“The Lord said, ‘What have you done? Listen! Your brother’s blood is crying out from the earth. Now cursed are you by the earth, which has opened its mouth to receive your brother’s blood from your hand. the earth, it will not give you any more of its strength. You will be a fugitive wandering in the world.'” (Genesis 4:10-12)
My father, Aleksandr Fikhman (1930–1991), was born in Proskuriv (renamed Khmelnitski in 1954), in western Ukraine. In June 1941, during the early days of the war, he left his hometown with his parents and older sisters, never to return. All of his family members who failed to escape were killed at Babi Yar, near Kiev, along with another 150,000 Jews.
The journey to Kiev was a long one—11 days by train. The trains were bombed, and the tracks took time to repair. From Kiev, the family was sent east, into the countryside. My father spoke of this experience often, and he once mentioned a poignant detail: among the things they took was a volume of Lessing, the German Romantic. I’ve forgotten many things my father told me, but that little volume by Lessing—plays written in the enemy’s language—stayed in my mind.
Today, many are writing about war, and everyone thinks and talks about it. The feelings that prevail are of hatred for those, or rather, for the one who unleashed this war, of understandable fear for the future and of a shame that cannot be washed away by the formula “not in my name”.
To that we can add admiration for the resilience of the Ukrainian people and the president and army of Ukraine — an army the Russian government refers to as a “bunch of drug addicts and neo-Nazis” or “Ukrainian formations”.
It must be said that this kind of language reveals both the profound falsehood of the Russian government and its essential misanthropy. They even started talking about the “solution to the Ukrainian question”. And the war itself is not a “war”, but a “special operation”. They will claim, for example, that they “destroyed 200 neo-Nazis” rather than “killed 200 soldiers and officers”.
Why try to humiliate opponents? Especially those who live, as they say, in a “brother nation”?
On the topic of brotherhood: I participated in the small anti-war demonstration in our small town of Tarusa, with a sign that said: “Cain, where is your brother Abel?” This war must be called for what it is: fratricidal. And one cannot answer the biblical question in the spirit of the hero of Alexei Balabanov’s cult film “Brother” (1997).
“You’re not my brother, black-ass scum,” says this hero — a response that has shaped the attitude of entire generations of Russians toward people who look different from them, “non-Slavs.”
The prevailing mood among my friends is this: what a terrible dishonor we live to see. Still, it’s not unheard of.
“No one spoke of hatred towards the Russians. It was not hatred, for they did not regard those Russian dogs as human beings, but there was such revulsion, disgust and bewilderment at the senseless cruelty of these creatures, that the desire to exterminate them – like the desire to exterminate rats, poisonous spiders, or wolves—it was as natural an instinct as self-preservation.”
This passage from Tolstoy’s “Hadji Murad” has roots in an entirely different time. However, from time to time it regains its relevance.
I play chess on the internet. It’s a regular activity, like playing solitaire or solving crossword puzzles. And I often come across Ukrainian users, but in the last few days, when they see the Russian flag next to my name, they write “I do not play with squatters” or simply leave the game.
This reaction is natural and correct. And it forces us to consider the extent to which we, who carry the Russian language as part of our identity, are responsible for what is happening.
The noted contemporary poet Alexei Tsvetkov offers the following parable: “Imagine passing by a lake in which a child is drowning. You cannot swim, you are sure you cannot; then you stand at the water’s edge wringing your hands while child sinks before your eyes. It’s not your fault, but if you don’t feel remorse for the rest of your life, some important piece of the moral machinery has been removed from you.” Very precise words.
Of course, those who consider the war with Ukraine to be the beginning of Russia’s collapse are right. Plans for a victorious small war, a “blitzkrieg”, fell apart. Authoritarian rulers are never forgiven for lost wars, but the results of this are unlikely to be limited to a change of ruler.
The history of our country is coming to an end, but I believe that the Russian language will survive, although its dominance will inevitably diminish. Returning to the volume of Lessing that I started with, the boy who is fleeing Kiev — not to the east, but in the opposite direction — will take with him a book written in the language of the enemy. Perhaps Pushkin’s “The Captain’s Daughter” or even “Hadji Murad”? I just don’t know.
