Nataliya Teramae
Ukrainian Journalist, Researcher, Cultural Projects Coordinator
Ukrainian Association in Finland
Ukraine and its European integration. What does it mean? Presumably, it’s about the future, it means progress, the path that my country is supposed to take in order to join the developed, democratic and prosperous world of the EU countries. Should it mean that Ukraine hasn’t been European until some recent point?
Ironically, I’ve found the answer, witty but bitter, in the interview of Pavlo Makov, a 65-year old artist, who created Ukraine’s project ‘Fountain of Exhaustion. Aqua Alta’ at the 2022 Venice Biennale.
"A German cultural journal asked me to answer 10 questions. One of them was: 'Tell, please, what can Western Europe learn from Eastern culture?' I answered: 'Excuse me, why do you ask me this? I am very much interested in Japanese, Chinese, Arabic culture, especially carpets. But I don't belong to the Eastern culture, and I don't know what you can learn from it. I live and work in the country that was baptized in the 10th century’. Do you understand? For Germans, we are still an Eastern culture, damn it."
Makov is from Kharkiv, a city in the eastern part of Ukraine. Probably, it should symbolize an Eastern culture, like Ukraine symbolizes the east of Europe, not that Europe that it needs to integrate into. However, 100 years ago Kharkiv was a melting pot of experiments and ideas that were European to the very core – there was the driving power of cultural avant-garde that demanded and provoked changes for better, for good. Similar processes took place in other Ukrainian cities – for example, Kyiv and Odesa.
Besides being provocative and bold, those poets, writers, artists, actors, theater and film directors dared to carry national traits. Their art was deeply rooted in Ukrainian history and culture, connected to its language, nourished by the movements in Italy, Germany or France, those European countries that Ukrainian people were in touch with for centuries. For being Ukrainians, Moscow sentenced these artists to death. Those who survived had to betray their identity and obtain a newly invented one – Soviet – that very soon became a synonym for Russian, surely, not European. Almost the whole continent forgot about us. One who remembered – the Polish publicist Jerzy Giedroyc – named them ‘Executed Renaissance’.
Tomorrow, 11 January, I’m going to the memorial ceremony in Kyiv to say farewell to the 33-year-old poet Maksym Kryvtsov. He was among the most promising Ukrainian authors. Also, he was a teacher, and children adored him. A man with an iconic look. As a passionate person Kryvtsov was able to feel injustice and carry an obligation – he decided to defend Ukraine from Russian aggression in 2014. Russia killed him like it killed his colleagues a hundred years ago – for a desire not to become Russian.
The same way it killed poet Glib Babich (28.07.2022), film editor Viktor Onysko (30.12.2022), actor Pasha Lee (6.03.2022), ballet dancer Oleksandr Shapoval (12.09.2022) and writers Victoria Amelina (1.07.2023) and Volodymyr Vakulenko (spring 2022). These are just a few names. ‘My biggest fear has come true – I’m inside of a new Executed Renaissance’. With these words Amelina made a connection between those killed almost a hundred years ago and now.
The daring and the talented are disappearing, a black hole is growing in their place. Ukraine is losing the voices that could prove its European identity on the literature, film, art, music, and theater platforms. They either fight or work in Ukraine suffering from the russian's attacks because, as Pavlo Makov says, ‘if Ukraine doesn’t exist, for which sake do I need all of this?’.
However, nothing threatens the Russian voices. Those who praise their bloody empire with the excuse ‘it’s my home country’ are welcome on stages of different kinds worldwide. Russian money whitewashes the crimes – they present an appropriated Illya Repin as a truly Russian artist at Ateneum, push Chaikovskiy’s ballets to prove a cultural background of the terrorist state and fake history presenting the medieval Rus state as a part of their identity.
‘Finnish media are more focused on Russian topics’, – a local PR expert explained to me in regards to why Ukrainian culture is not interesting for journalists.
Europe is still heavily poisoned by Russian propaganda and money. To see it, look at the Hungarian or Serbian governments, check the rhetorics in France or Germany. Who can guarantee that a populist pro-russian a la Trump scenario won’t take place in Europe?
We Ukrainians are European mentally and culturally. Democratic changes that took place over the last 30 years prove that as well. The only obstacle that prevents us from being back in the European family is a Russian Golden Horde that has been trying to destroy Ukraine for centuries.