The emotional baggage of being a refugee
This article first appeared in Volume 51, Issue 2 of our print edition of Index on Censorship, titled The battle for Ukraine: Artists, journalists and dissidents respond, published on 27 July 2022. Read more about the issue here.
You are leaving tomorrow; the time of deliberation has passed. Yesterday in the early morning hours, a house in the neighbourhood was bombed, and the smoke is still rising. An unknown, disturbing stench overwhelms you as soon as you open a window.
Now you are sitting in your darkened living room, with electricity long gone, looking at the suitcase gaping open on the floor. In Ukraine you call it tryvozhna valizka, an alarm suitcase, a suitcase of anxiety – a kind of suitcase of fear.
Slightly panicked, you throw in a warm pullover; you might need it, a neighbour told you, so you put it in and replace your favourite dress. Why would a refugee need a fancy dress? You ask yourself and throw it out. What to take with you? People tell you to take this and not forget that. Suddenly they all are experts on what it means to flee. But even if you could put in all you needed, from books and warm clothes to food and medicine, how would you carry such a heavy burden?
“Put on a solid pair of walking shoes,” your grandma, your beloved babusya, would say. “You will surely walk a lot. My dear, moya lyuba,” she would tell you. “Leave that bulky valizka here; there is nothing in it that can protect you from the war.”
If only she were with you now. But her bones are at the cemetery, and it has not been hit yet. The Russian soldiers are targeting live Ukrainians for now, but soon the turn will come for the dead, too. Because the dead represent the memory of the living, they too have to be annihilated. “Don’t ask what kind of people could kill the elderly, small children and their mothers – people kill people, we are doing it to each other. Now Russians kill us but believe me; we’ll be killing them too.” You know that her view of human nature was dark. But you also know that you can’t command the dead to shut up; they tell you how to remember them. If you would angrily retort: this is not the time to compare, we are defending ourselves, babusya would simply wave her hand as if to say: I’ve seen it all; I know what the people are capable of.
“But they kill even cats!” You tell her, as perhaps the final argument against Russian soldiers. You found your Luna wounded in front of the door, and she died in your hands. Why? Animals are not enemies. You passed a dead shepherd dog on the way back from fetching the water; someone loved that dog as you loved Luna. You’ve stayed so long here because you could not imagine leaving her. It was while digging a shallow grave in the flower bed that you became certain that you wanted to leave all this behind. Strange, you think now, in the darkness lit by the single candle, how odd that what really scared you – the fact that soldiers had no mercy, even for animals – was what finally scared you away.
If only Babusya could help you now, as she used to do when you were a child. In your mind, you can see her face leaning over to kiss your forehead; you can feel her warm hands, you can almost feel her presence. “Well, don’t be sad, you can take your valizka with you. But not the one on the floor, not the one you used to take on vacation to Crimea. No, open another one, the one in your mind, the one for the images and memories, for the smell of spring and memory of a certain touch. That is the valizka you will need more as it can be filled by all you hold dear, everything you are. That invisible luggage will become your survival kit.
“And now, moya lyuba, before you leave, it is time to pick up the candle and have a good look around,” she would say, directing you to the kitchen, with its neatly washed dishes and clean tablecloth. “Did you set it up for your return?” I did that out of habit, you would explain to her, and she would understand; she was the one who taught you to clean after yourself. In the living room, she would notice something that no one else would. The absence of photos, one of herself and your mother, the other of the entire family, usually proudly exposed on the dresser, under the clock. You took the pictures out of frames so that they will keep you company along the way. You apologetically say, in a weak voice; some of the pictures I have hidden in a safe place until I return. “Yes, I know every refugee believes that leaving home is only temporary; otherwise, how would they bear to leave?”
You hadn’t intended to leave, even when shelling was getting closer, even when all the other neighbours from the apartment building had left, as if you believed the war would not touch you. How to desert the place where you and your parents worked hard to earn for every single thing, from the big flat screen TV set to the fine new carpet? Lovely presents you got for your birthday, old inherited teacups, that fine coat you saved for, the small things that made you happy. Leaving home to save your life was unimaginable, for what is life without everything that makes it home?
You can almost feel Babusya reading your mind as you touch the cushions on the bed, the reading lamp and a new, unread book waiting for you to open. “Try to take the moments with you. Remember how you fell from a bicycle the first time you rode and hurt your knee but stubbornly climbed on again? Or buying a pair of red dancing shoes for your graduation?”
Other moments you won’t be able to forget, even if you wish you could: the one when you spotted the first human corpse. It was only yesterday, you remember in amazement. As you walked into your street, someone was lying on the pavement in front of number five. As you approached, as you had to pass by, you saw the old school janitor, who never let you into the school even if you were only a minute late. Lying there in his pyjamas, he looked as if he was asleep. But who would choose to sleep on the pavement on a chilly spring morning? Even from where you stood, you could see that his eyes were open, and there was some smeared blood on his right temple. You suddenly felt trapped. You stopped and screamed into the space, not hoping for an answer: why? Why? But the answer came in a familiar voice: “Don’t go around asking why; you are not a child anymore!”
Life is not things; it is the memory of those things, the only way to keep them with you. Now you understand why your mental tryvozhna valizka is more important than the one on the floor. The one that you would uselessly drag, pull or carry around, hugging it and never letting go, until you get so tired that you’d want to abandon it, throwing it into the first water that would be deep enough to swallow it.
The other valizka, on the other hand, is the one that will always remain, the one you take home or wherever you go when the war ends, and it will; every war does. That one is heavy in a different way. What else is inside, apart from the fear, images from the past and your memories of the precious moments? Everything that you learned since the war started: the sound of the air raid siren, the word “shelter”, the damp smell of the cellars, the scent of fresh blood that reminds you of iron. Also, lessons that you have yet to learn. You’ll discover that your home is not yours because the others have the power to take it from you. You’ll realise that for the same reason your life is not your own. You’ll learn to be afraid, and that fear is good. You’ll learn to choose sides as well as to be pushed to the side you did not choose; you might even need to know how to hate. “Hatred” is something one easily learns in such a situation. It is the most terrible lesson in survival; you’ll most certainly learn the word “survival” and its meaning. One can survive anywhere, something you’ll learn while walking in a long line towards some border or a safe place. That word, besides many other previous unknowns, will be the main word in your valizka. A “safe place” is another important notion; it seems only yesterday you believed any place you felt good was safe. And the word luck will get a new definition; while you sit on the wet soil somewhere in the woods, covered by a tarp under fat drops of cold rainfall, you’ll suddenly realise your luck. You’ll experience the birth of a whole new dictionary born out of the war. You should carefully take those newly born words and keep them in your valizka, which is becoming more and more precious the further you go.
“I am telling you, it was a good idea to toss a photo of your house into your backpack. And you ask me why, again? Haven’t you yet learned that war doesn’t allow asking stupid questions? It’s because you are homeless now, a refugee. I see, lyuba, that you disagree, fiddling with the house key in your pocket as if it proves something. You probably don’t, but I remember an old newspaper photo – many years after the war in Bosnia ended. Every Saturday in Berlin, near Wittemberg, one could see the same scene: women, many women, standing silently, each holding a photo, closeups of their houses, of homes they once had until the others appropriated them. Or shelled them, burned them. The women held the photos as the only proof, as the document that they, too, lived a different life just like the rest of us. That’s what I am saying. I remember how it hit me, the idea that an image of the house could be the proof of belonging to ordinary people.
Such a photo, not a house key, became an essential identity document, just like an ID card.
“You are that kind of a refugee now, do you understand?”
It is a new word as well, but after a week, you will realise that this single word sums up what you are to others. It will take time to see yourself as a refugee because the picture it evokes is usually quite different. A big mass of people, women with headscarves, young men, children, walking or waiting, sitting on the ground or crouching under the open sky somewhere at the Hungarian border, expecting a transport to Germany, their skin darker than yours. Surely you remember the picture of a dead Syrian refugee boy lying on a beach in Turkey; it sent a shudder down your spine. Soon you will learn that your Ukrainian nationality and the pale skin colour will decide your destiny, as his nationality and skin colour did his.
Once you are safe and taken care of in a new country, you will experience a strange feeling; a confusing mixture of gratitude to your benefactors and a kind of a shame at the same time. That is because it is not easy to receive charity. You are in need, and to be needy is humiliating. Charity is perhaps the heaviest of burdens.
“Trust me; you are not alone. My bones will stay here, but I will live on in your valizka. But here is one last thing I must warn you about before letting you go. You might see a few dead people along the way and start to think you know death because you can feel the cold sweat of fear. That is not what I mean. You need to do better, recognise the mortal danger, its icy breath just behind you, without seeing its face. This skill, not things you took from home, will save your life. Learn it fast, moya lyuba…” Babusya’s voice is fading.
Now you can see the pale light of dawn breaking. The sign for you to leave.
Leave the heavy suitcase of fear, leave it there, open on the floor.
Don’t cry.
Smile as you close the door, you are no longer burdened by fears, but strengthened by what you carry inside, and nobody can take from you.
You are as set as any refugee could ever be.
A memorial for the man who told the world about the Babyn Yar massacre
Anatoly Kuznetsov is the author of Babi Yar: A Document in the Form of a Novel. His memoir is a masterpiece of Ukrainian literature and a testament to the 30,000 Jews massacred at Babyn Yar (the Ukrainian spelling), Kyiv in September 1941. Today it would probably be called “autofiction”, a form of writing where autobiography borrows from the techniques of narrative fiction. However, for Kuznetsov, it is only the form which is novelistic, nothing in the book is fictionalised.
“I am writing it as though I were giving evidence under oath in the very highest court and I am ready to answer for every single word. This book records only the truth – AS IT REALLY HAPPENED.”
The book records the events following the German invasion of Ukraine in 1941 up until Soviet forces recaptured Kyiv at the end of 1943. But it also discusses the Soviet rewriting of history after the end of World War II and the terrible disaster in 1961 that followed the literal burying of the site of the atrocity in sludge and mud.
We only have the full text of this remarkable book because Kuznetsov defected to the UK in 1969 after finally losing faith in the Soviet Union after the invasion of Czechoslovakia the previous year. He smuggled the manuscript out in films hidden in his clothing and this was later translated by the Daily Telegraph journalist David Floyd, who had helped him defect.
Kuznetsov is buried in Highgate Cemetery, two plots up from actor Sir Ralph Richardson and just across from artist Patrick Caulfield and deserves to be just as celebrated. And yet, the grave is unmarked. Pilgrims to the monument to Karl Marx walk past this anonymous plot every day without realising that they are passing the last resting place of one of the most eloquent witnesses to the horrific human cost of totalitarian ideology.
There is now a crowdfunder to raise a headstone for Anatoly Kuznetsov, which has already received wide support.
Luke Harding, the Guardian foreign correspondent and author of several books on Russia recently described Kuznetsov’s book as “a brilliant documentary novel”… “a vivid, terrible and authentic account”.
Babi Yar: A Document in the Form of a Novel is presently only available in English in an old American edition from 1970, but it is surely only a matter of time before an enterprising publisher does this great book justice.
There is a fascinating piece in the Index on Censorship archive on Kuznetsov from 1981, two years after the writer died in London. The article, written by film critic Jeanne Vronskaya, discusses two films that were adapted from Kuznetsov short stories in the 1960s: We Two Men and Dawn Meeting. Each, in very different ways, was destroyed by the Soviet censor.
The first was a slice of 1960s neo-realism about a drunken driver who reassesses his life after an encounter with an orphan. The film showed gritty scenes of rural life and included real country people as extras. The film initially avoided the attention of the authorities and was due to be celebrated at a gala event during the 1963 Moscow film festival. But on the day of the screening the film was pulled.
Kuznetsov characterised the attitude of the Communist Party to the film in his interview for Index: “How can we represent the USSR with a picture that shows women dressed in terrible headscarves, snotty-nosed children, rough roads, privately owned geese, illegal private work, and without so much as a mention of the leading role of the Party?”
The film was shelved and a more suitable example of Soviet film making shown in its place. (By way of a sidenote, Fellini’s 8 1/2 won the gold medal at the festival, although the great Italian director’s masterpiece was never distributed in the Soviet Union).
The second attempt at adapting a Kuznetsov story was even more of a fiasco. Dawn Meeting was the story of a milkmaid struggling to survive in the collective farm era. When the censor saw the film, cuts were demanded to make the film more upbeat and patriotic. When Kuznetsov saw the final result he was horrified: “I sat there watching a film that was completely strange to me: about the raising of the standard of living in a progressive, prosperous collective farm, first class houses, excellent clothes, collective farm songs from Moscow Radio’s record library, fields heavy with wheat, and happily smiling collective farmers all over the place.” In a final twist, Dawn Meeting was on billboards all over Moscow when Kuznetsov left for the UK in 1969.
If these short stories are half as good as Kuznetsov’s masterpiece, Babi Yar, then they also deserve a wider readership. But it is his memoir that will act as his testament.
“I wonder if we will ever understand that the most precious thing in this world is a man’s life and his freedom? Or is there still more barbarism ahead?” Kuznetsov wrote those words in 1969. He did not need to answer his own question.
Fifty years of Pride and prejudice
Britain’s first LGBT+ Pride march took place 50 years ago, on 1 July 1972. What began as one event in London has since grown into more than 160 Pride events across the UK – from big cities to small towns. Pride has also spread to more than 100 countries, making it one of the most ubiquitous and successful global movements of all time.
How did it all begin?
After the Stonewall uprising in New York in 1969 – when the patrons of gay bars fought back against police harassment – the newly-formed gay liberation movement in the USA decided to organise protests to coincide with the anniversary. The idea spread to the UK, and a group of us in the Gay Liberation Front in London came up with the idea of holding a celebratory and defiant “Gay Pride” march, to challenge queer invisibility and the prevailing view that we should be ashamed of our homosexuality. The ethos of Pride was born.
This was an era of de facto censorship of LGBT+ issues. There was no media coverage of homophobic persecution, no public figures were openly LGBT+ and there were no positive representations of queer people. The only time we appeared in the press was when a gay person was arrested by the police, murdered by queer-bashers, outed by the tabloids, or exposed as a spy, child molester or serial killer.
This is why a Pride march was necessary: to show that we were proud of who we were. But a march was a gamble. Would anyone join us?
Back then, most LGBTs were closeted and dared not reveal themselves publicly, fearing police victimisation. Many aspects of same-sex behaviour were still a crime, given that homosexuality had been only partially decriminalised in 1967. Some were afraid that coming out publicly would result in them being queer-bashed, rejected by family and friends or sacked by homophobic employers.
But, much to our surprise and delight, about 700 people turned out for the first UK Pride in 1972. It was a joyful, carnival-style parade through the streets of London, from Trafalgar Square via Oxford Street to Hyde Park.
We had a political message: LGBT+ liberation. Our banners proclaimed: “Gay is good” and “Gay is angry”. Despite heavy policing and abuse from some members of the public, we made our point.
Buoyed by this first modest success, we had the confidence to organise further Pride marches in the years that followed. They had explicit political demands such as an equal age of consent, an end to police harassment and opposition to lesbian mothers losing custody of their children on the grounds that they were deemed to be unfit parents.
Peter Tatchell in 1974
For most of the 1970s, Pride remained feisty but tiny, with fewer than 3,000 people. However, by the mid-1980s the numbers marching rose to 12,000.
Then we were hit with a triple whammy. First came the moral panic of the Aids pandemic. Dubbed the “gay plague”, it demonised gay and bisexual men as the harbingers of death and destruction. Next the prime minister, Margaret Thatcher, attacked the right to be gay at the 1987 Conservative Party conference. And then, in 1988, Section 28 became law, prohibiting the so-called “promotion” of homosexuality by local authorities – the first new homophobic law in Britain for a century.
The LGBT+ community felt under attack – and we were. It brought us together and mobilised a fightback which was reflected in the turnout for Pride in 1988, with 30,000 marchers compared with 15,000 the year before. The march was angry and political, with some people attempting to storm Downing Street.
The first ever Pride in London, 1972. Photo: Jamie Gardiner
From 1988, Pride grew exponentially year on year. By 1997, there were 100,000 people on the march and the post-march festival on Clapham Common was attended by 300,000 revellers. This was the high point of Pride, run by – and for – the community, with strong LGBT+ human rights demands.
Since then, it has been downhill. A takeover by gay businesspeople at the turn of the century rebranded Pride as a “Mardi Gras” party and started charging for the post-march festival. Many people felt that Pride had been hijacked by commercial interests. Numbers plummeted, income crashed and the business consortium walked away.
For the past decade, the event has been run by a private community interest company, Pride in London, under contract and with funding from the mayor of London. It has been accused of being not representative of, or accountable to, the LGBT+ community, and of turning Pride into a depoliticised, overly commercial jamboree.
While some business sponsorship may be necessary to finance Pride, there is unease at the pre-eminence of commercial branding and advertising and the way huge extravagant corporate floats dominate the parade, overshadowing LGBT+ community groups.
Critics also question the participation of the police, arms manufacturers, fossil fuel companies, the Home Office and airlines involved in the deportation of LGBT+ refugees. Is this compatible with the liberation goals that inspired the first Pride?
And there is huge resentment that only 30,000 people are allowed to march in the parade, making Pride in London one of the smallest Prides of any Western capital city. Every year, thousands of people who want to march are turned away. This is against the original premise of Pride: that it should be open to everyone who wants to participate.
Pride in London claims that 1.5 million people attend. But there is no evidence to back this claim and it looks like hype to lure advertisers and sponsors. Even if we generously assume that 100,000 spectators line the route and there are 30,000 people in Trafalgar Square and 50,000 in Soho, plus 30,000 marchers, that’s still only 210,000.
Discontent led to last year’s Reclaim Pride march. It reverted to the roots of Pride, with a grassroots community focus, no corporate sponsors, and demands to ban LGBT+ conversion therapy, reform the Gender Recognition Act and provide a safe haven for LGBT+ refugees fleeing persecution abroad – political issues that have been absent from the official Pride for two decades.
It cost only £1,800 to organise, refuting Pride in London’s claims that Pride cannot exist without corporate funding to the tune of hundreds of thousands of pounds.
This year’s Pride in London parade is on 2 July. The day before, on the 50th anniversary of the UK’s first Pride, a handful of surviving Gay Liberation Front and 1972 Pride veterans will retrace the original route from Trafalgar Square to Hyde Park. Among other things, we’ll be urging the decriminalisation of LGBT+ people worldwide – including in the Commonwealth, where 35 out of the 54 member states still criminalise same-sex relations.
As radical and committed as ever, we pioneers of Pride continue the liberation struggle we began half a century ago. There will be no stopping until homophobia, biphobia and transphobia are history.
This article appears in the forthcoming summer 2022 edition of Index on Censorship. Get ahead of the game and take out a subscription with a 30% discount from Exact Editions using the promo code Battle4Ukraine.