Kostyantyn Moskalets: The duty to be

Not only military vehicles and personnel, but also kindergartens, hospitals, libraries, children, women, disables and the elderly are suffering. For war, there is no distinction between civilian and military. It acts like a rabid devoid of any fetters spirit of technology, not caring about any moral precautions and prohibitions. We are all objects for it on the aiming display, which means that everything, without exception, is subject to destruction. Destroying our cities, raping women and children, torturing and killing the unarmed, the Russian invaders themselves are soulless technical units, combat operations that have no concept of pain, compassion, or the inadmissibility of certain actions. Maybe that's why when we see information about their losses and photos, which under other circumstances would seem terrible, no feelings and reservations arise. They are just piles of burnt iron. They came here for this by themselves. So they need it.

Under no circumstances should we accept the role of objects allotted to us by the war. The obligation to be sovereign subjects, having a reasonable free will and being guided solely by it, becomes even more rigid and demanding in time of war than usual. Everyone finds his own way to assert moral autonomy. So, let's say, my wife, like millions of other Ukrainian women, is now baking Easter cakes, preparing for the holiday. This is the first Easter in our lives, when missiles fly every day, when invader artillery sows death and destruction; but we will celebrate it, without fail, because this is our holiday, unknown to military work and other pieces of iron, the holiday of the resurrected God, which brings indestructible hope to the dead, and the living, and the unborn.

And the neighbors brought a tractor of manure, they scattered it around the garden, fertilizing the ground, intending to plant potatoes. I think Kant, with his pathos of autonomy as opposed to heteronomy, would be proud of them, as the manifest embodiment of not being subject to alien and false ideologies. My old mother, like every spring, plants petunias, takes out gladiolus bulbs from the cellar; looking at the crocuses and hyacinths cherished by her hardworking hands, I understand well what courage and duty to be are. Courage is planting flowers while Russian missiles are flying overhead. These flowers are defenseless against fire and iron, like all of us, but they stand proudly raising their beautiful bowls, beckoning the first bees and bumblebees, and they cannot be pushed together in this impulse to being.  

"So many different herbs! And each has its own flowers. That is a feat", wrote my beloved Matsuo Basho. This feat and this attitude to life will never be understood by the Russian invaders, who are trying to ensure that everyone speaks the same language and has the same face. To do this, having neglected and averted their own lands, they brought us terror, suffering and devastation, replaced the fields where we were going to sow bread and sunflowers, and left deadly devices at every step. Can the agents of death and chaos act otherwise?

The Russian army has destroyed our critical infrastructure, but it will never be able to destroy our souls, our faith, language and traditions. Although the photographs of the destroyed Chernihiv libraries hurt us, nevertheless we will print these books again, and Stus, and Symonenko, and many other writers. And we will write new, good, smart books, where, in particular, we will talk about the irresistible spirit of the Ukrainian people, about their courage and endurance in a fierce struggle against the centuries-old damned enemy. And we will compose poems and songs, without fail, about love for the Motherland and for our beautiful women. And we will rebuild the destroyed churches, no matter how much they call evil to someone, for the worthy glorification of God, for the sake of visible evidence of our national identity and belonging to Christian values, to the Christian world. We are called to build, not to destroy like them. Because we are not them. It was incredibly bitter and insulting to read the words of Pope Francis that allegedly "we are all to blame" for the atrocities committed by the Russians on Ukrainian soil. It is we who are not to blame, there is nothing to combine the victims of aggression with the aggressor in an incomprehensible and deceptive postmodern amalgam, where black is the same as white, where the selfless assistance of European countries to Ukrainian refugees is interpreted as a manifestation of racism. It's time to tell the truth, stand up for the truth, live truthfully. Against this background, by the way, the groundless disconnection of several patriotic channels, in particular, Espreso, from the air and the exclusion from participation in the television marathon, the neglect of numerous appeals and protests, cannot but cause concern. Such behavior is imbued with a totalitarian spirit, inherent in just the Russian mentality and politics. But we are not them. We are different. And we will achieve the restoration of justice in the issue of shutdown TV channels, too.

In the meantime, we are preparing for Easter and working for victory, each in his own place, from which no malevolent forces can remove us.