“War Takes Part in Me”: Reflections of a Ukrainian Psychoanalyst

War and its Trauma in My Family’s History

The title of the article paraphrases a line from Yuri Levitansky’s poem/song, widely known in the USSR, called “Well, what if I was there…” The line reads as follows: “I am not taking part in the war – it is taking part in me” (Levitansky, 2019, p. 185). These words resonate with the history of my family. I was born to older parents, so I grew up with narratives about war and what it means, but with many omissions. My paternal grandfather served in World War I, and my father in World War II. My father’s family, as well as my mother and her family, survived the German occupation in Kharkiv. Some relatives on my father’s side cooperated with the Germans, hoping they would liberate them from the Bolshevik yoke. This included my grandfather, whose aspirations were not met, and he succumbed to hunger during the occupation. As the political atmosphere in Ukraine changed, I understood more about the details of the past.

My father’s war stories lacked accounts of heroes, causing me to question the vaunting claims about the war in Soviet textbooks and films when coupled with my father’s cynicism regarding the cowardice of politicians, complaints about SMERSH (“Death to

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Spies,” a Russian counterespionage organization), crimes of the Soviet army, and his contempt for communists. When I asked him why he only spoke light-heartedly about the war, he replied: “Why would I tell my son about how a comrade’s head explodes before your eyes?” This was his only reference to the brutality of war.

My mother and grandmother survived the German occupation. They witnessed hunger, executions, people helping one another, and also the darker side of human nature amidst unbearable circumstances. At the same time, the Germans did not appear unequivocally demonic in my family’s folklore. My father admired their military prowess and demeanor; my mother recalled their brutality but also the life-saving mercy of individual German soldiers. My cousin recalled how “Uncle Hans,” who selected the Jews for execution by firing squad one day, drove children around on his motorcycle the next—and did not seem like a monster at all.

They also recalled the trial in Kharkiv after its liberation in 1943, a prototype of the Nuremberg trials. Many citizens wished to watch the trial of four accused collaborators, one of whom shockingly murdered people in a “death machine” using carbon monoxide. I remembered this terrible tale from my family’s stories recently when I read Jonathan Littell’s novel The Kindly Ones (specifically, the English translation by Charlotte Mandell in 2009).

Perhaps I am only now realizing to what extent the war was internalized by those who grew up in the Soviet era. Because of my connection with the wartime generation, I knew more than my contemporaries who had to rely on secondary sources. Our parents’ and teachers’ motto, “If only there was no war!”, seemed an unimaginable anachronism—what kind of war can there be today? Despite the Soviets inciting wars, peace and harmony remained a goal in our country. The more information I received from behind the Iron Curtain, the more stunned I was that the Soviet Union was intimidating to the Western world. Although it seemed to be a deceitful, incompetent, and demoralized state and society, the Soviet Union wasn’t a militant evil empire.

In retrospect, the trauma of war and its political repressions contributed to social, micro-social, family, and individual repressions, as well as to more severe forms of negation, disavowal, and splitting off when the unrepresented symbolically returns in the real. Yet it can’t be said that the war was not represented at all. However, the more time that passed, the more the grandiose repre-

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sentations proved false, detached from individual and family memories, and not including the other traumas of Soviet society: the waves of repression, the Holodomor, national movements and their suppression, and so on (see Romanov, 2023).

The Collapse of the Soviet Union and the Rise of Putin

The collapse of the Soviet Union was met with great enthusiasm by myself and most of the people I knew. It was pervasive not only among dissident intellectuals but also among the people working in factories, the army, and in the distant Siberian villages, heightening the need for social reform and inspiring populist movements. It was likely a manic response to the late Soviet “stagnation.” The collapse of the USSR was often cited as an example of the nearly bloodless collapse of an empire. But the transparency of the emerging borders and the newfound freedom of movement more than compensated for this. I can’t cite the sociological data, but in the late 80s and first half of the 90s, longing for the “lost greatness” was common among some of the unemployed former bureaucrats and specific esthetes from the opposing camps.

The Putin era in Russia and the gradual, not always consistent westward movements of Ukraine, Georgia, and a number of other post-Soviet countries, which Russia previously considered its “fiefdoms,” radically changed their relations with the West. The process of rethinking the past, working through shared traumas, and conceding that mistakes were made was no longer feasible. The KGB archives were closed, independent media was banned, and the discourse of a “great country” emerged—an idea of history that one can only be proud of. In this discourse, the Stalinist anthem, St. Andrew’s flag, Soviet films, etc., were seamlessly combined, and the criminality of war was forgotten. Coupled with the growth of economic prosperity, this desire to “forget” contributed to the development of manic and often delusional ideas of grandiosity.

Moreover, newly independent countries found themselves in an agonizing search for their identity. This was especially difficult for Ukraine, a historically fragmented country and the cradle of Russian culture. Separated into different states that even warred with each other, religiously, ethnically, and linguistically diverse, Ukraine searched for its way by touch. On the one hand, Ukrainian nationalism has always been influential; but on the other hand, the popular “anti-colonialism” sentiment today, which blames all of Ukraine’s troubles on the conquerors, is too simplistic. Even during times of freely shifting capitals and the presence of Russian

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businesses, the threat of Ukrainian Westernization led to political tensions. Conflicts between Ukrainians and Soviets could be found in everyday expressions—“Trade war,” “gas war,” “struggles over border territories”—yet it is unlikely that anyone, except for radicals, imagined how soon the word “war” would acquire a concrete and horrific meaning.

The negative representation of Ukraine was amplified in Russian literature, cinema, and journalism, and groups forming with imperial ideologists seemed marginal. I was familiar with Russia during the times of freedom and cultural renaissance, having grown up in a Russian-speaking city and acquiring a love for Russian literature. I think this prevented me—and not only me—from noticing the dangerous transformations of Russian society in recent decades.

The Russian Invasion: Political and Domestic Turmoil

On February 24, 2022, our world in Ukraine exploded. Everyday life as well as ideas about oneself and others, including national identity, were shaken to the core. As a psychoanalyst, I could discern how reality and fearful fantasies intertwined in the struggle for survival—one’s own and those of loved ones—but when things calmed down, they were overshadowed by a sense of loss and disorientation. We had considered the possibility of war since the government as well as local and foreign experts vacillated between warnings and reassurances. War had already been ongoing for eight years, and large territories (Crimea, parts of the Donetsk and Luhansk regions) were occupied by Russians. Those of us in Kharkiv knew this firsthand, absorbing 300,000 of those refugees while others I knew completed military service. But it was still hard to imagine what happened despite clues coming from better-informed deputies, members of the government, and prominent Ukrainian businessmen who held meetings on the eve of the outbreak of the war.

A couple of days before the start of the war, I was talking with my old friend and colleague from Moscow. “No one in Russia will support a war with Ukraine,” he assured me. “The current situation is completely different from the euphoria of the 2014 invasion of Crimea.” I heard the same thing from family, friends, supervisees, students, and patients—yet I considered war quite probable and understood that it would require people to be prepared. I had to go abroad with my family but, once convinced of war, I postponed the trip twice. The last signal was the evacuation of the foreign em-

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bassies from Kiev, and we scheduled our departure for March 1^st. However, the morning of February 24^th changed these plans.

Fleeing for Safety

Like most families in Ukraine, we had “emergency kits”—including documents and an essential amount of money and things for a quick evacuation. We awoke between four and five o’clock in the morning to the sound of explosions in Kharkiv. The city was being shelled. At that time, we had not yet learned to distinguish between the sounds of cannons and rocket artillery shelling, or explosions of ballistic missiles and cluster munitions. As quickly as possible, we—my wife, our ten-year-old son, and myself—packed up and left the city. Everyone else was going west, toward Kyiv, and further to Western Ukraine and the western borders of the country, but the direction of our journey was counterintuitive: We were going north toward Sumy, my wife’s hometown.

The first part of our journey took place in a procession of cars, and people cleared out all the goods in the grocery stores. But beyond that, the road was nearly empty. We were met with camouflaged tanks, and at one point, we overtook an unmarked column of them. If we’d stopped at Trostianets, as we had been offered, we would be faced with Russian occupation where Russian marauders raged and massacres occurred, although there were also places where the occupation was brief and relatively peaceful. The bridges that we crossed were blown up the same day, and fierce battles were fought in the key cities. There was no turning back.

We arrived at Sumy where battles were taking place but, having received a worthy rebuff, future Russian formations went around the city, primarily to Kiev. The city was surrounded; it was impossible to leave in any direction. Regular shelling forced us to stay in the basement for a long time; it was difficult to find medicine and groceries in the city. We spent two weeks like this. However, when I contacted friends in Kharkiv, I knew that the situation there was much worse—the shelling was more intense, and the shortage of food, water, and medicine was more palpable.

I had imagined the Russian army to be more powerful than it actually was. On the one hand, I was prepared for the possibility we would immediately lose communications, electricity, etc., and we would have to surrender. On the other hand, I did not expect a military offensive across such a broad front. The Donbas and Kharkiv seemed to be likely targets, but Sumy, Kyiv, Chernihiv,

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and an invasion through Belarus into the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone all looked like a phantasmagoria. Inspired by the fact that the Ukrainian army, and even ordinary people, could stop columns of heavy military equipment, reports about the unwillingness of Russians to fight turned out to be very far from reality. Still, my Russian friends expressed sympathy and guilt about the invasion.

However, when communicating with Russian counterparts, many Ukrainians heard: “This is what you deserve,” “Surrender quickly,” “You are fascists,” and “We don’t believe you”—even as we were being bombarded. I still read the Telegram Channels as soon as I wake up in the morning. It was a source of alarm and, unconsciously through dream images, a fantastic hope to wake up from this dreadful nightmare. At the same time, some obsessive rituals, like collecting the bibliography for this paper and others, kept me centered and calm. Between alarms and shelling, I managed to keep in touch with my patients by phone, via the Internet, and sometimes by messengers.

The Legacy of Fear and the Transmission of Intergenerational Trauma

What I feared most was the inability to protect my loved ones, especially my son. I felt guilty about not taking him to another country. I could not look at the videos and photographs of the wreckage of the houses I had known since childhood in the center of Kharkiv, recalling the photos of similar destruction in those same places during World War II. I wondered what could have prevented it. I have learned something paradoxical about fear: The more you fear and run away, the more you take your fear with you and nurture it. We were beginning to be paranoid, fearing that someone in the neighborhood was giving signals and directing the artillery. Fortunately, some armed neighbors quickly organized themselves into mutual aid squads, reducing anxiety.

When extending aid to others, it dissolved my feelings of helplessness, and my fantasy fears transformed into signal anxiety. After getting my car stuck in the snow and hearing air raids above, I was sure that I needed to hide. But there were two men in the road clearing snow, unperturbed, and when I approached, they said: “That was a cluster munition. Judging by the sound, not to here, but from us. We can keep working.” Thus, when I returned home and then went to see the neighbors who did not leave the basement with their children for several days, I saw my condition from a few hours ago reflected in them and understood what it could lead to.

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Perhaps the most dangerous episode was our departure from Sumy during the period when the city was surrounded. We did not know where the Russian troops were located and had to rely on strangers, using a secret notification system; the gas we needed was also scarce. Having a clear goal gave me a sense of control. As I drove through the snow, I saw burnt, rusty Russian tanks not far from the monuments of World War II Russian tanks, which were typical for this area but now appeared bizarre. In some places, we had to hide and wait for information on where the Russian formations were moving, but with every kilometer, we seemed to no longer be prisoners fueled by mania. After about 150 kilometers, we began to encounter people walking with strollers, open pharmacies, and even cafes. It was another world and the next stage of our journey.

My son was the calmest member of our family because he believed we’d protect him, and we were frantic about possibly letting him down. He had a dream about a New Year’s holiday in Sumy—threatening long arms reached for him from behind the New Year tree. He pronounced his dream as “stupid,” but for me, my son’s fear was evidence of the intrusion of external reality into the innocent joy of a family gathering. During this period, we were aware of the threat of a nuclear attack and the Russian “Dead Hand” system (the launch of a nuclear weapon in the event of the elimination of the Russian government in retaliation).

In supervision, I heard about a Russian patient’s dream of fear: “And at 4 in the morning I woke in horror… I dreamed that my husband and I were in the house where I lived with my parents as a child, and planes were flying and bombing the surrounding area. Then it calmed down…” The patient went on to explain: “But I woke up, and I didn’t understand, truly, whether it happened or not… It was so realistic that I looked out the window, at the news… Ah! Before that, a colleague was horrified at hearing about the ‘Dead Hand.’ I tried to calm her down, persuading her to sit down and work.” As for my son, the subsequent move to another country was, of course, associated with the sadness of separating, combined with occasional night terrors. However, overall, he became a more mature and responsible boy.

Fear in War-Torn Ukraine

While I was able to move my family to another country, I remained in Ukraine due to martial law restricting men from leaving for health reasons, and also due to my university status, which

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means I am currently not subject to military mobilization—but traveling abroad involves many bureaucratic challenges. So, I periodically meet with my family in Ukraine, participate in international conferences and seminars online, and try to do what I can to help, including organizing the “Help for the Helpers” project supported by the Melanie Klein Trust in which British analysts work with groups of psychologists who assist military service members and refugees.

I travel around the country quite a lot; in some places, a rather dangerous denial takes hold, to the extent that concerts take place during the sound of air raid alarms. Men are often afraid of mobilization. Having visited the frontline cities, I was surprised to find that one can become wary of the Ukrainian army but still take pride in them. There are everyday unpleasantries of people trying to live their lives in a war zone. Fatigue and depression are on the rise, and I am increasingly concerned about trends in Ukrainian society to demean Russian society, including intellectuals who refuse to use their native Russian language. I am characteristically fluent in both Ukrainian as well as Russian and embrace Ukrainian culture in every possible way. However, the demolition of Pushkin monuments as well as the ban on the import and use of Russian books cause me personal pain.

One of the questions that is persistently present in my mind is: Could I find a proper balance to think and work psychoanalytically? Of course, war-torn fears influence me. Some time ago, I had a dream in which I was pursued by a young woman who demanded violence against herself. She was wounded all over, but she demanded more and more blows. When I fell asleep again, I dreamed that we were repairing our house together with our neighbors, which in reality was damaged after the shelling in Kharkiv. When I thought about it, I asked myself: Is it the world that has gone crazy or me? Isn’t my search for an analytic balance just an insane reaction to this unbalanced reality?

But, of course, such feelings and doubts are nothing compared to what some people, including my close friends and patients, experienced during the occupation. I recall the story of a woman’s family who fled from Kyiv and were previously refugees in the Donbas area. She fears having a breakdown, and yet she is getting used to the constant air raids, even when one that had occurred the day before blew out the windows of two garages. She worries constantly about her house and is in disbelief that when it comes to the

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Russian forces destroying her security: “It’s probably impossible to imagine how it is now… I haven’t seen this before… I watch the news all the time… What’s wrong with them? These women and girls who were raped. Why are they doing this?!” Her worries continue to spiral toward her family: “I will soon hate my sons and my husband. My sons scratch their jocks, and I feel like I’m starting to hate them for it. Is it really impossible to stop when you see that there is a child in front of you?! What’s the matter with them?!”

The patient then referred to her parents leaving their keys to their apartment. She saw it as a refuge for herself to enjoy some time alone there and felt peaceful. But then she recalls how her mother-in-law “burst into the room screaming about where the keys were… and I said that I would deal with the keys myself and continued to read the news, and put the keys with the table. But she came back!” Apparently, the mother-in-law took the keys from the table while the woman was sleeping to gain access to the apartment, making the woman understandably angry. Clearly, this was a portrait of desperation and people looking out only for themselves. The woman sums it all up by concluding with the familiar trope: “And then I also felt like I had lost my mind.”

Conclusion

This essay describes how the traumatic experience of the current war in Ukraine resonates with the fears of my patients, my family, and myself. The transgenerational transmission of trauma is demonstrated by WWII’s impact on the social and personal unconscious. I’ve shared my experience of the Soviet Union’s collapse to indicate its role as a kind of “chosen trauma,” which hides the more harmful and cumulative previous traumatic experience of the Soviet people. We can see how easily Russian propaganda could use this kind of displacement to justify the current war.

My observations of wartime social dynamics, the patients’ words, and my own countertransference together pictures the wide range of internal and external fears as well as the defenses against them. People with double national identities are especially vulnerable. I suppose that some doubts about keeping analytical thinking and work balanced are inevitable in such a situation. And, of course, sometimes this balance is lost. At the same time, I am sure of the possibility and even necessity of analytic thinking in such traumatic circumstances. This requires that we be both in contact with the most disturbed areas of our experience and in a safe place

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for thinking about feelings. Such a place must be found externally but depends on our object relations. As a psychoanalyst, consultant, and supervisor, I hear many stories that leave their scars. They resonate with my own experience as well as conscious fears and unconscious anxieties. But I very much hope that, with the help of my family, close colleagues, and the international community, I will be able to cope with the terrible anger, fear, and hatred generated by the war.

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