Even as Russian forces target Ukrainian cities and identities alike, activist Natalia Lobach is building feminist and LGBTQ+ communities that refuse to be erased.
A lecture and discussion were about to begin in a local public library. It could have been a scene in New York, London or Melbourne—yet this event was in Zaporizhzhia, Ukraine, just 25 kilometers from invading Russian forces, where most of the attendees had fled from Russian-occupied cities and villages.
The meeting was one of many organized by Natalia Lobach and the Ukrainian LGBTQ+ human rights group, Insight. Lobach said these events aim to create “safe community spaces for people from different age and social groups,” but they are especially “a good way for vulnerable groups to socialize.”
Putin’s military is trying to destroy us not only physically, but psychologically as well—to take away our identities. We are surviving physically, but we are also preserving our identities and our pride.
Natalia Lobach
This short video clip underscores that feeling of both safety and camaraderie among the young audience:
Lobach is an urban planner and designer from Zaporizhzhia, but that moniker hardly captures the essence of who she is today. In addition to her work with Insight, she is also a cultural coordinator for Marsh Zhinok (Women’s March), an organization dedicated to empowering women in all facets of their lives. As she puts it,
“I am a woman and a lesbian. I am grateful that both Insight and Marsh Zhinok exist. These organizations provide support to people during the full-scale war of Russian terror. Putin’s military is trying to destroy us not only physically, but psychologically as well—to take away our identities. We are surviving physically, but we are also preserving our identities and our pride.”
Lobach has parlayed her organizational and artistic skills to recognize and honor the daily struggles of women and LGBTQ+ communities as they strive to gain full equality in her country while also resisting Russian occupation. This is her story.
Lobach’s Origin Story: “It Is Not Right to Stand on the Side When People Want to Take Us Back to Dark Times”
Safety has been an important theme in Lobach’s life. It is rooted in childhood experiences and memories from the time when Ukraine was forcibly absorbed into the Soviet Union. She remembers the stories her grandmother shared of Stalin’s genocidal Holodomor and the effect it had on her at the time and still does today.
Few people in the West appreciate the depth and extent of suffering Ukrainians endured during the Holodomor. The legacy of that era and the repression of successive Kremlin regimes has left deep emotional wounds on Lobach’s family and generations of Ukrainians. This legacy and the homophobia she experienced growing up heightened her fear of the world.
“I never wanted to be an activist,” she told Ms. “I was afraid of social ostracism and not being loved.”
After witnessing neo-Nazi thugs scream slurs and stone participants at an Equality Festival in the western Ukrainian city of Lviv in 2016, life changed for her. Her fear turned into a determination to fight for human rights.
“At that moment, I understood that it is not right to stand on the side when people want to take us back to dark times,” she said. “That is how I became a volunteer for Insight and an activist.”
Inspiration From Those Who Came Before
Lobach and her colleagues at Insight and Marsh Zhinok draw inspiration from women who kept alive Ukrainian culture when Soviet authorities repressed any art that extolled an independent Ukrainian sensibility or women’s empowerment.
She points out that, “if we take history, I want to mention the Ukrainian naïve artists, Maria Prymachenko and Polina Raiko. These are artists who inspire me a lot.”
Maria Prymachenko (1908-1997) was born to a peasant family near present day Chernobyl. Her childhood polio confined her to bed during much of her early years where she learned embroidery from her mother. Over the years she developed a wide body of work in embroidery and painting that drew upon Ukrainian folklore.
The naïve label belies both the quality of her work and its importance in the cultural life of Ukrainians. Her later designs often combined folk themes with explicit messages against the destructiveness of war. By the time of the first Russian invasions in 2014, her work has been repurposed by Ukrainians to protest the war on their homeland.
Polina Raiko (1928-2004) lived in the village of Oleshky in southern Ukraine. Like Prymachenko she came from humble origins. Unlike Prymachenko she began painting later in life at the age of 69. She painted the inside walls of her house with fantastical images of animals and plants, which also evolved into images of events and people from her own life. Despite the hardships and tragedies in her personal life, or perhaps informed by them, she managed to turn her entire house into a living work of art. After her death, the house became a national treasure and a museum open to the public.
Lobach, like many Ukrainians today, appreciated the sacrifices both women made to preserve Ukrainian folk traditions in the face of Russia propaganda that has denied any kind of autonomous Ukrainian identity. Polina Raiko’s painted home was severely damaged by the Russians when they blew up the Kakhovka Dam on the Dnipro River.
“Museum workers in the Kyiv region saved Maria’s paintings while Russian occupiers were burning houses and killing unarmed civilians in the streets,” said Lobach. “Despite everything, people rescued the artworks, carrying them out of a burning building. For me, this is a powerful example of how culture saves us, supports us, and how important it is. That’s when I realized how crucial it is for us to gather and talk about culture, about women, to listen to each other and support one another.”
Isn’t that a kind of miracle, what we continue to do despite the pressure of such a brutal enemy?
Lobach
Lobach knows very well what is at stake if their country is lost to the forces of darkness. Putin has done everything possible to destroy Ukrainian cultural expressions and the rights of women and LGBTQ+ people. The human rights organizations, Projector, and the Nash Svit Center have documented thousands of LGBTQ+ people arrested, imprisoned and tortured by the Russian military in occupied territories under their control. Lobach, along with her fellow LGBTQ+ activists and allies, are determined not to allow their identities to be erased by the state sanctioned homophobia of the Russian invaders.
Building Feminist Cultures of Empowerment
For Lobach and her colleagues the work to build a strong feminist culture of empowerment begins from the ground up. She moves back and forth across the country whenever she gives lectures or facilitates workshops on a host of issues vital to Ukrainian women and LGBTQ+ communities. These include awareness campaigns against domestic violence and advocating for overturning outdated laws from the Soviet era that often blamed women for their own victimization.
Insight and Marsh Zhinok can’t do everything, especially while Russian glide bombs and drone attacks reign from the sky every day. Nonetheless, in the many support groups they run for clients of all ages they make sure they partner with other organization, such as Women’s Health and Family Planning Ukraine, that provide reproductive health options and gender affirming care to people in need.
In my communications with Lobach, I sensed a quality that is often missed or downplayed in official human rights reports: a sense of real joy and energy in the safe spaces created for people who have attended their gatherings. The identity erasure that is part of the Russian ideological campaign has little chance of making headway, as long as groups like Insight and Marsh Zhinok exist.
These events have a life long after they are over. Through Marsh Zhinok’s Femkolo training program, women are brought together from different regions to support each other. Lobach emphasized,
“It’s very important for us to stay connected after the training, to support one another. It becomes a network that inspires, develops, and gives us a sense of strength. We stay in touch online, organize webinars, lectures, book and film discussions, skill building sessions, and simply offer each other friendly support. I truly love this work.”
“A Kind of a Miracle”
It has been more than four years since the full-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine. The war grinds on with no end in sight. Despite shortages and delays in vital munitions from the United States and NATO allies, Ukraine continues to fight for its survival. In the meantime, Putin has taken advantage of this vulnerability to accelerate his military’s level of brutality against the civilian population and the country’s infrastructure.
Given these latest developments, I wondered if anything has changed for her Lobach. She told me living with this reality has produced a layered and psychological state for her in both her personal and professional lives.
“I’m not okay. Almost all of us have relatives in the territories of terror [Russian-occupied territory]. That’s why we can’t be okay, even when we smile,” she says.
Then Lobach then remembered a special moment she wanted to share with American readers.
“I met an amazing lecturer from Kyiv whose neighborhood during a recent bombing had electricity for only one hour a day, along with shops and restaurants that were closed. And yet she comes to the frontline Zaporizhzhia, gives a lecture, a full room gathers, and we talk for a long time, we connect, and those connections grow into friendships. Isn’t that a kind of miracle, what we continue to do, despite the pressure of such a brutal enemy?”
For readers who want to support the work of Lobach and her colleagues, please consider a donation to Marsh Zhinok.
