The Porcelain Tureen and Shadows of the Past: How "Surgery" in the Borderlands Failed to Kill Humanity

Collage by Olena Zelenina.

In my family, there is an object that has survived the change of eras, borders, and political regimes. It is an old porcelain tureen. It stands on the shelf — a silent witness to a time when human fate weighed less than the stroke of a pencil on a map in Yalta or Potsdam. To some, it is just tableware, but to me, it is a symbol of a great tragedy and an even greater nobility that endured in spite of everything.