more to the story

I’ve always been a collector of sorts—especially of stories. Books. Dreams. Myths. Bedtime stories. Music. Plays. Movies. Television shows. Conversations. I love them all. I drink them in with the same quiet fervor as my morning cup of coffee. 

I know many people who are loath to redo anything—they don’t like to rewatch movies and they refuse to reread books. I have never had that problem. As far back as I can remember, I’ve to read/watch/hear/write/experience the same stories over and over. It seems I’ve on some level always instinctively known there is more to the story, and, instead of being on the lookout for new and exciting stories, I’ve spent my life searching the stories I know and love for deeper meaning. 

In this day and age, where people are so constantly bombarded with information they have a tendency to mistake a headline or excerpt for a story, it is especially important to look beyond the surface. Since the onset of the conflict in Eastern Ukraine, I have found myself increasingly frustrated with the news coverage of events—to the point where, had I not been assigned a specific topic, I would have written my communication directed studies capstone paper (similar to a senior thesis) about it. If the information provided by major world news sources is anything to go by—spoiler alert: it’s not—the war in Ukraine is actually a conflict between two major ideological players: Russia and the West. But they’re telling both sides of the story, right? That’s a good thing, right? Wrong. There is one side, a very important side, conspicuously missing from the story—Ukraine’s. When I started this blog, I started it with one seemingly simple goal in mind: to tell Ukraine’s story. If I’ve learned anything during the past ten months, it’s that Ukraine’s story is far more complex than I ever could have imagined. 

Ukraine’s unique history gives everything here an extra layer: politics, identity, culture, language, etc. To demonstrate, let us briefly examine, both literally and metaphorically, language usage in Ukraine. For a number of cultural and historical reasons, Ukraine is a bilingual country. As you move from east to west (or from west to east, if you like), a clear pattern emerges: people in Western Ukraine speak almost exclusively Ukrainian, people in Eastern Ukraine speak almost exclusively Russian, and people in Central Ukraine speak a quaint mix of the two languages (surzhyk). I live in Central Ukraine, which means I spend most of my days navigating the linguistic uncertainty that comes with being a foreigner among speakers of a pidgin language. At first it was a bit like watching a game of ping-pong, constantly switching between languages, but I have finally developed an ear (and an affinity) for surzhyk. 

There is one thing that still manages to throw me off my game, though: when Ukrainians speak purely Russian (g-sounds and accent and all). Most people quickly switch to Ukrainian when they realize I understand significantly more Ukrainian than Russian—which I greatly appreciate—but I occasionally encounter people who would seemingly rather struggle through a botched conversation than switch to speaking Ukrainian. That confounded and frustrated me for months, but I think I am finally beginning to see the other sides of the story.

For my first few months at site, partly because PCVs are discouraged from discussing politics but mostly because I just didn’t have the language skills, I tried to avoid conversations about the war in the East. It’s a topic that can’t be ignored, though, and recently, armed with a stronger grasp of the language and a greater understanding of the situation, I have found myself discussing the conflict almost frequently. These conversations have without a doubt helped me make sense of the complexity of the situation…but for now we are speaking (metaphorically) about language. 

People here, as is the case everywhere, are widely diverse, but the majority I have encountered would likely agree on two points: they are proud to be Ukrainian and they are scared of what they think Russia is trying to do in their country. These feelings manifest themselves in different ways for different people, especially in regards to the language they choose to speak. There are some people who, at the onset of the war, successfully committed themselves to speaking only Ukrainian. There are some people who wanted to switch to Ukrainian, but are struggling because their daily lives are conducted almost entirely in Russian. There are some people who consider themselves Ukrainian but continue speaking Russian because they think Ukraine would be better off economically as a part of Russia. There are some people who refuse to speak Ukrainian because they were born in the Ukrainian Soviet Republic and consider themselves Russian. There are some people who love their country deeply and have/would have if they could have dropped everything to fight for its independence, yet still choose to speak Russian—these were the people who confused me the most, but I finally understand that their entire lives have been in Russian and that speaking Russian is just as much a part of their identity as being Ukrainian. There are also people who haven’t ever questioned why they speak the language they do. As for me, I will continue speaking Ukrainian because, while I may not be Ukrainian, I am proud to live here and proud to speak such a beautiful and symbolic language. 

Ukraine has a beautiful, meaningful, exciting, and at times heart-wrenching story—and that’s only what I’ve discovered so far!—and I feel honored to share it with the world. Here’s to the things we’ll learn and the stories we’ll tell in this coming year…let’s make them count. 

(This post is part of Blogging Abroad’s 2017 New Years Blog Challenge, week two: The Danger of a Single Story.)