Jan. 10: ‘Words and pictures turned mere numbers into heartbreaking portraits of loss.’ Readers remember the Ukrainian airliner crash victims, plus other letters to the editor GlobeDebate
: Contributor Anna Maxymiw’s vivid descriptions of her Ukrainian Christmas meals are very similar to the Polish traditions of my childhood. My father, however, was loath to acknowledge commonalities between the two cultures, especially curious in light of our Ukrainian-sounding surname, as well as his birth in the border region of southeast Poland.
Polish Nobel laureate Olga Tokarczuk writes about the shifting borders of central Europe, and the shared and blurred identities of its peoples, as a counter to the surging nationalist fiction of ethnic purity. The history between Poles and Ukrainians is especially disturbing, particularly during the Second World War when ethnic violence resulted in tens of thousands of deaths.
More recent lessons of similar cultures with intense conflicts, such as that between Serbs and Croats, should remind us to encourage a unifying national pride without hatred and exclusion. This distinction may help divided peoples better appreciate shared cultural traditions, without claiming exclusive ownership.
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