We, Internally Displaced Persons
by Yevhenii Monastyrskyi
It seems that a man who is nothing but a man has lost the very qualities which make it possible for other people to treat him as a fellow-man.
– Hannah Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism
Telling a story about innocence, won’t conjure acquittal.
– Reginald Dwayne Betts, Essay on Reentry
The papers that define your legal status within your homeland matter a lot. Consider my passport: it is no longer a full-fledged certificate of identity in my own country, Ukraine. Since 2014, I have been required to carry a tattered document indicating my status as an “Internally Displaced Person.” This is due to the fact that my place of registration is located in an area that is currently de facto devoid of Ukrainian state authorities. My actual home, which is also my place of registration, is in the center of Luhansk, currently under Russian occupation. This very home happens to be my grandparents’ apartment, boasting low ceilings, ample natural light, and brimming with books. It is situated in a building constructed during the Khrushchev era, a time when the Soviet government prided itself on offering all citizens a minimum amount of living space. There are tall poplar trees outside the windows of this apartment. When my parents brought me, as a newborn, to this apartment in the center of Luhansk, these poplar trees were probably the first thing I saw out the window.
In the summer of 2014, over a million people were forced to flee their homes as a result of the escalating war between Ukraine and Russia. Behind them stood complete or shell-shattered homes, elderly parents, and family graves. Because the war’s mechanics and causes were incomprehensible, people fled.
It's been nearly a decade since those millions of Ukrainians were displaced from their homes. I am one of them. Some of us are unable to return due to fear of death, while others are unable to return due to the absence of a place where we can return. It is still difficult to return to a place previously known as “home” once it has become a monument to itself – a structure stuck in time and positioned in a legal “non–space” where neither Ukrainian nor international law apply. Some people continue to visit the occupied territories out of need, keeping in touch with relatives and preserving the lonely, abandoned dwellings waiting for life to resume.
Indeed, the choice to return to our previous abodes remains within our grasp, if we dare to seize upon it. Such a daring endeavor demands that we subject ourselves to identification procedures enforced by the Security Service of Ukraine at well-equipped checkpoints. Some may opt for this safer path, sidestepping treacherous minefields and perilous river bends via the aid of smugglers, but others may be inclined to take the audacious route, braving both obstacles. For individuals like myself who share the same circumstances yet have been labeled as “enemies of the republic” within the occupied territories, the idea of embarking on this journey of return remains nothing but an elusive dream.
Human beings are accustomed to believing that the five senses comprise the fundamental system of awareness of the world. The eye desires vision. The ear craves sound. Then how does one define the state of a person ripped from the familiarity of neighborhoods, streets, alleyways, blocks, street communities, and boulevards? Finding a new existence in refugee camps, (perhaps-not-)temporary modular communities, or through the assistance of benefactors, displaced persons almost immediately absorb local traditions and act as if they have always been where they currently find themselves. Yet, at certain moments, a profound awareness of disempowerment engulfs us—it manifests itself in the loss of spontaneity in speech, altered manners, or abnormal breathing triggered by the mere mention of home, or even the sound of a balloon bursting. It’s simple to startle us, to trigger a stress disorder, but we have nowhere to flee.
Can you give us a name?
In the midst of Russia’s war against Ukraine, those who willingly abandoned their homes failed to consider their legal status at the time they fled. Escaping the violence and horror of war yet remaining in one’s own country seemed to present fewer hurdles, as it required the cooperation of fellow compatriots who shared a common language, culture, and historical background. As we gathered our belongings – cramming them into a few oversized suitcases – and embarked on a journey toward the unknown, we held out hope for empathy from our fellow citizens and compassion from government officials. It was often with the help of previously unfamiliar faces that we started to unravel the icy workings of the state machinery.
The onset of Russia’s war against Ukraine in 2014 was an incomprehensible shock for the people in eastern Ukraine, a region commonly referred to as Donbas. Even for my generation, born just after the collapse of the Soviet Union, the idea of war in Ukraine seemed unfathomable. We had grown up believing that our people, who had made immense sacrifices during World War II, had safeguarded our land from such turmoil. Moreover, our bilingualism led us to believe that we could easily find common ground with those who shared our language and parts of our culture. However, in 2014, we discovered that the Russians and the Russian government had a different interpretation of what it meant to be “our own” (“svoi”). For them, it meant asserting ownership over an entire region of Ukraine solely because of it. Our inadvertent carelessness played a cruel trick on us: in our pursuit of being “our own,” (“svoi”) we distanced ourselves from the realities unfolding within our own society, leaving us vulnerable to the resurgence of Russian imperialism.
While the people of Kharkiv, Odesa, and Dnipro in other eastern regions of Ukraine managed to thwart the Russian invasion, the residents of Donbas found themselves trapped by their own indecision in defining their identity. Many of us were compelled to abandon our homes due to the ravages of war. Initially labeled as “refugees,” this term was not only used by the media. It seemed an obvious descriptor at first glance. However, seventy years earlier, in her influential essay “We Refugees,” Hannah Arendt had already eloquently spelled out our aversion to being called refugees, and the situation in Ukraine today is far more complex than the circumstances described in Arendt’s essay.
More than seven decades have passed since the establishment of the United Nations and its affiliated organizations, along with the inception of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. In her writings, Arendt sheds light on the concept of refugees, specifically the Nansenian notion, referring to individuals who have fled their home countries due to imminent threats against their lives. In the interwar period, there was no universally agreed upon definition of the term “refugee,” resulting in the identification of distinct groups of refugees based on nationalities. Today, the term “refugee” is clearly defined in Article 1 of the 1951 Refugee Convention, stating that an individual can be recognized as a refugee if they are compelled to leave their country due to a direct threat against their life.
It is understandable why Ukrainians from Donbas and Crimea have resisted being labeled as refugees, as they didn’t leave their own country, seeking refuge elsewhere in Ukraine from the ongoing war. Their Ukrainian identity is evidenced by their citizenship, and their active choice to remain within their homeland should have assured everyone that they were not refugees, but an integral part of the same nation. They did not cross any national borders; the only boundary they traversed was an existential one — the threshold of their own homes.
In the tumultuous spring and fall of 2014, more than one million individuals from the occupied regions of Donbas and Crimea were compelled to abandon their homes in a remarkably short span of time. As the fall of 2014 approached, the Ukrainian government began to classify these individuals as “Internally Displaced Persons” in adherence to the Guiding Principles on Internal Displacement which were established in 1998. We did not physically cross the borders of our own country, and as such, we remained subject to the laws and regulations of our homeland. This distinction goes beyond a mere technicality; when we made the decision to leave our homes in the midst of a war zone, each one of us consciously chose to remain within the boundaries of our own nation. This choice necessitated a shift from our local identities to our national ones; perhaps more accurately, it involved allowing our national identities to encompass and overshadow our local ones. This existential decision was not necessarily aligned with the bureaucratic requirements of the state, highlighting the complex nature of our circumstances.
When you name us, will you see us?
Max Weber famously asserted in 1919 that what a makes a state a state is its “claim to the monopoly of the legitimate use of physical force in the enforcement of its order.” It is worthwhile to discuss not only physical violence but also metaphysical violence, such as the brutality of bureaucratic reasoning. Regardless of our nationality, we have all faced the state machine’s frenzied logic when it comes to the execution of paperwork. As a social scientist, I recognize that these time-consuming procedures will eventually transform into essential archives and databases for future researchers. Yet obtaining certificates and other documentation physically bores us, as if our time is being deliberately robbed. The American novelist David Foster Wallace dubbed bureaucrats “masters of boredom,” which “function effectively in an environment that precludes everything vital and human.”
Upon fleeing the war zone, every Ukrainian citizen who registered as a resident in the territories currently occupied by Russia held expectations that the Ukrainian state would display sympathy and understanding in matters of re-registration and document restoration. However, the bureaucratic machinery perceived our situation as necessitating “special procedures,” which resulted in our unfortunate placement at the back of the line. The lack of comprehension regarding how to account for, register, and effectively communicate with us further exacerbated the issue. In both international law and the newly enacted Ukrainian laws, we were classified as “Internally Displaced Persons.” Meanwhile, the media labeled us as “resettlers” (“pereselentsy”). This designation carries significance, as the prefix “pere” in Ukrainian and Russian holds a familiar connotation for Americans, evoking memories of the era of “perestroika,” and in this case, reflects our experience, as it denotes a process similar to the English prefix “re” – such as restructuring and relocation. However, obtaining this designation involved enduring a degrading procedure known as the “certification of residence in the fighting zone at the outbreak of the conflict.”
Initially, there was a belief that the registration procedure would be relatively straightforward and not overly burdensome. Each Ukrainian citizen who fled the combat zone was required to visit the social security department of the local administration in the city they had relocated to and complete the registration process. However, following registration, only a small fraction of newly-registered “Internally Displaced Persons” received any form of assistance from the state. The primary objective of this registration process seemed to be compiling statistics to showcase the functionality of the Department of Social Security within the state apparatus.
For many Internally Displaced Persons, this arrangement with the state served as a sort of non-aggression pact. It allowed us to begin our lives anew without the constant fear of being targeted or apprehended by local authorities. Simply having the opportunity to visit the Department of Social Security to obtain a “certificate of displaced person,” which verified our status, meant enduring long lines alongside countless others in a similar situation. We became accustomed to always being at the back of these extensive lines, as the term “special procedure” translated to being relegated to the lowest priority, with seemingly no bureaucrat willing to invest additional effort in the ongoing legal battles faced by Internally Displaced Persons.
The bureaucratic review process sometimes descended into a realm reminiscent of the Kafkaesque. In 2018, the fourth year of the war, I turned 25 years-old and encountered an unexpected ordeal. Typically, it is customary for every Ukrainian citizen to renew their passport photo at this age—it is a seemingly routine procedure for most individuals. For someone registered in the occupied regions, it transformed into a peculiar form of torment. To my dismay, I discovered that neither my passport nor my Internally Displaced Person certificate was deemed valid by the authorities. My passport required a fresh photograph, rendering it invalid in its current state. Additionally, the certificate had expired, as its validity is linked to the moment of obtaining the passport up until one’s 25th birthday. Due to my registration in a region occupied by Russia — an area whose legal status remains uncertain — I was unable to acquire a new passport without a valid Internally Displaced Person certificate. Simultaneously, without a valid passport bearing registration in the occupied regions, obtaining a new certificate of internal displacement proved impossible.
In The Trial, Franz Kafka aptly observed that “Logic may be unshakeable, but it cannot hold out against a human being who wants to live.” In my situation, I yearned to continue living within the legal realm of my own state without being forced to abandon it. The bureaucratic hurdles and paradoxes imposed upon me only served to intensify the struggle for normalcy and recognition.
For the next month I found myself caught in a relentless cycle, shuttling between local social security offices responsible for registering Internally Displaced Persons, and the migration offices tasked with issuing passports. I stood patiently at the back of long lines, only to be directed towards the dreaded “special procedure,” where bureaucrats would provide me with their recommendations in a reproachful tone, as if accusing me of something. With each encounter, I diligently filled out new documents, hanging on to their every word, and gazing at them with pleading eyes. All I wanted to convey was a simple message: “But this is not my fault!”
In response, the bureaucrats seemed to channel characters from Kafka’s The Trial, dismissively remarking, “Look... he admits he doesn’t know the law and at the same time claims he’s innocent.” Their words reflected a bewildering blend of accusation and disbelief, as if I were somehow responsible for the intricate web of bureaucracy that entangled me. I felt trapped in a system where my innocence and lack of familiarity with the law were held against me, leaving me frustrated and helpless in the face of Kafkaesque encounters.
Without a passport and Internally Displaced Person certificate, I felt naked in front of the state. Emasculated. The state could now do anything to me – or it could do nothing at all, and in this way render me without rights. I was continually forced to show documentary evidence that I had been residing in the now-occupied territory at the time it was invaded — that is, at the time “Russian tourists” crossed the border and the Ukrainian state lost control. Only an unforeseen combination of events aided me: Luhansk University awarded me a bachelor’s degree just a few days after I was liberated from captivity. In the end, it was this diploma from Luhansk University and this diploma alone, with its date and place of issuance, that established my legitimacy as a “Internally Displaced Person.” At times, one must endure the struggle for the state's recognition, often being treated as a second-class citizen.
Proving our right to be
In examining the plight of those who have been forced to flee their homes and become stateless, we are confronted with a sobering reality: the concept of “human rights” is deeply precarious and even rendered meaningless in the absence of a state to protect and uphold those rights. Hannah Arendt’s insights regarding stateless individuals in the aftermath of World War I serve as a poignant reminder of this truth.
When faced with an institution designed to safeguard the rights of those compelled to flee their homes due to the imminent threat of war, you can find yourself in a disheartening position — a position that exposes you as a humiliated and subordinate subject in the eyes of the law. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights, with its emphasis on “universal” and “inalienable” rights, stands as a beacon of hope. However, Arendt critically analyzed the Declaration in her seminal work, “The Rights of Man: What Are They?” — later incorporated as Chapter 9 in Origins of Totalitarianism (1951) — highlighting the inherent challenge that arises when state institutions are founded upon the principles of national and territorial sovereignty.
The conflict arises when national sovereignty clashes with individual sovereignty, thus necessitating the invocation of Human Rights to address this inherent tension. Arendt eloquently asserts that the entire notion of universal human rights portrays the human being as a self-contained organism with no superior authority to exert control over. This juxtaposition between the individual’s inherent rights and the institutional structures based on national sovereignty reveals the complex interplay that lies at the heart of the struggle to uphold and protect human rights in an ever-evolving world. The unfortunate reality of “proizvol,” or arbitrary treatment by state authorities during the process of rehabilitating Internally Displaced Persons is emblematic of the plight of Internally Displaced Persons in Ukraine. Let’s look at the experience of a pensioner who tried to move his registered address and got caught in a Kafkaesque web of bureaucracy to get a feel for the gravity of the situation:
Imagine this elderly man, already burdened by the years, having to find his way through a complex system in order to update his registration as a displaced person. He has no idea that this seemingly simple task will result in a chain reaction of absurdity and dire consequences. As he moves forward, he realizes that if he changes his registration, his pension will likely be withheld for the month in which the change takes effect – that is, he risks losing the very thing that has kept him going in his old age.
A hallmark of the dehumanizing bureaucracy he is forced to navigate are the expressions of indifference and disinterest in the voices of the nameless bureaucrats he encounters. All of their dismissive comments – “This is the procedure; it’s not our fault!” – echo in his head after every interaction. His optimism is shattered and he is left with a sense of helplessness as he listens to the authoritative and disdainful voices of the bureaucrats. Seeking redress appears to be a difficult and fruitless task, despite the obvious unfairness of the situation. A glimmer of hope appears in the form of a legal process to reinstate his suspended pension. But he also knows all too well that such paths to justice are few and far between, and that he will likely spend the rest of his life in a bureaucratic hell of his own making, neither fully recognized as a citizen nor truly abandoned by the state.
The loss of legal subjecthood and personhood due to the absence of a state guaranteeing basic citizenship rights is exemplified by this tragic example. This elderly man’s story is a sobering illustration of the precarious position of many internally displaced people whose rights are often violated and humanity often devalued because the system fails to recognize their plight and provide adequate support.
Considering the hardships of Ukraine’s Internally Displaced Persons who must deal with a lack of legal subjecthood and a bureaucratic maze straight out of one of Kafka’s books, it’s important to see the bigger picture. A larger pattern of exclusion and the denial of rights is reflected in the story of the elderly man fighting against the system. This trend goes beyond national boundaries and is reflected in the lives of people everywhere who are victims of structural inequality.
An especially poignant case is that of Eric Garner, an African-American man who was killed by a police officer in New York City in the summer of 2014. The alleged criminal act of Garner was the sale of single cigarettes which meant, according to the police, that he was in violation of tax laws. A disproportionate amount of force was used in response to this perceived infraction, and it ended up being fatal. Garner’s cries for help during his arrest, including “I can’t breathe!” were ignored by the officer. The power dynamics at play are better understood after this incident. As an agent of the established social and economic order, the police officer is motivated by a desire to preserve the status quo and safeguard its interests. However, Garner personifies a disturbance, an “extra” element that is unnecessary within the capitalist framework because of his race.
When he screamed, “I can’t breathe,” it was a chilling reminder of the existence of a group of people society had cast aside as expendable. The value of a human life is determined by the surplus value it creates within the capitalist economic and social system, which is motivated by profit and the constant search for more of it. The outcome for Garner shows how people like him are inherently incompatible with a system that puts profit before people.
At the center of this predicament, the police officer is the “protagonist” committed to maintaining the status quo while also protecting the existing socio-economic system (after all, for such people selling single cigarettes and not paying tax is the worst thing a citizen can do). Eric Garner is the paradigmatic violation of this order, “superfluous” in the system of capitalist relations because of his race. His exclamation, “I can’t breathe!” signifies the presence of a caste of people who are unnecessary, de-associated, and alienated from society. People like Eric Garner are naturally incompatible with a capitalist socio-economic system that is obsessed with profit. The extra value that human life generates is the measure of its worth in their eyes. The authorities essentially portrayed symbolic death as a legal actuality in order to obtain a conviction. What was de jure became de facto as a result of the passage of time.
Internally Displaced Persons are not subjected to direct violence by government officials. In this case, the shared desire for Internally Displaced Persons is to remain invisible to the state, as engaging with the state is more likely to result in harm than benefit for all parties involved. How so? In our struggle to define our existence and explain – to ourselves and to others how the state’s institutional procedures shape our image – we have often drawn upon the metaphor from Homer’s Odyssey: “I am called Nobody.” When it comes to dealing with the limitations of civil rights in Ukraine, there is no one to turn to. By acknowledging that we are victims of war, internally displaced persons affirm their own status as “dispossessed,” which means they are guilty without having committed a crime.
The state’s purely instrumentalist perspective views Internally Displaced Persons and their self-identification as war-affected individuals as a significant threat to the state’s ability to function. These people are not merely marginalized; they are cast into a state of “non-place.” The anthropologist Marc Augé defines a “non-place” as a location in which people do not feel at home. For those who have been displaced within their own country, the loss of a safe and familiar setting can be devastating.
Here, we are faced with two related facts: the first is that there are locations where nobody feels at home; and the second is that there are people who do not feel at home anywhere. People who are displaced within their own country lose more than just their homes when they are uprooted. This is a problem that only “Nobody” faces because the laws in our own country have shaped the public’s perception of people who have been uprooted from their homes. The state’s classification of us as war victims has contributed to our social and political marginalization by implying, however subtly, that we had some responsibility for bringing about the conflict. As a result, we’re mired in a legal muck that makes it difficult to get the basic social aid we need, effectively making us second-class citizens. For a person who has been displaced within their own country, their Displaced Person’s Certificate represents not only a loss of home, but also a partial loss of political rights. We are committed to our country despite being accused of encouraging the war’s escalation, showing indifference, or having sympathies with the enemy. Individually, we all try to scream “I can’t breathe!” to the unmoved observers in social services, hospitals, on the front lines, and in positions of power. But the answer we get is institutionalized discrimination that pretends to be a solution.
The Internally Displaced Person’s fight for visibility and rights is intricately entangled within the larger problem of societal attitudes and bureaucratic structures that keep them invisible and marginalized. The “Non-Place” we call home is a reflection of not just our physical upheaval, but also the existential difficulties we face in our search for a place to call our own. We must face and challenge the structural obstacles that prevent us from being treated as equal members of society with the respect, safety, and autonomy that we deserve.
Internally Displaced Persons were placed in a position of permanent exclusion. This political space for people marked by war was formed on the fly in Summer 2014, exempting Internally Displaced Persons from some provisions of the Ukrainian Constitution. As with the ideals of property rights protection and voting rights, equality and non-discrimination were not something that concerned us in all circumstances. The “Three-Fifths Compromise” was incorporated in the initial version of the United States Constitution, which equated five slaves in the southern states with three free persons when determining the total population of the country. From the spring of 2014 until the summer of 2020, a person who had been internally displaced could vote only in national elections: that is, for the president and for the party that represented them in the Verkhovna Rada, the Ukrainian Parliament. We were unable to vote in the local or district elections where we resided. The state saw us as no more than half-persons for more than six years during which time our family who remained under occupation were virtually non–existent in the eyes of government entities. Meanwhile, the silent majority did not become aware of our existence until we made an attempt to exit our “non-space” — that is, unless we made an attempt to establish our subjectivity.
It wasn’t until the summer of 2020 that IDPs could vote in municipal elections again. But the numbers showed a disheartening truth: less than 7% of IDPs took advantage of the temporary change of registration procedure that would have allowed them to vote at all levels of government in the first year after regaining their right to vote. This shocking number illustrates the extreme difficulty that internally displaced persons have in adjusting to their new environments. They have been taught to put their identity as political subjects on the back burner, treating it as an afterthought at best. Concerned about the lack of opportunity for stateless people to participate in the political life of their host countries, Hannah Arendt wrote about the problem. Social deprivation can therefore enter the lives of the vulnerable when political deprivation becomes entrenched. Arendt’s insightful comments illuminate a central defect in the current understanding of human rights. A universal human being, emptied of all other characteristics and specific relationships except for the undeniable fact that they are human, is assumed to be the foundation of the idea that all individuals possess inherent rights. The limitations of this view become all too clear, however, when those who claim to uphold human rights come into contact with people who have lost everything but their humanity.
Strangers in our own land
One is confronted with a puzzling and unsettling reality when considering the origins of internal displacement. A person’s sense of identity and belonging to their nation’s political fabric is questioned when they move from one city to another within the same country and find themselves stripped of their civil rights. It’s hard to believe that kind of change is possible.
Picture a young person leaving behind their rural hometown for the bright lights of the big city to further their education. The profound change in way of life and outlook is the result of newly-acquired experiences and insights. Moving for work can be difficult because it requires starting over in a new place, saying goodbye to friends and family, and learning your way around. To what extent does leaving a war–torn region within one’s own country affect one’s legal personhood if similar transitions within the same nation do not?
Internally Displaced Persons should face the same kinds of difficulties as those who choose to relocate to a neighboring country or city. The challenges of making new friends, settling into a strange environment, and looking for ways to improve oneself should all be a part of it. It must never lead to the total or partial loss of their legal personhood. Perhaps the concept of “le regard” — the gaze of the Other, as described by thinkers like Jean–Paul Sartre — can be useful in resolving the paradox of internal displacement. This idea illustrates how individual subjectivity is affected by the norms and standards of society. To comprehend how and why internal refugees lose their legal personhood, we must first look at how society looks upon them.
However, once they have obtained all essential documentation, Internally Displaced Persons face a new obstacle: presenting themselves to others. Ukrainian society and state, despite everything, most notably Western countries’ denial, were not psychologically or institutionally prepared for the reception of Internally Displaced Persons from the war zone. In 2014, the state was unable to arrange the evacuation of civilians from the combat zone and each person broke through the battle lines on their own. Each of us has a tale about being unable to comprehend what was occurring; war appears preposterous to each new generation that encounters it. Each of us hoped that this absurdity would not last for very long, that we would soon return and restore our communities.
Residents of large cities, where the initial influx of displaced persons from Donbas and Crimea occurred, did not have an unending supply of hospitality. The government was slow to organize help for persons escaping the violence, and host communities were slow to rent housing to newcomers. At first, this appeared to be a problem — much like Internally Displaced Persons, host communities hoped for a swift conclusion to the war and the return of the unexpected visitors to their homes. However, we were compelled to remain.
We remained in our new communities, but we had no intention of calling them “home.” We attempted to maintain contact with our loved ones who had remained “there” in a “non-governmentally controlled areas” while adjusting to our new circumstances and unsure of what to name ourselves. Wherever possible, international humanitarian groups aiding conflict-affected populations established temporary camps and modular camps. Due to a lack of knowledge about Ukraine and the places from which we Internally Displaced Persons had come — the majority of us had come from large industrial cities — representatives of humanitarian relief organizations trained Internally Displaced Persons to carry buckets of water on their heads. This is how we discovered that no one was sure what to do.
With time, there was a sense that our protracted presence was beginning to weigh on locals. Internally Displaced Persons struggled to rent houses and find work. Host community members perceived us as a “temporary” phenomena, as if the conflict would finish soon and we would soon depart. We were even asked, “When are you going home?” And we frequently lacked the courage to admit that our homes appeared to have moved closer to them. Just as we were unwilling to remember our civil rights, we accepted all of our benefactors’ good and bad deeds in the hope of one day returning to our homes. We lived in a Kafkaesque universe where “one doesn’t have to take everything as the truth, one just has to accept it as necessary.”
Many Internally Displaced Persons preferred not to discuss their origins when meeting new people, thereby avoiding awkward questions and re–traumatization. This was revealed to us all when strangers in the places to which we had traveled asked us to consider whether it was our responsibility that a war had erupted in our homeland. Internally Displaced Persons discovered that bureaucrats issuing certifications and landlords who saw fellow citizens from the “east” as untrustworthy and ordinary people living alongside them may not be welcome. As a result, in order to avoid being perceived as foreign, the majority of us avoided discussing our native lands. It became redundant with time — after all, we referred to ourselves as locals during our first six months in a new location. Or, at the very least, not “newcomers.” All of this is to avoid us having to attach to ourselves the characteristics of an alien.
Being an outsider can be a transformative and expansive experience. A prominent German sociologist, Georg Simmel, provides an insightful perspective on the concept of the stranger. Due to the similarities we perceive between ourselves and the stranger, he argues that the stranger occupies a unique position that is both close and distant to us. We frequently recognize shared characteristics that transcend individual differences when we meet a stranger. These shared characteristics may include elements of nationality, social background, profession, or simply our humanity. Through these shared characteristics, we feel a sense of proximity with the stranger. We establish a connection with them based on our shared experiences and values, which allow us to recognize ourselves in them. Simmel emphasizes, however, that the foreigner is also distant from us. While we may find a sense of familiarity in the shared characteristics we recognize, these characteristics transcend the individual stranger and encompass a larger group. Through this broader connection, the stranger acts as a link between multiple individuals who share these similarities. The stranger becomes a point of convergence, uniting disparate individuals who would otherwise be disconnected.
Without government–funded housing assistance, IDPs have an unexpected chance to break out of their confined neighborhood. Instead of being isolated, we’ve been scattered throughout the communities we now call home. Many of us who fled Donbas and Crimea have found community amongst other refugees, drawing comfort from the familiarity of our “previous life” ties. Still, adapting to a new culture isn’t a walk in the park. Introducing oneself to new people in an unfamiliar setting can be nerve-wracking because of the nagging fear of looking “out of face.” Goffman’s sociological framework defines this concept as a state in which one’s behavior differs from the norms of one’s social group.
Our occasional inability to speak flawless Ukrainian or avoid using regional dialects brought us judgment and criticism as internally displaced people. We relied more on Russian vocabulary and grammar because that was the language spoken in the majority of Crimea and eastern Ukraine’s major cities. Like the majority of Ukrainians, we speak more than one language fluently. Unfortunately, our lack of a single native tongue put us under more unnecessary scrutiny than we had bargained for. Despite these setbacks, we have pushed forward with the goal of bridging the gaps between the various members of our new communities through mutual appreciation and understanding. Our resilience has been woven into the fabric of our communities through the unique experiences and contributions we bring.
We have lost the spontaneity of daily existence, primarily due to the loss of spontaneity in speech, which used to enable us to express our essence. This loss of language has significant implications for Internally Displaced Persons, as it results in them being dominated by the rest of society. Sociolinguistic disparities and limitations on their rights have been employed to justify a hierarchical system of dominance and an imposed model of assimilation. This acculturation process is seen as necessary to reduce exclusionary practices. But this situation forced us to evaluate our own “patriotism.” Speaking out against our disenfranchisement or defending our neighbors who are still occupied may be labeled as “unpatriotic” or even “disloyal.”
They say in our region of Eastern Europe that “nothing is more permanent than the temporary,” which means that judgments made out of immediate necessity often become full-fledged norms and laws. This fragmentation of our rights places us in a vulnerable position, unable to enjoy the same rights or guarantees as our fellow citizens. On the other hand, because we are immigrants and thus ultimately undesirable—the underlying assumption underlying the policies governing our presence is that we are here temporarily and full integration was not part of the original plans—we cannot exercise the right to choose: we are merely subject to the law, without contributing to its development.
Our tenderness for debris
Internally Displaced Persons devolved into a non-issue in the eighth year of the war, one of the repercussions of Russia’s invasion of the Donbas and illegal annexation of Crimea. We’ve taken every effort to ensure that we never have a document-related issue. We now hold a variety of certificates and documents, preserve overdue documents, and appreciate everything that might ever assist us from a bureaucrat’s wrath. We are working diligently to restore “normalcy” to our life and trust that we will not have to hunt for housing again anytime soon. The prospect of such painstakingly created stability evaporating as swiftly as it did in the summer of 2014 worries every one of us. We believe in the best, though, and work to become the places and communities that have adopted us.
Each time I travel to the front or meet with other Internally Displaced Persons, I am drawn into the realm of our lost homes. Internally Displaced Persons either attempt to become more local than the locals in their new towns, learning everything, investigating them from top to bottom, or, like my mother, they isolate themselves in a tiny area, desiring a peaceful existence free of war and mourning the loss of their home. We discuss dead relatives whose graves we are unable to visit. We are bound together by the loneliness of not being able to visit our families, from whom the front lines separated us. However, the passion with which we discuss our houses, streets, schools, and athletic fields unites us. Even the necessity of integration and humiliation at the hands of the soulless bureaucratic machine do not deter us from our hopes of putting an end to the conflict.
Even if the war were to end tomorrow and all of us were free to return home, many Internally Displaced Persons would reject the chance. Because the frightening reality is that apart from a physical home — assuming it has not been destroyed by bombs — there is nothing left. We have become homeless cosmopolitans, living monuments to the humanitarian disaster and consequences of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. We were not always welcomed after fleeing Donbas and Crimea. To the state, we remain “beggars,” as Arendt describes Jewish immigrants from Germany, and our presence is likely to serve as a reminder to our new neighbors about what is wrong with our state and society. By our quiet presence, we remind everyone around us of the great equalizer that is war, of the difficulty of complete control over one’s destiny, and of the truth that we cannot save everyone even when we want to.
Except from the sensation of alienation and estrangement from one’s homeplace, what will distinguish us? Increased sensitivity to imminent disaster. One can forecast the gravity of a potential threat to life posed by looking into the faces of Internally Displaced Persons because we now wait daily for a new twist of fate. We’ll be more prepared the next time — prepared to speak with bureaucrats, to justify ourselves to landlords, to proclaim our love for our new home. And to assist others in doing the same.
P.S. Self-fulfilling prophecy
This essay, written as a personal manifesto in Kyiv in late December 2021, expresses the feelings of the countless Ukrainians who have been forced to leave their homes since 2014. It was an attempt to address an issue I saw as being underrepresented in Ukrainian public discourse. I came back to this draft in early February 2022 with the intention of editing it down to size, making it more accessible to a Ukrainian audience, and adding in some of Professor Marci Shore’s insightful comments. However, the course of events suddenly changed. On February 24, 2022, Russia began a new phase of its invasion of Ukraine, causing a historic wave of population displacement. As a direct result of this tragic event, over 10 million Ukrainians were transformed into Internally Displaced Persons, and another 4 million were forced to flee their home country as refugees.
In a profound twist of fate, my gloomy prediction that Internally Displaced Persons would become the unsung heroes of survival in times of dire necessity has come true. The bureaucratic system that has kept us in the shadows since 2014 has emerged as one of the pillars that helped Ukraine withstand the initial assault of Russia, proving its resilience amidst adversity. Ten long years have passed since we were forcibly uprooted from our homes by Russians and sentenced to a life of constant displacement, and during that time, we have not only fought for our rights, but we have also succeeded in enlightening the institutions themselves. The nameless entities who once found us incomprehensible and alien have slowly come to recognize our humanity as a result of our perseverance. In the midst of all the turmoil, we have become a walking symbol of strength and fortitude. The very institutions that ignored us in the past have been compelled by our collective resolve to recognize our existence and value.
Both those who have fled the genocidal intentions of the Russian Army and the communities that welcomed said IDPs have radically altered the social dynamics of contemporary Ukraine. Since February 2022, Ukraine has become a massive humanitarian hub through which millions of people transit on their way to new homes. Thankfully, the state system has become more compassionate and attentive to those who have suffered unimaginable loss as a result of lessons learned from the war’s previous phase.
It is critical, however, to recognize that problems still exist. Many people have to make do with “temporary” housing for long stretches of time, despite its lack of proper infrastructure to support large populations over the long term. Even if they want to, not all newcomers will immediately be able to abandon their Russian fluency, which can lead to misunderstandings and friction. Some Ukrainian cities are struggling under the weight of the influx of displaced people, and this has naturally caused unease among locals.
However, the profound experience of leaving one’s home and moving to a new location has not been wasted in the midst of this complex domestic landscape. The poet Serhiy Zhadan, who is originally from Luhansk Oblast, said it best in 2017: “We’ve learned how to talk about our own past in terms of the war. We’ve learned to make our plans taking the war into account.” Because of our collective existential and personal experience with war, we are able to keep our humanity and hope for the future in the face of adversity. This shared wisdom, forged in adversity, is now the engine that drives our progress. It gives us the tools to deal with the challenges of today and to create tomorrow in the spirit of the Ukrainian people’s resiliency, compassion, and strength.