Grounded in History
In the weeks and months following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022, the world stood in awe of the courageous resolve of Ukraine’s citizens to fight against this onslaught. Their steadfast determination is even more impressive in the context of the past century, in which successive generations of Ukrainians have endured multiple wars and violent, unprovoked aggression. In the 20th century alone, Ukraine’s borders, sovereignty, and even the concept of Ukraine as an independent nation have been challenged over a dozen times. These experiences compound into generational trauma, which can encompass heightened anxiety and negative coping habits that are passed on to each successive generation. Ukraine’s history makes it all the more important for us to act now to prevent the continued intensification of trauma for the millions of young Ukrainians now growing up in wartime.
Ukrainians fought a valiant War of Independence from 1917-1921, but it ended with most of the country absorbed into the newly formed Soviet Union and western Ukraine annexed by Poland. From 1932-1933, Joseph Stalin oversaw the Holodomor, a genocide in which millions of Ukrainians died by ruthless starvation. Stalin’s policies intensified the famine’s effects in Ukraine, in part to quash further rebellion against the U.S.S.R. Starvation can have transgenerational effects not just through the emotional and physical trauma for those who experience it, but through epigenetic changes that may alter eating patterns and certain body functions for the children of individuals who lived through it.
Less than a decade later, Nazis massacred over 33,0000 Jewish Ukrainians at Babi Yar. The ravine became a mass grave for thousands more people, including Roma and Soviet prisoners during World War II. In just a few years, yet another generation of Ukrainians experienced the horrific violence and trauma of war.
Russia’s oppressive rule caused further harm to Ukrainians’ health throughout the century. Russian dishonesty about the safety and status of the Chernobyl nuclear power plant led to a disastrous explosion in 1986. Plant workers and locals suffered the effects of radiation, engendering deep mistrust that lingered into the post-Soviet era. In 2014, Russia illegally annexed Crimea, violating Ukrainian autonomy and laying the groundwork for its full-scale invasion in 2022.
Each generation of Ukrainians over the past century has seen violence, destruction, and harm in their lifetimes. Every family has been affected in some way, and the cumulative impact of these events is passed on. A great-grandparent may have survived starvation; a grandparent lived through World War II; a parent suffered from post-Soviet political machinations; and now a child is growing up in a newly unstable wartime, with air raids and missile attacks disrupting any kind of “normalcy” in their days. For these children, it’s more important than ever to learn coping skills through programs like Teaching Recovery Techniques (TRT) that enable them to understand and break the cycles of trauma.
We are called upon as humanitarians to act against injustice and provide mental health support now, rather than waiting for the end of a conflict when the most recent trauma will already have been encoded into personal and national history. HUT focuses on supporting mental health care for children and veterans, addressing the most urgent needs for the most vulnerable individuals and the people facing the worst of the conflict. By addressing Ukraine’s mental health needs now, we can intervene in the story of generational trauma. History may repeat itself, but our reactions to it cannot.