Voices of the victims

By: Haiden Leach

Some foreground for this piece comes from the classrooms of the University of New Haven. I took an unexpected class for my senior year, but it was needed. I wanted to help share stories of those who are limited and whose voices are hidden. If you are interested in this course, here is a small description before you read on! Please enjoy.

**Dr. Daria A. Kirjanov is a Practitioner in Residence at the University of New Haven. She teaches Russian language and interdisciplinary courses in the Division of Human Sciences and the University Writing Program. Her research focuses on Russophone literature and culture, diaspora studies,  and secondary language acquisition.

Description of the Course  RUSS 3304  “Stories of Displaced Lives: Russia and Eastern Europe in Exile”

War, revolution, and repression have led to the displacement of millions of people since the turn of the 20th century.   “Stories of Displaced Lives: Russia and Eastern Europe in Exile” (RUSS 3304) is a multidisciplinary course that explores the many dimensions of how refugees and emigres approach displacement through storytelling.  Central topics in this course are political repression, cultural identity, resilience, trauma, and memory.  Course materials include films, documentaries, video testimonies, memoirs, prose fiction, music, and poetry written by or about individuals who have lived through some of the most significant upheavals in the 20th and 21st centuries. Students engage with the works of   Ukrainian, Russian, Soviet, Czech, Lithuanian, Polish, Jewish, Romany, Bosnian, and American writers and filmmakers. Attention will also be given to current refugee crises in other parts of the world. This course is conducted in English.**

Different voices experience displacement in different ways, internally (psychologically) and externally (physically). Personal works of those affected will be told as they have witnessed events that will change the world.   

We are seeing history play out, revealing the displacement of millions because of war crimes. Fear and screams echo through the air on what should have been a normal night in the world. While many slept or woke up to start their day, hell began to rain down as the wind was silent. War has now engulfed the people of Ukraine and Gaza. Both are sitting in different parts of the world but sharing the same terrible fate. Bombs rain down and drive people out of their homes, a journey no one wants. The world is suffering through the ages. 

This semester, in the course “Displaced Lives”, we have read and watched many stories that show how challenging displacement is. Displacement doesn’t always mean a movement or a physical place from which one is separated. Displacement has different ways of showing itself; some displacement is internal, meaning psychological, and some is external, that is, physical.  

The film, “Everything is Illuminated,” directed by Liev Schreiber, highlights the issues of internal displacement and how we are affected by it. Jonathan, played by Elijah Wood, embodies the feeling of internal displacement through religion and nationality. Throughout the film, his character feels disconnected from his family and (where they come from – “their origins”) because of the Holocaust.  

When traveling to Ukraine, Jonathan is looking for anyone to point him in the direction of his family's legacy. He is searching for a man who spared and saved his grandfather, to thank him. His family's past is buried, and he now rolls in the feeling of not knowing where he comes from, like so many others of displacement. In the film, the third wall breaks for the audience to form opinions that the characters have not yet discovered. The grandfather, presented with his past, finds himself internally displaced in his everyday routines. Displacement is usually thought of as being physically removed; it can also mean being mentally removed, like how Jonathan and the grandfather of the film feel.   

The people of Ukraine, for example, have been displaced because Russia seeks to take their land. Explosions rang in Ukraine on Feb. 24, 2022, hitting the city of Kyiv. Missiles would push through walls to begin the full-scale war between the two nations. With growing concern of military powers from Russia, Ukraine grows closer to the idea that they are in for the long haul. “There are currently more than 6.7 million refugees from Ukraine who have sought international protection – most of them in Europe, in addition to over 3.7 million people who remain forcibly displaced inside the country,” said the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR). 

Sisters Nadiia Gryshyna and Svitlana Kartashova faced these tragedies. The pair was forced to flee as a safety threat grew imminent. Explosives intensified near their village of Velyka Rybytsia on the Psel River in northeastern Ukraine, just 5 kilometers from the Russian border. A daunting reality was in front of them, they would now be displaced from their only home.  Nadiia said, “Our village is too close to the front line: every day, we were bombed. The evacuation was very hard for us.” Many around Ukraine have suffered the same fate; there are an estimated 10.6 million Ukrainians who have been forced from their homes over the last three years, all facing the same fate as Nadia and her family. Up to thousands of Ukrainian soldiers have died, and as many as 800,000 Russian militants have perished. There has been destruction on both sides. Missiles not only kill soldiers but also civilians and destroy habitable land. Houses that were once homes are now shells of where families used to gather. Yet, despite so much suffering, the spirit of the Ukrainian people remains unchanged.  

With so much sadness and destruction, the people of Ukraine remain hopeful they will return to the places they call home. The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) said, “Overall, 61 percent of Ukrainian refugees and 73 percent of internally displaced people surveyed still plan and hope to return home one day.”  

Mariia Brusova is one of the hopefuls... this is her second time being displaced from Ukraine. The first was in 2014, in another conflict with Russia. She’s hopeful, nonetheless, that she will return home a second time to Ukraine. People who don’t return must make a new normal. Nadiia, Svitlana, and their children are some of the people who have chosen to take this disaster and turn it into something beautiful. 

“As a family, we have a chance to start over, after going through so much,” said Nadiia. The group relocated to a home made by UNCHR, which now houses all eight of them.  

Svitlana said, “We love our new home- we can’t return [to our village] because our homes are destroyed, but now we have a place where we can rebuild our lives.” With a safe housing option becoming available for other displaced families, five families have also joined the area. A small village of families is forming in the rubble of despair. These excerpts only begin to highlight the cries of these displacement victims.  

In the text, Snow and Sand, author Vicka Markov Surovtsov picks this idea apart even more. In this memoir, Vika takes us through snow and sand to show us her journey of internal/ external displacement while being alive. Through displacement events, she writes about displacement and what it means to her, in three points of view. Her mother, father, and she all illuminated different perspectives of how tragedies affected them. Vikas' mother suffered displacement throughout her entire life. By default, and as a product of her environment, it trickled down to Vika, too. 

Starting in Russia and being physically displaced from her home, their family travels to Egypt for a new lease on life.  

“For many years, the Turks were determined to cut out all the Armenians, and they had partially succeeded. At war, the Armenians systematically paid them back by killing the remaining few Turks. These were mostly women, children, and old people, too weak to leave town, but avenging Armenians would suffer too long at the hands of their tormentors. Had no pity,” said Surovtsov. 

While undergoing the effects of physical displacement, internal displacement would become their new norm. Russian culture is very different from the practices and daily life in Egypt. New languages had to be adopted to survive in a land unfamiliar to them. Most now assume a new identity in a foreign culture or language. They must assume adaptation to their surroundings and ideals that lie ahead. 

During displacement, many look to writing to keep them going; the most powerful works often come out in devastating events. Some of the best books come from displacement. Vika writes about her journey in three parts - from her mother’s point of view, her father’s, and herself when she returned to Russia after the occupation. Literature has a way of invoking feelings that images sometimes may not. We see this not only in Vikas’ book but in a poem, Requiem, by Anna Akhmatova.  

Excerpt: 

For seventeen months, I have been screaming, 

Calling you home. 

I've thrown myself at the feet of butchers 

For you, my son, and my horror. 

Everything has become muddled forever - 

I can no longer distinguish 

Who is an animal, who a person, and how long 

The wait can be for an execution.

Akhmatova, p.2.  

While some find comfort in words, others find it in hope. One thing that all displaced people share is the ability to hope. Most hope for a better future, or hope that history will stop repeating itself, or that we can be better than we once were. People of displacement have an immeasurable sense of character. They also embody what it means to love your country. Even though damage and destruction ravage their homes, their love for where they hold their memories triumphs overall.  

A parallel text that influences thoughts about displacement is Man’s Search for Meaning by Viktor Frankl, a memoir detailing and exposing the realities of displacement through Frankl’s memories of the Holocaust.  

Frankl writes, “I would like to mention a few similar surprises on how much we could endure: we were unable to clean our teeth, and yet, despite that and a severe vitamin deficiency, we had healthier gums than ever before. We had to wear the same shirts for half a year, until they had lost all appearance of being shirts. For days, we were unable to wash, even partially, because of frozen water-pipes, and yet the sores and abrasions on hands which were dirty from work in the soil did not suppurate (that is, unless there was frostbite),” stated Frankl. It draws eerie similarities to a time when Jewish prisoners were the victims of genocide during imprisonment camps and forced labor camps.

The holocaust defined a new way of how to be displaced on a wide scale that many had not seen. Viktor Frankl’s memoir, Man’s Search for Meaning, dives into the horrific truths of displacement. Not by the way of travelling to a different country, but travel to a different country to die based on your specific beliefs. People were ripped from their homes to be killed or worked to death. Displacement seems to always root itself in history, seemingly because it keeps happening.  

History tends to repeat itself. While there is a war in Ukraine, there is a war in Gaza. A war doesn’t define the situations happening, but genocide does. Another key element of displacement is intended to end a specific movement from claiming their territory. In Gaza, a genocide of the Palestinian people is happening, but society is unchanged by the carnage. 

Genocide is defined as “The deliberate killing of a large number of people from a particular nation or ethnic group with the aim of destroying that nation or group, per Merriam Webster.  

Oxfam reports write, “The recent escalation in efforts by Israel to bombard, deprive and displace the Palestinian population of Gaza has resulted in Oxfam and partner organizations being severely restricted and struggling to provide support to civilians, who are facing starvation and relentless violence.”  

While the world lies its head down at night, displacement in the most gruesome scenes is happening. Slaughters of children, women, and families rain down on the Palestinian people. While the people in Gaza fight for their lives, so do those in Ukraine. They are exiled from their homes and all they’ve ever known. Displacement internally and externally is all around us and continues to grow exponentially with the threats of nuclear weaponry.  

These are the voices of the victims of displacement. From text, to film, or print, these stories are real, raw, and all around us. We cannot neglect the fact that these are their truths. What they have witnessed in history has changed the world. Displacement will never end, so neither can these stories.