Abstract
This article integrates arts-based research and critical self-reflective questions through embodied questions of having lived in Ukraine and Kazakhstan at the time the war broke out in 2022: What was it like to have left Kiev with a family amid the bombing with family? How has the adjustment unfolded? How can life be meaningful today, if at all? Through a collaborative artistic interpretation of a co-produced work, we highlight the unsaid feelings and thoughts, emphasizing a decolonial response to strife, pain, trauma, and war to allow for a healing inquiry of hope through thoughtful, caring spaces to learn and deeply feel the human experience.
Keywords
Act 1: Where Did It Start?
On the first night of airstrikes in Kiev, Lana and her family fled the city amid thousands looking for safety. After 5 days of travel, she and her family of six made it to Kazakhstan. They left behind everything. They left the Montessori school—the one Lana started—in the hands of the teachers.
How Relationships Grow? Anna and Lana
Lana and I (Anna) have known each other for about 9 years, first through email when I reached out about her Montessori school in Kazakhstan. I was an eager faculty member about to move to Central Asia from the United States. Lana grew up in Kazakhstan, had extensive Montessori leadership experience, and embraced my background in Montessori and educational research, showing deep interest and openness to learn from one another. And I treasured Lana’s welcoming presence, deep passion and caring for others, and commitment to sharing how a foundation of respect can be nourished in schooling and families. Throughout the years, we worked together to expand the Montessori school in the city, for instance, linking it to graduate courses I taught about early childhood education and expanding it to reach multiple communities.
How Do Colonialization and War Connect? From Ukraine to Kazakhstan
About two and a half years after leaving Ukraine, Lana and I talked via Zoom. It has been a few months since we had seen each other, since I had moved to Spain. Seeing each other, we beamed and smiled, showering compliments on one another. We could feel each other’s energy through the screens. I wasn’t sure how we were going to get into the deep discussion of the war and her experiences. I was prepared with some ideas of prompts, but didn’t need them. We started to talk right away and continued for a little over an hour. The conversation moved smoothly from talking about how things are for her and her family, recovering with therapy from living through war, how she manages day-to-day life, and what she sees for the future of Ukraine, the world, and her role.
The following is what I refer to as a collaborative practice, an artistic representation of our conversation drawing from our previous relationship and my work around transformative learning and research with arts-informed practices (CohenMiller, 2024). The script incorporates questions as headers to guide and engage the reader through the retelling and narrative, pulling inspiration from critical self-reflection as a form of social justice practice across multicultural contexts (CohenMiller & Boivin, 2021). It draws from arts-based research to “evoke and provoke” (Leavy, 2020), to engage with audiences. It is an intertwining of evocative autoethnography (Bochner & Ellis, 2016), compassionate interviewing and conversation (Ellis & Rawicki, 2014, 2021), and theatrical representation (Denzin, 2019). The characters are Anna, Lana, and “The unsaid”—the deep-seated feelings and desires of the moment. It showcases pain and also hope. A decolonial response embracing how each person’s presence, energy, and action can affect community-wide, collective change. We can face an endless storm of worry, fear, and chaos or become aware of who we are and can be in the face of life and death.
How are you and the family?
We are better now; we are settled. But the war seems to have no end.
We follow up with analytics, with friends who are staying there still.
At this point, some are deciding to go, to leave the country, filling out their permanent visa
They leave, even though they had wanted to stay
You had wanted to go back to Kiev, right?
Ukraine calls out for us, through us
We have had everything there. The school was good—everything was good, the students learning so much.
. . . but then they had to go to the bomb shelter many days
Living amidst war, having to stop classes and leave the safe haven of a loving school environment
seeking a different type of safety in a bomb shelter
Act 2: How to Live With Fear and Sadness?
I learn so much from my Ukrainian dear friends. They show us how to keep a normal life and have joy in life.
Even in having this situation, they still feel happiness, thinking of life, of the future. But some people struggle, find it too much. I was so sorry to hear of one of our friends, who left Ukraine to move to the US; they had lost hope they said. They had to move on.
But the pain and fears remain
We had art therapy for the whole family, to work through what we had seen, hear, and learned. But the youngest is still affected.
Nightmares.
Even just today, he had a nightmare about being stuck in Russia. And even without words to express it all, showed me with his hands how he felt, as if he was being controlled. A hole in his brain. Mobilization without his consent. I wanted to escape that.
So, what do you do?
We stopped talking about war in the family, so the kids wouldn’t have their whole lives be war. Maybe about 6 months ago, when we moved to city . . . but the weight is still there.
It is so bad, the situation; more and more weapons going into Russia, and daily missiles into Ukraine. We are in Kazakhstan . . . and the weapons come through here too.
Why should war be so supported? Even by the country we live in
How Do Teaching and Learning Shift Amid War?
What about the Montessori school you started in Ukraine? I remember your saying before that the teachers were keeping the doors open despite the bombings.
I doubt it will open back in the fall. I’ve always been there at the beginning of the school year, to help guide the schools and ensure everything works out.
I don’t see how it could open . . . the Russians have rockets, and intensive bombing everyday and everynight. Kiev is more protected with the iron shelter, but to get to safety is complicated
But people there they live through it all. We have the school. Last summer, we even did the summer camp.
So many people are leaving now. I can’t work with new teachers only online, I need to meet them in person.
I doubt that we will restart. I’m so sorry about that because our kids are so wonderful. They have gained so much information, have grown so much. Everyday something changes, and we try to adjust to the situation and see how it will work. Only one male teacher remains, most of the women have left the country.
The men can’t leave?
No, the men have to stay, in case Ukraine needs them to fight, they are the first ones called.
Act 3: How Do You Move Forward Day to Day?
Oof! So, what does being “okay” mean for you today?
We just try to do what we have to do. I don’t think I’m doing that well. We’re trying to.
Our friends from Ukraine managed to come for a month to Kazakhstan—the kids were missing each other so much. It was a little bit of a relief to see them, and I learned from them about living life.
It was learning for me. Whatever news come—one day we would get excited, and then the next day grief. We had to find another way to live, not consumed and overwhelmed by war. We stopped thinking and talking and feeling war.
I don’t know how long I can continue like this . . . but what choice do I have?
I don’t consider ourselves as the most impacted.
We left the country on the first day. Yes, it took us 5 days to get to Kazakhstan. It was stressful, and the kids—some of the family members were effected physically from the stress . . . very long consequences. For half of this year, we’ve been treating one of our kid’s leg. But thank God, his leg is saved and things are okay.
When things are okay, I feel such gratitude and relief
And yet survivor’s guilt is always at the door knocking:
Today, I know our things are minor because I know about my friends’ problems in Ukraine. The stress becomes physical. Kids who are 7 years old have grey hair. Dogs have grey hair!
Kids are playing these games—bomb shelter. They are affected hugely. We are not.
Of course, we still feel it and still face it. To be at a distance, to be scared for your friends who you love so much. One of my friends gave birth in the middle of war. They had waited for this child for so long. And now everything is going on.
I don’t know.
Life is so mixed up with emotions and the stress of the war.
The stress is so huge, yet life has to go on. You can’t let it affect you so much to affect your life.
Having a good partner to talk with, Baglan, having friends in Ukraine, to talk every day—it makes life more normal.
But what is normal? I am so grateful and so sad.
How can I help others who do not have the support I do?
What Are the Effects to Neighboring Spaces and Places and Being?
How are things today in Kazakhstan?
Life is hard. Everything is getting more and more expensive. Rent was just raised 50%. The landlord called and said, next month the rent increases, and that’s it.
And I see it from my life, with six people in the family, even the slight raise of prices, it affects the whole dramatically. We decided we have to eat less—the parents can make that choice. But how else to make ends meet? We shouldn’t allow the kids to buy the small things?
How can the government let this happen?
How can they let people struggle so?
I don’t know. God sees everything. It will be alright.
So, what does that mean for you that everything will be alright? Small things, big things?
I think the whole world—political systems, more justice. So many people see unjust things today. Before people did not see and did not know what is just and not just. But still, the powers and ways of empowering people are not there yet.
If you look at the Ukrainians—look at their attitude to death and sacrifice, and the respect they have for death. The respect they have for sacrifice, of other people’s life.
It shouldn’t be right that this life is the only thing we have.
It really makes me think about the future, life. We should consider what we do right now. It should be important for the future, not only for the today and the immediate things.
And to find this system, to find this way, it is a process. This is what we are doing today I believe, spiritually, I think.
I have to believe there is more than today.
It is what keeps me going:
Because we are not alone, I am not alone in Kazakhstan—seeing and having these challenges. And my friends in Ukraine are not alone. There are others who suffer and see. We need to be more united.
In the US, I remember living there. There were so many individual homes, that nobody ever bothered each other . . . until there was a problem in the community. Then everyone would appear on the street, getting everyone’s insights about what happened, getting everyone’s opinion. I was so impressed, “wow”! Because before I saw that, I would walk in the neighborhood and I wouldn’t see anyone, and thought nobody was around, nobody cared. But everyone was there, just showing their unity in a specific way, around a specific topic.
Even in the darkest moments . . . I have to hold onto this reminder: that I am not alone:
What was it like in Ukraine?
I saw that there, too. Once the war started, the whole settlement cared and united. They were connected through the barbershop!
There was this hairstylist and she knew most of the people. She would connect you to what you needed. Everyone came and would help each other, “you do this, you do that.” It was an amazing level of unity.
I have seen something similar in Kazakh families growing up—the whole extended family would gather in the middle of the night and arrive. Maybe they would gather to stop an abuser or something.
In Ukraine, it was a collective problem, and a collective solution even beyond a particular family, from the people of the whole settlement.
A collective response can hold me
- us -:
together:
Is There a Yearning to Go Back?
So, today, you’re still thinking about going back to Ukraine?
Absolutely! We want to go back to the Ukraine. We want to learn from the people there and live life there. But we cannot go back during the war even if we wanted to, the visa centers aren’t working. As a family, we decided that we like Ukraine the most of anywhere we’ve visited or lived. Everything we love that we’ve seen in the US and in Kazakhstan is there.
We have four kids and still two of them are still young. We want them to benefit and learn from the society that they are in. So, we should look for the best.
We understand education and bringing up kids. It is not only about the food or only the family, but also the bigger society, shops and people and teachers, whom we meet in the park, where we can apply our skills, where we will be needed, it is all of it.
We’ll go back. Maybe not during the war . . . maybe not right after the war is finished, but we want to go back there.
That sounds really amazing!
It is. It really is.
And you wouldn’t believe this, but we really like the police in Ukraine! They are so polite, so kind, so helpful. Loving! I’ve been stressed by policemen in other countries, but not here, not in Ukraine. We had only positive interactions with the police there.
It is in general I think. In Ukraine, we never heard any fight, NEVER! Because we like to go out walking in the night and walk and talk, and it was so safe there. We even looked to see if we could find a fight, to see what it is like! But even when people seemed like they were about to argue and get into a physical fight.
I remember one time when it seemed like an argument was about to get physical. The two men, one drunk stepped out of the store but instead of escalating, one asked, “What’s happened to you? Why are you acting like this?” and then the other responded by saying “I’m sorry, I think I’ve drunk too much!”
In other places, I used to stay up late and hear people fighting outside, or some sort of disturbance that would make me feel stressed.
Act 4: What Can We Learn? About Each Other? About Ourselves?
Is that typical?
Yes! Even I felt my high level of aggression there, ha! Here in Kazakhstan, people think I’m so calm and kind. But if you go to Ukraine, I found out that I expect so much aggression from people. I started to learn more about myself, why am I like this? Me and Baglan would laugh, cheeks in pain from laughing in seeing suddenly how we expected an argument and suddenly it would be defused by the other person being humble or acknowledging their part. It was amazing!
People being so kind, saying they are sorry, and being so apologetic. There are many situations like that
Many situations that we love about living amongst those people.
This is our experience.
I have never seen more generous people.
Amazingly kind. Amazingly open.
They love beauty, you have to visit Kiev after the war. They make every corner, every restaurant, coffee shop, even the smallest of spaces, so aesthetically pleasing.
I don’t know if I can do that.
And yet, you have been trained in this for years and have trained others in creating aesthetically pleasing places for children to learn and grow in Montessori centers.
That is true, and still I was so amazed and learned so much.
What Are the Topics to Continue Addressing in These Times?
You know, it is not only about being nice though. We need to differentiate kindness from truth. It is not appropriate every time to be nice. Sometimes we need to be firm, clear, and share a reality with people we are talking to. It takes a lot of courage, especially when it goes against the consensus of people.
Sometimes you have to say something, and not always pleasant things.
I can’t help saying the truth—sometimes this is a weak point for me. I always have to think, is really necessary? Is it necessary to say the truth to this particular person?
Perhaps they are not conscious about what they are doing to you, you have to speak up and tell this. You have to let them know that it is no way to treat someone, to explain that’s why I’m telling you STOP IT or . . .
What comes next? This is the struggle, the confusion . . . what Ukraine is trying to say . . .:
Some people would say it is rudeness.
We have to appreciate sincerity and openness when people say something to each other. We need to hear each other.
Yeah.
I know it is for the better—the war in Ukraine. I just wish the changes would be smooth and gradual, giving us some time to adjust, to do something positive . . .
Kazakhstan is still a safe place for families to come. As a family, we are now adjusting and playing and going outside and working on community building.
I lead classes in the neighborhood and tell the young adults to go and talk to teenagers. These young people need someone who is a healthy adult to just talk to, someone who was recently a teenager, who was recently there going through similar struggles.
How one conversation can change people’s lives! Teenagers who are living in different environments, facing health issues, neighborhood problems . . . maybe another family who is struggling with something . . . it all impacts the kid and what they choose in life. One conversation, showing we are together, can make a difference.
This is what I keep in mind, steps to be a little bit healthy. We have such beautiful neighbors. I try to remind myself and others, if you’re with kids, kicking the ball or playing, saying just a few words of encouragement means so much. It is so important.
It is a very small thing to know who is in the neighborhood, to know the kids.
This is a solution for everything—for every problem. Families in a neighborhood, making a community. People to bring justice to where we can, little by little. It is not a lot to do, it doesn’t need a lot of time.
During the war, every small step takes huge effort.
Sometimes the frustration and sadness take over
My friends in Ukraine, some of them stopped their normal community efforts because they focused on the war, to help in that way. They spend their days sewing mesh, to camouflage the settlement.
This is what they do. They collect things to send to the army. They need to do this.
Some of them try to care about the kids and teenagers but are much less focused on that because peace and physical safety are top priorities. They want to protect their country right now, and this is what is right in front of them.
I don’t understand why the war isn’t stopped. I wish governments, politics, people would do . . . something:
Act 5: What Is a Way Forward? What Is a Decolonizing Effort in Practice?
New governments will not change anything. New people doing the same kind of things all about politics. Change comes gradually, or I hope it will be gradual, to process the changes.
People should do this. We shouldn’t fight, what if we offered? “You want something? Come and see and look.” Why do we keep competing? We are not competitors, which country is like this or that, which culture is most beautiful, ugh. We have to stop this; it is in every conversation.
All are beautiful, all can be better, and all should stand together.
The war in Ukraine, Russia don’t want land, they want to keep their people there. They want the victory. They don’t want to make one piece of land. They don’t want to work on this land; they don’t have people to make it better, or even to bring prosperity to their people!
I think Ukrainians fight for their identity, for their freedom. To have their Ukrainian language. It is insane.
Why would Russia need land? They destroyed all the land with bombing. All homes, all shops, everything destroyed.
Ugh! The sadness and anger want to take over! But I don’t want to live like that. It doesn’t help anyone, or any cause
They don’t even understand what they want. It is not a rational war. “What do you want?!”
It is like a little kid having a tantrum, unclear what they want, but wanting and needing something from someone else.
Russia is destroying economies. They are destroying life that is being organized.
And I see how Ukraine tried to change for the better. They still pay attention to where their donations go and where their money is going. They see so much corruption that they are trying to make it different.
It was very interesting. In the bomb shelters, people would follow up on how much money was being used, if it was being used on necessary things, and where it was going.
There is so much pain there now. But because of all of this, there is more transparency, and I think much efficiency will develop—this is the goal of the government according to the latest laws and political statements. For their people, I really like that they are working to get rid of corruption at different levels. I really like to think that their people will prosper there, in the future.
Thank you for all of this. It’s been an hour—the time flew by! I know you have other things you need to do today.
Yeah. I hope it was what you were looking for. I realize I just jumped right in when we started talking and the conversation just spilled out. Is this what you were looking for?
Was it enough? Was I enough? Can we make a difference?
This was amazing Lana, everything. The special issue that we’re writing this article for is about a response to the colonization of Ukraine, to finding creative and community responses and a way forward. And this is exactly what you talked about. A decolonizing effort through individual and community efforts.
At the center, I’ve heard you talk about heart and hope. Getting to the center of knowing that this war is so tragic, and yet people have to continue on, that we have ways to help out, to be a part of a community, and to know we are not alone and can move forward.
Step by step, one day at a time . . . hanging onto heart and hope together. A potential means forward.
Exactly.
Footnotes
Declaration of Conflicting Interests
The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
Funding
The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
Author Biographies
