Commentary

Another War

by Martha Bohachevsky-Chomiak

April 5, 2022 Washington, DC

World War I – the Great War – for me was the very personal stories of my family, nuclear and extended. World War II was my childhood that ended with my coming to the USA, a country in which few had experienced either of these wars directly. It was easy to forget the war. But I was shocked how vividly the images of war-torn Europe came back, with the first steps Russian armies into Ukraine.

In my dreams now I struggle to untangle the bombs and the mayhem – is it current, or the old ones I buried in the friendly fields of the country that made me, for the first time in my life, a citizen.

This war – be it the scary possibility of WWIII – or merely another invasion of Ukraine by Russia - touches me indirectly, but in a very intimate fashion. This war provides an indubitable example of an invasion of one sovereign country by another. As such it violates the basic principles of the UN, which I credit with peace and relative well-being of our globe. As an American citizen, I defend that international order and am troubled when it is so blatantly violated.

Ukraine holds more than just an emotional ethnic tie for me, I was privileged to help built some of its current social structures which makes the tie tactile. I recognize where the missiles hit, the bombs fall. I travelled its broad friendly space working to establish opportunities for scholars of Ukraine and USA to get to know each other’s search for truth and knowledge. And now I witness the brutally wanton destruction of a country that was just finding its stride as an emerging democracy.

As a historian, I should be thankful to be comfortably alive in these historic times. I’m reading a new book on the foibles of the Habsburg army a century ago. It is almost relaxing, as if a children’s story.

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Martha Bohachevsky-Chomiak is a historian and author of many books and articles. She led the Fulbright Program in Ukraine from 2000-2006. Read more at www.MarthaBohachevsky-Chomiak.com