Editor’s Word: The next is the most recent in a collection of reviews by the Kyiv Unbiased concerning the memorialization of Ukraine’s fallen troopers.
"We weren’t taught to dwell side-by-side with dying in faculties and universities, however it's all the time close to," the speaker Anton Liahusha, the dean of the reminiscence research program within the Kyiv College of Economics, says throughout a lecture on the open-air Lviv folks museum.
On June 1, hundreds of Ukrainians gathered to have a good time the twenty seventh birthday of a fallen army medic and memorialization activist, Iryna ‘Cheka’ Tsybukh.
They listened to lectures about memorial tradition in Ukraine, shopped for conventional and hand-made gadgets, donated to the fight medic unit Tsybukh served in, Hospitallers, danced folks dances to dwell Ukrainian music, and sang Ukrainian songs round a bonfire.
Selling the values Tsybukh cared for in life, the “Cheka fest” pageant is a hanging instance of the brand new methods Ukrainians are honoring these killed in Russia’s struggle, as outdated commemoration customs fail to carry the load of steady losses.
The lady of the day was additionally on the pageant as a big black-and-white portrait positioned subsequent to the stage. Tsybukh was killed throughout a front-line mission in Kharkiv Oblast in 2024 simply days earlier than her twenty sixth birthday.
Earlier than her dying, Tsybukh was a fierce advocate for the reinvention of memorial practices in Ukraine, recording a number of interviews with Ukrainian media and broadly sharing her views on social media.
The pageant — named after Tsybukh’s callsign and arranged for the primary time this yr by her household, associates, and fellow activists — included each academic and musical packages.
Easy methods to love their family members after they had been killed?
Earlier than midday, a whole lot of individuals had crammed the luxurious inexperienced yard close to one of many museum’s conventional Ukrainian wood architectural buildings.
Folks sat on the grass and chairs, whereas others that hadn’t managed to get a seat lined the fence and gate. They listened to lectures about memorial tradition that aimed to place the incomprehensible into phrases: Easy methods to love their family members after they had been killed?
When the losses are so overwhelming, speaking and remembering them collectively helped individuals share their weight, Tsybukh believed.
Her family and comrades on the stage recounted tales of how she lived out her patriotic values, changing into a “an ethical compass” to lots of the younger individuals who didn’t know her personally.
“Tales about Iryna encourage, provide the energy to maneuver on,” stated Kateryna Borysenko, 31, a psychotherapist in coaching who survived 1.5 years in occupation in her native Donetsk Oblast. “They offer hope that, nonetheless a lot the heavens would fall, we’ll dwell on.”
“I’ve made it my obligation to attend each occasion like this, related with the struggle, with heroes, with troopers,” stated Khrystyna Martsiniak, 21, a journalism pupil learning on the similar Lviv college that Tsybukh graduated from. “I additionally was (at Iryna Tsybukh’s grave) at 9 a.m. immediately. It was one thing particular.”
The every day minute of silence at 9 a.m. to honor fallen troopers was a staple of Tsybukh’s memorial tradition philosophy. She believed that if noticed in all places within the nation, it had the facility to unite Ukrainians of their shared loss.
“Tales about Iryna encourage, provide the energy to maneuver on.”
Tsybukh’s perception in unity within the face of loss was so deep she designed her personal funeral as a form of memorial live performance to deliver individuals collectively in mourning. In a posthumous letter revealed by her brother, she outlined her needs for the funeral, which included a request individuals to put on conventional Ukrainian clothes — embroidered shirts known as “vyshyvanka” — and sing ten Ukrainian songs across the fireplace in her reminiscence.
The second musical a part of the pageant proved that Tsybukh’s imaginative and prescient lives and expands, and is rising as a brand new custom. Hundreds of individuals wearing vyshyvankas lined the slope of a hill across the pageant stage, the place Ukrainian bands performed the songs she liked. Lots of danced as Tsybukh’s household watched from afar.
When nightfall fell, individuals approached the stage to honor Tsybukh the best way she wished: by collectively singing in Ukrainian.
It appeared just like the second everybody was ready for all day. From the stage, a brief recording of Tsybukh’s voice was performed on a telephone into the microphone.
“A most soulful night awaits every of you tonight,” Tsybukh voice says from a recording taken throughout a live performance she helped to prepare for troopers close to the entrance.
Her voice and her legacy echoed once more in lots of hearts, as ten Ukrainian songs from her checklist crammed the night museum park.
Because the pageant got here to an in depth that night, Tsybukh’s family and friends promised to have a good time her birthday with a pageant once more subsequent yr. The remaining individuals gathered across the glowing embers of the hearth to sing one final tune — the Ukrainian nationwide anthem.
Maria, 28, who declined to provide her final identify, didn't know Tsybukh personally however got here from Kyiv specifically for the memorial pageant, stated she left the occasion with a way of obligation fulfilled.
"I got here right here to see my beacon," she stated, referring to Tsybukh, as she walked from the park by means of the darkish streets with a number of different younger ladies.
The Kyiv IndependentNatalia Yermak
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