In his novel To Asmara, Thomas Keneally — the author best known for Schindler’s List — offered a compelling portrait of Eritrean caregivers amid an agonizing armed struggle for independence. I flashed on his fiction as I watched the short film (below) made by Times reporters embedded in a Ukrainian medical unit close to the front lines. The film is less romantic than To Asmara. Unlike the Eritrean heroes of Keneally’s novel, the Ukrainian doctors are not paragons. When they must care for a Russian prisoner of war, they do the job but…well, you’ll see. For now, let’s just stipulate the Ukrainians are not saints like Keneally’s fighters and healers. (Or, saying it another way that might speak to longtime First readers, there’s nobody like Fr. Frechette in this unit.)
I’m glad the Times avoided amping up expectations about the moral trajectory of Ukrainians. I’ll allow I was once taken with To Asmara‘s moral supermen and women (seen aslant through the eyes of Keneally’s rootless, anti-heroic narrator). The Eritrean people’s struggle, though, went bad. And while I don’t blame Keneally for aligning himself with their higher aspirations, his art was less than prophetic.
The future’s unwritten, as ever, but I think Ukraine’s a better bet than Eritrea. Ukraine’s democratic insurgents began reminding the world what The People can do on the Maidan in 2014. This short film proves they’ve got more to teach us even as they’re still learning how much they can endure.
If you have problems accessing the film, perhaps this link will work: https://www.nytimes.com/video/world/europe/100000008893083/ukraine-frontline-hospital.html?smid=url-share