Grief and the memory of the landscape

War irreversibly changes the landscape, and this change is not always visible, but it is always present

Now we are back to a time full of images that bring us back to the events of the first months of a full-scale war. Whether consciously or not, documentary photographers are looking for resonances with events, streets, basements, city squares, bridges. Sometimes it's about small details, but more often it's about the panorama of a place. And if we are talking about the liberated Kyiv or Chernihiv regions, then the captured moment in the photographs attracts attention not by action, but by the absence of what happened here three years ago.

What do these ruined, burnt places look like now? Of course, renewed, clean, recreated, changed, relieved, freed from anxiety. In March and April, my eyes are fixed on these places, and I think not only about how everything is here now, but also about how long “that time” should remain in my memory. War and death change the landscape, and it doesn't necessarily have to be about the visible craters from airplane bombs or trenches along the river. It can also be about feelings.

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This photo was taken by photographer Maksym Kishka in Chernihiv on April 2, the third anniversary of the liberation of Chernihiv region, when people came to honor the memory of the victims. My attention was drawn to the grass. It was already green. Green does not catch the eye. This color is usually chosen in paintings to add tranquility, so nature landscapes or the very lushness of a real forest, for example, bring us into a certain meditative state. My designer colleague's teacher told her that green is the color of rebirth. Green evokes the feeling of a peaceful, non-hostile environment, at least the green riot of plants indicates that there is water in this area, there is enough light and it is not scorching, that is, the average normality that life needs is fully present. And I think about this because I remember this place differently.

In March 2022, in Chernihiv, people were buried near an old, long-closed cemetery in the forest in the middle of the city on the left bank of the Stryzhnia, a tributary of the Desna River. Oh, what a forest it is: the usual fragrant pine, irga with blueberry-like fruits, sweet linden, a tattered real cork tree, and gladychia with poisonous spike fruits. For as long as I can remember, the authorities and the townspeople have been competing for every hectare here, because some wanted to build, while others wanted to be free, to enjoy the thickets and ravines. It's interesting that I never thought about that long-closed cemetery and those who remain there, and I enjoy walking there. I guess the thing is that I've never stood over a coffin there.

And then in March, I received two such stunning messages from the municipal authorities: the city needed boards to knock down coffins, and the city cemetery was under Russian fire. So the city decided where to bury the people who died in battle, in line for bread, or by their own death, if that was possible. The place was a small plot close to the fenced cemetery, protected by the same trees. It was spring even during the war: it was raining, and the ground underfoot became viscous, slowing the already weary steps of those who, like me, came (in those days, the word “got out” would have been more appropriate) to say goodbye.

So March for this forest will never be the same as it used to be, when people used to walk here carefree. In March and April, people come here and carry red flowers, such as roses or carnations, to visit their dead. It seems that the landscape here has changed now and has taken on a meaning of grieving and remembrance.

In March, people were buried here and a wooden plaque was placed: name, surname, year of birth, day of death, and sometimes just the day of death. It's not hard to see the most deadly days for the city by those plates - March 3, March 11, March 17. When the area was liberated, the temporary place began to acquire a quite familiar permanence: the hands of families and friends turned wooden plaques into crosses and granite slabs, fences, benches, tables, and more flowers appeared - this is the civilian zone. The military zone, the one we see in the photo, was outlined by the disturbing flutter of banners. And now there are granite slabs, and instead of the crushed earth, there is grass, a green, unafraid forest, the freshness of April, which is inevitably inherent in it.

Now this “being” in the forest has another meaning. Although the cemetery has been there for a long time, the “closed” sign closed the question of sensitivity and easy walking presence. Today, the newly created place no longer allows you to feel the same way as before. The landscape affects even the letters. When I hear Yalivshchyna, I no longer think of spruce or juniper, but of viscous mud under my feet, plaques, boards, and a man bent over a grave.

To a certain extent, this is now a complex corner of a complex forest. It seems to be an unchanging forest, yet it has something telling for those who grieve here, and at the same time for those who do not know this grief. The question of what this place should look like is another question. However, grief is already visible here.

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Photo: Maxim Kishka

Text: Vira Kuriko