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Formless Wonderings About Losing My Culture

by Ruthie Alekseeva  
10/28/2023 / Politics

Another Move

Oh, how beautiful, Petia thinks.

She stops mid-step and smiles.

Thank you, Jesus, she prays in her heart. Thank you,  for all the many kindnesses you shower on us. Even blossoms, that You say last only a day, can bring us so much joy.

Petia leans low, fingering feather-soft pink and red petals, then says, “Oh, Emiliya, how lovely your roses look this morning.”

Petia inhales, expanding her lungs wide, then says, “And they smell wonderful as well. Have you sold many today?”

Emiliya presses her lips together.

“Thank you,” she says, without smiling, “but now’s not the time for talking about flowers. Haven’t you heard?”

Petia stands straight.

This sounds bad, she thinks.

She stiffens her shoulders, bracing herself for unwelcome news.

“Heard what?” Petia says, finally noticing Emiliya’s creased brow and hurried movements.

“Stalin. First he devastates Russia, and now he’s coming for us as well.”

Petia grimaces. She wrings her hands.

“Please, no, not Bulgaria too.”

“It’s true, my husband heard it from his boss about an hour ago. He read it in the paper. I’m shutting up shop right now. I don’t know about you, but we’re getting out of here.”

“You’re husband? Oh, yes, and what of my husband, Georgi. What will he say? We’ve already moved countries once. Must we really move again? I don’t know if we have the strength for starting all over, in another new country, this late in our lives.”

Emiliya stops her hurrying, placing her hand on Petia’s shoulder.

“None of us do, Petia, but we must find the strength, somehow.”

My Origins

It was once implied that because I’m white-skinned, I wouldn’t know what it’s like losing my culture, but my grandparents came from Latvia and Ukraine. Aged 10 and 12 when the violence first erupted in Russia, they survived the Bolshevik revolution, World War I and II and who knows how many other insurgencies and insurrections while they lived there. Grandma’s family owned land which, back then, meant they were wealthy and Grandpa was a cossack. I’m told that back then, that part of the world was still under the feudal system. This placed royalty at the top, then clergy, then merchants, then the military and then peasants. So, his side of the family may have had some well-to-do connections also.

My grandparents left the Soviet Union for Germany, but not as refugees. They left as immigrants before Stalin closed Russia’s borders. Wealthy in capitalist Russia, because of Communist greed, they now only owned a sewing machine and a tricycle. In 1950, they immigrated to Australia. My grandpa lived there around 15 years, then died of a heart attack. My grandmother survived him about 35 years, and the whole time they lived in Australia, neither of them learnt much English. That doesn’t really matter though. Even if they had learnt my language, the above is all I would know about my family origins, and their culture, on that side of the family because, after they left Europe, neither of them would speak of their lives before becoming Australian citizens. They’d only speak with each other and find comfort and solace in each other.

Not long ago, we contacted an ancestry-tracing society because we’ve always wondered what else can we know about our Russian side of the family. We found out that my grandfather, at some point, had worked on a farm in Bulgaria, and lived in a Russian town called Arkhangelsk, which in English means Archangel, and we found out the names of some family members a couple of generations above my grandparents’ generation and that’s about it. That disappointed me because those things are merely facts and that’s all I have ever known about my Russian grandparents and their culture. Facts. Sure, while she lived, I noticed that my grandmother was extremely patient and full of love and always happy, always smiling, always shoveling food down our mouths and extremely talkative, but, because I couldn’t understand her talkative Russian words, I still felt like I didn’t really know her or have any understanding of the culture that had shaped her before the Bolsheviks upended Eastern Europe’s customs and traditions.

My Questions

You see, because we couldn’t speak each other’s language, I couldn’t ask her why she had so much patience, love, happiness and so many smiles. If she had lived through so much terror, terrors that traumatised her so terribly she could only speak about them to her husband, how come I never saw any anger, hate, fear, bitterness or unforgiveness inside of her? I’ve often pondered that while struggling through my own smaller trials, hurts and betrayals, and I’ve wondered could she have given me any advice on how I can forgive my enemies as well?

Also, although my grandma was born in Latvia and my grandfather in Ukraine, they called themselves Russians. I’ve always found that strange because Russia stole Latvia and Ukraine. Didn’t that make Russia their enemy? So, how come they called themselves Russians? I’m sure, back when Nazis ruled Germany, the French and Austrians didn’t continue labeling themselves as Germans once they became free, so why did my grandparents? And, If they originated from Latvia and Ukraine, how come neither of my grandparents could speak those languages? How come they only knew Russian? And if they had ever known Latvian an Ukrainian, how did losing their original languages make them feel?

We know my grandmother only received a grade three education because, under Communism, the schools kept running out of money and closing. How does it feel going through life with only a primary school education? Did my grandmother ever feel embarrassed or intimidated when expressing her thoughts with people who’d achieved a much higher education? I’ve heard Russians eat lots of pancakes so why did I never see her eating any and, I love pancakes too, so why didn’t she offer me any? I wish I could have asked her.

At the age of fifteen, my grandmother would pressure me into marrying. “Get married,” she would say in broken English. “Nice man, bank account, LOTS of children.” I’m told in Russian culture people marry young, but my grandparents married in their late thirties. Why did they marry so late and not at age 15 like my grandmother wanted for me and, how did my grandparents meet when they came from such faraway places? Then, once they found each other, what made them fall in love, and why did my grandmother encourage marriage and children while most everyone else I knew vehemently and repeatedly discouraged both?

We know my grandfather carried messages between military camps as a cossack and that once a bullet shot him in the leg and he became lost in the woods for three days. Did he think he would die? How did he survive? Did he wrestle with a bear? Did it snow while he wandered about, lost? Members of my family have won sporting medals. Do we get that athleticism from our Cossack ancestors? How did my grandfather end up in Bulgaria and Arkhangelsk, and the biggest question of all, why didn’t either of my grandparents pass on any of their Latvian, Ukrainian or Russian culture with their children or grandchildren? I guess, I’ll never know.

In The Beginning

In Genesis 1:1, it says, In the beginning God created the Heavens and the earth. The earth was formless and void and darkness was over the surface of the deep and the Spirit of God was moving over the surface of the waters.

Formless can mean confusion, emptiness, nothingness, empty space, wasteland and wilderness, and that’s how I have sometimes felt. Like a confused, empty space of wasteland lay between me and my grandmother and my other Russian ancestors and their culture. It’s not pervasive. It’s never interfered with my life, but sometimes I have felt it.

Although my formless wonderings are very mild, I have sometimes speculated on how I could shape those empty voids of knowledge into truthful realities of who I really am and who my grandparents really were. Did they mix with nobility or meet the missing Princess Anastasia or know of her whereabouts? Did they suffer in a concentration camp or experience starvation, torture and the execution of their family members? What did they think, believe and feel? Who were they?

Formless can also mean unreal, and some parts of my ancestry do feel unreal. Could I really have come from wealth, then how come we lack class in so many ways? Am I really of Cossack stock? If so, how come we seem so ordinary. None of my family look tall, broad or seem especially strong. If generations of our ancestors were born into the military, wouldn’t only the tall and strong have survived - a type of natural selection?

I don’t know those answers but I don’t feel a confused, unreal, empty void when I read about my beginnings in the Bible. God doesn’t leave me wondering in that regard. Some speculate that we descended from monkeys, which came from a loud bang, but God tells me, in black and white, that He shaped a formless, dark, deep, void into the world we see today, and I am descendent of Adam. I like knowing that. I also like that I can know what God thinks, what He believes, what He feels and who He is, when I read what He has written in the Bible. There’s no speculation necessary.

Genesis 1 says God moved over the surface of the waters before He created our universe. That means He hovered over that formless, dark, deep, void and, no doubt, He still hovers over all those who feel like a confused, empty space of wasteland lies between them and what they know of their more recent beginnings. So, for those who find themselves in a similar situation I say, stop your speculations. Pick up your Bible and fill any voids and wildernesses that inhabit your heart with realities straight from God’s own word until you can say like the psalmist in Psalm 119:99, “I have more understanding than all my teachers, For Your testimonies are my meditation.

References:

Genesis 1:1 NKJV

Psalm 119:99 NKJV

Literal Word app

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