Real People Live in Ukraine and Want to be Free
Why is that so hard for Fox News and the American Right to understand?
In the 1980s, when I was still active in the vibrant writer’s community in and around Detroit, one of my close friends was a Ukrainian poet/activist who spent a good part of her time smuggling out and translating into English the works of dissident Ukrainian poets living under Soviet rule.
Ukraine was still a Soviet satellite and censorship was in full force, but their artists, their creative voices, held strong. Much of the work my friend translated and helped to publish spoke of the cruelties of life under the Russians, of the daily deprivations and humiliations, of their longing for freedom. They were eloquent and beautiful and heartbreaking. She cried as she edited their works; she cried as she read them aloud to us. And we cried with her.
Then, in 1991, as the Soviet Union was falling, Ukraine officially and without bloodshed declared their independence, with 90 percent of the people approving. They’ve had their share of tumult and turmoil since then, but their art, their architecture, their literature, their churches, their tourism industry — all thriving. Full of life.
And now it’s about to end. Again.
