Maidan

War will never cease to exist. Extreme aggression and death undermine the basic paradigm of safety and impose change on the scale of values. One can’t simply shaking off and think there will be better times once the tanks are gone and the dead buried. What stays behind is people with scarred souls and painful memories. Even after its death, war lives on. Only it moves from the battle line to invade people’s homes. The demons come in disguise of psychological traumas, depressions and nightmares. Relief may only come with time and making peace with the fact that nothing will ever be the same. Thus tens of thousands of micro stories are born. Seemingly trivial and for the mainstream media uninteresting pieces. The very ones that are essential to my understanding of the world. And that is what made me go to Maidan. From November till February, a war raged in Kiev. Hundreds of people died, thousands were injured, maimed or disappeared without a trace. Then there were tens of thousands who witnessed irrational brutality and brought all this experience back home, burned deep into their memories. With the help of psychologists and social workers, I looked for such stories all over Kiev in blacked out flats soaking with pain and bitterness. The stories of ordinary people. Soon after my return to Prague, a much harsher war broke out in Ukraine. A conventional war which has already affected hundreds of thousands of people. And only a two-hour flight away from my house. Sucking in many of those I know, which is why Ukraine is my concern. The dead, injured and maimed will swell further in number. Like the scars on the soul, nightmares, depressions and micro stories which need to be told. Because as one Russian proverb has it, it is easier to release the evil than to create angels. Evil has been released. And the angels? Still out of sight.