Why Can't the West Acknowledge the Russian "Invasion" of Ukraine for What It Really Is?

To call Russia's invasion of Ukraine "an invasion" would call for a response that neither NATO nor Washington is ready to give. So the West equivocates, as it dithers and delays, incomprehensibly dismissing a mass movement of Russian troops into neighboring Ukraine as mere "interference."

Putin perpetuates this status quo by his repeated use of "lying" about his illegal military actions in an independent nation, making statements that both he and the West know to be untrue, in the process reviving the use of propaganda, a favorite tool of the former Soviet Union. 

Yet no one dares to challenge him, to call a spade a spade, to call invasion for what it is. Even President Obama himself refers to the invasion as an "incursion." 

This implausible denial of an invasion that has been occurring for the past few months is indeed a novelty I have not yet seen in Western politics. It is nothing but a form of cowardice. After all, to accurately name things, brings with it an ethical and moral responsibility to see them accurately, for what they are, and then for taking the necessary and appropriate actions -- a responsibility the West has repeatedly shown itself shamefully unwilling to accept.

So Putin plods on, plowing further into Ukraine, in large part only because we allow him to do so....

We all know what the truth is, yet the West not only keep hesitating, but also keeps searching for euphemisms, instead of simply stating and therefore acknowledging what is actually occurring.

And no, what has been going on in Ukraine has never been a "civil war," as it was formerly termed, so implying that the military actions there were arising spontaneously from within, rather than as a result of outside Russian provocation. (Also, with the use of the term "civil war," came the implication that what goes on within the nation was its own problem, making a similar shoddy case for Western inaction.)

I have even heard the Western media previously refer to the Ukraine situation as "The Ferdinand," implying that all the invasion is just an insignificant territorial dispute involving a major power and a largely unknown nation, and is therefore better left ignored, lest it become a powder keg that will set off a nuclear war. 

What does the use of all these misnomers and euphemisms and equivocations imply? Is the simple straightforward truth no longer relevant?  And what is all this use of newfangled milquetoast terms like "incursions" and "interferences" really all about? After all, we all know good communication requires clear and precise diction and avoids the use of vague, imprecise words that serve more to obfuscate than to communicate. Are we really no different from the former Soviet Union in that we no longer seem to be able to speak freely, clearly, and with conviction but express ourselves in some sort of distorted doublespeak. 

Have we all become puppets trying to appease Putin?

For how long will the West allow Putin to continue with his obvious lies in his war of aggression? For how long will we indulge him in his yearning for a return to Soviet times and in his quest for territorial expansion, as we dilly dally about sanctions and choose to not only ignore but remain oblivious to the larger implications of his actions and to the the humanitarian dictates of international law? For how long can the West deny its ethical and moral imperative to act decisively in the name of freedom, human dignity and justice?   

In the meantime, I am just getting more and more worried about Ukraine.... 

(c) Olya Thompson

I Am Ukrainian

I am Ukrainian. I want to tell you what that personally means for me. It means my family was targeted and killed by the Soviets, either shot, poisoned, tortured, exiled, simply "disappeared," or worse.... The stories I heard about the atrocities committed are unspeakable in the literal meaning of word.... Needless to say, I never knew my grandparents.... Indeed, my grandfather is now being honored abroad in Ukraine as a "martyr" for his good deeds during the war.  

I grew up in this welcoming nation with this very sad legacy....  I don't know if this is something the ordinary American can imagine... I also grew up speaking a language that was officially banned in the Soviet Union. I also grew up during a time when Ukraine, the country my parents came from, did not even "officially" exist, except in my parents' memories. So much for Soviet plans to eradicate Ukrainian history....

Now for a bit of real history: 

Western Ukraine was a part of the Austria-Hungary Empire, and only came under Soviet rule after WWII. It has always had traditional European democratic values and a culture very much  influenced by the music and culture of Vienna. In Eastern Ukraine, a mass genocide ordered by Stalin during forced collectivization went famously unreported at the time by New York Times writer Walter Duranty. The area was then repopulated by Russians, which explains why mostly Russian is spoken in the Eastern part of the nation. 

Yes, Stalin killed more people than Hitler, but we never hear much about that .... 

I've been observing all the developments in Ukraine from afar, ever since the first demonstrators assembled in the capital city of Kiev's central square or "Maidan" in November, to protest their corrupt leader's breaking an agreement over a trade pact with the European Union, only to side with Russia. I was saw the movement spontaneously morph into an outright rejection of Russian dominance, and I saw those statues of Lenin (those lingering symbols of the Soviet era) finally being toppled after years of Ukraine's "independence." And next came the ouster of a thuggish leader (who, by the way, did not even speak the nation's language and who actually fired upon his own people), and with this, the prospect of an independent European Ukraine.

Ukraine has been a long-suffering nation with European values and has long yearned for democracy, for self determination, and for basic human rights. Espousing those values, Ukrainians are clearly more than fed up with Russian corruption, autocracy, terror, and violation of those basic human rights. Finally, they have made bid to distance themselves from Russia.

Such a scenario most predictably gave rise to the threats, propaganda, censorship, and violence emanating from Russia. As Vlad has shown, Russia will not let go of Ukraine easily, but would much prefer a return to Soviet times.There has been much misinformation and even outright lies disseminated by Russia, misinformation that resembles that of the Soviet era. 

Ukraine's situation has long been crying out for support from other democratic nations. I cannot understand why we have waited so long. Americans have an ethical imperative to be informed about history, to pay attention, as others European nations have already done, to try to intervene and assist, to support basic human rights in Ukraine. It seems to me that we Americans are a much too complacent people here, as we are so used to personal freedoms that other nations do not have. Such freedoms are very precious and we can never afford to take them for granted. 

I am drawing on those very freedoms in my speaking out about this situation. I am dearly hoping and praying that Ukrainians will finally get to live in  the civil society for which they have long yearned and that they will finally be granted the rights that all human beings deserve.

(c) Olya Thompson

Ukrainian Socialist Realism Art Exhibit

The turnout on the opening day of the“Ukrainian Socialist Realism” exhibit of paintings at The Ukrainian Institute hit an all-time high for its programs, said Olena Sidlovych, the Institute’s General Manager. More than 300 nattily-dressed, fashionable, and arty types -- including Ukrainians, Russians and Americans -- attended the exhibit on the evening of Sept 14. They spent their time convivially viewing and commenting on this unprecedented display of Soviet era paintings -- while  drinking wine and partaking of an array of dainty pastries -- at the Institute, which is housed in the historic Fletcher-Sinclair Mansion at 2 East 79th Street and Fifth Avenue.

The decision to sponsor this exhibit was not an easy one, reflected Terence Filewych, who serves as legal counsel for the Institute. It was the result of much heated debate among the Institute’s board members about how this Soviet-era art coincided with the Institute’s mission to promote Ukrainian culture -- a culture that was much damaged by the very government policy that produced the paintings on display here. After all, it was Stalin who declared “Socialist Realism” the official art form of Soviet-occupied Ukraine, and required artists to follow this mandate or risk death. A typical result of that policy was the clichéd uninspired soul-less “happy peasant” and “heroic factory worker” art, which existed solely to glorify the building of the Soviet state.

And indeed a lot of what viewers saw here was predictable propaganda. Yet, when taken out of their historic context and put on display in a gallery space abroad for the perusal of curious and detached observers as items of historic interest, these commissioned paintings seemed to lose their original impact as works of indoctrination. "In America, we can talk about it more objectively and more dispassionately,” commented General Manager Sidlovych, referring to the art form of Socialist Realism. And indeed, in this apolitical context, some paintings seemed almost to work against their obvious didactic intent. A painting of a formidable solidly built “heroine” of the revolution, much decorated with medals, became an almost laughable caricature. A grand-scale painting of Soviet leaders (a winner of the Stalin Prize) called to mind those outsized looming portraits of Lenin (that replaced religious icons) and those larger-than-life statues that were toppled over after the overthrow of the Soviet regime. A landscape of a factory that was peopled by industrial workers became inadvertently subversive, its gloomy colors hinting at naturalism and exploitation of labor rather than implying a march toward a bright Communist future.

Here and there, however, some paintings did command more than passing attention from the crowd for their traces of lyricism -- in an expressive look in a portrait of an artist; in the thoughtful gaze of a girl in a gallery, in a still life with a rustic ethic motif . A portrait of an elderly woman in profile, wearing a billowy skirt and framed in an art-deco like border of grapes, stood out and was much commented on as an example of modernism – while its background incongruously depicted female workers toiling in the fields in the approved Soviet style.

Such an obvious political overlay made many of these works seem jarringly uneven in composition when  simply viewed as works of  art. A portrait of a young school girl was marked by the requisite reminder of the regime: the symbolic Soviet red badge on her pinafore. A scene of an attractive woman waiting alone at a train station had an ominous foreground – pointed out to this viewer by one of the gallery-goers -- that included a tattered red ribbon and a dark shadow of what could  be interpreted as a symbol of protest -- a raised fist.

"This phenomenon explains precisely why contemporary art rather than realism is now so popular in Ukraine," commented another gallery-goer.

It was somewhat disconcerting for those of us who understood the obvious political context of these paintings to actually see them in a gallery that typically exhibited works of solely aesthetic merit, as they served as reminders of an amoral autocratic regime that visited inordinate pain upon our families. It was also troubling to realize that the artists whose works were displayed here worked within that regime, while so many of that generation who refused to sacrifice their principles perished.

Nonetheless, these Soviet-era paintings -- whose style was discredited after the collapse of the Soviet state -- are now clearly sought-after as examples of a once-dominant art form. Collected and assembled by Jurii Maniichuk for the purpose of study by future generations, they undoubtedly will remain of historic and aesthetic import and interest, serving to document the era when Ukraine was a Soviet state. A selection of these paintings – from The Jurii Meniichuk and Rose Brady Collection -- will remain on view on the fourth floor of the Ukrainian Institute until 2018.

 

Ukraine's Soviet-era Cinema

 Now that Ukraine has been an independent nation for a while, its culture -- which had long been suppressed, first by the czarist regime, then by the Soviets -- has been experiencing a resurgence. Ths revival was evidenced by an unprecedented showing of Soviet-era films from Ukraine by The Film Society of Lincoln Center last week, that ran from September 7 – 12, entitled, ”Capturing the Marvelous: Ukrainian Poetic Cinema.”

At first the term “poetic cinema” -- used to describe the series -- seemed perplexing and paradoxical to the uninitiated movie-goer, particularly when tied to the reigning "Socialist Realist" aesthetic of the Soviet era. It was Stalin, after all, who declared that “the production of souls is more important than that of tanks” and termed artists “engineers of the human soul.”A typical result of that mandate was what was often referred to as that uninspired “girl meets tractor” art, which existed in a soul-less vacuum to glorify the building of the Soviet state.

And all the more remarkable, then, was this retrospective, where one could see film-makers pushing the limits of what was allowed, at  the inevitable cost of invoking the wrath of the censors Its kaleidoscope of forbidden national folkloric and religious images on the movie screen served as an all-encompassing metaphor for the indomitable Ukrainian “spirit”: 

For example, the film that forms the cornerstone of the series,“Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors,” is nothing less than a spiritual story of transcendence. ("Satan," is its subversive message says, "exists only in the deeds of man.") Produced by Sergei Parajanov in 1965, the movie focuses on the tragic love story of Ivanko and Marichka that takes place among the colorful Hutsul folk in the “god-forsaken” harsh terrain of the Carpathian Mountains. The film contrasts the sweet and tender spiritual love of Marichka (that is not meant to be in this misbegotten world) with the carnal and treacherous love of Palagna that ultimately betrays and kills Ivanko. .It floods the viewer with allegorical images: a star, a lamb, for Marichka; an apple, a kiss of betrayal, for Palagna. The movie can be seen as a meditation on the existence of evil in this world, and it ascribes to a medieval-type Christian world view that life is but an arduous journey. Toward the ending of the film, the camera spins and twirls out of control as indifferent villagers dance a folk dance in a drunken frenzy at Ivanko’s wake. Yet it is he who triumphs in the end as he experiences a mystical reunion with his true love Marichka
.
A simple jewel of a film, Leonid Osyka’s “The Stone Cross,” made in 1968 – also strikingly illustrates this spirituality. It is a story of sin and redemption. As the film begins, a hardened peasant curses God for the parched soil that yields so little that he must leave his native land to survive. When a thief breaks into his larder, the enraged old man summons the village elders to exact their crude justice. The old man has a change of heart and experiences a transformation not unlike that of Scrooge in Charles Dickens’s “A Christmas Carol.” Nonetheless, the unyielding elders kill the thief. Next, we see the old man struggling to drag a stone cross up a hill, a scene rife with allegory. The meaning of the cross is complex, multi-layered, and endless. It serves as a memorial of the thief and others who have died; as a sign of the old man’s renewed faith; as a memorial to himself as he prepares to embark to Canada. The film ends in a joyous celebration of good will, and it speaks, in particular, to the nation’s uprooted diaspora.

As their film-makers moved on beyond the confines of a narrow proscriptive art, the films featured in this series speak to and about the Ukrainian  “dusha” (or “eternal soul”),  to address the larger questions of the human condition.
 

 

Growing Up Bilingual

WHEN I ENTERED St. George's School in the East Village in New York City, I couldn't speak English. I was born into an expatiate family; Ukrainian was the language spoken at my home.

My parents wanted to preserve their culture until they could return to their homeland - until the Communist regime changed -something that never happened in their lifetimes.
    
It was not long before a dichotomy arose in my young life: I had a language for home and discovered another at school. Quickly, I became bilingual.


Total immersion" is what today's bilingual educators would have called my experience. "Limited proficiency," I suppose they would have classified me now.


I don't remember my learning English being a struggle. For me it was a matter of simply going to school. I picked up the language by a type of osmosis - by being placed in an English-speaking environment -while I continued to speak Ukrainian at home and study it as a required second language in school. In addition to the very American Tom Sawyer, I had the very Ukrainian poems of Taras Shevchencko.


But, in the current jargon of education, the term "bilingual" has taken on a negative tinge. Being from another culture and speaking a different language are viewed as "disabilities," needing to be corrected. Overall, among educators, there seems to be a general agreement that courses taught in a different language tend to be less rigorous than those taught in English. Even New York and New Jersey, which have a history of providing generously for immigrants, agree with critics who say students in bilingual programs learn English far too slowly.

I, however, did not think my double life unusual. Many of my classmates came from homes where they, too, spoke a second language. Like our European parents, we simply took speaking another language - or two or three or even four - for granted.

Interestingly, sentence diagramming was to be come my favorite grade school topic. So I always thought that it was an asset, and even fun, to speak two languages.
There is a lot to be said about acquiring one's language skills from a regular classroom. In my case, English supplied a common forum that provided a basis for future learning. When I later taught English as a Second Language, it was English, too, that allowed for a delightful exchange among many students from backgrounds ranging from German to Arabic.

Isn't it time for all American students to start talking to each other?
    
Besides, knowing only one language and culture can be confining for English-only speakers as well.
   
Whatever happened to the second language requirement that used to be mandatory in many high schools? In addition to French, I had to take four years of Latin. In college, I went on to acquire yet another language, German, and another, Russian.
In addition to "Le Petit Prince," which I read in high school, I went on to read "Madame Bovary" in French, "The Aeneid" in Latin, the plays of Brecht in German and "War and Peace" in Russian.
   
So why do our educators so limit our students? Chym bilshe, tym krasche. The more (languages and cultures they experience), the better.

It's time our educators get back to the true meaning of "bilingual" - time they give all our students the opportunity to reach for the keys to the world.

As I look back on my multicultural experience, I can see the seeds of the writer I am today.

So, as I now move in American circles with my precise English, my colleagues often ask me what state I'm from, curious about my lack of a regional accent.
   
When I travel to Montreal, the natives assume I am French. And, in a few days, as an American journalist, fluent in Ukrainian, I will be going abroad to my parents' now independent but still troubled land.

Interview With Olya Thompson

Here is a link to a Europe interview about my work that crosses "national and cultural barriers." I feel so honored. My work is being published in Spain, Austria, Germany, France and Switzerland.

http://planet-bpm.com/2012/05/bpm-interviewing-olya-thompson/

On Attending a Taras Shevchenko Poetry Slam

I recently happened upon a Manhattan poetry slam in the East Village, at the Bowery Poetry Club, where I was amazed to hear a few works of the beloved Ukrainian poet, Taras Shevchenko, read aloud in English translation. It occurred to me that this event, celebrating this former serf, was yet another milestone -- another sign that his work -- and that of Ukrainian literature -- was taking its rightful place after years of suppression (first by the Czarist regime, then by the Soviets) -- in the realm of world literature.



Taras Shevchenko Self-Portrait Oil

The reading sent me back to my long-ago days at my Ukrainian expatriate grammar school in New York City, where I learned some of Tara's Shevchenko's poems by rote. His poems – not to mention the language that I spoke -- were banned at the time in the Soviet Union.

As I listened to the selections, I found myself mulling over the vagaries inherent in translation. How, I wondered, does one begin to convey a language, with its subtleties in meaning, its sounds, its syntax, all things that define an entire culture? Perhaps the words of  19^th century English linguist George Barrow said it all: "Translation is at best an echo." I also found myself wondering about the contrast between the dramatic manner of recitation -- with rhetorical flourishes in tone and gesture -- and the simple unassuming poems that I had long ago memorized that reflected the natural rhythms of the language in its purest form. Nonetheless, what was most significant here was the very act of translation that enabled these works to be shared with another culture. And what came through in all of the poems read aloud was their mood -- those all too familiar feelings of pervasive sadness and yearning, of displacement and loss, that for centuries and to this very day have articulated the sensibility of an entire nation, and its expatriate diaspora, of which I myself am considered a member.

I began to think back to a long-ago day in my expatriate school when I was eight years old and asked by my teacher to recite one of the poet's works on a Ukrainian radio program. The poem, "Na Velykden," or "On Easter Day," told the story of a group of children gathered together discussing their new holiday finery, with the exception of one orphan boy, who had nothing to display. I dutifully headed across the street to the recording studio -- wearing my navy-blue school jumper and with my hair braided into the traditional two plaits -- and unselfconsciously recited its words in my soft girlish voice, conveying my own excitement about an upcoming holiday celebration, tinged with the sadness I felt about the fate of the poor boy.

"Prekrasno!" my teacher had said when I finished the recording session. That is, "Well done."

However, still lost in meaning of the words and the mood the poem created, I did not respond to his praise with my usual bright smile of pleasure. "But why," I asked him, in all my childhood innocence, "is that little boy so alone? And why is that ending so sad?"

The obvious answer was that the poet was most likely was referring to himself, having been born into serfdom and orphaned when he was young.

But my teacher instead said gently to me, "Do not let me see that little cloud upon your face," in the language that is so evocative and lyrical that it is often difficult to convey in words. "It is just art," he continued. "Emotion is the nature of art." Then he distracted me, letting me listen to my voice on the tape, and when we were finished, he gave me a Ukrainian picture book. He inscribed it to "Sonechko," which means something like "little sunbeam." I ran off to meet my mother, having all but forgotten those flickering flashes of emotion that had crossed my face.

As though he were reading my thoughts, the speaker who presided over the poetry event brought me out of my reverie by commenting somewhat ruefully on the melancholy nature of Ukrainian art, as he then introduced a musical interlude that featured the plaintive strains of a ballad that was played on the bandura -- the national instrument.

The final poem at the reading was one that I recognized, and perhaps Shevchenko's best known one, "Yak Umru" or "When I die," which expressed his dying wish in exile to be buried in his native land, and is perhaps the most evocative of the sadness and uprootedness and pain that for so many centuries marked Ukraine's troubled heritage.

Shevchenko, who was exiled for his writing, for his use of the native language, for his gentle words of protest, died at the young age of 47, worn out from his ordeal. His fate was not all that dissimilar from that of many other persecuted Ukrainian artists and poets and thinkers.

Interestingly, however, during my time studying Comparative Literature in graduate school, I never heard any mention of Taras Shevchenko. At that time, Ukraine, and therefore its language and culture, did not officially exist.

The growing recognition of this 19^th century poet's work, I am sure, is a result of the subsequent breakup of the Soviet Union, and of Ukraine's becoming somewhat of an independent nation which, though still troubled, has increasingly found the eyes of the world upon it, and with this, has experienced a growing interest in its history and its culture.

In his sensibility and love for his native land, Shevchenko is now labeled as a Romantic Poet. In his concern for the fate of his people, he is considered a great Humanist.

His poetry is indeed sad and beautiful and its verses do resonate.

Why, I asked myself at the end of the reading, are Ukrainians so emotional as a nation? Why, I asked myself, do we as a people -- a nation of artists and poets and musicians -- always wear our hearts on our sleeves? 

It occurred to me right then that the measure of love is loss. How does one even begin to adjust to the loss of the country that one loves – to that yearning for the familiar features of its land, the musical rhythms of the language one speaks, the customs one shares with its warm and expressive people. Loss is the legacy of war -- with its unspeakable tragedies and its resulting upheavals and dislocations -- that even now at times leaves one isolated and alone in a new and often unfamiliar nation that provides one with limitless opportunities for reinvention. How is one to begin to construct or reconstruct a new self in this new place, yet preserve one's very identity? And that is the very dilemma of the uprooted expatriate.

One does this -- as Bob Holman, owner of the poetry club and a founder of the Alliance for Endangered Languages, pointed out at the end of the reading -- by continuing to practice one's language, by preserving one's culture. One does this by commemorating Taras Shevchenko at this hipster poetry locale.

And one does this, I realized, by forging a dual identity as a Ukrainian-American writer, by coming to a reading such as this one, by reconnecting with the diaspora, by sharing my culture with others, and by continuing to tell the story of my roots.

Return to Ukraine

“Mih vernym. Mih vernym,” my parents would say. "We will return. We will return." When the communist soldiers leave, when Ukraine is free, they would say,"We will return." Growing up in an expatriate community in New York City, after my parents had been uprooted by the 2^nd World War, I will always remember that refrain, spoken in the musical voices of the Ukrainians who surrounded me in my youth. Yet this was something that was to never happen during their lifetimes.

And now I am here, in Ukraine, in their native land, which has been independent for almost seven years. 

What I see is strangely familiar, somehow linked with memories of my childhood. As I walk down the airport steps and enter the city of Lviv, the capital of Western Ukraine,  I see the familiar blue and yellow flags wave. The country’s national emblem, the tryzyb -- which looks somewhat like two R’s facing each other and intertwined with a fleur de lis -- is displayed just about everywhere. The Red flags are gone. Russian signs have been changed to Ukrainian ones. The airport van and old Ladas rattle over old cobblestone roads. The city’s fading splendor is reminiscent of its more prosperous days. Much of the architecture here dates back to the days of the Austria-Hungary Empire, when this part of the country was under its rule.  An old opera theatre with worn plush red velvet seats and gilt booths reminds me of  the intrigues of  18^th century novels.

Though I have never been here, I feel like I live here. Indeed, many of the persons I meet could have been any of the people living in the expatriate community I lived in as a child.            

When I go visit some relatives, my mother’s youngest sister’s entire family gathers to greet me. Though I have never met them, I feel as though I’ve always known them. Their ways, their speech, their gestures,  their manners, are so familiar. As their old ’72 Lada rumbles though the countryside, I think of my mother, of her going to boarding school in this very town, of being driven home for the winter break in a sleigh pulled by horses rushing though the silent snow-covered roads, with sleigh bells jingling.

Clearly, the times and my family’s circumstances have changed. Warm, hospitable, my newly found relatives offer us a meal. The food is the labor-intensive, familiar food of my childhood, a savory broth, handmade pirohy, and as a special treat, a torte, filled with layers of jam and almond paste. The cucumbers and fresh tomatoes, grown in the country’s rich black soil, are delicious, unlike any I’ve even tasted. Oddly, though, unlike the traditional veal dishes and goulashes I remember being served during my childhood, they have no meat. Like the majority of  the country’s population, they find themselves in the crunch of the country’s current economic crisis. A family of teachers, they each earn about 140 hrivny a month, the equivalent of  70 US Dollars, say they are just getting by from day to day, say they worry about the futures of their children. I want to take their teenage daughter, Maya, home with me, imagine sending her to an American college.

The next day, I go with them to visit my mother’s childhood home. But the house my mother lived in has been razed.. The flowers she talked about, the orchard, gone. Still standing is the church where her father was a Byzantine catholic priest. Recently rebuilt and reopened, it now has a pastor.  A very elderly peasant woman who lives in a hut nearby and who used to work at the house hears our car drive up and walks up to the dusty road.  She does not recognize my aunt but stares at me in amazement.  “Irina is here," she exclaims in confusion and disbelief, mistaking me for my mother. "I remember Ira ( a village version of Irina)," she says and retreats into the past, talking about my mother as a lively, derring-do child who used to offer to take her on wild rides on her bike. She calls the the new village priest.
           
I realize I am on a quest. What happened to my family? I need to know. In Ukraine, what was merely whispered about or not spoken about at all during the days of communism is now being said aloud. Nothing is certain, I find. My grandfather, was murdered, his remains never found. The priest talks of what he has heard, stories of torture that are indeed unspeakable, and my newly found family and I are silent. About the fate of an uncle, a judge, nothing is known. He just disappeared.  And then there is the story of the aunt who was captured while crossing the border. To this day, she has said nothing about what she experienced.

The next day, I go to a cemetery on the edge of Lviv, a famous and historic place that is also a museum, established under the  Austria-Hungary regime as a burial ground for the intelligentsia and aristocracy. It is a beautiful place, where sculptures abound, and people linger, bringing flowers. Some monuments are centuries-old. and elaborate. Others are newly built, remembering victims of the Soviets. Particularly striking is a figure of a young man, a composer, with a draped piano in the background.  I am told he was hanged. My family history here dates back to the 18^th Century. The family, I find, has two crests. I see my great-grandfather’s gravesite. I also see the gravesite of my grandmother who was exiled to Siberia and died soon after. Among the more recently buried is another uncle who taught at the university. “The truth will always live on,” it says on his grave. Rumors abound about the circumstances of his death. Some say he was poisoned. And I see a mohyla, a hilllike mound  that contains the remains of  those who died during the communist occupation of Western Ukraine in 1944.  My aunt guesses that my grandfather’s bones may be buried there, together with those of others found by a river.

America is a lucky country, it occurs to me, its people fortunate and have reason for their unbounded optimism. For the last 200 years they have been spared the horrors of a war fought on their land.

The next day, I go to the bazaar, but like in Joyce’s "Araby," I find many trinkets, but little to buy. At a refreshment stand with outside tables and chairs, I see an advertisement for cigarettes: ”Pall Mall” in American letters is inter-spaced with the nation’s symbol, the tryzyb. Chess players, all men, gather at tables at Lviv’s central square, competing in playoffs. A young boy seems to be winning. I think of my father, a celebrated chess champion, who used to play at the tables of Tompkins Square Park.  

As I move on to the more Russified Kiev, the nation’s capital, a hotel clerk tells me my accent is from Lviv, not recognizing me as an American. As I walk around the city, I see an old man sitting on a bench under the trees, strumming a bandura, the national instrument, and singing with a beautiful, haunting voice.  It’s a song I remember my mother singing, about the pain of a mother sending her son off to war.

In an ancient church that was turned into a museum and is now being rebuilt, another aunt gives me a tall thin candle to light. “In memory of your parents,” she says. Amid the smell of incense, the familiar icons, I am suddenly a child again, standing at a sung Byzantine high church service in my rabbit coat and a warm fur muff.  As we go outside, we see a shining gold-leaf dome being placed on top of the church. In that very plaza, I have my photo taken under a familiar statue of the Viking Queen Olha, whom I learned about in my childhood history classes. My namesake, she brought Christianity into Ukraine.

As I near the end of my tour, on the eve of the country’s Independence Day celebration,  I hear the National Anthem sung, Che Ne Vmerla Ukraina, (Ukraine has not died yet, neither has its fame and glory), something my parents would never have imagined hearing in this land. The Head of Parliament gives a speech in Ukrainian. Then comes an amazing display of choral singing, music, and the balletic folkdances I performed as a child.  I fall in love with the voice of a baritone soloist who sings with a band, a voice the reminds me of  the formal dance parties my parents attended, of a tenor singing, of my father bowing and asking me for a dance as a child. I would hold onto his arms tight and we would spin in swirling circles.
 
And so, at the end of my visit, I find myself torn  apart, standing with one foot in this land, and the other in the nation that welcomed my  parents. If not for the war, it occurs to me, I would have lived in Ukraine, the family line not disrupted.  Cut off from my past, like many Americans, I find my roots in one land and  myself in another.

(c) Olya Thompson
(First published in Newsday and The Philadelphia Inquirer)

Is It Send "Your Tired, Your Poor" Elsewhere?

CLEARING OUT the basement of my mother's house, I come across a manila envelope. It is labeled "Dokymenty" (documents).
     Inside, there's a plastic-coated diver's license-type card, with a photo of my older sister, at about 9 months old, dressed in a fuzzy jumpsuit with bunny ears. "Resident Alien" is stamped beneath the photo. The document is an alien registration card (the equivalent of today's green card) issued when my family arrived in this country in 1951.
    In my family, I will always be the Amerikanka, the one who was born here.
    My parents were expatriates who had to flee their country, Ukraine, during the Communist occupation of their homeland.   It was the landed gentry, the intelligentsia, the religious leaders the Communists targeted. My family was admitted under the Displaced Persons Act after World War II. For my parents, America was a welcoming place. It was not only a place of opportunity, but a place of refuge.
   "Give me your tired, your poor ... Send these, the homeless, the tempest-tossed to me," was inscribed on the Statue of Liberty.
    I come across two other yellowing documents related to my family's' immigration: a typed application with a photo attached, signaling their intent to stay, filed 17 days after I was born. And there's the final citizenship certificate, a grand document that looks like a cross between an enormous dollar bill and a graduation diploma. Those were the only papers required, and the application procedure was simple. I remember my parents heading downtown and back, pleased that they had the right to vote, which they exercised for the rest of their
lives.
   These days, our nation's attitude toward immigrants has changed. They are again viewed with suspicion; their applications are treated with indifference. They have to undergo FBI checks, and because immigration procedures are not clear, they often must turn to lawyers for help. (In fact, a federal appeals court ruled last month that some forms were so obscure and confusing that even the Immigration and Naturalization Service agents who administer them are unable to explain them.)
    There is a backlog of more than 2 million immigrants waiting to become citizens - the largest since the federal government started keeping records at the turn of the century. Processing an application, particularly in large cities, can take as long as five years.
    Congress has allocated funds to automate the system, to hire more workers and expedite the process. But the government's commitment is questionable. After all, new applicants reportedly face an additional one-year delay, because employees have been reassigned to reduce the enormous backlog in citizenship applications.        
   Clearly, America's once-welcoming beacon has dimmed. And its golden doors are being slammed shut.