by Olivier Del Fabbro
Jean-Jacques Rousseau believed that the “most ancient of all societies and the only natural one is that of the family.”[1] Similarly, Rousseau’s great antagonist, Thomas Hobbes, claims that “family is a small commonwealth.”[2] But what if the most natural and ancient of all societies is confronted with war? According to a survey by the International Rescue Committee, 74% of Ukrainians report being separated from a close family member because of the war.[3]
Maria (32) and Ivan (42) are such a family. Ivan was drafted in April 2022. Since then, he has been stationed in Donetsk, in the region of Kramatorsk. In the beginning, Maria and Ivan saw each other every four months for about ten days. Now, in 2024, he is allowed to come home twice a year for two weeks. “But you also have to count two days for travel.” The frontline is far away from where Maria lives, Chernivtsi, on the border to Romania.
On the 13th of April 2024, when Ivan came home for his two-week leave, Maria had just given birth to their daughter, Sophia, the previous day. Two weeks later, Ivan left heartbroken for the frontline. “I cried every day until the end of May,” Maria says. “Then, I realized that I must live for my daughter, for my husband. I did not want my husband to see me crying every day, because he was worried as well.” Maria and Ivan always planned on having a family, but Maria’s pregnancy was an accident. “I don’t regret it,” she says smiling at Sophia. “She is perfect.”
Maria grew up in Greece, with her Ukrainian mother and Greek father. She went to Chernivtsi to study medicine to become a dermatologist. In March 2024, shortly before Sophia was born, Maria’s mother came to visit and help her. But just as Ivan, she left at the end of April. Still today, she is waiting in Greece for her daughter, but Maria does not want to leave her husband. She wants Ivan to see his daughter.
“It’s very difficult to be a single mother. It’s just myself and my daughter.” Maria’s mother, her father, her brothers, are all in Greece. Ivan’s grandparents from Ukraine are long gone. His father has passed away, and his mother lives in Italy. “I am all alone.”
Maria tries to ignore the question of whether the war might go on for some time, or not. “In the beginning, Ivan believed that the war would end rather quickly. But now he changed his mind,” Maria says. “He can only come home when the war is over.” In desperation, Maria admits having had the craziest thoughts to bring her husband back home to her. “For example, if I were to get very sick, Ivan would be allowed to come home for a longer period.” For Ivan it was out of the question, and for Maria, in the end, as well.
Ivan and Maria talk every day on the phone, but they do not talk about the war. “I don’t know much about his work, because every time I ask him, he says that everything is fine and that I shouldn’t worry.” So, Maria does her own research, for example on Telegram Channels. “Sometimes I know even more than him. I want and need to know everything. The soldiers have bad connection, they sleep on the floor, they fight.”
Since 2024, Ukraine has lowered its conscription age from 27 to 25. Authorities have also been checking more systematically on men trying to avoid conscription. “My husband cannot be with his daughter and others are at home doing nothing.” To Maria it is unfair. “In the building I live, some men are hiding and their wives are working.”
But the greatest gift for Maria is her daughter. “Giving birth is a beautiful thing.” Ivan is just as happy. “If you go to war, you do not know if you’re coming back,” he told Maria. “That’s why he always says goodbye to his brothers,” she says. Then she continues, “I think that he wanted something of him to be left, if he doesn’t come back. Sophia is a part of him.”
Sascha (22) and Marie (20) are younger than Ivan and Maria. In fact, their relationship seems to just have started, but that does not mean that it’s not serious.
When they started dating, the full-scale war had already begun and Sascha was stationed at the front. Hence, there was not much time. “Everything had to be fast. Like in artillery, I had to aim and hit. I shoot well.” Sascha says smiling. Flowers, restaurant, wine, ice-skating. Sascha was courting, they fell in love. After some time, both also met close to the frontline. “We decided to spend our birthdays together, so I went to Poltava region on a 24-hour trip. I lied to my parents, and I had my sister cover for me,” Marie says. The relationship is built on Sascha’s holidays or Marie’s visits close to the frontline for a couple of days. “I did not choose places directly on the frontline. I chose places that were not connected to the military.” Sascha explains. For Marie, some trips were scarier, because they were longer. “I was afraid to go to Mykolaiv. First, I needed to go to Odessa, then find a car to continue. There was also shelling.”
When Sascha is at the frontline, Marie is worried, of course. “It is very hard. Every time, after he has been on holiday in Chernivtsi, I must get back to life without him. The same place, the same apartment, but he won’t be there the next day.” Sascha’s emotions are also strong, but he sees it as his duty to be at the frontline as a soldier. “I am doing my work over there so that it doesn’t happen in Chernivtsi. If I would have to choose between being at the front forever and everything in Chernivtsi would be fine, then I would choose the former. If I could save everything here, I would do it.”
Sascha realized this one day, when he was walking down the main shopping street of Chernivtsi. “I asked myself: what am I risking my life for? I looked at the people, the children and families, who were in safety.” Then Sascha couldn’t hold his tears back. Emotions had to come out and Marie was there to listen. So far, the problem for Sascha was that there was nobody he could talk to. His father, also an officer fighting in the war, wouldn’t understand. Similarly, his friends. His mother would be too worried. Marie was the only person, he could talk to about his war experiences and thoughts. “I found a reason, why I am at the front and why I am wasting my young years, my best years.” Sascha concludes.
Marie and Sascha’s relationship is more than a love affair. In November 2023, he proposed to her and now they are planning their wedding. “When he proposed to me, the only thought I had was, what should I tell my mother,” Marie says laughing. Sascha had the whole engagement planned out. He was so nervously happy that he told everybody in Chernivtsi that he was going to propose: the taxi driver, the barber …
Both plan to have a family, but now is not the right time. “I am still in law school, and he is at war.” Sascha agrees: “If I cannot be with her, it makes no sense to have children. The family will not be complete, because I will be out there, and she will be alone. I will make her life harder with children.” Sascha knows what he is talking about. Every day he sees the difficulty his comrades have, whose children and wives are waiting for them at home. “The back and forth causes a lot of friction in families,” he says.
Rousseau’s naturalness of society, Hobbes’ artificiality of the commonwealth are not supposed to decay. They should be robust, functioning entities, like healthy organisms. The state of nature, that is war, is a danger to such societies. Similarly, Maria, Ivan and Sophia, Sascha and Marie, and million other Ukrainians try and want to keep their families, if not physically together, than at least alive and intact. Despite the war that is trying to rip them apart.
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[1] Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Of the Social Contract or Principles of Political Right, in: The Social Contract and Other Later Political Writings, edited and translated by Victor Gourevitch, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge 2019, p. 44.
[2] Thomas Hobbes, On the Citizen, edited by Richard Tuck and Michael Silverthorne, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, p. 85.
[3] The Economist, Ukraine’s War has created Millions of Broken Families, 2 July 2024.