The Cossack Bloodline Knows Nothing of Defeat & Other Pleasantries My Parents Told Me

Many people have reached out to me recently to gather my opinions on the current immense struggles of my Motherland. 

In case you have been living under a beautiful, non-Ukrainian rock: Thanks to Putin/Yanukovich post-Soviet-bloc "democracy," the particularly-Ukrainian brand of *FUN* has recently become quite renowned.

Sand-bag-barricade-building in negative 10 degree weather in order to avoid being shot at by anti-EU, pro-Russian military forces amid an endless snow pile in the middle of Kiev = **FUN!!!**

One thing that I try to emphasize for my frandz that ask me what I think about the Euromaidan and the general onslaught of death, struggle, and disaster in Ukraine is this: Listen, for virtually my entire life–Ukraine has been in a shitstorm. But that doesn't mean I don't feel that shitstorm in the deepest reaches of my soul; for better or most assuredly for worse.

Take this recent text exchange with my father, himself born in the USA:

My "soul"! My soul. 

Why oh why can't my soul reside on a beautiful beach somewhere instead, you and also I ask??!!?!?!? 

\\\\\(((((Extended Sigh)))))))//////

More musings on the particularly-FUN form of tormented ethnic identity, after the jump.

Well: While some families pass down precious heirlooms & some bloodlines pass down beautiful folk tales.... Well, Ukrainians don't have much to pass down, so instead: they actively & aggressively pass down the burden of Ukraine past/present/and future.

Since Ukraine has endured struggles of mythical proportions for at least the past millennium, my people have frequently had to flee. It's kind of \\\our thing\\\\. & As all New yorkers know - when you move a lot, you liquidate your crap. Thus, whatever keepsake-worthy items may have ever existed in any given Ukrainian family most assuredly disappeared/reappeared/disappeared again thanks to multiple relocations.

Illustrative anecdote: Classic myth in my family states that there is a large amount of precious family antiques buried in the ground on the family's still-operating ancestral farm in rural Ukraine. Evidently an enterprising great uncle hoarded and buried all the treasures (read: likely a brass teapot and maybe some currency defunct since 1912) before one of the many ambiguous Soviet/Tsarist/somehow-always-still-secretly-just-Russian invasions of the early 20th century. 

(Even in 2014, various family members on the farm continue to dig for it. It's kind of like that book "Holes" ... except replace Shia LeBeouf & co. with a cavalcade of impoverished Ukrainian farmers!)

In short: Ukraine is/was very poor; serf ancestors left us little of either emotional or objective monetary value; the little that was left left is most likely disintegrating into the soil of the steppes...

.... Except decorative folk hangings! 

Yes, this is MY keepsake: A tiny souvenir-banner sign that originally resided in my grandma's apartment and at best cost $2 retail (when purchased in 1960).

It features an affable trio of folk-mustachioed Cossacks from a popular 1960s cartoon series. [These bros were A+ ethnic heroes: they battled Tartar invaders, romanced tall, blonde viking ladies, and brought the motherland glory with each and every ambiguously-historically-appropriate soccer match. Impt: always finding clever ways to utilize their lusciously-long mustaches as a tool to score goals. Don't mess with the tresses.]

Atop the image of these cartoon heroes, this keepsake shield presents the somber/also-not-actually-true classic Ukrainian motto: "козацькому роду нема переводу." -  A common phrase that means, essentially, "The Cossack bloodline knows nothing of defeat."

And really it's this true-blue Ukrainian motto that makes me cherish this $2 cossack banner of mine. 

As further context: Let us take a moment to see how Google translate would define this aphorism, so as to gain a cross-cultural perspective on the endurance of the Cossack fighting spirit.

Ukrainian > English: "Cossack family NEVER ends!!!" 

Sidenote: Even if it wanted to.

Russian > English: "Kozatsva (Kossack lineage) old dumb translation." (( LOL. ))

+ I enjoy that some Russian dude took the time to add this phrase / beautifully-clear English translation into Googz Translate. Gotta love #userinput.

It is important to note: Ukrainian has a large number of these sort of cryptic burden-of-ethnic-identity axioms.  They are frequently repeated by parents, teachers, priests, etc. as if they were just another objectively useful/emotional-baggage-free perspective on life, ala "an apple a day...."

Noteworthy contrasts: The national anthem of the USA is titled "The Star Spangled Banner"; celebrating the endurance of a symbolic American flag after an intense battle during the War of 1812. = The gist: "We got through that shit! GTFO England!!!! Woohoo Amerrriccaaaaaaaaa!!!!!!!!"

But. In vast contrast: the national anthem of Ukraine is titled, "Ще не вмерла Українa." ("Ukraine has not yet died.").

That's right - prominent Uke stakeholders in the 1910s decided that the greatest musical symbol of the country should state that Ukraine's glory -- despite uh, all the fuckery that ahem, seems to always happen there -- has not... yet... DIED. 

(Side note: I do believe this is the closest Slavs can get to stating positivity without inviting the evil eye their way, admittedly.) 

IMPT detail: This choice to categorize Ukraine as "not yet having died" was made before the following mass-death-of-Ukrainians occurrences: Collectivization, Forced Famine under Stalin, WWII, Chernobyl meltdown, the fall of the USSR, etc etc etc. 

Of course: growing up in **the good ol' USA**, I did eventually notice that few of my American schoolyard compatriots toiled with any tragedy of some long-lost motherland's history; and fewer still carried any form of melodramatic ethnic burdens by age 0.

As an example. If my Amurrican BFF forgot to bring an umbrella to school and therefore became soaking wet from a torrential downpour, her mom would respond something like, "POOR BABY - YOU'RE SOAKED! LET ME FEED YOUR FRESH BAKED COOKIES AND SOUP AND SWEET POSITIVE AFFIRMATION."

In contrast -- if I were caught in the rain walking home -- my mother would typically shoot me a withering look, then somberly state: "Ліза. ти з козацкого роду." ("Liza. You're of Cossack lineage!") 

To read between the lines and decipher the true gist of her expression = "Liza, your ancestors dealt with much worse trouble than RAIN, child. You embarrass yourself to expose such vulnerable weakness; complaining of quotidian woes such as 'uncontrollable weather events.'  Hah!"  (Needless to say, she did not offer me cookies.)

And now: Allow me to present the major central themes of the many Ukraine-has-not-yet-died-so-plz-continue-spouting-litanies-about-its-struggle axioms:

1. Dear naive youth: You have been automatically registered as a participant in ////The Great Ukrainian Struggle.\\\\
2. Membership benefits include:
1. FREE blood of your ancestors, colored with centuries of pain
2. COMPLIMENTARY tendency towards disaster, and...
3. (BEST OF ALL) COMBINATION victim-complex / ~survivor~ status. 
3. We kindly remind you that your quotidian woes will never measure up to ///The ENDLESS TORTURED STRUGGLE of your MOTHERLAND.  
4. So. ...... MAN UP. 

And really this core belief system in the need to inherit a most unfortunate legacy and endure within it is the true family keepsake of any proper Ukrainian family and their lovably-fatalistic Ukrainian "soul."

Poor "soul."

So, friends. 

I may make fun of how Ukrainians obsessively complain about their history. 

I may joke about their flair for dramatics, completely irrational rage over events that in some cases occurred 1000+ years ago, and generally aggressive melancholy. 

I may act like I have eschewed my families' over-fixation on Ukraine, and that I have leaned the hell in to the infinitely-more-pleasant corn-fed, positivity-spewing, HOO-rah culture of my native homeland, the USA.

But the fact is this: last night–sitting, overlooking the Carribean in beautiful, paradise-incarnate Cartagena, Colombia–I read about Putin invading Crimea and bringing Ukraine to the brink of war when it is truly at its most vulnerable state ... and truest tears spilled from my eyes. 

Thousands of miles from my frigid, battered homeland: I cried for her, I could barely sleep, and I felt genuine, true distress. I have been tearing up writing this post, in fact.

///(Extended Sigh Numero Dos)))/////

With this core and somewhat defeatist admission that my soul may indeed be tied somewhere to a dilapidated rockface in the Carpathian Mountains–despite my sincerest inclinations otherwise–I declare: I feel lucky and (shhhhhh) proud to be 100% Ukrainian. 

And, politics aside, I am deeply sad and distressed to see this day come.

Still: If there is one thing I have learned from the endless axioms on the burden of Ukrainian identity, it's this: even on the brink of war with the eternal Ukie-cultural nemesis Russia, even amid borderline-apocalyptic sociopolitical disaster, even in the darkest of nights: Ukrainians will still be like, "LOL, we've seen this shit before. To the LEFT, most recent disaster."

Modern-day Cossack; same old shit.

The Cossack Bloodline Knows Nothing of Defeat.

Read: Survivor status, son.  Do not mess.