An American in Ukraine
Discussing Trump with Hungarian-speaking Ukrainians.
I promised last week that this post would be about my trip to Slovakia and Ukraine, and about where my family comes from. However, I’ve decided to make that a longer essay, and possibly even split it into two parts. As a result, it needs some more work, and it’ll be coming next week. For this week, I’ve decided to take a note I posted about relevant current events in Ukraine and turn it into a short essay.
This week marked three years since the Russian invasion of Ukraine, and came with a massive upheaval in the international dimensions surrounding the conflict. New American president Donald Trump in speeches and several votes at the United Nations signaled a complete reversal of policy and an unprecedented level of support for Russia.
As these moves began making headlines last week, I was in the interesting position of being on Ukrainian soil. Some of the Americans I talked to expected hostility from Ukrainians towards me as a result of Trump’s comments. The American news outlets I was reading widely condemned Trump’s position. But far from hostility, the Ukrainians I spoke with directly surprised me with their thoughts. I’ll share what they told me below.
Before that, several very significant disclaimers are in order:
First, I spent my two days in Ukraine exclusively in the Zakarpattia Oblast. This is the province furthest to the west, bordering Poland, Slovakia, Hungary, and Romania.
Second, I don’t speak Ukrainian. In Zakarpattia, very few people speak English, but some 15% do speak Hungarian. All three of the conversations I recount below took place in Hungarian with Hungarian-speaking Ukrainians.
Third, I know very little about Ukrainian politics. My presence there at such a critical time was a coincidence. And if the first two disclaimers didn’t make it clear, I was speaking with a limited group of Ukrainians in one small peripheral region of the country. What they said was fascinating, but it doesn’t necessarily represent what the rest of the country thinks. Just keep all of that in mind.
The Conversations
It takes a bit of time to find the first Hungarian speaker in the region’s capital, Uzhhorod (Ungvár in Hungarian). I stumble through the slightly sticky door of what was supposed to be the regional art museum only to find a dusty corridor... and no art. A security guard emerges and presumably tells me off, but in Ukrainian. I take a guess of how to say “English?” then “Hungarian?” and must have gotten close enough that he realizes he should tell me to wait with his very limited knowledge of the latter. His colleague, an elderly ethnic Ukrainian who speaks decent Hungarian lumbers down the hallway, and we strike up a conversation. It proceeds as things often do.
“Where are you from?”
“America.”
“What do you think of Trump?”
After responding diplomatically that I don’t much care for him, the guard seems to approve. With arm movements making up for the Hungarian words he doesn’t know, he speaks emphatically, “Trump is helping Putin,” and “Putin is bombing schools, hospitals, even entire cities like Kharkiv.” Those facts confirmed, they turn their attention to delivering me to a third colleague, an ethnic Hungarian who gives me some advice about where to go in the city. A few minutes later, I walk back through the creaky door with recommendations and a firm confirmation of what I expected Ukrainians to believe.
That confirmation is shaken before too long. The ticket booth attendant for my next stop, the historic castle overlooking the city, turns out to be a native Hungarian speaker in her 50s or 60s. We get to chatting, and expecting similar views to the security guards, I make a comment about our American president. She reacts strongly, “your current president is trying to bring about peace,” and continues, “the one before him, Biden, did nothing. So many of our young men have been taken to fight and been killed.”
The day after, I move on to Berehove (Beregszász), a smaller city described to me as the center of Hungarian life in Ukraine. Showing me the local beers and wines, a bar-owner and native Hungarian speaker expresses a similar hope that Trump “will bring an end to the war.” In his words, “the population of Beregszász has fallen from 40,000 to 25,000 since the start of the war.” When I ask how business is, he can only shake his head. Natives have left, tourism is down to essentially zero, and those remaining “consider themselves well-off if they make $500 a month.” He tells me wistfully that the fancy restaurant across the street, The Golden Peacock, now sits empty.
On the way to Berehove, my bus had stopped at a checkpoint. There, a soldier boarded to check the documents of all the men. There are no young men my age in the streets. All either have been conscripted or, as the bar-owner whispers to me, “went across the border, through the forest [illegally]” to escape. He repeats the sentiment that Biden did nothing to help, and walking through streets surrounded mostly by pensioners and schoolchildren, sitting in his mostly empty bar, I can see why he feels so.
I debrief the trip this week with colleagues, including one from Zakarpattia. The consensus is that Hungarians in Ukraine support Viktor Orbán and his propaganda, Viktor Orbán supports Donald Trump and his propaganda. Erego, all makes sense. I think they’re right; these transnational political affinities and chains of media sources mean more than the specifics of the proposed deal or the UN resolution. The people I spoke to likely aren’t following the nuances of exactly how Trump says he plans to achieve peace.
I don’t know where that gets us. Probably not any closer to an end to the war, at least not a just one. I like to think that journalism, telling the opinions and stories of everyday people, makes a difference. But here, I’m not sure. Could I use these conversations to call for us to imagine Ukraine more complexly, to see it not as a monolith? Perhaps. But at the current moment, noble as that intention might be, would it really help? Perhaps, perhaps not.
I'd never even thought about the possibility or existence of Hungarian-speaking Ukrainians! So interesting. Also, probably a good thing that you did this trip BEFORE yesterday's meeting at the White House!