Translated material
Where are you, brother?
There is only the hope that time will again be the best doctor of all. But along with the wounds will not drag a veil of memory
Two years ago, a special military operation began. Or he. This abbreviation was replaced by another word, which is dangerous to pronounce. But he even somehow took root in everyday life, became a kind of “brand”. And when the years pass, we, using “sucker”, will know exactly what we are talking about, there are no additional explanations ...
And what will happen when the years will pass? All wars, conflicts, operations and special operations once end in the world. Or a truce that is sometimes lasting decades. Here Russia and Japan have no war, but there is no peace - we are in a state of truce and unresolved (according to the Japanese) territorial dispute. And let Japan now “unfriendly country”, but it still does not cause the enemy’s sensation.
Of course, Ukraine is not Japan. We are connected by hundreds of years of other, much closer relations. More recently, our peoples were called "fraternal." True, fraternity was more talked about in Russia than in Ukraine. On the other hand, which of the Ukrainians did not speak, or at least did not understand the Russian language? Even those who, when meeting, pretended that they do not say and do not understand.
One day “all this” will end. Can we find a common language again - in any sense?
Will we ever dare to talk about the fraternity of the two peoples again-or even three, because there are still Belarusians, who also found themselves in a bloody conflict of three letters? In general, the time is an amazing and strange doctor. It seems that it not only helps the healing of the wounds and the adoption of the tragedies of the past is simply as historical facts. Time can even re -“grow” lost parts of the body. This disabled person forever remains without arm, legs, eyes. And the affected people after some time begin to see, walk, hold in their hands ...
I always recall a story about the disabled, which he himself could not find by virtue of age, but I heard about it and read it so many times that it was like really a witness.
August 21, 1955 in Moscow played football. The USSR national team accepted the German national team in a friendly match. The match was also important from a sports point of view. The Germans were world champions, Soviet football players have never participated in world tournaments, but very soon they will win the Olympics and the European Championship - and in general it was the strongest generation in our football history. But that day, football was not as important in itself as the fact that they played with the Germans. 10 years ago the war ended. Everything was lively, everything was nearby, not all ruins were dismantled yet. Not even all German prisoners returned home. The latter will be released only after the visit of Conrad Adenauer to Moscow in October of the same 1955. The captain of the German national team Fritz Walter, who until the end of his life, recalled the commandant of the camp Major Zhukov, also visited Soviet captain, who reacted humanly to him and to which Walter was actually owed his life.
... On that day, August 21, 1955, disabled people were drawn to the Dynamo stadium from all sides. With stumps instead of arms and legs, moving on wooden stands with wheels. They tried to hide the disabled then from their eyes, so that with their appearance they would not spoil the optimistic picture of the reviving country and did not resemble the victims once again. But that day, the disabled went to football, and no one dared to detain them. And then the very young veterans then put on shape. The Germans could not lose! And the Soviet team won. And she won again a year later - already in Hanover. Before the collapse of the Union, Soviet football players will be able to defeat the German more than once. The advantage of the Germans at the level of prefabricated was overwhelming. But
10 years after the war, Soviet players on the field were not alone. All these legless and bending men in the stands went on the attack on them, with them they defended themselves when the Germans attacked. Together, they “pleased” the very terrible war in human history in these 90 minutes.
Time has passed. And not much of him passed by historical standards. History made a strange somersault. With whom did we have a better relationship - at least at the political level, at least at the level of domestic perception - with the Germans or with former allies, Americans and the British? Some helped us with equipment, food, money, and then fought together against a common enemy. We fought to death with others, and in this battle 40 million people died on both sides! But there were no anger or contempt for the Germans. We began to say “war with fascism”, and not “war with the Germans”, separating the people from Hitler and his system. But it was not in vain that they said that there was no family in the Soviet Union, in which someone would not have died at the front, in captivity, in the occupation-or at least did not fight. But it turned out that you can even forgive this! Even those who shot each other managed to forgive each other.
Now it’s hard to imagine that our relations with Ukraine and Ukrainians will someday be normal. Or, in any case, during the life of my generation. It seems that these mutual wounds will not heal for decades. I am glad that I managed to visit both Kyiv and Lviv once. The last time it was before the European Football Championship in 2012. In Kyiv, a person who speaks on the street is in Ukrainian, I seemed to meet only on the third day. In Lviv, where there are streets named after all the famous “Bandera”, and Johar Dudaev Street, only one woman did not want to talk to me all the time. How much would you like to say now? How many Kyivans, for whom the Russian was their native language, now they begin to speak demonstratively in Ukrainian, even if they know it much worse ... I can’t even imagine that I will once calmly come there, I will easily walk around Khreshchatyk or the market. But, perhaps, years later, a tourist from Moscow will be there simply a tourist from Moscow, like 12 years ago. As a tourist from Russia, more recently, he was just a tourist in Berlin, completely destroyed during the assault in April 1945, and the German was just a tourist in St. Petersburg, who survived 900 days of the blockade.
And suddenly a picture surfaced in my head - again football, since I remembered the 2012 European Championship. Ukraine then played three matches. One took place in Kyiv, and two in Donetsk, at the Donbass Arena. It was filled to the brim, 50 thousand people. And the sea of Ukrainian flags in the stands, and fantastic support for its (then still its own!) Team. Today, this arena is destroyed, and you will definitely not see Ukrainian flags in Donetsk. And for these people, the problem of reconciliation is even sharper.
Of course, I have no recipes. And what our future will turn out to be after the completion of it, neither I nor you can know. There is only the hope that time will again be the best doctor of all. But along with the wounds, the memory will not be drawn. What is happening now became possible, alas, also because the war and all its horror for modern people ceased to be what should not be repeated, and became what can be repeated.