November 11-23, 2022 Svitlana Stretovych, Valerii Pekar, Alona Karavai, Mychailo Wynnyckyj

Flash essays from the collection “Wars. Ukrainians. Humanity” tell about the insights, experiences, and beliefs of Ukrainians, which ignited their society in 2022, when the full-scale russian invasion of Ukraine began.

The Cultural Hub community and curators carefully collected, translated, and illustrated these texts in order to capture the values ​​of Ukrainians — Freedoms, Bravery, Dignity, Responsibility, and Humour. 

A series of publications in partnership with Chytomo introduces this collection to the English-speaking audience. Volume 35 continues to present the series. You can get acquainted with the previous collection here.

Svitlana Stretovych: Kherson is Ukraine. November 11

Kherson is a city in the south of Ukraine, invaded by the russian army on the first days of the full-scale war in February 2022.

That is the city where I finished lyceum, that is why I know all its nooks, I remember the way people speak in public transport, I can identify political beliefs at the election, and I check the repertoire of the Mykola Kulish Music and Drama Theatre from time to time, just out of curiosity, I am following the cultural life of the city, there are some journalists and photographers, teachers and lecturers I know there, friends…

“On February 24 the phone was ringing off the hook, we woke up at 5 am from explosions, and thought at first that it only seemed to us. At 5:15 my friend whose husband is a serviceman gave me a call and told me to urgently pack my belongings, since if it were possible — we would be evacuated, but at 5:30 she ordered to already prepare the basement, no servicemen were there any longer…”

That is the message from my classmate.

She lives in Kherson, works as a school teacher.

“To tell the truth, if it had been possible to leave on the first days, I would have left, but now we are not going anywhere. Why should I leave my home?”

She has got two children — a girl and a boy. She writes that the children are well-instructed on the strikes and know how to respond. For me not to worry too much.

I can see it every time how children on the playground in Kyiv are playing war. Some of them even try to fight hand-to-hand. They know that they have to defend their home from russians. They keep telling this to each other. Time offers its awful markers.

For more than eight months we were watching the russian army burning books in the temporarily occupied territories and stressing that Ukrainian citizens want to join russia on their own initiative. They made traitors heads of administrations and universities. They were killing people of culture for their unwillingness to cooperate. Thus, one of the numerous crimes still remains shocking: the chief conductor of Kherson Music and Drama Theatre Yuriy Kerpatenko was killed by russian military men in his own house after he refused to cooperate with the invaders.

Con-duc-tor!

A person working with art.

The terror lasted for more than eight months.

Several days before the russian army left Kherson, information appeared that the invaders had taken the collection of the museum of art away to the Crimea. Numerous paintings, with no adequate transportation conditions, had been stolen. It only remains unclear how stolen paintings can be displayed in the times of global information village?

They can, just for a simple reason that such practice is repeated by this army and country on a regular basis. Probably, they think that a picture is hanging on the wall not for aesthetic pleasure and development of something beautiful in a human. For the invaders this is just an object that can be stolen.

Kherson residents did not buy into the evacuation to the right bank of the Dnieper when it was announced. They did not respond to the issuance of russian passports either. The father of my friend stayed in his nine-storeyed building where he lives, knowing that the enemy cannot be trusted. The city that had been meeting the russian army with Ukrainian flags, that had been organizing rallies until it became too dangerous, finally did not give up.

My classmate has written to me in social media today. We finished the academic lyceum in Kherson together with her. She sent me a laconic smile-melon and smile-champagne.

“My heart was shivering, — she writes. — If only my relatives contacted me…”

Kherson has been liberated. Now it is important for all relatives to respond and to say that they are alive.

“Kherson is Ukraine”, — say the videos and the texts in the media again and again.

Finally, the invaders themselves have realized this.

Svitlana Stretovych: Write, just to forget. November 12

There are writers in the Ukrainian literature who have shaped up not several generations of young people with their texts. Their characters, experiences and places described by them became a real discovery for those who were getting acquainted with modern Ukrainian literature at the turn of the 21st century, with no exaggeration.

Liubko Deresh became such a discovery in 2000, when he was 16. Liubko wrote his first novel “Cult” that became cult-favorite. Probably, zest was given to this whole story and, hence, Liubko’s immediate popularity by the fact that this talented text was, in fact, written by a teenager.

Teenager? Impossible!

The novel was read with great fascination, elements of horror worked well. The star entitled a “modern Ukrainian writer” started shining immediately. Deresh became the readers’ favorite…

This evening in the theatre in the center of Kyiv Liubko is sitting opposite me. Now he is the author of ten prosaic books, engaged in numerous collective anthologies, supervisor and lecturer, plot and essay writer. All the time since the beginning of the full-scale war he has been staying in Kyiv with his wife, not evacuating. That was his choice.

People start coming to the meeting with him ahead of time. Some are sitting with his books: here is a man attentively reading the novel “Spustoshennia” (“Devastation”). Women are coming with flowers. Older and younger spectators of the soiree are getting seated close to each other. The room is filled rather quickly, that is why at some point of time the visitors start taking places on the floor, to different sides, leaving just an isle for the speakers on the stage.

Liubko speaks about the evolution of his identity, perception of the war, response of his acquaintances, russians, to the events, about volunteering activity and rescue of his mentor — writer Volodymyr Rafieyenko — from occupation. He reads out two new essays one of which is about volunteering, and the other one — about Trakhtemyriv, the place of power and magic actions. His voice is clear and confident.

The writer who started writing so early and has such a huge experience in this, all of a sudden tells that now he dedicates all his effort to teaching. Each of us, explicated Liubko, must write at least one novel about his or her experience of this war. That should be done in order to pass it all on to the children, to preserve this collective experience. Not to forget.

People come to meetings with writers in the wartime for many reasons. The first of them is an opportunity to speak on the topics that cannot be hushed up. To hear how one should fight the enemy, but remain a human, with love in one’s heart. To complain to each other that our humanism is getting shallow, depending on the distance at which you are from hell. If you have some perished acquaintances, relatives in the invaded territories.

“Such soirees come as inspiration, — tells one of the visitors to me. — Though such topics are difficult to deal with, but after that you want to keep doing something and to live on”.

Each of us comes out with some sense of relief, breathes in the autumn air of Kyiv at war and is thinking what his or her story is going to be about.

And we all realize that, on writing it, one may finally forget about all this.

Valerii Pekar: Our stubborn tendency to impose normality under abnormal conditions. November 12

One of the fantastic features of Ukrainians, which we always knew about ourselves somewhere deep inside but have really acknowledged it just recently, is our propensity to arrange the space. Wherever Ukrainians come to live, everything around is clean, whitewashed, with beets in the garden and a cherry orchard beside the house. We often wisecrack about this, but when we look at pictures of cities and towns that are quickly restored after attacks or, say, well-equipped positions of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, and then compare them with pictures of russian cities, we can see this feature crystal clear.

On the one hand, it is a European quality, all Europeans tend to appreciate the arrangement of space, because they always lack it.

On the other hand, it is part of our stubborn tendency to impose normality even under abnormal conditions thereby resisting the interference of tragedies in our lives.

Another aspect is suggested by the famous researcher Vsevolod Zelenin, who attributes it to our farming culture, unlike the russian hunter-gatherer culture (hence the cult of work among Ukrainians and the cult of luck among russians — in russian fairy tales, the hero by pure luck always finds a treasure, or a magic pike, or some other magical artifact, even though he himself is a lazy fool).

Therefore, we take attacks on our space so personally, because we have invested our efforts in it, a piece of ourselves.

Alona Karavai: Don’t get me wrong. November 

For people to trust you — you have to show fear, but not to show anger or decisiveness. For people to trust you — you have to meet the expectations of being a victim. There should be a moment of public vulnerability, even if you pay for it with a regular panic attack at one more unfamiliar railway station several hours after the meeting.

While I am speaking, he keeps looking at my nails and shoes. My nails are red, I am wearing trendy shoes. I am speaking from a low-set stage, our group is small: the audience consists of the people financing projects in Ukraine or opening their regional offices there. They want to understand what is happening.

Going to such meetings is my job this spring, summer, and autumn. The engagement I don’t like since I have a lot of things to do at home, where there is real life, but this work is necessary. From February to May I and my colleagues were evacuating art objects where there still was such a chance, accommodated artists and painters in our residence in the Carpathians while there still was such an opportunity, and I was transferring things not to be mentioned in public to the places where it was still possible to do this. And I also cooked dinner for four displaced, but highly welcome guests in my two-room apartment in Ivano-Frankivsk — back then it was important to manage to go to the supermarket before curfew. In June we arranged tours of music theatres and exhibitions, and I had to send myself to a less spectacular and individual “tour” — to international conferences and meetings behind closed doors. “Cultural diplomacy is important now”, they said, and I packed my suitcase and went on my journey.

While I am speaking, he keeps looking at my nails and shoes. When I finish my presentation, he asks the first question which literally sounds as follows: “And what about russian?”

— What about russian?

— It’s less used in Ukraine now.

— Right, many people are voluntarily switching to Ukrainian. And they have the right to do this.

— Yes, but how are you going to read writer XY? russian means access to a great culture.

— And do you read in russian?

— No.

— So how do you read writer XY? In translation? We can do that too.

During the break he approaches me with a cup of coffee and asks me not to get him wrong. He seemingly does not know anything about Ukraine and is “trying to cognize it”. I switch to German since that is his native language and I have a fluent command of it, and then I make one more attempt to explain the language issue in Ukraine in the small talk format near the coffee machine. He praises my German and, with astonishment intended to be a compliment, asks me where I learnt it so well. “At the university, — I answer in a little bit of a dry manner, — at Donetsk university”.

I spent the whole spring in Ivano-Frankivsk, with some irregular trips to Kyiv. In Ivano-Frankivsk me and my colleagues were spontaneously organizing some workshops and accommodation for artists who were also urgently preparing some works for the Venice Biennale. “From today for yesterday” we arranged storage facilities for art works that were urgently evacuated from different cities. No more than three persons could be informed about the storage place, and no more than three persons and the artist himself/herself were supposed to know at what time and where the car was going. Most of the works were brought from Kyiv, most often — as the result of the second or third attempt. And the request from Mariupol I recall so often remained unfulfilled. We failed. We managed just to persuade the composer duo we are taking care of to play in the Ivano-Frankivsk radio studio the play “Mariupol” written by them on February 22. The first night took place on the day when russians shelled the Mariupol Drama Theatre with a super-powerful bomb.

He approaches me with a cup of coffee and asks me not to get him wrong.

There was surprisingly a lot of German this spring. Probably, too much. I was given calls from the German radio, connected to live broadcasts of German TV, asked to provide comments by mail. When I tried to give a polite refusal (since I really had a lot of work and real life) and to suggest, instead of myself, some of my colleagues who was a better connoisseur of the topic or was staying closer to the frontline, I got an unexpected answer: “Our viewers (or listeners) find it easier to get the comments from someone who speaks German. That seems to be closer and more emotional for them”. Well, fine, if people would rather trust a person speaking their language I will speak from morning till night. That sprint of mine in communicating with German journalists transformed into a marathon, and since summer I also started getting numerous invitations to speak at conferences and meetings.

I got my own mantras:

“russia in this war is purposefully attacking cultural heritage since that is the war against cultural identity. And war against cultural identity stands for genocide”. It is desirable to repeat this mantra at the beginning and at the end of each talk for it to really get rooted in the listeners’ minds.

Or: “No “great culture” can stop war, otherwise, Germany would not have launched World War II. Art cannot stop war, and war can be stopped by weapons”. It is important to make a pause after this statement for the last word to hang in the air until it is swallowed by the silence in the first rows.

And one more mantra: “Cultural dialogue between Ukraine and russia is possible — but after Ukraine gets back to its borders of 1991, after collective responsibility of russians is recognized and after reparations are agreed upon”. That is the key statement, and all conscious opponents have already agreed thereto.

And finally: “The topic of such future cultural dialogue could be decolonization of the “great culture” and giving their appropriated heritage back to “just cultures”, while the “great” one is becoming normal”. And let the discussion start.

After such statements I hear questions about the russian language, my vision of the compromise, or, again — about the dialogue between Ukraine and russia. Suspense can be felt in the room in such moments, and I am prone to interpret it as disagreement on behalf of the rest of the audience. But no matter how progressive the group of listeners is, there will always be someone who will remind you: “It is not you who should decide what language you speak and whom you maintain a relationship with. It is not you but me”. I take a deep breath, put on a polite smile on my face and keep repeating my statements illustrating them with numerous examples from real life. Right, it is so fascinating to have a discussion, that’s why we have gathered here. But discussing such sort of “issues” is boring and tiresome, and is this what we have come here for? For almost twenty years I have been hearing the same speculative question about russian at different international meetings — speculative in the sense that allegedly it is the language and not the desire to conquer or destroy that has become the starting point for the war. For how long will this continue?

At the meeting with the MPs of the European Parliament one of the MPs asks: “And what about tchaikovsky, do you support exclusion of his works from the programs of Ukrainian conductors?” I respond that I don’t have the resources and the time for tchaikovsky now (which is true), but I suggest getting back to this question after we settle more important issues. The topic of that meeting, as stated, was destruction of Ukrainian cultural heritage during the war. Information on evacuated museum collections is not disclosed for security reasons, the same as about the ones that failed to be evacuated. But we already definitely know about the destroyed Skovoroda and Prymachenko Museums, we know about the stolen Kuindzhi’s and Aivazovsky’s works from the remnants of the Mariupol Art Museum.

I had seven minutes to tell about the grassroots initiatives aiming to save art objects. I had scrupulously prepared these seven minutes to give all the facts and to also have some time left for personal stories and calls for action. I seem to have fully failed with this task. After the presentation about preservation of the artifacts of the Ukrainian fine arts I was asked about the russian composer who died long ago and whose cultural legacy is not under threat. “Epic fail”, — I think and try to memorize the surname of this German MP to further google her and find out what party she represents. It appeared that she was from SPD.

On my way in-between conferences I scroll the FB feed. One Ukrainian producer is writing that it is counter productive to criticize the inertia of European politicians and that we should rather praise them. She tells how after her speech one of the German MPs showed her the picture of his dog. Another Ukrainian producer posts his articles criticizing German politics and politicians, and he is told in the comments that “calling Germany‘s policy neo-colonial and imperial is just plainly wrong”. One more Ukrainian writer reminds us of the fundraising campaign for a car for the army — I was lucky to get some royalty for my recent speech, so I opened the online banking application. “Logical designation”, — I think. This money results from unprecedented attention to Ukrainian art, obtained at too high a price on our part. None of us — artists, cultural managers, curators — would ever like to have this attention in such a context. But if we have this attention, it should be converted into the only thing that is life-saving now — into weapons, into iron, into iron people.

This money results from unprecedented attention to Ukrainian art, obtained at too high a price on our part.

During some other panel one of the participants does not ask his questions in public. But the moment I leave the stage he takes me to the side and starts endlessly explaining why I should not have been talking from the stage about “German political elites bearing partial responsibility for this war”. He is trying to convince me that, don’t get me wrong, I am on your side. But! Nord Stream 2 has brought damage to russia only. Well, no, Steinmeier does not have any special sentiment for russia, where did you get that, where is the evidence? Well, no, Schröder has not breached any single law, why should we formally deprive him of his SPD membership? What is the evidence showing that German companies were evading sanctions, he continues. This is not possible, otherwise they would have been fined. “That is awful and callous that I have to hold such discussions with you — a person at war!” — he finishes, and there are tears in his eyes. That is not the first time that the final argument in the discussion is the argument that I seemingly cannot think rationally “in this situation”. But that is the first time that my opponent is almost crying at the same time. Unlike me.

By the way, let’s talk about crying. I started thinking about tears of despair already when I started going abroad. Over the first weeks after the full-scale invasion I physically could not cry — what a tricky protective mechanism that switched off this function for the time being. But it’s not even about that. From January to May everything was much simpler in Ivano-Frankivsk because it was clearer: here is black, and here is white, and there was less chaotic fear and more of dry anger, while here we work and memorize, to then cry out all those losses some time in the future. Certainly, after victory. When you cross the border — in particular, Polish-German border — the world seems to turn upside down. There is more of dry, paralyzing fear, and more of chaotic anger that splashes everywhere around. Most often — on those affected by the war, and not those who launched it and can finish it. “What kind of cultural diplomacy, it only hurts the only hurted”, — I think sometime while sitting at an unpleasant discussion.

“What kind of cultural diplomacy, I am just a Ukrainian monkey sitting here due to some quota”, — I sometimes write to my friend when it is all over. I go to the bathroom just to knock my hand at the wall several times and try to squeeze the tears of despair and relief. The latter is something I don’t manage, but I feel already relieved on having my tears of despair. I adjust my trouser suit, since if I must be a monkey, it is better to be in a good suit and with the right shoes.

Here I am already in the Frankfurt church at the meeting with one Ukrainian writer. She is reading out her diary about the war which has been recently published in German. Her voice gets mingled with the sounds of some street rally. I can hear some sounds like air alarm there, they are intertwined with the writer’s voice reading out about the shelling of residential buildings. A grey-haired man asks: “If somebody asked you here in the West what Ukraine’s collective fault for this war is, what would you answer?” It takes my breath away. The writer replies that accusation of the victim is the question a psychotherapist could give a better answer to, but not a writer. The facilitator interferes, well, the writer has misunderstood it. Already after the end of the meeting the grey-haired man approaches the author and keeps a loud discussion with others, teaching that the answer to the question could have been as follows. I hurry up to leave the church on a warm — and already quiet — Saturday evening. It is good when social protest and alarms can finish right under the schedule.

Accusation of the victim is the question a psychotherapist could give a better answer to, but not a writer.

After another speech of mine — also mainly for the German group — I get some feedback that everything was well-structured and there were a lot of new things mentioned, but “some of our German participants were irritated that you did not speak about your feelings”. Probably, simple facts were not enough to draw the only possible conclusion as to what a live human being could feel like in such a situation. Well, again, that is what I call emotion porn in my mind. That is when even a professional community to which you are telling about the artists who are still staying in Ukraine, or about the evacuation of art objects from Mariupol which you failed to arrange needs your emotions. What did you feel like then, and what do you feel like now? What do your colleagues now feel like? O, you have a daughter, and how is she experiencing such a situation? You have decided not to take her out of Ukraine, and how do you keep living with that?

For people to trust you — you have to speak the same language with them. For people to trust you — you have to tell about your emotions, but not to be an “overly emotional interlocutor”. For people to trust you — you have to show fear, but not to show anger or decisiveness. For people to trust you — you have to meet the expectations of being a victim. There should be a moment of public vulnerability, even if you pay for it with a regular panic attack at one more unfamiliar railway station several hours after the meeting.

At that speech I did not meet the expectation of the image of the victim and refused to tell about my personal life beyond cultural heritage, art residences and exhibitions. I expressed my gratitude to the international community for its support of which a major part was horizontal, peer-to-peer, that is from people to people. I mentioned the responsibility of specific European political elites for their corrupt decisions and praising the dictator. I asked whether the civil society of that European country was ready to resist this.

My nails were in order, my shoes were in order, my lipstick was red again, and, well, I looked nice. Inappropriately nice and surprisingly calm. We, Ukrainians, seem to unexpectedly pull ourselves together, keep our chins up in an impermissible way and look intolerably nice. And thus we irritate those who immediately show their traits of character while meeting us directly, like an instant photo in the light. Though, probably, I have just got it wrong.

The Ukrainian version of the text was written for the online magazine “Dwutygodnik”, translated into English for the “Wars. Ukrainians. Humanity” programme with the consent of the author.

Mychailo Wynnyckyj: Thoughts from Kyiv. November 23

Today, Ukrainians lived through their third mass rocket attack this month. According to official data 51 of the 70 missiles fired at us today were destroyed by air defenses. Sadly, 19 got through.

The lights went out in Kyiv at around 2:20pm today.

With the power off and with internet access sporadic at best, I was forced to reschedule my 3pm class — serious disappointment! This year, the students in my MA research seminar on Social Transformations are truly a wonderful group. I always look forward to Wednesdays at National University of “Kyiv-Mohyla Academy” (NaUKMA).

When the sirens sounded I happened to be in the room next to the office of Serhiy Kvit (president of NaUKMA. — Ed. note). He invited us in for tea. The walls in Building 1 of Kyiv-Mohyla Academy are particularly thick, but we felt several explosions nevertheless.

Yesterday, I took part in an online meeting of a special task force set up by the European University Association to explore how EU universities can assist Ukraine’s higher education sector. We listened gratefully as our EU colleagues reported on the numbers of displaced Ukrainian students their institutions are hosting. Thank you!

But in Ukraine, life goes on!

Generators power campuses. Starlinks provide internet… And so we postpone classes rather than cancelling them.

Yesterday, our political science, sociology and international relations research group ran a wonderful online “work-in-progress” seminar with colleagues from the University of Toronto. The next one is scheduled for early December.

My wife Marta Wynnycka and I have theater tickets next week!

Life goes on!

The thick walls of the ancient buildings of Kyiv protect us during rocket attacks, and the subway serves as an excellent shelter. And as several of my business school students have attested, even Tesla’s can be charged with generators.

russian terrorism can’t go on forever. When the missiles pause, and we’ve had our tea, we teach and learn, and work and live. We go on with life. Defiant.

We joked today that less than a year ago, the prospect of living through a month with over 200 deadly missiles launched at us would probably have seemed quite scary. Now we have tea. We chat. We let each other know we’re fine…

Tomorrow I’ll teach another class. Meanwhile, tonight we’ll spend the evening by candlelight. Maybe I’ll finally finish that damned chapter!

Inconvenient? Yes.

Frightening? Not particularly.

Overwhelming? Nope!

This nation is invincible!

#ThoughtsfromKyiv

The editorial “rule of small letters” or the “rule of disrespect for criminals” applies to all the words related to evil, like names and surnames of terrorists, war criminals, rapists, murderers, and torturers. They do not deserve being capitalized but shall be written in italics to stay in the focus of the readers’ attention. 

The programme “Wars. Ukrainians. Humanity” has been created by joint effort and with the financial support of the institution’s members of the Cultural Business Education Hub, the European Cultural Foundation, and BBK — the Regensburg Art and Culture Support Group from the Professional Association of Artists of Lower Bavaria/Upper Palatinate.

Authors: Svitlana Stretovych, Valerii Pekar, Alona Karavai, Mychailo Wynnyckyj

Translators (from Ukrainian): Halyna Pekhnyk (Svitlana Stretovych & Alona Karavai s essays), Halyna Bezukh (Valerii Pekar’s essay)

Illustrators: Victoria Boyko (Svitlana Stretovych, Alona Karavai, and Mychailo Wynnyckyj’s essays), Max Palenko (Valerii Pekar’s essay), and plasticine panel by Olha Protasova

Copyeditors: Yuliia Moroz, Terra Friedman King

Proofreaders: Iryna Andrieieva, Tetiana Vorobtsova, Terra Friedman King

Content Editors: Maryna Korchaka, Natalia Babalyk

Program Directors: Julia Ovcharenko and Demyan Om Dyakiv-Slavitski