Olga Kravets
Ukraine, 2023
Dimensions: 144 mm x 210 mm
This notebook from 2023 became the vessel for confronting an essential ques- tion I had never dared ask openly.
When Russia, my mother’s country, attacked Ukraine, my father’s country, in 2022 – I realized my mental health couldn’t bear witnessing more Russian war crimes after collecting too many accounts in Chechnya.
Instead, I began writing a film about my family history, preparing for my first real interview with my father with one crucial question: “Dad, but why didn’t you teach me Ukrainian? His answer was simple: “Your maternal grandmother forbade me to speak Ukrainian since we lived in Moscow”.
The questions I explore concern my inescapable roots. In Russia, I’m a traitor; in Ukraine, I’ll never be Ukrainian enough, having grown up Russian-speaking in Moscow. I wrote this text in French because that’s my primary language today.
This notebook was for me the start of applying my skills of a war reporter to my own family history investigation. Key insights came during summer 2023 at a Bosnian house that had also known war, during the WARM festival. Two years later, I am finally heading to Ukraine to shoot this film.
