preferred to stay in bed under the blankets.”
The goal for some people is to do something, anything, as a distraction from heightened emotions. They want to keep busy, so they don’t have to think. Sleep is the reward toward which everyone works.
This sentiment is reflected clearly in Anastasiia’s journal on the first day of the invasion. She noted, “The first part of the day it was difficult to focus on something. For now, I have a golden rule to plan every minute – do something and have no time for difficult emotions.”
During the days that followed, she completed a list of tasks that helped temper the fear of “close friends and relatives [who] were called into the army.” In Lviv, Anastasiia and those around her worked to “collect blood for the wounded, blankets, and pillows for the refugees. Do something to be helpful.”
They also spent time sending out pleas to those they knew outside of Ukraine as well. “Thank you for your support! It is very important for us!” she wrote. “Stay with Ukraine! Pray for my country! Ask your government to help Ukraine!”
Meeting Anastasiia in a Creative Writing Class
Anastasiia and I met when she signed up for a course at Ukrainian Catholic University that I taught in the fall of 2021. While I sat in front of my computer in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania, Anastasiia and her colleagues – other faculty members and professionals from the community – sat in front of theirs in Lviv, Ukraine.
While we were there to discuss the art of teaching, we also learned about each other’s lives, families and homes. Lviv, I was told, was a 13th-century city of cobblestones, great architecture, symphonies and art museums.
Its downtown is registered as a UNESCO World Heritage site, and Lviv has long been known as the cradle of Ukrainian resistance against Soviet aggression. It was clear that the women in the class were proud of their city.
“When will you come to Lviv?” they asked me regularly. It was an honest invitation.
An Invitation to Visit UCU in Ukraine Is Interrupted by the War
One day in November 2021, the Head of the Center for Modern Foreign Languages, Professor Halyna Kurochka asked, “Would you like to come in May?”
“I’d be honored,” I replied.
So we set the date. I began daydreaming the months away until I would arrive at UCU in Lviv to deliver a series of lectures.
But even then, however, Russian troops were amassing hundreds of thousands of soldiers on the northern and northeastern borders. Yet none of us in the class believed life would change that much – not in Wilkes-Barre and not in Lviv.
“Are you scared?” I asked Halyna in early December.
“No,” she answered resolutely.
Life in Ukraine all changed a week ago when Russian tanks rolled into a country committed to freedom and democracy.
“Dear all, this morning Russia invades Ukraine,” Anastasiia said in her journal. “This time, war is all along the Ukraine border. We are scared for our friends and relatives who live all over Ukraine.”
While we did not predict a Russian invasion – not in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania, and not in Lviv, Ukraine – the world had shifted under our feet and changed dramatically with the rolling of tanks towards Kyiv.
Related link: Putin’s Attack on Ukraine Shows the Danger of Believing Your Own Hype
Encountering Refugees and Trying to Maintain a Normal Life in Lviv
For a country that loves taking its coffee in local coffee shops, morning routines have shifted dramatically. Now people doom-scroll through Twitter, Facebook, Telegram and other forms of social media each morning before they even think about coffee. “The morning begins from scrolling night news,” Anastasiia said in her journal.
Lviv has also changed. While Lviv has not seen much in the way of military action, it is the portal to the West. Poland’s border sits just 50 miles from this venerable old city, so by the eighth day of the war, almost a million Ukrainians had already fled the country, most of them through Lviv.
“Refugees started to arrive Lviv. Children needed warm clothes. Pillows and blankets seemed to be enough. Mostly, they are sheltered in Lviv schools,” Anastasiia noted on the second day of the siege.
As women and children passed through Lviv to safety, their husbands, sons, and fathers returned to fight on the front. With a declaration of martial law by President Volodymyr Zelensky, all healthy men over the age of 18 were forbidden to leave the country. “Every time we panic – we donate [to] our army and pray!” Anastasiia wrote.
Yet even in times of war, there are those people who try to institute some sense of normalcy, as Anastasiia did with her students. “At 1:30 p.m., I had a meeting with my students in Zoom. They joined from different parts of Ukraine and, of course, University Campus,” she observed. “They joined to see each other and hear something encouraging. I was that person who need[ed] to be the strongest. And it amazingly worked!”
Looking for Signs of Hope and Fighting On
By the end of the third day of the Russian invasion of her brave country, Anastasiia looked for signs of hope. She wrote, “Today is the day when storks return to Ukraine. Maybe they protect our sky.” The storks, Anastasiia said, are also a metaphor for the open skies over Ukraine.
“From the beginning of the war, people in Ukraine and around the world [are] pleading [with] NATO to close the airspace over Ukraine,” Anastasiia observed. “And the result is nothing!”
Despite President Zelensky’s plea for a no-fly zone, NATO member-states, including the U.S., are reluctant to take this step due to a fear that this action will increase Russian aggression. In other words, Russia may see it as an act of war.
Despite the brutal nature of this war, the citizens of Ukraine – Anastasiia among them – are fighting on and fighting back. They are pushing through an ever-expanding fear, waiting for signs of peace in a country formerly free from outside aggression. This type of mindset has been part of Ukraine’s past, and it is built into the DNA of the Ukrainian people.
Related link: Putin and Russia’s Perception of Its Role in the World
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