When the symbols of Ukrainian resistance fade

The country’s sociocultural evolution, which combines modern and traditional values, has always had a weakness for symbols. We have the ability to discern meaning from the seemingly indistinct, by observing more than is actually present.

A Ukrainian tractor towing away a Russian tank embodied the heroism of farmers, and a kitchen cupboard that was preserved on the wall of a devasted building became an image of invincibility after the war with Russia.

Then we had the collective figure of our fighter pilots known as the “Ghost of Kyiv”, the Russian warship Moskva, sunken by a stealth Ukrainian operation, and a shrapnel-pierced bust of the Ukrainian poet Taras Shevchenko, discovered in a small town outside Kyiv, to name just a few. They all once seemed so significant and comforting because they were able to give the already-known effects of war a deeper meaning.

We were enthralled by the first spring of the massive war because we were desperate to be strong and unbreakable. From the traditional braids of a girl inspecting car trunks at a checkpoint to the shades of blue and yellow socks, everything became symbolic. The smallest details were reframed as an aesthetics of resistance, filling us with belief in our strength and invincibility. We quickly invented symbols and memes before we could incorporate them into our cultural code. We believed that everything would work for us. It probably did.

However, all symbols have one thing in common: they age over time. Just like the people who adhere to them, believe in them, and follow their instructions.

After the heroism of spring 2022 came summer, autumn, and winter. The terrible realization that we were going to be involved in this for a long time came to mind. Ahead of us lay a huge amount of work, pain, torment and loss. We would lose loved ones, we would bury poets and filmmakers, we would grieve, then maybe argue, and, in the end, we would die. Not all of us. However, some of us.

The roulette spins – red or black, life or death. Who will be buried beneath the rubble and when the next missile will strike is unknown. Additionally, you can’t determine the rocket’s trajectory to find a place in time. It is a long game of survival.

We didn’t even notice as symbols began to lose their significance and allure. A tractor pulling a tank away? Give it a rest … Now we speak about generators, blackouts and FPV drones, which are needed at the front on an industrial scale. A cupboard on a wall? It’s just a cupboard on a wall. As of mid-2024, Russia had destroyed or damaged more than 250, 000 buildings. Every single one contained a cupboard – several, in fact. We’ve grown weary of peering into destroyed apartments’ interiors.

The Ghost of Kyiv? We’ve buried so many exceptional pilots who were living, breathing symbols. The warship Moskva? Over the past three years, we’ve sunk a third of the Russian Federation’s Black Sea Fleet, with the rest driven out of the Black Sea by the threat of our military capabilities.

I dove in to my own favorite symbols, or rather totems, for my own. One of them was already there before the first missiles flew over Kyiv in February night. When I first started defending my country’s territorial integrity in the east in 2015, it first appeared.

At a Kyiv shopping center, I purchased a metal mug with oranges on it before heading to the military training facility. That mug became a fetish and had a special meaning as I grew to love it, but foolishly I carried it everywhere with me.

It stayed with me throughout the 14 months I served in 2015­–16, 10 of which were spent on the front line. No other thing ever had a benefit over me before, so it served me. Later, back in civilian life, I took it with me to the mountains, into the wilderness. It served me in the studio where I was an artist for a long time.

And, of course, in early March 2022, I took it with me to the army. I told my brothers-in-arms stories about it, explaining its significance. The entire unit rushed to find the mug when we moved to a new position and I couldn’t find it, because my fellow soldiers were aware of how significant it was and how much our relationship had been.

In late spring 2023, when Bakhmut, which suffered one of the bloodiest battles of this large-scale war, finally bled to death and our troops, shaken, shell-shocked and spent, were withdrawing, my unit was thrown in as cover to distract the Russians from the forces leaving the city. Without any hope of leaving that trench, which reeked of corpses, for several days, we were under constant fire.

We were preparing for a tiring run over several kilometers by enemy bombardment and drones when the order to retreat arrived. There in that trench, scattered with the bodies of our soldiers and literally ploughed by shelling, I left my mug behind. My very own symbol of invincibility, my trusty totem, an heirloom my children will never inherit.

It was a shame. But it was more crucial that my survival chances were to be a fractional increase. No matter how much symbolism I had invested in it, my life was more important to me than some typical household item.

When heroism becomes a norm and drudgery sets in, symbols lose. Fear and habit have been blurred by Fatigue. There hasn’t appeared to be a single new symbol over the past 18 months, roughly. Topical cartoons and memes are now significantly less popular.

This military fervour has finally made us sick, just like this never-ending war has. We have even grown tired of ourselves. And that is not a bad thing. People cannot endure constant upheaval. We have become pragmatic and rational. The only representation we have are ourselves.

Every person who remains unbroken, who carries on working and contributing, who holds the front line with every last ounce of strength, who donates every last penny to buy drones and off-road vehicles, who sources medical equipment across the globe, who tries to live their life in spite of everything. We are the symbols: Worn-out like old winter coats, but real.

We simply continue to live and fight.

This text was written within a joint initiative of UkraineWorld, the Ukrainian Institute and PEN Ukraine. Helena Kernan provided the translation.

Source: Aljazeera