The Two Most Precious Words

“Once, I used to say that trust was the most valuable currency of our age. In peacetime, as you are at constant risk to be fooled with advertizing fast cash, campaign promises rather resemble circus tricks, and self-styled gurus are “transforming the world with affirmations”, it’s easy to see your neighbor as a swindler. On the contrary, there’s no sense in fooling people on the battlefield. Other rules apply there: every single human being is empty-handed once they are dead, whilst a fuck-up can easily get you killed, so you absolutely have to trust the one who’s covering you in combat.” To Dmytro Krapyvenko, journalist and member of Ukraine’s armed forces, solidarity is the difference between life and death.

This guest editorial is written within the PEN Ukraine “Dialogues on War” project, supported by the U.S. Embassy in Ukraine.

By Dmytro Krapyvenko with PEN Ukraine


Photo: Mak Flex/Unsplash

The Revolution of Dignity and the subsequent war gave us two essential reasons for being the true citizens of our country.

The French Revolution gave Europe its motto, “Liberty, Equality, Fraternity”, which, from then on, has become the matrix for living the next centuries on these territories. It was only context that had changed. Our Ukrainian War of Independence gave us our own menacing motto, “Liberty or Death”, which united rebels across the political spectrum – from the anarchists of Huliaipole to the nationalists of Kholodnyi Yar. “Freedom Is Our Religion”, said the biggest banner on the front façade of the Trade Unions Building, destroyed by fire, in 2014. This manifested the hereditability of our struggle and Ukrainians’ belonging to the European system of values. Declarations, referendums, and the Constitution are important, but there is always something above them. It’s neither a passport nor the knowledge of a national anthem lyrics that makes one a citizen. There’s something superior, not to fit under any legislative act, even a perfectly prescribed one.

I had this feeling on the Maidan and had carried it throughout all the next years of war, hidden behind the acronym ATO, later JFO.

It was 2016 or 2017; while travelling from Kostiantynivka to Kyiv by an intercity train, I ended up in a long line for the snack bar. In front of me stood a guy in a military uniform: apparently, a soldier of the 30th brigade where I serve now. He took himself a few hotdogs and a bottle of cola, but the payment terminal was out of connection (this is a common problem on trains) and the soldier didn’t have any cash.

“No worries, dude, I’ll pay it,” said I because, fortunately, I had enough money with me. It’s an unsignificant episode, and under no circumstances would I like to say that I had done something extraordinary: as for me, it’s rather the default behaviour. Would someone really have done it otherwise? Or take, for instance, another “railroad story”. It was January 2015, and I had been hopelessly stuck at the train station in Sloviansk. No tickets, no trains. My only chance was to catch one in Izium. I came up to a bunch of officers who were also seeking ways out “to the mainland”, and we got acquainted quickly.

“C’mon, volunteer, we’ll figure something out together,” they said.

The seven of us, plus weapons and body armor, got crammed into an UAZ that could hardly pull away from the standstill on an icy road, but after all, we’d happily gotten to Izium five minutes before the train was to arrive.

“OK, volunteer,” the senior in rank, Andrii, commanded, “you join us for dinner. No objection!”

“Yes, sir,” I said in jest, but actually, the invitation came at the very opportune time, because I had made a march on Debaltseve and had nothing to eat since the early morning. 

The Revolution of Dignity and the subsequent war gave rise to solidarity and the system of coordinates that made it possible to clearly distinguish friends from foes. In the peacetime, we as a society had been split up by multiple conventionalities, like those dictated by a status (definitely a stupid relict of the medieval tripartite social order) or regional differences (do you still remember those long-lasting speculations on the maps of “Ukrainians being divided into three types”?) and postcolonial phantom pains (I have a great interest in contemplating transformation of former Pushkin fanciers).

Once, while still in peacetime, the notion of “being positive” came into fashion. I had always been far from it. I’d got enough problems and injustice to witness. I have never mastered the skill of forcing dry smiles, pretending that evil does not exist or living on false emotions, and perhaps, I’d wasted some opportunities in that “positive” group. Still, I have made up for everything in wartime. No, I’ve never become like a cheerful MLM salesman, but I have truly felt myself united with my people in my own country.

The war has catalyzed all the processes that politicians (even the so-called pro-European national democrats) had always been too afraid to boost. Language issue? Not the time of. Local church? No haste. Ukrainization? Don’t split the society. Decommunization, decolonization? Well, it’s our history, isn’t it? We had, upon many people’s consent, been at it continuously for decades. Russian aggression has made the once fiercest opponents to stand in solidarity with each other. And very soon, all the “controversial issues” were resolved – or at least the ways to settle them in the closest future were found quite easily.

Our enemies have a very interesting term, sootechestvenniki (could probably be translated as “compatriots”). By sootechestvenniki they mean all who can speak Russian and were born on the territories of the ex-USSR. It’s on their behalf that Moscow has unleashed each war since the 1990’s. I fall within the definition of sootechestvennik myself, whereas I spoke Russian to my parents in my childhood, learned Ukrainian language at school and still have a lot of relatives in Russian Federation. My story isn’t the only one of the kind. People like myself had been altogether ranked as creoles who dream about the restoration of the empire. This was Putin’s sole decision. It’s him who tries to fit us into an artificial identity, made up by persons like Surkov and Dugin. Yet we chose to adopt another identity – not imposed from above but begotten of the pure motives of solidarity with our people who cherish freedom, not imperial whipping.

Perhaps we have already got used to this solidarity and stopped noticing it in our daily life. It, however, consists in volunteering that has seized millions of Ukrainians at home or abroad. It consists in creative energy, opposed by the hostile cultural aggression. Our solidarity manifests itself each time that Ukrainian civilians thank the military for their service, that our IFV column enters a village, casting dust up to the skies, and the local women greet the fighters with milk and their own homemade pies, or that a young mother ends up overnight in a strange city (though every Ukrainian can feel free to see each Ukrainian city as their own one) and asks for a place to stay with the kid in a local group, whereupon dozen of residents offer a room to her.

There is also a word that has expanded the palette of its meanings in our language over the recent years: it’s brotherhood. In terms of Gogol’s Taras Bulba, it implies that nothing is more sacred than the Cossacks’ association, since the latter unites people by spirit, not by blood. Gogol had never served in the army or taken part in any war, but he was a descendant of senior Cossack officers and therefore managed to give the precise artistic idea of the dearest feeling for any warrior. Within the military sense, brotherhood means that people in common awful everyday conditions, sitting knee-dip in the mud under the heavy hostile fire, will always share the last cracker. You may rest at home with your family somewhere deep in the rear, but the moment your brother in arms calls and tells you, like, “Hey, bro, I’ve come briefly, just in transit,” you rush headlong across the whole town to merely hug him and drink a shot-glass together. And, of course, it’s none other than your brothers in arms who will always be there to help when you get into health problems, financial troubles, or difficulties in finding a job (because, you know, finding back in civilian life is not a movie to edit: it usually takes more than one broken thread).

Once, I used to say that trust was the most valuable currency of our age. In peacetime, as you are at constant risk to be fooled with advertizing fast cash, campaign promises rather resemble circus tricks, and self-styled gurus are “transforming the world with affirmations”, it’s easy to see your neighbor as a swindler. On the contrary, there’s no sense in fooling people on the battlefield. Other rules apply there: every single human being is empty-handed once they are dead, whilst a fuck-up can easily get you killed, so you absolutely have to trust the one who’s covering you in combat. Nothing else but blindly trust their weapons and sharpshooting, no matter what region you both come from, what was your material status once in your pre-war life, or whom you chose to vote for in the last election.

I’m not a romantic in rose-tinted glasses. I’ve seen quite an amount of scaremongers and marauders in uniform, dishonest volunteers or politically depraved veterans. There’s enough shit all around us: it’s easy to spot, but the main thing is still try not to plunge.

Solidarity and brotherhood will prevail. I do believe this. Otherwise, you wouldn’t be reading these lines.

Translated by Anna Vovchenko

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