Preserving a Future of Self-Determination

More than 200 residents of Concord and nearby towns took to Monument Square on February 27 to support Ukraine in its desperate fight against Vladimir Putin’s illegal and unprovoked invasion. Irene and Ihor Kowal, former residents of Ukraine, made clear to those gathered in Concord Center what is at stake in this conflict for those who value freedom. Irene delivered the following remarks.

by Irene Kowal

In 1944 my parents escaped Soviet Stalinist rule in Ukraine and came to the United States. Today another dictator is invading again. It is a privilege to stand united with Ukraine against Russia’s invasion in Monument square, Concord, the cradle of American liberty.

Thirty years ago, 92% of Ukrainians voted to become an independent nation. Ihor and I spent 13 exciting years in Kyiv taking part in a fledgling democracy being born. Ihor became CEO of an international company and showed how to do business without bribes and how to pay taxes. My two plays were put on at the National Theatre and Molodyj theatre with audiences watching in disbelief as new ideas were dramatized. 

A parliament was formed, newspapers began reporting facts, people became free to worship. It became normal to question, discuss and argue. With Soviet propaganda dead, the challenge was to figure out how to live and what to believe in. Ukrainians were discovering that Russian chauvinism had robbed them of their cultural identity. They began examining their history, Stalin’s murder of Ukraine’s elite in the 1930’s and the creation of Holodomor, an artificial death by hunger, in which 4 million peasants were starved to death. In 2014 Ukrainians came together on the Maidan in Kyiv and ousted president Yanukovich, who promised them entry into the European Union and sold them down the river to Russia.

Ukraine has chosen its direction towards Europe, and was creating a new generation of professionals pursuing a new frontier. They read historians like Harvard professor Serhii Plokhy and Yale professor Timothy Snyder who opened new perspectives on their country’s past. Films were made about the war in Donbas. And this was a thorn in Putin’s side. Free-spirited Ukraine did not fit in with his plans for a great Russian empire. And so he stewed and snorted and devised a plan to destroy Ukraine, physically and spiritually once and for all. Ukraine is now the battleground on which Putin unleashes his humiliation and revenge.

Today we see his armies in Ukraine being met with bold, fiery, armed resistance despite the most abysmal odds. While Putin cowers in isolation, President Zelensky is with his people in Kyiv, conscious that his life is in danger.

Today we stand with a bold, resilient people who will never return to a mythical empire. Putin will not capture Ukraine, no matter how many soldiers he sends, no matter how many nuclear missiles he threatens the world with. Ukrainians will pursue their own future of self-determination. And our democracy must challenge a desperate megalomaniac who flagrantly shows his contempt for Western values. I am certain that the spirit of Henry David Thoreau, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Nathanial Hawthorne and the Alcotts lives with us in our united front against autocracy and enslavement.