05/19/2022
Today is Vyshyvanka Day in Ukraine…
My personal story with Vyshyvanka sadly enough began only after 2014. I began to read about it, and actually bought my first Vyshyvanka only in 2015, after we came back to Ukraine from Kyrgyzstan.
Why? Because I grew up in russian speaking city, in the family where we did not keep our Ukrainian traditions, and to be honest we didn’t even know any. My parents were born in the USSR and my mom once told me that speaking Ukrainian was something bad, one would be mocked doing so. It was made a language of a lower class people.
I didn’t know what been Ukrainian truly means, what traditions do we have, and how beautiful is our language.
My love to the nation began to grow after 2014, because I saw how beautiful are our people, how strong they are, and I saw those who fight for been who they are.
I am pretty sure that there is a sad story in my generation that I am just not aware about. My grandma’s mom was an orphan, and I was still a kid when she died. So I didn’t get a chance to ask about her story. My grandfather from my mom’s line we think was from Polish Jewish family, our genetic test did show this trace, but again I didn’t know him, or his mother, I just know they were from Mykolayv.
Our families suffered, our stories were wiped out, USSR did everything to destroy our national identity. Now Russia is trying to do so.
But you know what, it only leads to their destruction. As never before we dig in into our history, as never before we speak our language ( even those who never did before), as never before we cherish our traditions.
I believe that one day I will wear Vyshyvanka that I will create myself. And my grandchildren will know the language and traditions.
