There's no treaty

Pursuant to this post, I expressed to my mother the frustration of not knowing where two of her grandparents were born and she dropped a literal book of genealogy on me. It was the result of an exchange between a professional genealogist and my aunt who is a forensic artist. It's far from exhaustive, I still had to comb through it for the relevant photocopies of documents, but the ones I needed were there.

My great-grandmother for whom I was named was born in what is now Khotyn, at the time of her birth part of the Bessarabia Governorate of the Russian Empire, at the time of her naturalization part of Romania, nowadays in Ukraine.

My great-grandfather for whom my brother was named was born in what is now Nemyriv, at the time of his birth part of the Podolia Governorate of the Russian Empire, at the time of his naturalization part of the Soviet Union, nowadays in Ukraine.

(My other great-grandmother was born in what is now Vyshnivets, at the time of her birth part of Poland, by the end of her life part of the Soviet Union, nowadays in Ukraine. My other great-grandfather was born in what is still Łódź, at the time of his birth part of the Russian Empire, by the end of his life part of Poland, where it remains, the outlier, to this day. The family history there just gets wilder every time I look at it, including this time.)

I always knew the borders had shifted, the countries changed around them in their lifetimes, shifted further in the more than century since all of them were born and even in my own lifetime, but it is very strange to have the details illuminated at the same time as a violent effort is underway to redraw those borders once again. It's raised echoes and I am waiting for them to settle. I have never been stateless in my life. With any luck I never will be. I have never even had more than one passport. But these are the stories I fell asleep hearing, from places where the names changed. The country is not the echo; whether it will stay the country it has chosen is.