Slavic melodies echoed through Sample Gates on a Saturday in August. A group of Ukrainians and supporters stood united, donning Ukrainian flags and vyshyvankas — a traditional blouse patterned with intricate embroidery. Together, they sang traditional Ukrainian songs to commemorate the country’s 33rd Independence Day.
Iryna Voloshyna, a Ph.D. candidate in the folklore department, helped organize the Independence Day event. Voloshyna, originally from Khmelnytsky, Ukraine, moved to Bloomington in 2020. She is the founder and Artistic Director of the Indiana Slavic Choir.
“We wanted it to be celebratory, because it’s important to leave yourself the space to celebrate with honor and respect to all the grief that is in Ukraine,” Voloshyna said.
This is the third Independence Day Ukraine has spent at war with Russia.
“The meaning of independence has changed completely,” Voloshyna said.
She said she had the opportunity to return to Ukraine last year.
“When I came to Ukraine...by bus, it was the middle of the night,” she said. “We were crossing the border into Ukraine, and I saw the letters of Ukraine and the Ukrainian flag. I was profoundly happy... It was heartwarming to see my country standing strong, no matter what, and it was so wonderful to have the country to go back to, even if it’s war-torn.”
Mary Druganova, a local Ukrainian artist, said this was her first Independence Day away from home. She said since the initial invasion in February 2022, she and her family in Kyiv were regularly awakened at night by air raid alerts on their phones. Because there are no bomb shelters near their building, she said she spent countless nights in their apartment hallway listening to overhead missiles.
“You’re just praying, because it’s a lottery,” Druganova said. “You don’t know if it will hit your house or the one next to you. Today it could be you; tomorrow it could be your relatives. Or you’re praying that it will not hit a house where your grandfather sleeps.”
With family still living in Kyiv, she said she continues to receive air raid alerts on her phone.
At the start of the invasion, Russia launched missiles at dozens of cities all over Ukraine. Russian ground troops overtook large areas of Ukraine and made advances toward Kyiv. Ukrainians rallied together to protect their capital.
Since then, the battles have been largely contained to the east. Russian troops continue to inch forward, while Ukrainian troops work to defend and take back villages. In early August, Ukrainian troops launched a cross-border attack into Russia’s Kursk region.
In the span of two and a half years, the United Nations verified over 11,000 Ukrainian civilians have been killed. An additional 31,000 soldiers have been killed in the conflict, according to Ukrainian President Zelenskyy last February.
Russian troops continue to target critical infrastructures, which can impact electricity, water and other everyday resources. Druganova spoke of how this continues to impact her mother and brother in Kyiv.
“Sometimes people are sitting without electricity for 10 or 12 hours per day,” Druganova said. “So, imagine, it's 35 degrees [Celsius] outside, and you have no AC, no fan, you're just melting an apartment.”
Stanislav Menzelevskyi, a Ph.D. candidate at the IU Media School, expressed similar concerns for family back home. Menzelevskyi said he moved to Indiana in August 2021, and many of his friends and former colleagues are still involved in the fighting.
He said he begins each day by reading the news about Ukraine and calling home to ensure his brother is still alive.
“My experience, compared to people in Ukraine, is like a privileged experience,” Menzelevskyi said. “I'm kind of in a safe environment. I still have friends, relatives and former colleagues there, but it's not normal in the way I lived my everyday life before the war.
Inesa Boichuk, a junior at the Hamilton Lugar School of Global and International Studies, also spoke of how the war has transformed her life. She said she was with her grandmother in her hometown Mykolaiv when the war began. Located near the Black Sea, Mykolaiv has been a strategically important city in the war. For the first two weeks of conflict, Boichuk said she and her grandmother lived in a bomb shelter.
She said they eventually fled to Poland. After three months, her grandmother returned to Ukraine to be with her husband. Due to current martial law, she said her grandfather cannot leave the country. Boichuk, on the other hand, decided to move to Indiana, where she had family residing.
“Honestly, when I got to the US, that was the first time when I was completely relieved because (abroad) I couldn’t sleep good, I couldn’t live my normal life that I was used to,” Boichuk said.
Now that she has adjusted to life in the U.S., Boichuk said she is concerned that the conflict in Ukraine has become lost in the media, and few people in her social circles speak about it.
“Now people are numb to it almost, which is awful,” Boichuk said. “It’s really upsetting to me because at the beginning of the war, even on TV, there was a lot about Ukraine. But over time, there was less and less news about Ukraine.”
In July, a Russian missile hit a children’s hospital in Ukraine. Again, Boichuk noted how, other than her Ukrainian friends, few were discussing the atrocity.
“It's hard to explain what I felt at that moment,” Boichuk said. “I sent all my money that I had on my card and posted a lot on social media about it. I just wish for more sympathy.”
Svitlana Konovalova, a Fulbright scholar conducting research on Ukrainian folklore archives at IU, said her hometown of Kharkiv has been a constant target for Russian missiles throughout the war. She said that she moved to Kyiv due to the conflict, but left Ukraine a few weeks ago to begin her studies at IU. Konovalova is concerned with how the war has become commonplace for Americans and Ukrainians alike.
“(This war) is our new reality. And on the one hand, it’s great that we can say Ukrainians are brave. They are unbroken. They can stand it,” Konovalova said. “But it's not normal when people don't go to school because of missile attacks; it isn't normal when older people can't seek medical help.”
To combat this false sense of normality, Ukrainians across Bloomington are using their voices to speak out — and not just on Independence Day.
Druganova uses her animations to spread awareness. Meanwhile, Boichuk speaks about the war whenever she can: research papers, presentations, even in Chinese class.
Others prefer to speak out by sharing Ukraine’s culture.
Konovalova said she is creating a Ukrainian digital folklore archive to give Ukrainians and foreigners a better understanding of their culture. Menzelevskyi said he organized fundraisers and screenings of Ukrainian films on campus.
IU’s Robert F. Byrnes Russian and East European Institute’s webpage contains resources to stay informed, take action and donate to the war in Ukraine.
“I understand that the world is crazy, and there are so many other important things to care about. I care about other things as well, not just Ukraine,” Voloshyna said.
Yet, she said, the war is still going. She would like to see more people support Ukraine.
“It can be something really small, and you don't need to be an activist,” she said. “You just need to show that, as an American, as a human, you remember it, and it means a lot, really.”
CORRECTION: A previous version of this story incorrectly stated the year Iryna Voloshyna moved to Bloomington based on inaccurate information from a source.
