whose tumultuous 20th-century history has spilled over into a bloody battle for its 21st-century identity
Daisy Sindelar traveled to six Ukrainian cities to talk to people about what their old family photographs say to them about who they
This article was first published by Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty as part of the My Ukraine project
Nearly all of my family comes from the Vinnitsya region
Now there are buses that take you to these tiny towns directly
but it used to take hours and lots of waiting and transfers to get back and forth from Kiev
But all of Ukraine's 20th-century history touched my family in one way or another
But he was slightly different in that he had gone to school and learned to read and write
That wasn't the case for everyone back then
So when the Russo-Japanese War started in 1904 and they began drafting Ukrainians
they singled out the boys who were literate to train as medical assistants
So my great-grandfather didn't fight; he worked in the surgical ward
Lesia Babukha (bottom left) at a school celebration in Illintsi
Many doctors from that war became addicted to drugs or anesthesia
since they had such easy access to it
I guess my great-grandfather wasn't an exception
He eventually was shipped back to Odessa — a horrible journey in itself — and returned to his village to become the local doctor
He got married and raised three children
My grandfather grew up to become a history teacher and a school director in the village of Bilky
He had grown up in a neighboring village
Everyone called her Lesia; I called her Babushka Sasha
She was the daughter of an Orthodox cleric who had been forced by Soviet authorities to renounce his vows in order to ensure that his children wouldn't be marginalized
He had 10 children who lived to adulthood
My grandmother attended a school specializing in agricultural studies
and later on in life she kept an amazing garden
with all different varieties of roses and a greenhouse
Visitors were always coming just to look at the garden
My grandfather fought in World War II
He received a certificate of gratitude signed by Stalin for his role in destroying a German tank division somewhere in Hungary or Czechoslovakia
remained in Bilky during the occupation
She was teaching and living in the school with my father
they had German soldiers lodging with them
my grandmother became frightened because one of the soldiers was sitting and staring at Taisia
and the soldier was looking at her very intently
But then he started to cry and gave her a sugar cube
He said he had a young daughter at home
My grandmother didn't harbor any illusions about the Nazis
but she didn't suffer any particular abuse during the occupation either
Terrible things were happening to Jews in Vinnitsya
but life in Bilky was relatively quiet
the Soviets allowed her to keep her job
She wasn't punished for living under occupation
she was given a tiny pension — just pennies
they were punishing her for collaboration
it's really hard to know what was the right thing to do
It's gotten really popular to say your family fought with the partisans
the partisans weren't up to much of anything good
The people who simply went on living under occupation got a lot of grief
even though the country wasn't doing anything to help them
My second set of grandparents also lived in Bilky
was from a prosperous peasant family that lost everything during dekulakization
when the Soviets forced Ukrainian farmers to give up their private property
and the Donbass was one of the few places where you could find a job and get paid with food
There was a lot of effort going into industrializing the region
and my grandfather spent a few years working in a mine
Babushka Sasha and Alla in Bilky
It was during that time that he met my grandmother
She was the daughter of an Orthodox priest who was arrested as part of the Soviet crackdown on religious authorities
He and Tetyana's mother both ended up dying of starvation during the Holodomor
And as the daughter of a repressed priest
which might have helped her get back in the good graces of the authorities
Filip and Tetyana eventually moved back to Bilky
and they worked on their property constantly
That's what I remember as a little girl
With my other grandparents there were books and flowers and walks in the forest
but with them there was just physical work
And religion -- my grandmother remained deeply religious
She tried to talk to me about it
so they sent me to live with Babushka Sasha
She took me on long walks and taught me everything she knew about plants
We've always been a Ukrainian-speaking family
I remember coming back to Bilky at some point after I had been going to school in Kiev and I said something in Russian
you know — to show that I was a city kid
My grandmother put an end to that immediately
She had Alzheimer's for the last decade of her life
she took off her slippers and lined them up very neatly next to the bed
who spent nearly every day at Independence Square during Euromaidan
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