On Thursday, April 14, the Days of War counter will show the 50th day. A round number, I think, what does it say? As the story progresses, a moment, barely a blink of an eye. But in the life of my homeland, in the life of millions of Ukrainians? How many lives can be wiped out in 50 days, how many houses destroyed, how many animals and plants destroyed? And how long will this damned war days counter be ticking before it finally stops?
I have many lessons that day and I’m glad I don’t have time for long reflections. A seminar will be postponed to the evening in agreement with the students. After the apprenticeship, I can finally devote myself to other things from 1 p.m. I have to go to the warehouse, a truck finally picks up the pallets of baby food, hygiene items and medicines destined for Kyiv, Chernihiv and Bila Tserkva. Several cannon furnaces were also brought into the camp yard, which now face east. I only know the coordinator from Kyiv, O., from telephone conversations; During this time many will feel the same way – you get to know a lot of people all over the country who you only know by their voice and whose numbers are saved in smartphones under names like “Halyna Sandbags”, “Tetyana Kharkiv” or “Volodymyr Insulin”. will.
Oxana Matiychuk is one of those Ukrainians who do not leave their country. Matiychuk says her mother is too old to flee, and she doesn’t want to leave her country alone. Not even now? Where the Russians are planning a major attack and their place of residence in Chernivtsi is not safe, as experts say? Not now either, she says in a video call from her office at the university in Chernivtsi: How is the state supposed to deal with the situation without the civilian population?
Matiychuk, born in 1977, is a German philologist and works at the chair for foreign literary history, literary theory and Slavic philology at the University of Czernowitz in western Ukraine, in Bukovina on the Romanian border. She continues to teach online courses. Albert Camus’ “Pest”, Eugène Ionesco’s “The Rhinoceroses”, soon to be Kurt Vonnegut’s “Schlachthof 5” – all subjects where your students immediately relate to the current situation. That cannot be hidden at all, says Matiychuk. If only because there could be an air alert at any time or she had to take care of aid deliveries or refugees.
She expresses all these facets in her diary: Oxana Matiychuk writes about the shock of the beginning of the war in her own country. In another text about how she successfully found L-thyroxine tablets for the sick or about jokes in the bunker. When she writes, she almost feels liberated, she says – and she knows that people in Germany read her lines. Sometimes she doesn’t manage to write a new episode either, so she sends the editors a short message saying she’s sorry, but she’s on the road – or too exhausted to concentrate. But she always sends friendly greetings. She draws her strength from working in the International Office team, “people of integrity who I think are great”. That is a great fortune, despite the circumstances.
Oxana Matiychuk’s words, which reach us from a country at war, from the city of Chernivtsi, are impressive, personal, oppressive, but sometimes funny. Your voice has become important. about
My new acquaintances from Kharkiv are waiting in the park in front of the university. I already got to know the father of the family for a short time, now there are four of them – both parents, mother and two small daughters. I bought a blender for her from donations, T. will come to the office to pick it up. A very likeable young woman, I think her name suits her very well; she is clearly trying to speak Ukrainian and says she is keen to improve the language now, she is learning it online. When saying goodbye, T. asks if she can hug me, she’s been vaccinated twice. I have to laugh – Covid has actually weaned us from some self-evident gestures. I’m also vaccinated and even recovered, I say, we hug.
A. is back from Germany and jokes: Her father wanted her to waste money there
There are four of us in our “Civil Protection Office” at the university – two people who are actually “on duty”, two other colleagues sit there because they think the company is good. Besides me, three young people, all under 30, all sharp, educated, versatile, it’s a pleasure to listen to them or to exchange ideas with them. A. returned to Dortmund after a month with her underage sister. I want to know what did this stay bring you. Neither she nor her sister wanted to leave, just because their parents insisted, they went to their friends in Germany. A. replies in her usual ironic way, because her father wanted it badly, they wasted some of his money and had a change. They would have liked to come back earlier, only there were no plane tickets to Suceava in Romania.
I spend the remainder of my term of office going through the anthology file with my colleague, hopefully these are the very last corrections and the book in honor of Paul Celan can then go to press. Even a transfer works after the second attempt – two German filmmakers wanted to support a Ukrainian protagonist in the Kharkiv region financially and used me as an intermediary.
After work, O. from Wassylivka and I, as agreed, buy medicine for O’s community. It’s only gradually becoming clear to me that it’s all medication for children that she looked after in her capacity as a social worker at the “Centre for Inclusion and Resources”. These are state institutions for children with physical and mental disabilities. I am quietly happy about my experience from the cooperation with the Catholic University of Freiburg. As part of the seminars, we have been to such facilities several times, terms such as trisomy 21, autism, cerebral palsy are familiar. O. is always in contact with families who stayed in the occupied hometown. Gradually, food, hygiene items and medicines are becoming scarce. Money anyway, only sold for cash. Hopefully the delivery by the volunteers is still possible.
The literary scholar and culture manager Oxana Matiychuk. In 2021 she published a graphic novel about the life of the poet Rose Auslander.
(Photo: University of Augsburg/Imago/Processing: SZ)
While the pharmacist packs up the medicine, O. talks about her pupils. A 16-year-old girl with severe autism, her condition has deteriorated greatly since the regular shelling, but her parents are unwilling or unable to leave; a deaf 6-year-old whose mother also looks after her 90-year-old grandmother; a teenager with Down’s Syndrome, speech impaired, he claps his hands when he’s happy, a dear one who helps his parents in the garden.
The cardboard box the pharmacist brought is definitely too small, she gets a bigger one. O. says, please put the smaller one in the big one, she would like to take both with her. To my puzzled look, she explains that the little box is good craft material for her son, his Lego blocks have stayed at home, he plays and crafts with whatever he can get his hands on. O. sounds neither sad nor plaintive, more cheerful because her son is so creative and inventive. I, on the other hand, am glad that I’m wearing a mask because tears well up in my eyes. The little one asks if he can find his Lego when they get home. O. assure him his toy is waiting for him. In reality, she had no idea what she would find in her apartment when she returned. The neighbor, who has her spare key, tells of Russian soldiers billeting themselves in abandoned apartments.
The seminar in the evening lasted much longer than planned. We read the “rhinos” by Ionesco
The seminar in the evening lasts 140 minutes instead of the 50 recommended for online classes. It’s a group that I know from their first semester, now they’re in their sixth, in Ukraine academic groups at the university have a fixed composition. About a third are always present and well prepared, a pleasure to work with. We are talking about “The Rhinos” by Eugène Ionesco, a lot of references and associations are mentioned in the past and in the present: North Korea, the USSR, social media with their dangerous games for teenagers, obsession with beauty and of course our neighboring country.
The discussion doesn’t want to end, I don’t want to break it off despite the late evening hour, although I still have a lot planned. Finally, J. asks: “Isn’t there a danger that we too will turn into rhinos if we insist that only Ukrainian is spoken now?” I am happy about this question and about the answers that are coming. At least this small group of young people is not threatened by rhinoceros.
It’s after midnight when I look at my smartphone one last time. A new joke is circulating on Facebook: Moscow has fallen. It’s not THE Moscow, just the Russian flagship – space has worked well for us, but from now on, dear Ukrainians, formulate your wishes more precisely! Not a bad end to the 50th day of the war I guess.
Read more episodes of this column here.