“Winds of change” in the Arab world
Vasyl SHKLIAR: We know less about the 1920s than about Kyivan Rus’
Yevhen MYKYTENKO: Ukraine is actively using its soft power in the Middle East Page
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Master of concordism Volodymyr Vynnychenko sought a formula to improve humanity
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APRIL 5, 2011 ISSUE No. 20 (589)
This day in history
1917: A Ukrainian Military Congress convenes in Kyiv to support the Central Rada’s claim to Ukraine’s autonomy and elect the General Military Committee, presided over by Symon Petliura. 1925: A plenary meeting of the CC of the CP(b)U is called to order in Kharkiv to deliberate the Ukrainization of the republic. 1931: A foundry molders’ team signs Ukraine’s first costaccounting contract at the Hammer and Sickle Works in Kharkiv. 1947: The CC of the CP(b)U adopts a decree on harsher measures to combat the Ukrainian nationalist underground movement in the western regions. 1992: President Leonid Kravchuk of Ukraine signs an edict establishing the Ukrainian status of the Black Sea Fleet. 1995: The first certificate auction is held at the Ukrainian Certificate Auctions Center in Kyiv. 2001: The Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine enacts a new Criminal Code and new version of the Law “On Political Parties in Ukraine.”
Responsibility vertical Leonid FESENKO: Courts of law aren’t made for judges By Vitalii KNIAZHANSKY, The Day
hough their progress may be unsteady, Ukraine’s judicial and criminal justice reforms are underway. President Viktor Yanukovych says these reforms can’t be delayed, for this would mean “not only protracting Ukraine’s commitments toward the Council of Europe, but also — and most importantly — failing to protect all Ukrainian citizens against the arbitrary rule on the part of enforcement and criminal justice authorities, making it impossible for the man in the street to defend his constitutional rights.” The following is an exclusive interview with His Honor Leonid
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FESENKO, head of the Higher Specialized Court of Ukraine for Civil and Criminal Cases. What does being a judge mean? Is this a vocation or just another job? What made you take up this career? “I made this choice when I was a kid. I happened to spend eight years at a [Soviet] boarding school. The relationships between the pupils and the teaching staff varied, but one was constantly aware of the pressing shortage of justice. It was then I made up my mind to become a judge, to help law and order reign supreme, to ward off anyone trying to encroach on either.” Continued on page 4
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The United Nations announced a competition of printed social advertisements against violence Photo provided by the UN regional information center for Western Europe
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The “Maldyak” in Korolev’s life The author of the project “Ukrainians beyond the Urals” recounts his travels in Kolyma, following in the footsteps of the illustrious Zhytomyr-born spacecraft designer By Mykola KHRIIENKO, special to The Day
inally, my dream has come true… …It’s a frosty and clear morning. The Ataman of the stanitsa Cossack community “Susuman” Mykola Matviienko and I go to the former gold-mine “Maldyak” (which means “a place to go for wood” in the Even language). This was where the future “Chief Designer” of the Soviet aerospace program Sergei Korolev, born on January 12, 1907 in Zhytomyr and raised in what is now Ukraine, began serving his term. He was sentenced to ten years in a labor camp and deprived of voting rights for a further five by the Military Board of the USSR Supreme Court for
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“wrecking” the Soviet state on September 27, 1938. He was in Kolyma from July 20 to December 23, 1939. This period of time can be assessed from different perspectives: he only spent five months there, or he held out for five months. The reason for such controversial assessments is the following. During the time of Stalin’s repressions the territory of Kolyma was used for three main tasks, three strategic goals: firstly, to produce gold for the development of socialism and communism; secondly, to destroy the “public enemies” and finally, to intimidate people throughout the USSR with a horrible place from whence nobody ever returns. Continued on page 5
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Photo by the author
THE WORK OF LAST YEAR’S WINNER OF SOCIAL PRINTED ADVERTISMENT COMPETITION “UNLEASH YOUR CREATIVITY AGAINST POVERTY”, A GRAPHIC DESIGNER FROM REYKJAVIK STEFAN EINARSSON – “WE ARE STILL WAITING”
By Viktoria SKUBA, The Day
hroughout their lives, up to 70 percent of women around the world fall victim to violence. Therefore, the UN Regional Information Center for Western Europe encourages professionals and amateurs, citizens and residents of the region to take part in a competition of social advertisement and create a poster “Say ‘NO’ to violence against women.” This is not the first UN action against violence. “In February 2008, the UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon announced the beginning of a campaign to eliminate violence against women and girls, and called upon the governments of all countries to join and start national campaigns. Ukraine was first to support the UN initiative and announced a national campaign Stop Vio-
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so used printed social advertisement, placing billboards with hotline numbers for victims on the streets of major cities throughout the country. This year’s winner of the “Say ‘NO’ to violence against women” competition will be chosen by an expert jury, consisting of the vice-president of Havas and chairman of the 2010 jury Jacques Seguela, creative director of the visual communications department at the Fabrica center and vice-president of international union of professional designers “ICOGRADA” Omar Vulpinari, the director of Multimedia Art Museum in Moscow Olga Sviblova, chief of the UN Exhibits Unit Jan Arnesen, designer and director of the Graphic Design Museum in Breda Mieke Gerritzen, the creative director of Hvita Husid, last year’s winner Stefan Einarsson, and the manager of
By Marek SIWIEC, Member of the European Parliament
Leonid Kuchma. Some reflections
eonid Kuchma was supposed to be my guest in Poznan, for a conference which a local outside government organization puts together for Ukraine. Previously it was Leonid Kravchuk who took part in such event. Unfortunately, it seems that president Kuchma will not come to Poland at all. The Court in Kyiv has forbidden him to leave the city and started an investigation and legal conduct concerning his alleged input into Heorhii Gongadze’s death. I remember the beginning of this century very well. Ukraine started to change. Dramatic presentations of the recorded tapes by security officer Melnychenko, which had taken place in the Ukrainian parliament, have consolidated the opposition in Ukraine. Yulia Tymoshenko as well as Viktor Yushchenko, even though politically they were “Kuchma’s babies,” have begun a fight with the entire then current establishment and everything that had to do with Kuchma, including him. They’d been very effective.
After the spectacular win of the Orange Revolution, a lot had been done to find out who is responsible for the journalist’s death, even more so, the guilty parties were found, prosecuted and sent to in prison. No legal action was taken regarding president Kuchma. Today, Kuchma is sitting in court as one of the accused ones. I’m very curious what new facts, or which new circumstances, have served as the foundation of such drastic decision. The Ukrainian Administration of Justice is getting involved in politics, and I’m sure it’s not the first or the last time it happens. This time it decided to participate in politics that had taken place seven years ago in Ukraine’s main open city field. It was then, when millions of people from Ukraine, and many people who were simply visiting for support, made a decision regarding certain way of conducting government. Then, it was something the nation desired and was respected by the current leader of the nation.
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MAGADAN. A FRAGMENT OF ERNST NEIZVESTNY’S MASK OF SORROW MEMORIAL. PHOTO FROM THE CHAPTER “STALIN’S KOLYMA,” MYKOLA KHRIIENKO’S PROJECT “UKRAINIANS BEYOND THE URALS”
lence! which will last until 2015,” an Equal Opportunities and Women’s Rights in Ukraine (EU-UNDP) expert on preventing violence Svitlana Pavlysh told The Day. The UN will hold a competition of printed social advertisement for a second time. Last year, its participants, representing 34 European countries, directed their creativity against poverty. “In order to fight against such phenomena as poverty or violence, it is necessary that society becomes aware of their extent. And we can educate people through such information campaigns,” says Pavlysh, “Half the population of Ukraine has at least once during their lives suffered from different types of violence — psychological, sexual, physical or economic.” By the way, the organizers of the Ukrainian campaign “Stop Violence!” al-
Now it’s history. Not much of an old one, but still history. The world was full of admiration for the determination and effectiveness of the opposition, but also for the way the authorities behaved. The Orange Revolution was peaceful and bloodless even though there were winners and losers. The transfer of authority occurred with agreement and help of Leonid Kuchma. In that past moment of Ukrainian history he was without a doubt a positive figure. There should be a solid, credible book written about Kuchma’s input into building Ukraine’s sovereignty in those first couple of years after the country regained its independence. I’m not the one to judge for the courts or for anyone, especially since I don’t mean to question their decisions and findings. However the case is widely commented in Europe and there are questions being asked regarding the political context of such actions.
United Nations Secretary General’s campaign “Unite To End Violence Against Women” Aldiana Sisic. The best work chosen by the expert jury will be awarded a money prize in amount of 5,000 euros. Besides, one of the participants’ works that wins according to the results of the open public vote will be awarded a prize from the government of Portugal. A special award for the youngest participants (aged to 25 years) will be granted by the research center Fabrica. The deadline for submitting works is midnight on May 31, 2011. The names of the winners will be announced on November 25, 2011, on the International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women. Details about the contest can be found at the website www.create4theun.eu/ua/.
It is crucial for the court, if making such drastic accusations, to quickly and credibly make a decision and make a good, fair judgment. Maintaining a public person in state of accusation, especially when it’s not an anonymous inhabitant of the country nearby Dnipro, is not serving well for the authority and Ukraine itself.
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A chance for purification By Pavlo KOVALIOV, political scientist
ODESA – By commencing an action against his predecessor and the “father” of the entire current political system, President Yanukovych made more than a resolute step, the result of which cannot be predetermined. This case provoked a big wave in Ukrainian politics. First of all because it showed that there are no untouchables in the system anymore. It looks like one part of the system is ready to devour the other one to look cleaner and more legitimate in the eyes of its voters. Any of the motivations of the Kuchma case — from “dekulakization” of oligarchs connected to him, to the “Russian trace” and referring to the struggle for the Kremlin’s chair between Medvedev and Putin, may be true. Furthermore, most of these motivations complement each other and make up one picture: the show of demonstrative clean-up connected with the Ukrainian government since 2000 as a kind of “original sin.” So far it looked that the Gongadze case informally linked all the elite, even if it was not engaged in it directly. The closed corporation into which our political beau monde irresistibly transforms could and would be very willing to go without washing their dirty linen in public if it didn’t “itch” in the eyes of the society and the West, and didn’t cast a shadow of corruption and impunity on all governments and presidents regardless of their political “coloring.” Representatives of the current government, not so much involved in the hidden struggle, decided to destroy and cancel the informal consensus inside the political elite, and start everything from a new leaf, if not from scratch. For this they opposed the “old” part of the elite, taking as a basis the most resonant case in Ukraine’s history. Having legalized “Melnychenko’s tapes,” they actually hinted explicitly that the discrediting evidence for the big part of representatives of the Kuchma’s time that is now in their possession. If one looks at the version of the resolution on instituting proceedings against Kuchma which appeared in mass media, we will see that there are no other symbolic figures connected with the Gongadze case. First of all, there is no Speaker Volodymyr Lytvyn. Thus, from the viewpoint of the judiciary, the entire story of the murder of Gongazde developed along the line Kuchma-Kravchenko-Fere-Pukach, though two persons involved in this chain are already dead. The prospect of a criminal process is even more doubtful. Lawyers of the second Ukrainian president will do everything possible to voice two statements. First, the proofs of Kuchma’s potential guilt were acquired in an illegal way, and second, the statute of limitation period has ex-
pired. Generally, the probable trial of Kuchma itself will become a test of the Ukrainian judicial system. As a result, the court found itself before a legal and political choice. For example, to answer the pernickety question: Does the status of the accused influence the period of limitation? If the process ends in Kuchma’s acquittal or a conditional sentence, one can consider it to be a failure of the current government. There is no way back. But any other decision without maximally objective consideration of all conditions of getting “Melnychenko’s tapes” cannot be considered legally correct. Thus, no result can be regarded as just without involving new figures in the process. The understanding of the obvious conjuncture of the initiated performance inevitably raises another question: can the country clean itself from “kuchmism,” from the system the second president built for ten years, the children of which represent a considerable part of the present political beau monde. Certainly, bringing such an action is a decisive and correct step. But the following steps are much more difficult. The organization of the very process, its course, and the character of the decision made — all will become a test of the government. The current government, which is accused of spreading corruption and manipulating the judiciary, can answer the question “Who are the judges?” only by means of maximal resolve in searching and punishing all those involved not only in the Gongadze case but also in other crimes, the traces of which are recorded on “Melnychenko’s tapes.” This is the only possible way. Otherwise it will be impossible to speak about any purification, renewal and change in the ruling leadership’s worldview. One can speak only about “discarding negative ballast” and “covering one’s tracks,” about momentary machinations and private motives, but not about a global tendency and frank change of political philosophy. In this sense the question of whether Kuchma will be jailed becomes private. The basic question is whether the current government is ready not to repeat the mistakes of his rule, and not to make new ones. Whether it is ready to bring actions against “fat cats” and prosecutors who run into people with their cars, ready to resolutely put raiding to an end, ready to stop adopting dubious codes and increasing an unbearable tax burden. Is it ready to stop manipulations with freedom of speech and stop pressing the mass media? Are the current authorities ready to reveal their cards regarding their property, at least that which is an open secret? Otherwise no purification from negative things will take place.
By Vitalii KHNIAZHANSKY, The Day
“I’d like to assess the progress we have made concerning the complex treaty on the free trade area between Ukraine and the EU,” MEP, vice chair of the Committee on International Trade, and member of the Security and Defense Subcommittee Pawel Zalewski told journalists. “My colleagues and I hope that the negotiations will finish by the end of the current year.” The MEP emphasized that Poland will preside over the EU in the second half of the year, providing our country “with the most profitable terms that may be included in the treaty.” Zalewski emphasized that today both parties are willing to finish the negotiations, and the treaty which is being worked out is considered in Europe not only as a tool to increase bilateral trade, but also as a possibility for Ukraine’s further integration with the EU and the spread of European standards in our country. Zalewski highlights that it’s not only the European position, but “the desire and the good will of the Ukrainian government.” According to him, the government is not only talking about re-
Azarov itching for a gamble Next round of talks on the creation of a free trade area between Ukraine and the EU opens forms, but is also planning them and making steps for their realization. Such opinions, expressed by the politician from friendly Poland, and similar ones from other EU representatives, are reassuring. However, should we count our chickens before they hatch, expecting to quickly overcome the distance from association talks and a free trade area to EU membership? Our government seems to have forgotten this well-known proverb and makes far-reaching plans, assuring the country that we are on the verge of joining the union. In particular, the Ukrainian Prime Minister Mykola Azarov is sure that our country will enter the EU “in 10 years maximum.” He even suggested a bet on it with former Polish President Aleksander Kwasniewski.
Do our European partners share our optimism? Asked this question by The Day, Zalewski reminded that in the middle of the 1990s the French president predicted that Poland would become a full EU member in 2000. However, after the country carried out deep structural reforms and met the requirements that had been set during the negotiations, Poland entered the EU only in 2004. 1992 became a starting point for EU membership acquisition — when Poland signed the Association Agreement and a free trade area treaty with the EU, he remarked, stressing that Poland needed “12 years and reforms in all spheres” to enter the EU. Zalewski says that it’s difficult for him to predict how this process will develop in Ukraine, “it might happen
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faster as Ukraine has a possibility to use both the positive and negative Polish experience.” He also emphasized that the EU will have to consolidate to be able to accept new members. Zalewski is “almost sure” that it will happen in the nearest future and Ukraine will carry out the reforms needed to meet EU standards. Another participant of that pressconference, the MP and co-chairman of the interfactional association European Choice Anatolii Kinakh, told The Day: “I’m quite skeptical when the Ukrainian government announces the dates of our EU membership as it has happened several times.” “We’re sure,” continued the MP, “that the date is not an end in itself. It’s essential for us to create the corresponding European standards in all spheres in Ukraine.” He also remarked: “When we announce this or that date, our EU friends and supporters get into an uncomfortable position as these dates aren’t agreed upon with them.” Photo by Yaroslav MIZERNY
LIFESTYLE
Longevity lessons From Ukraine’s oldest woman, 109-year old Yevhenia Tebenchuk Photo by Kostiantyn HRYSHYN, The Day
By Inna LYKHOVYD, The Day
hey say it’s impolite to ask a woman about her age. But in case of Yevhenia Tebenchuk one can and should do so, as she is considered to be the oldest person in Ukraine. On March 30 experts of the National Records Register registered her age — 109 years and 74 days — as a longevity record. Her biggest concern is whether it is not too much of a hassle for her family. She was born in 1902 in the Vinnytsia region, in the village of Chorniavka, Lypovets raion. She currently lives in Kyiv with her family, which is made up of her daughter, two grandchildren, three greatgrandchildren, and one great-greatgrandchild. According to Tebenchuk, the Holodomor of 193233 deprived her of four young children. Only her daughter, Valentyna Zabolotna, survived (she’s now 75). In 1935, when the family moved to
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Siberia, Altai region, one more daughter was born. Sadly, she also died. Tebenchuk’s married life was not long either: after the war her husband died, and the power of that first love kept her from any further engagements. At present the family members protect their grandmother and great-grandmother from extra work and excessive emotions. They want the keeper of their family hearth to live many more years, though Tebenchuk herself says she’ll live as long as God’s will allows. Regarding her longevity secret, in her opinion, it’s very simple: “One should always work. I survived so many famines, and I had children, so I always tried to think about what I should do to feed them,” says the long-lived woman. “When my daughter or grandchildren tell me ‘let us help you do something as it’s hard for you,’ I never agree. What will I do if I don’t work? I’ll die without it.”
NOT ONLY PROFESSIONAL ACTORS PLAY UNR SOLDIERS IN IVAN KANIVETS’S FILM, BUT ALSO THE REENACTORS FROM THE MILITARY HISTORY CLUBS POVSTANETS AND INFANTRY INTELLIGENCE PLATOON OF THE 3rd IRON DIVISION OF THE ACTIVE ARMY OF THE UNR
By Viktoria SKUBA, The Day
n March 27 The Day’s correspondent chanced to visit a filming site of a documentary about the Ukrainian revolution of 1917-18 (The Day covered this in the Ukrainian- and Russianlanguage editions; issue No. 42, March 11, 2011). The shooting was taking place at the Kyiv fortress. The soldiers of the Ukrainian National Republic army were played by reenactors from the military history clubs Povstanets (Insurgent) and Infantry Intelligence Platoon of the 3rd Iron Division of the Active Army of the UNR, who are engaged in a detailed study of that period. During the filming of the assault of the Kyiv fortress, when the “UNR” and the “Red Army” clashed, The Day’s reporter witnessed a curious scene.
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“I, a soldier of the UNR” A film about the Ukrainian revolution of 1917-18 is being shot at Kyiv fortress The reenactors had been trying their best to avoid playing the invaders. And when one of them was finally made to wear the Red Army uniform, he yelled to his comrades, “Come on, finish this Muscovite, quick!” Nevertheless, he duly fulfilled his obligations. After this curious incident, The Day’s journalist asked one of the reenactors about what he thought of the soldiers of the Ukrainian National Republic.
Yurii KUDRIASHOV, historical reconstructor, “soldier of the Infantry Intelligence Platoon of the 3rd Division of the Iron Army of the UNR”: “As a child I read a book about Ukraine’s struggle for independence and statehood. It described the liberation war of 1917-19. I reflected on what I had read a lot. Later I took up historical reenactment and became a “soldier of the Infantry Intelligence Platoon of the 3rd Division of the Iron Army of the Ukrainian National Republic.” We
Rivne researchers’ textbook published in the US By Kost HARBARCHUK
RIVNE – Since independence many Ukrainian scientists went abroad and now advance science at leading universities around the world. But there are other examples where scientists remain in Ukraine, and still their work is recognized worldwide. Rivne professor Leonid Dvorkin also received many interesting proposals and invitations, but he is still working in Ukraine. He authored 35 monographs and textbooks, and registered more than 70 patents and inventions in the field of construction material technology. Recently, his home city witnessed the presentation of a textbook Construction Materials, which was published by a major American publishing house Nova Science Publishers in New York. The book’s authors are head of Construction Materials Technology and Materials Science Department in the National University of Water Management and Natural Resources, Sc.D. in
Technology, Professor Leonid Dvorkin and professor of the same department Oleg Dvorkin. The textbook Construction Materials is based on modern international scientific achievements, and complements and develops them. The authors translated it into English themselves. The American publisher noted their efficiency and professionalism. The father and son duo are leading scientists in the study of construction materials and concrete technology, known not only in Ukraine but also far beyond its borders. Their works have been published in many countries. The textbook is designed for the use of a wide range of English-speaking professionals. Professor Dvorkin explains: “It will be a guide for American foremen and construction workers.” It can be used by those Ukrainian experts and students who wish to learn modern international terminology and acquaint themselves with the requirements of the US and European regulations.
study and reenact this period up to the most minute details, even everyday life. I understand that the leadership of the UNR made a lot of errors in their struggle for independence. Yet let us leave politics to the politicians. Ordinary soldiers carried out their duty with devotion. When the UNR Army got orders to retreat and cross the Zbruch to move to Poland, many soldiers submitted reports to their commanders to tell them they wanted to go back to Ukraine and continue fighting there. Though a part of the UNR men were fighting “for their homes and gardens,” or out of revenge (their families had been killed or hurt, houses burnt, or wives raped), there still were quite a few men who even then, in those troubled times of the collapse of the empire, were aware of their Ukrainian identity, and fought for their state and freedom.”
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“Winds of change” in the Arab world Yevhen MYKYTENKO: Ukraine is actively using its soft power in the Middle East
The whole world is watching the events in North Africa and the Middle East. In two countries of this region, Tunisia and Egypt, the people’s anger brought down their respective dictators. Now it seems that the current president of Yemen, who has been ruling the country for 33 years, will face the same fate. Conversely, events in Syria and Libya are following a different path. In the former the government controls the situation and is dealing with the demonstrators harshly. In the latter Gaddafi’s forces are in an all-out civil war against the inexperienced rebels, who count on the West to help them, notably through the imposition of a no-fly zone. How will the events in this important region develop, particularly in Libya, where many Ukrainians work? Can Ukraine use its “soft power” to promote its interests in North Africa and the Middle East? Yevhen MYKYTENKO, deputy minister of foreign affairs and former ambassador to the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, and Syria spoke about these questions in an exclusive interview to The Day.
“If you happened to visit the region of the Middle East or North Africa in spring, you would know that in this period strong winds blow there, the khamsins, which bring sand from the Sahara and Arabian deserts. This year powerful political storms started in the region as early as January. “I would like to point out that we generally predicted the events now taking place in the Middle East and North Africa. “However, the terms of their development were difficult to predict. By the way, not only for us. Let’s remember, for example, what a controversial reaction our European and overseas partners had to the early revolutionary events in the region. Arabian countries also vary in their take on the situation: there is chaos in the region, everyone feels distrust to one another. “In my opinion, the processes now taking place in the countries of the Arabian world are generally of an unpredictable character and don’t allow for precise forecasts. No Arabian country is immune to internal turmoil of the kind we saw in Tunisia, Egypt or Libya. Ordinary people are tired of hegemony, autocracy, and social inequality, of shiny Mercedes cars cruising past a fellah (peasant) with a donkey. As an Arabian leader said, now some cannot ‘tighten their belts anymore, and the belt won’t buckle on others.’ “Today it is obvious that the development of protest sentiments in Tunisia, Egypt, Libya and other countries of the region is caused by the fact that the leaders of these countries considerably delayed delivering political, social and economic reforms.
“It is noteworthy that the major motor of the opposition is the educated youth, which grew up in an age of new information technologies and is geared up for the necessity of political and socialeconomic changes in their countries. “The peculiarity of all the countries of the region that are experiencing protests is that the leadership of these states repeats one and the same mistake: first they use force, then offer dialog, hold negotiations, or initiate reforms. This approach bears a confrontational character from the very onset and aggravates the internal political situation, with events developing in an unpredictable direction.” That is the leaders of those Arab countries don’t learn from the mistakes of others. What lessons can we take back from these events? “I think that today, in the sense of development of cooperation with the states of North Africa and the Middle East, the question of whether the region’s leaders will be able to come to corresponding conclusions in order to make similar actions impossible in the future and whether they have the time needed for this remain topical for both our state and the international community. Besides, another important question is who can head the ‘protest wave’ and unite the different groups on the national level. “Recently the governments of Jordan, Syria and Kuwait resigned. At present the leadership of those countries is making efforts to stabilize the situation, increase social standards and liberalize political life. Extraordinary parliamentary elections were announced in Egypt in September this year, and in two
to the Arab countries are ferrous metal, grain and other agricultural products.” Can Ukraine’s decision to send the large Kostiantyn Olshansky assault landing ship to Libya be interpreted as participation in the coalition’s enforcement of the UN resolution on establishing a no-fly zone over the country? “I would like to explain this right away, so as not to have any ambiguity. As a responsible UN member, our state will inevitably fulfill the provisions of the Libyan resolutions of the UN Security Council No. 1970 and No. 1973. We believe that the efforts of all parties involved in the situation in Libya must first of all be focused on protecting and ensuring security for civilians. “Thus, as a concrete contribution fulfilling the provisions of these documents, the big landing ship Kostiantyn Olshansky was sent to carry out humanitarian work, notably evacuating Ukrainian citizens and other foreigners from the ports of Libya. “We intend to focus on this aspect of dealing with the Libyan crisis, though we’re ready to consider other proposals on a later stage. We also expect comprehensive assistance in ensuring security for our ship within the framework of the realization of its humanitarian evacuation operation.” How long, in your opinion, will the conflict in Libya last? Is a land military action possible? “The coalition’s operation Odyssey Dawn has continued for two weeks already. They say that the protagonist of the ancient Greek poem traveled for 10 years. Today, in fact, in Libya a civil war between the west and east has been on-
“Current trends require that Ukraine realize its own policy in North Africa and the Middle East by means of keeping a ba-lance in the formation of a close partnership relation with the major actors of world politics. First of all, from the rectangle EU-US-China-Russia.” months the election of a new president will take place there. The king of Jordan is quick and flexible in his reaction to the situation in the country and commands considerable authority and respect among his subordinates. President of Syria Bashar al-Assad announced 30 percent salary increases for state officials, and created a commission that will determine the expediency of lifting the country’s emergency state [in place since 1963 – Ed.]. In Kuwait a peaceful political dialog on modernization is being held. So, one can say that the ‘winds of change’ touched almost all the Arab countries. “It should also be pointed out that that the tension, lasting since early this year in the Arab world, has had a negative impact on trade between our countries. There is no doubt that the markets of the Middle East and North Africa are extremely interesting and promising for us. One can simply look at the statistics, which show that our total export to this region in 2010 constituted about six billion US dollars. Ukraine’s main exports
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A chancellor with a strong character The Chancellor of Germany Angela Merkel continues to astonish. In spite of her recent defeat in the local elections, she did not lose spirit and continues to exhibit a “manly” character. On March 31 she underwent surgery on a meniscus and three days later, on Sunday, she took part in the opening of the Hanover Fair on crutches, together with French Prime Minister Francois Fillon. Fillon was taking part in the event because France is this year’s official partner of the fair. The chancellor stated in her opening speech that in spite of the “task to refuse from using nuclear energy,” she cannot sacrifice the interests of German industry for this aim, reports DAPD. Merkel stated that it is impossible to “move to the epoch of renewable energy sources by mere protests,” because a “corresponding infrastructure should be developed.” She underlined that “energy and industry” can not be set at loggerheads. Meanwhile, the French prime minister noted that “the German-French duo is Europe’s motor, and has proved that all differences can be settled.” Nearly 6,500 companies from 65 countries are going to take part in the world’s biggest industrial fair. The organizers expect over 200,000 visitors to come. “Renewable energy sources, environmentfriendly technologies, designing the city of the future, and innovative materials are the main topics of the fair. However, neither the exhibitors, nor the visitors can ignore the aftermaths of the earthquake in Japan and the accident on the Fukushima Nuclear Plant,” the report states.
going, and the coalition supports one of the parties. As history shows, there are no winners in civil wars. In any case, if members of the coalition make the decision to deploy ground forces, Libyans will not meet the ‘guests’ with flowers and won’t give them sweets, following Eastern tradition.” Has Ukraine established contacts with the National Transitional Council based in Benghazi? “No, it has not. So far we do not know with whom to deal. In addition, I’m sure that Tripoli won’t like the negotiations or the de facto recognition of the transitional government. This could also spell a risk to those Ukrainians who continue to work in Libyan hospitals in cities controlled by forces of Muammar Gaddafi. “So far we don’t know the program of the National Transitional Council. Today the main requirement of the opposition is to deprive the leader of Jamahiriya Muammar Gaddafi of his power. What’s next? Its next steps are still unknown.
“Heterogeneity of the opposition’s composition and the absence of information on the political views of its leaders substantially complicate any forecasts on further development in this country. “My strong opinion is that the future Libyan government needs to clearly outline for its people what it wants and what kind of Libya it sees without Muammar Gaddafi, since one of the problems is that the country is markedly heterogeneous and consists of tribes that are well armed and want access to resources, thus destabilizing the state.” How do you assess the fact that France and Great Britain took the initiative to remove Muammar Gaddafi from power? Has the center of European politics moved from Paris-Berlin to Paris-London? “I wouldn’t talk about the formation of some new stable ‘axis’ inside the European Union. France has a historic interest in North Africa, as seen in the current President Nicolas Sarkozy’s initiative on establishing a Union for the Mediterranean. Besides, Paris is concerned about the issue of uncontrolled migrant flows from Africa. Similarly, the Middle East and North Africa always interested Great Britain. Therefore the current ‘Paris-London’ axis seems temporary.” Can Ukraine use its “soft power” to promote its own interests in the region? What is being done in this respect? “Not simply can, it actively uses it. Those who follow events in Ukrainian foreign policy couldn’t help noticing that recently there has been a considerable intensification of Ukraine’s political contacts with the states of the Middle East and North Africa. At the same time, the organization and holding of the visits of the Israeli and Syrian presidents, the Ukrainian foreign minister’s upcoming visit to Egypt, and Minister Kostiantyn Hryshchenko’s visit to Qatar and Kuwait showed the world that our state is interested in strengthening political and trade relations with the countries of this region, and that Ukraine has a balanced position on the Arab-Israeli conflict and the peace process in general. “I would also like to stress that current trends require that Ukraine realize its own policy in North Africa and the Middle East by means of keeping a balance in the formation of a close partnership relation with the major actors of world politics. First of all, from the rectangle EU-US-China-Russia. “One should take into account the fact that at present, due to an increased interest from leading world actors in the investment, industrial and energy possibilities in the region, all the states of that region are adjusting their foreign policy vectors. “Therefore in today’s indefinite situation we try to actively use the factor of Ukraine’s equal proximity in political and economic aspects to the main participants of regional processes, what will allow us to be more actively involved in international efforts to solve regional problems and promote our economic interests.” By Mykola SIRUK, The Day REUTERS photo
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A new transit complex to be built in Kaniv A new complex, which will include a newly-built bus station and fully renovated passenger moorage, will be built in Kaniv for the Euro-2012, the press service of the Ministry of Infrastructure of Ukraine reports. The agency responsible for the preparation and holding of the final stage of the European soccer championship and the State Service of Sea and River Transportation (Ukrmorrichflot) started joint work on erecting the complex. At present the state enterprise Ice Arenas works on building the surface of the complex, and the state enterprise Administration of River Ports determines the conditions of reconstruction of the underwater part in the moorage’s hydraulic facilities. The capital renovation and reconstruction of the passenger moorage will be realized within the fulfillment of the project “reconstruction and building of objects of the National Shevchenko Preserve and infrastructure of the city of Kaniv,” which is one of constituents of the state program on preparing and holding the Euro-2012. Ukrmorrichflot is already elaborating a list of passenger vessels of state enterprises which can be used for transporting passengers down the Dnipro.
French company buys agricultural firms in Ukraine The agricultural company AgroGeneration (Paris), specialized in producing grain and oil-bearing crops in Ukraine, concluded preliminary agreements on purchasing several Ukrainian agricultural enterprises. According to the exchange report of the company, respective agreements can be signed in the near months, after a final audit of the agricultural firms they are going to buy. As AgroGeneration specifies, each of these enterprises controls agricultural lands in the amount of 15-30 percent of the area the company cultivates, which in 2010 increased by 20 percent — to 48,000 hectares.
Chemical plant finishes construction of object for solid propellant removal The state enterprise “Scientific production association Pavlohrad Chemical Plant” (PCP) finished the construction of an industrial object for the removal of the solid propellant of intercontinental ballistic missiles (IBM) PC-22, Yevhen Ustymenko, the enterprise’s technical director, informed. He pointed out that the realization of such a project will increase the efficiency of removing propellant from missile engines by five times, as compared to the test unit. The object is scheduled to begin operations on April 5, 2011. The cost of its construction was 29 million hryvnias. Funds from the state budget were allotted in determined portions in 2007-08 and 2010. According to Ustymenko, at present, out of the 11 objects for the industrial utilization of solid propellant, four objects function at PCP, which processes rocket fuel into emulsion explosives. The emulsion explosives were certified and admitted for permanent use in mining enterprises. “The exact amount necessary to complete the construction of the entire technological chain is yet to be specified, due to a change in terms of realization of the solid propellants utilization program. If the required financing is provided, the remaining industrial objects can be set into operation by the end of 2011,” Ustymenko said.
Russia’s no-participation pact By Masha LIPMAN
MOSCOW – The Russian government, with its solid hold on power, has invariably gotten away with poor performance, inefficiency, corruption, and widespread violation of political rights and civil liberties. Polls consistently demonstrate that the Russian people are not deluded: they routinely respond in surveys that government officials are corrupt and self-serving. More than 80 percent of Russians, according to a poll conducted last summer, believe that “many civil servants practically defy the law.” And yet Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, who still remains Russia’s most powerful person despite his not holding the presidency, has enjoyed high and steady approval ratings for years. A mild drop in early 2011 probably reflected frustration over social injustice and a growing sense of insecurity and uncertainty about the future. Even so, roughly 70 percent of respondents in a February poll said that they approved of Putin’s performance President Dmitry Medvedev’s approval ratings are only slightly lower. Russian leaders’ high ratings do not, however, indicate a rational preference for the incumbents over potential contenders; with political competition in Russia eviscerated, comparison and choice are not part of the political left. Rather, these poll numbers are a “vote” for the status quo; they convey a broadly shared sense that political change is not desired, notwithstanding terrorist attacks, technological catastrophes, lawless police, or rigged elections. During the years of Putin’s leadership, the Kremlin has steadily pushed citizens farther and farther from decisionmaking by virtually dismantling representative institutions. Gubernatorial elections were abolished six years ago, and even elected city mayors have been progressively replaced by appointed officials. Polls routinely indicate that more than 80 percent of Russians believe that they can make no difference in national or even regional affairs. This system of political alienation is accepted by an overwhelming majority of Russians. The “masses” and the “best and the brightest” alike show no interest in political participation. Political opposition groups do not attract public support, which makes it easy for the government to suppress them. Indeed, in the absence of political participation, the government enjoys easy dominance over society. The perennial Russian order – the dominant state and a powerless, fragmented society – remains largely in place. Twice in the 20th century, the omnipotent Russian state was dramatically weakened: at the beginning, when the Russian Empire collapsed, and at the end, when the USSR ceased to exist. Both times, however, the traditional pattern of state dominance was quickly reestablished. Although state-society relations in Russia hue to a traditional pattern, different leaderships have shaped them in different ways. Stalin’s regime could be compared to a cruel, sadistic father who keeps his children in a state of fear and submission. Brezhnev’s model resembled a bad marriage, exhausted of love or respect, in which the spouses con-
stantly cheat, take advantage of each other, and grab each other’s property, though the powerful husband occasionally reminds his wife that he is boss and demands at least a formal pledge of loyalty – or else. Compared to these two models, Putin’s model of state-society relations looks like a divorce, or at least a separation: each side minds its own business and doesn’t interfere with the other’s sphere. It is a model best described as a no-participation pact. The Kremlin may have monopolized decisionmaking, but it is largely non-intrusive and enables citizens to live their own lives and pursue their own interests – as long as they do not encroach on the government realm. Unlike in the USSR, which massively infringed on citizens’ private space, today’s Russians enjoy virtually unlimited individual freedoms. The non-intrusive nature of the government is appreciated: people eagerly engage in their private affairs – with little regard for the political realm, which they have willingly abandoned. Nevertheless, the last 20 years of broad individual freedom and limited civil liberties have generated shifts in Russian society – if not across the board, then certainly among certain groups. In particular, Russians have acquired some organizational and community-building skills. The use of online social networks, for example, has grown faster than in any other country in Europe, and has helped create some semblance of a public sphere, with the Russian blogosphere often a venue for angry public expression about social injustice, undeserved privileges, lawlessness, and police impunity. Socioeconomic protests have also become a feature of Russian life, especially during the economic crisis. Unlike political groups, which attract very limited public support, socioeconomic demands have repeatedly brought together thousands of people in various parts of the country. In big cities, moreover, a new urban class is emerging – advanced and modernized Russians with good professional skills who feel at ease in the globalized world. It is mostly due to this group that private charity has developed in recent years. But, despite opportunities for selfexpression, community building and activism remain marginal and do not alter or weaken the state’s dominance over society. Despite the recent rise in negative public sentiment, protest activity remains fragmented and invariably local in scope and demands. For now, at least, provincial Russians and the new urban class alike have accepted Putin’s no-participation pact. In fact, should events turn out badly, critically-minded and well-informed urban achievers would be most likely to embrace the ultimate form of non-participation: emigration. In the current political climate, the more enlightened Russians would rather use their skills and talents for self-fulfillment abroad than be the driving force of Russia’s modernization. Masha Lipman is the editor of Pro et Contra, a policy journal published by the Carnegie Moscow Center © Project Syndicate, 2011
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Responsibility vertical Leonid FESENKO: Courts of law aren’t made for judges Continued from page 1
A SCOUT OF THE 21st CENTURY
Ministry of Education brings Soviet “Summer Lightning” back to schools The patriots of which country are we supposed to raise? By Inna LYKHOVYD, The Day tarting from next year, the Ministry of Education, Science, Youth and Sports, in cooperation with the Ministry of Defense, is establishing an allUkrainian military-patriotic sport game “Summer Lightning” for fifth to ninth grade students. As the ministry’s report reads, its main goals are preparation for service in the armed forces, mastering military professions, preparing for extreme situations and patriotic education and propaganda of a healthy lifestyle. What is worrying is that this was a popular game in Soviet times, and the idea of returning it to the schools was prompted by the Organization of Veterans of Ukraine. Its representatives became members of the committee for preparation and realization of “Summer Lightning.” If we want to educate our youth in the spirit of patriotism and love to the fatherland, then why not develop the scout movement, which has a century-old history and is now very popular among Ukrainian children? Or the “Trumpets of Victory” festival, which is somewhat younger (it has been held for 12 years at the initiative of public organizations from Lviv region), but still has the same patriotic and educational spirit. However, taking into account the politics of education ministry, the organizers are not sure if their festival will continue to exist. As the director of the festival Volodymyr Stepanyshyn told Radio Freedom, children from all regions of Ukraine sing praises to the Ukrainian national struggle for liberation during the contest, especially to the UPA. In the opinion of the famous professor, doctor of historical sciences Stanislav Kulchytsky, there should be a patriotic game in schools. Another question is which name and meaning it should be given. “One (scouts) comes from AustroHungarian times, and other (‘Summer Lightning’) from the Soviet ones. The prevalence of the second is a return to Soviet times, though a little one,” explains Kulchytsky, “The patriotic education of students should be based on the Constitution of Ukraine. It gives some foundations based on which you can design anything that concerns both content and form of such patriotic education. For example, the scouts are an organization that has existed since the 19th century. It wasn’t popular in Soviet times, because it was considered a bourgeois organization. If we move toward communism, then it should be ‘Summer Lightning,’ but if we move toward capitalism, then why should we avoid the word ‘bourgeois?’
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These petty facts demonstrate a tendency that brings us back to the past. The resistance should be very careful, because during the last years of independence we have been driven forward, saying that we had to catch up with the West, borrowing that which was offered by the Ukrainian Diaspora. Then it worked. And now it doesn’t.” The reason for the return of the activity is easy to guess: it is totally in keeping with the slow offensive on everything Ukrainian, with Ukrainian-language schools being closed, new history schoolbooks being written, the Petro Jacyk competition on Ukrainian language expertise being abolished. Instead, the ministry is introducing a contest of Russian language and literature, which has already started in schools. What next?
You didn’t want to become a cop or prosecutor, you wanted to become a judge, is that right? “That’s right. After graduating from the Institute (i.e., Kharkiv’s Institute of Law — Author) I was first an intern at the court of law in Kamiany Brid court, then at the Leninskiy raion prosecutor’s office, both Luhansk oblast, where the district attorney was Hryhorii Vorsynov — a prominent lawyer who would eventually become Prosecutor General of Ukraine. The man saw that I liked the job. He told me: ‘I’d yet make a real prosecutor out of you.’ He kept saying I should stay in my position, under his guidance. Yet I was stubborn and I wasn’t afraid to reply in the negative. I told him I wanted to be a judge. I did become one. In April, while still a [law school] student, I was elected judge, before I took my exams at the Institute in July. I spent six years in that rank and position, considering that I had a great teacher, His Honor Dmytro Prokopovych Antonets, WW II veteran (God rest his soul!). His was an outstanding personality and he was the one to mold me into my judicial shape. Later, I worked for other organizations, at higher-instance courts. I’ve dedicated five years to the Verkhovna Rada (VR). Now I’m once again a judge.” The way I see it, you feel more like a judge than a member of Parliament. Is that right? Also, what about that moonlighting scandal? “There was nothing I could do about the situation. I acted in strict accordance with the law. I had tendered my resignation [as MP], as soon
ly a statement indicating these doubts, and then I submit the case for further investigation. Afterward, when the case is returned for hearing, most of such doubts are dispelled. Legal punishment is another matter. Almost every article of the Criminal Code allows a range of, for example, 8 to 15 years. How many does a given criminal actually deserve? I’ve handled cases that spelled capital punishment [during Soviet times]. Just try to picture the burden of my responsibility. Well, I have passed judgment severely, without remorse in cases involving extreme cruelty, first degree murders, child rapes. I have never shown any clemency for such scum, yet every time I read the verdict, after years in office, I couldn’t keep my voice steady. Scum as they were, they were human beings. Who was I to send them to their death?” There is a bill registered with the Verkhovna Rada. It reinstates capital punishment. Would you vote for it? “I think that capital punishment should be reinstated in Ukraine. Frankly speaking, I’ve always supported the idea, because monsters in human form deserve it. We often hear about man being created in the Lord’s image, that this precious creation shouldn’t be encroached in any way. What about such images murdering others, with inhuman methods? We give them 20-30, up to 40 years, and keep them at the taxpayers’ expense. I might as well tell you that quite a few of those sentenced to life would prefer capital punishment.” There have been cases when innocents were killed. “Errare humanum est — to err is human. Unfortunately, mistakes are
be dealt with in keeping with set procedures — and these procedures apply to all Ukrainian nationals, without exception. I personally believe there is no political persecution in Ukraine. After the end of pretrial investigations, the courts of law will duly assess the resultant evidence and pass rulings. At this stage, contrary to certain political-persecution allegations, the [Ukrainian] judicial system has nothing whatsoever to do with any of these cases.” Has the recent reform made Ukraine’s judicial system any better? Is there anything still to be done, in your opinion? Should Kyiv listen closer to what the Venice Commission has to say? “I would say that our judicial system has become more accessible to citizens who want to have their rights protected. Previously, there were also specialized courts, such as the Economy Court, Administrative Court, and Supreme Court. This system made ordinary people’s lives difficult, as the man in the street had greater problems filing a complaint with a given court of law. Now they have this Higher Specialized Court of Ukraine for Civil and Criminal Cases, a result of the judicial reform. Apart from better public access, this court allows to correct previous judicial mistakes. As for various judges interpreting certain legal rules their way, there is the Supreme Court. Its rulings resolve such issues and can influence the outcome of lawsuits and criminal trials.” How would you describe today’s underworld, the way you see it from the courtroom? “Evolution has its effect on the underworld, with criminal offenses Photo by Ruslan KANIUKA, The Day
■ COMMENTARIES Andrii KURKOV, writer: “I don’t think there should be militarypatriotic education in school. It is appropriate for North Korea, not Ukraine. For example, those scouts were much more widespread in Europe and America, but now this movement is practically gone, a thing of the past. We should occupy ourselves more with making children believe in their own strength rather than engaging in such patriotic education. When Petro Symonenko suggests in the parliament that Yakutia join Ukraine, that is when politicians are occupied with such nonsense without producing anything new, it turns out that all they can do is to get something from the trunk of the past and try to bring it back to Ukraine. Now we need to emphasize parental education, as it is much more important than school education, because the school, with its miserable financing, is unable to raise children.” Vasyl HALIABAR, child psychiatrist, Rivne: “There are organizations all around the world which are engaged in, for example, the protection of animals. This is quite normal — it appeals to morality, not to shooting. Children will be definitely interested in playing war. After all, they are doing it anyway. Another question is which stars are hooked to the cockade. It is also important which purpose is being followed. One can compete in who is the first to plant a tree on Hoverla, not in who is the first to kill a person. Conducting such measures requires common sense, and, moreover, the knowledge of child psychology.” Interviewed by Tetiana ILNYTSKA, Rivne
Should defunct Donbas mines be turned into museums? G
erman experts from the Ruhr region of Germany propose to convert Donbas slagheaps and defunct mines into monuments of industrial culture, which they believe would contribute to the development of international tourism in the Donbas. “Cities are usually trying to advertise their beautiful places. However, the concept of the Ruhr region is to present our peculiarities,” the director of the project “Ruhr-2010 European Capital of Culture” Hans Schmidt noted in an interview with Deutsche Welle. According to the German expert, Donetsk should not try to compete with Kyiv, Odesa, or Lviv by distributing photographs of its churches or luxury hotels. It must present what is unique to the city, says Schmidt. “The municipal authorities are now in position to adopt an important decision – not destroy the slagheaps, but rather make them into cultural grounds. The slagheaps are the feature that distinguish-
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es Donetsk from other cities of Ukraine, and they could become an extraordinary sight, which would attract visitors and foreign tourists. This feature should be exploited,” says the German expert. In the Ruhr, which is very similar to the Ukrainian Donbas regarding its infrastructure, slagheaps are used for art exhibitions, while local residents spend their free time there, organizing picnics, riding bikes or just strolling about. However, the German slagheaps look different from the Donbas ones. In the Ruhr, they are flat, while in the Donbas they resemble hills. “That’s why we call them ‘The Donetsk Alps,’” says Susanne Skipiol. Of course, such projects require a lot of money, the German experts say. However, the most important thing is for the municipal authorities “to adopt a courageous decision” first, on the need to convert industrial zones, as it had once happened in Germany.
as I had been elected judge of the Higher Court, and had it duly registered at that same date. I thought I’d made my choice formally known, yet the Verkhovna Rada kept stalling, never passing a resolution. In the end, I asked Speaker Volodymyr Lytvyn to help resolve this issue during a VR session. I knew only too well that running with the hare and hunting with the hounds was against the law. He responded by telling me about the VR bursting at the seams with top-priority bills, but promised to help me. But then the press came thundering in. I mean, there was nothing I could do. I couldn’t resign from my post because I’d been assigned to it by the Verkhovna Rada, just as I couldn’t miss VR sessions because I was sill formally a member. There were heaps of case files at the court. You must know that we started forming the Higher [Civil and Criminal Cases] Court from scratch. Then came the scandal.” Could you endorse an unjustifiably severe verdict? “Before passing judgment, I carefully study each case, to make sure the proceedings were started on a legitimate basis. After that I check the legitimacy of every procedure. Above all, I look for valid evidence. In the end, I have no reasonable doubt in passing my judgment. If I have any doubts, there will be no judgment, on-
made in every field of human endeavor. Although no such errors should be allowed in the field of justice, they happen. I remember Kharkiv’s district court sentencing two Malyshev Works engineers to death. Later, both were proved innocent. Horrible. Still, I am all out for capital punishment.” Have you passed any judgments which would later make you feel ashamed of yourself? “No, God be praised. As I’ve said, I started as a judge with the court of law in Kamiany Brid. None of my judgments were overridden in the six years of my office there. When I was recommended for the post of head of the regional justice department, Volodymyr Zaichuk, the then minister of justice of Ukraine, simply couldn’t believe it. But that was true. At this point I should once again pay homage to my teacher who taught me these simple secrets of our profession: stay honest, stay just, act by the law.” Ukraine is accused of persecuting certain prominent figures from the previous regime, and that the current court proceedings are “selective.” Would you care to comment on this? “There is no ‘selective’ adjudication in this country, simply because the cases you apparently have in mind have never been legally submitted. If and when they are, each such case will
changing their structure, and some becoming legit. Today, there is no legal punishment for vagrancy, gambling. However, the key distinction is that the current underworld is operating on a higher professional level; they have the latest cell phones and computer models. It has become very difficult to investigate various financial fraud cases. Back in the 1990s, when [former USSR] property was being redistributed, Ukraine gained national independence, yet it never became independent of the post-Soviet underworld which had then actually taken over Ukraine’s politics. Heinous crimes were committed, killing hundreds of young people. Later, crimes became less violent, with business fraud topping the list. Technological progress had produced a new kind of criminals, people versed in computer soft- and hardware.” Is it true that Ukraine’s jails and detention cells currently have more inmates than back in the ill-fated year of 1937? “I wouldn’t say yes, but it is true that we’re having big problems there. Especially in terms of detention cells; there are far more inmates than allowed under regulations. There are several reasons. First, the cases take longer to be investigated than required under the law. Some inmates spend long terms without being indicted. They suffer imprisonment for
no legal reason. Ukraine’s Ombudsperson Nina Korpachova broached the subject recently, saying the situation appears very complicated, especially in regard to the inmates of the Kyiv detention cells. Therefore, the Ukrainian courts of law are faced with the task of stepping up such investigations — above all by replacing the good old Soviet arrest procedures by preventive alternative means, like bail. Our courts are reluctant to adopt this approach, but the Higher Specialized Court of Ukraine for Civil and Criminal Cases is duly authorized to introduce precisely this practice. I have emphasized the fact at all professional briefings, including those in the regions. I think the situation will eventually improve.” The sad fact remains that the Ukrainian in the street keeps holding all our judges in very low esteem, very much in contrast to the public attitude in the United States. What do you think should be done to make our people respect our judges not only for the powers vested in them, but also for their wisdom and incorruptibility? “We have to work on this. Unfortunately, our judicial system had been practically destroyed during the five years before the current administration came to power. Back then every judge acted the way he pleased, including with the rulings on hostile takeovers or land allotments in the Crimea. All this ended in chaos. As a result, Ukrainian judges have public ratings that best be forgotten. We must start by improving the pubic image of our courts of law. This calls first for a higher individual professional standard and a sense of personal responsibility. This can be accomplished only in the presence of a truly effective, sufficiently centralized government, when genuinely efficient judges can be appointed to their respective posts. I am sure that precisely this system will be implemented in Ukraine, and that it will prove effective. A month ago, the president of Ukraine signed a law that upgraded the procedures of assignment of judges to their first posts. This law also has clauses relating to professional training. I also intend to propose amendments to the legislative acts providing for administrative appointments within the judicial system. Thus, the head of a regional court of appeals has first-hand information about the performance of all judges. Who would be a better choice for appointing heads of oblast, raion and city courts? Being head of the Higher Specialized Court of Ukraine for Civil and Criminal Cases, I keep analyzing and know all about the performance of the courts of appeal, so who can now better than I handle such personnel? This is the way a responsibility vertical should be built in the judicial realm. Should I recommend the wrong man, I will suffer from my irresponsibility. Courts of law aren’t made for judges; they are meant to keep their doors open for citizens who come to file their complaints and expect fair judgment.” What about logistics in the Ukrainian judicial sphere? Do our judges have enough computers and other technologies? “The government’s attitude to the judicial authorities dates back to the Soviet period, with the courts more often than not being allotted some kinds of barracks, premises absolutely unfit for judicial proceedings. Regrettably, the situation hasn’t changed much since then. Our courts of law remain in a very complicated situation, in terms of equipment and material supplies, although the law currently in effect sets a high technology standard for courtrooms and judges, notably with record-processing software. The latter could considerably lower the level of corruption. As it is, current legislation is getting way ahead of the actual capacities. Whereas this law is in effect, none of the judges have access to such technologies, with some of the judges being reduced to living in barracks… We’re getting none of the budget appropriations that we should. People who want justice come to us, but when they see a pigsty instead of a modern-equipped prosecutor’s office, they figure out the worth of our justice and what the court ruling will read. I believe that this judicial reform will also help solve these problems, considering that it is being implemented in conjunction with other reforms, including the economic, as laid down in the action program of the current president.” By Vitalii KNIAZHANSKY, The Day
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To achieve these goals they introduced a 12- to 16-hour working day without days off, with extremely high rates of mandatory output, awful food and the absence of any medical services. In addition to this there were mosquitoes and other blood-sucking insects there, as well as an exhausting summer heat and devastating winter frost. In such conditions, 30 prisoners died every day in “Maldyak” alone, despite the “Welcome!” sign above the iron gate to the camp zone. In his five months there, Korolev paid the following price: he lost fourteen teeth, his jaw was broken, he received a deep scar on his head and suffered from progressing scurvy and pellagra… Korolev almost died several times during those months, in particular, when he hit a foreman because the latter had pushed a sickly old man with his wheelbarrow from a high overpass. Instead of killing Korolev for his reckless act, the foreman, impressed by his strong character, took care of the man. The winter of 1939 could have been the last for an exhausted Korolev if he hadn’t been included in a list of 150 developers of technical equipment for the Tupolev Construction Department, chosen according to Stalin’s personal orders from different GULAG concentration camps and brought to Moscow for future construction work. The war was approaching and Stalin realized that he would need not just the latest planes, but rockets as well. Somewhere, in the depths of space was Korolev’s lucky star: for some reason the documents for the former “Maldyak” prisoner were delayed in Magadan and Korolev didn’t manage to get on the motor ship “Indigirka” that left for Vladivostok from Nagaev Bay on December 13, 1939. During a storm in the La Perouse Strait the ship strayed from its course, hit underwater rocks and got stuck near the Japanese island of Hokkaido. The water rushed into the broken holds, but the head of the prisoners’ convoy ordered not to open the hatches and in a couple of minutes the floating prison “Indigirka” turned into a mass grave for all its 1,064 prisoners. “Maldyak” prisoner Sergei Korolev was supposed to be the 1,065th in this list of the dead… Later, recalling “Maldyak” as one of the “death factories” of the remote Kolyma, the chief designer wrote the following: “Our main principle is protecting people. Let God give us the strength and ability to always do it…” I took the occasion to ask the former director of the gold mine, and present director of the gold-mining cooperative “Maldyak” Vasily Ridozubov, a few questions: Is there any thing that survived from the time when Sergei Korolev served here its term? “Only the frost, the sky and the earth… The thing is that at the place of the former village of Maldyak (the prisoners’ barracks, houses, utility premises, etc.) a goldfield was found and the village was demolished. Everything you can see is the rest of the buildings from the 1950s and 1960s. Previously, our village numbered about 2,000 people, we had a whole infrastructure, including a post office, a branch of a savings bank, a consumer services center, a club, a boiler house, a kindergarten and a ten-year secondary school… However, the deposits of gold were steadily exhausted and our village slowly depopulated, too. Now there are only two gold-mining cooperatives operating here: ours numbers 120 people, and the other one has 90 people.” Could you please share some statistics concerning the gold? “The gold mine ‘Maldyak’ was opened in 1937, and 120 tons of gold have been extracted since then. In Korolev’s time
Photo by the author
PROFESSOR NATALIA KOROLEVA, THE DAUGHTER OF THE FORMER INMATE OF THE KOLYMA, ACADEMICIAN SERGEI KOROLEV. A PHOTO FROM THE CHAPTER “STALIN’S KOLYMA,” MYKOLA KHRIIENKO’S PROJECT “UKRAINIANS BEYOND THE URALS”
The “Maldyak” in Korolev’s life they sometimes produced up to 40 kilos of gold a day, and now the two cooperatives, with modern equipment, produce 1.5 to 2 kilos a day. We work 12 hours a day. In winter we have two-month vacations. We earn 20 to 35 thousand rubles a month. (5,500 to 9,500 hryvians. – Author). Our cooperative’s plan for 2004 [the year this interview was conducted – Ed.] was 220 kilos. We have already produced 416 kilos for today, October 12. One gram of gold costs 380.9 rubles. That’s what we have. By the way, in 1991 Sergei Korolev’s daughter Natalia Koroleva came to Maldyak. She lives in Moscow: she’s a professor, Ph.D. in medicine… Then we went up to the hill where in 1939 the prisoners spent their nights in tarpaulin tents despite temperatures of 50 degrees below zero. Natalia Koroleva took a handful of soil from that place for the museum in Moscow. We’ll make an excursion for you as well…” The rests of the abandoned village remind one of an open-air museum. The empty houses had red slogans like “Workers of Maldyak! Increase the strength of our Motherland by your intensive work!” or “Kolyma is the currency department of the country!” written on them. We also walked along the so-called Gagarin path. The prisoners condemned to death were taken from their barracks and brought to the ravine, where the colonel Gagarin, head of the Northeast Labor Camps Direction, would personally shoot them. The author of the famous book Kolyma Stories, a former prisoner of Stalin’s concentration camps Varlam Shalamov wrote: “I saw Gagarin nearly fifty times. He was about forty-five, broad-shouldered, potbellied, with big dark eyes; he raced on the northern goldfields day and night in his black car ZIS-110.
Gagarin was the head of the trio that shot the prisoners. He read the orders day and night and put the closing formula: “The order was executed, the head of the Northeast Labor Camps Direction, the Colonel Gagarin.” Shooting the prisoners personally, Colonel Gagarin boasted that he also increased the strength of the Motherland by his “intensive work,” “ridding it of public enemies…” “In 1993, if I’m not mistaken,” said Ridozubov during our excursion, “we were working on a new goldfield and found a prisoners’ grave at a depth of five meters next to the first source. There were about 20 people there. Their clothes and even their features were well preserved as they were in the permafrost. They had been shot. It was a trace of the Colonel Gagarin. We buried those people at our cemetery and erected a monument on their grave with the sign ‘To Kolyma prisoners.’” We visited that mass grave and I thought, standing next to it: “Maybe the world-known mathematician, the scholar Mykhailo Kravchuk, whose students were the general constructor of rocket and space systems Sergei Korolev and the author of the first domestic turbojet engine, the scholar Arkhyp Liulka, is among these prisoners. Mykhailo Kravchuk was arrested on February 28, 1938, in Kyiv, charged with supporting ‘fascist hirelings,’ and sentenced to 20 years of imprisonment and five years of voting rights deprivation. Here, in Maldyak, where the Evens once harvested wood, the member of the French, German and Italian Mathematical societies Kravchuk had to hack through half a ton of gold ore every day in an underground mine. It was then the required rate per prisoner, but none of them could hold out for long…”
Having finished my research in the Chukchi Peninsula at Cape Dezhnev I was coming back to Kyiv via Moscow. I called Natalia Koroleva, and when she heard that I had just came form “Maldyak,” she readily invited me to visit her. I gave her the presents from Kolyma, from Vasyl Ridozubov: a bottle of expensive cognac, a box of chocolates and a mug with two yellow sunflowers on the white enamel. The modern “Maldyak” miners drink their strong tea from such mugs. Later, in Kyiv, I gave her my best photographs from Kolyma. During our first meeting in Moscow, after a long conversation and tea drinking from the Kolyma mugs, Koroleva gave me a tour of the Sergei Korolev Museum and wrote an entry dedicated to Ukrainians in a special notebook: “The history of our family is closely related to Ukraine. Starting from the 17th century, several generations of our ancestors lived in the town of Nizhyn in Chernihiv district. My father, born in Zhytomyr on January 12, 1907, spent his childhood in the house of his grandparents Moskalenkos. His grandfather Mykola Moskalenko was a merchant and his grandmother became famous for growing, pickling and selling the famed Nizhyn cornichons… “In August 1914, the grandparents of the future chief designer of rocket and space systems left Nizhyn and moved to Kyiv, bringing their grandson Sergei with them. “My parents Sergei Korolev and Ksenia Vinzentini studied at the professional building school in Odesa, then my father spent two years studying at the Kyiv Polytechnic Institute, and my mom studied at the Kharkiv Medical Institute. Both of them loved Crimea. My father went paragliding in Koktebel when he moved to Moscow from Kyiv and became a student of the high technical school. “Later, when he lived in Moscow, Sergei Korolev several times visited Kharkiv, the Donbas and the Crimea, and came to Kyiv in the last years of his life. He always loved Ukraine. He liked the melodic Ukrainian language and sincere Ukrainian songs. My father always remembered that part of his life which he lived there fondly. There he made his first steps and flew his first kilometers in the sky, his first love was born there, and there he decided on his future way to Space… “All of our family, my children and grandchildren love Ukraine and the people living there. Everything there is close to us. I have a special attitude to Ukraine. On the one hand, the life of all our family is linked to it and, probably, I hear the voice of my blood. On the other hand, this land deserves the love of everyone who has ever visited it, regardless of their origin. That is why every visit to Ukraine is a holiday for me… “I believe that despite all the artificial borders, Russians and Ukrainians have always been together and, I think, will always be. “I’d like to wish my compatriots health, happiness and peace.” The daughter of the scholar Sergei KOROLEV, State Prize winner, Ph.D. in medicine, professor surgeon, Natalia KOROLEVA Moscow, February 8, 2005 The dramatic history of one person is the tragedy of a whole country, the history of maimed destinies and destroyed lives. Certainly, the intelligent Russian and Ukrainian people will always be together, as Natalia Koroleva wrote. However, unfortunately, they are still separated by the terrible phenomenon of “Stalinism” that tried to mercilessly destroy a person who, undoubtedly, was the pride of both nations. By Mykola KHRIIENKO, special to The Day
INITIATIVE
Scythian “history park” By Mykola SEMENA SIMFEROPOL – On March 29 the Crimean Council of Ministers approved the project of the historical and archeological preserve “Scythian Neapolis.” In the opinion of Serhii Tur, the head of the Crimean Republican Committee for Cultural Heritage Protection, its creation will improve the usage of the peninsula’s archeological heritage and will encourage the development of tourism.
Simferopol has long been looking for a symbol. Thus, the Scythian Neapolis (New City in Greek), one of the Scythian ruler’s fortresses in the Crimea, the capital of the late Scythian state of the 3rd century BC-3rd century AD, can now become this symbol. As Tur told The Day, the project of the archeological preserve “Scythian Neapolis. Return from Oblivion” presupposes creating a “history park” on the basis of the remaining Scythian buildings. “A history park is a system of function-
A project for a further archeological preserve in the Crimea has been elaborated ing objects with models of loopholes and cranes. The time of a scholastic presentation of old objects has passed. Now Europe dares to experiment. The monument should be filled with living history. No one prevents us from using models of battering rams and cranes,” Tur says. Unfortunately, this object has a rather sad history. Though there were many studies at this site, all excavated plots of ancient settlement were filled up again for preservation because of lack of money to take proper care of the ruins. In 1989-93 Photo by Leniara ABIBULAIEVA
THE REMAINS OF THE SCYTHIAN FORTRESS, WHICH HAVE BEEN PRESERVED IN THE SCYTHIAN NEAPOLIS
there was an attempt to turn the Scythian Neapolis into a museum, but this project never came to be. “The Scythian Neapolis is interesting as an archeological object because the remnants of the ruler Argot’s mausoleum were preserved on its territory; in 1999 a broken eight-line inscription was found, which today is the only inscription on a tomb of an ancient Scythian chieftain in the northern Black Sea region,” said Yurii Zaitsev, senior researcher at the Crimean branch of the Archeology Institute. “The inscription in Greek, in verse form, states that this is the tomb of glorious Argot, powerful ruler of Scythia, rich in horse pastures. Thus, we can name the first ‘Simferopol resident,’ and head of the Neapolis. He died in the 2nd century BC.” The project documentation for setting out the territory and the monument’s protection zones is ready. The Simferopol city council agreed to allot 30.5 hectares of land, together with the protected area. The object itself received 14.5 hectares. Over three million hryvnias were allotted from the national budget, including 500,000 hryvnias for the project documentation. Besides, 2.6 million hryvnias were allotted for the restoration of the Academician Pallas’ House, where the administrative building of the preserve will be located. Some 310,000 hryvnias more went for archeological works on the territory of the preserve. Renewing and restoring the Scythian Neapolis will not only give the city of Simferopol a symbol that will attract tourists, but will also enrich its historical narrative.
Tracks in the Red Book Ecologists from Dnipropetrovsk demand that motor races through Samara Forest be banned By Vadym RYZHKOV, The Day DNIPROPETROVSK — Ukraine’s southernmost natural forest massif, which is more than 10,000 years old, recently became the favorite venue for ATV racing amateurs. Each year they hold their rallies there, with around 100 vehicles taking part in the event. After a 10-hour crosscountry race through the forests along the River Samara, they leave upturned turf, trampled underbrush, and felled trees. Ecologists and residents of the two affected rural raions have long been complaining to the authorities, to no avail. “According to the president’s decree of 2005, the territory of Samara Forest has been reserved for a national park,” Vadym Maniuk, associate professor, physical geography department at the Dnipropetrovsk National University, told a press conference. “A strict admittance regime is currently enforced, along with strict requirements for visitors. Moreover, a part of the territory is already a nature reserve. Yet it doesn’t stop them from holding ATV races, which harm nature.” According to the scholar, Samara Forest is the top priority constituent of the Program of Formation and Development of the National Environmental Network in Dnipropetrovsk oblast. It is home to numerous endangered species of plants and animals. The Samara Forest complex is a true ornithological paradise. Virtually all year round, in the rushes and shallow waters, one can hear sandpipers, wild ducks, cranes, swans, and herons calling. Such endangered species as the Eastern Imperial Eagle and the Whitetailed Eagle also live here. No less unique is the landscape of the Samara valley, with its picturesque lakes and dry riverbeds, sphagnum swamps, water meadows, salt marshes, and sandy dunes. Yet this is exactly what lures cross country motor race enthusiasts and amateurs of extreme sports. “Proceeding from the premises that motor races in a nature reserve are an explicit violation of law, we have appealed to the masterminds of the contest with the demand that the rally be canceled, but all in vain,” says Maniuk. “The Dnipropetrovsk
oblast attorney’s office replied that the case was not in their jurisdiction, and is the direct responsibility of the raion attorney’s office. The oblast ecological administration hasn’t done anything either. Each year, ATV races cause irreparable damage to the plant and animal worlds of Samara Forest. The roaring engines drive birds away from their nests, the wheels destroy soil, crush primroses, contestants tie age-old oak trees with towlines. Someone must put and end to all this lawlessness someday.” Olena Voloshchenko, biology teacher from the village of Vasylkivka, shares the scholar’s view. “It’s the fifth time that the race has been held in our forests, and they are getting larger and larger with each year,” she relates. “Consequently, the damage to nature is also growing.” Obviously, foresters should stop these races in Samara Forest, but the locals suspect that it is actually the other way round. Young environment enthusiasts tried to stop the vehicles, but the “racers” just drove around them. Moreover, the local government and police officers openly enjoy watching ATV races. “Now birds are flying back from the south to Samara Forest,” says the teacher. “What a beautiful sight it is, and the sound of cranes crying overhead! The birds are starting their mating season, but their nesting places are shaken by roaring engines, smothered in clouds of exhaust fumes, and these picturesque spots are turning into a mess.” Samara Forest still has hundreds of old trees whose age exceeds 300 years. Ecologists maintain that the unique properties of this area were well known to our ancestors. In the past, Samara Forest was the main source of timber for the Zaporizhian Sich. Local wood was used to build Cossack huts, boats, and churches. The dense forest hid the Samara St. Nicholas Hermitage Monastery. The Samara valley was called “Holy Palestine” by Cossacks for its fertility and primordial beauty. “If we fail to preserve this piece of Ukraine’s nature, very soon we will have nothing to show our children, and our descendants will only have pictures in the Red Book [Ukraine’s list of endangered species. – Ed.] to look at,” said Voloshchenko.
TRADITIONS
Easter breads, eggs, and installations By Pavlo MATKOVSKY fair-township will emerge on Kyiv’s Cathedral Square. From April 21 to May 2, the National Kyivan Cave Historical-Cultural Preserve will host a charitable Eastertide fair called Easter Day Basket. The festivities are being organized by the preserve and the Synodal Information and Education Department of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church. The event is chiefly aimed at popularizing the traditions of Christ’s Resurrection celebration and making a nationwide fund-raising effort to save the children in bad need of expensive surgery. The fair will be set up on Cathedral Square in front of the Assumption Cathedral. It will be composed of little wooden houses in which one will be able to buy Easter-related items. However, according to the organizers of this,
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second in number, charitable fair, Easter Day Basket is supposed, first of all, to inform all those who will be visiting the Lavra about the importance of Easter and to conduct educational work among both believers and non-believers. The star attraction of the Easter Day Basket fair will be baking a huge, almost 2 meters high, paska (Easter bread) weighing about 500 kilograms. The paska will be made by the best bakers of the private company Live Bread Bakery. When the Easter bread is ready, it will be blessed by His Beatitude Volodymyr, Metropolitan of Kyiv and All Ukraine. The fair’s program will also include master classes in Easter egg dyeing and planting the Easter Day Tree. All those who wish to do so will be able to feast their eyes on an inimitable Easter egg installation displayed by the Kyiv-based Tetiana Myronova Gallery.
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Vasyl SHKLIAR: We know less about the 1920s than about Kyivan Rus’ Photo by Kostiantyn HRYSHYN, The Day
By Maria TOMAK, Nadia TYSIACHNA, The Day, Oleh KOTSAREV
Working on your novel Black Raven you researched the events of the 1920s. Why do you think the Ukrainian National Republic was defeated? “There were many reasons for this. At that time the Ukrainian nation had just woken up from its lethargy and wasn’t ready to fight a dangerous enemy. Besides, Ukrainians didn’t have any reliable allies, just as now. The leaders appeared ‘on the run,’ showing weakness at crucial moments and making irreparable mistakes. The top was contaminated with socialist ideas and wholeheartedly believed in Russian democracy. There’s an indicative fact: at the end of August 1919 the Ukrainian army occupied Kyiv and hung the blue and yellow flag above the municipal council. When Denikin’s army advanced from the left bank, there was an absolutely criminal order, probably given by Petliura: not to shoot and start negotiations. Their hope to come to an agreement with Denikin’s army and to jointly fight against the Bolsheviks was vain, as the Russians, White or Red, regarded Ukraine as their colony. Finally, Denikin’s army disarmed the Ukrainians, robbed them, and our army ingloriously retreated. In my opinion, it was one of the fatal mistakes made by the Ukrainian leaders, and there were many. The Ukrainian army was more courageous and decisive than its chiefs. At the beginning of 1920 our army entered the ‘death triangle.’ Petliura relieved the army of its oath and allowed them to do what they wanted: to go home or abroad. However, this army, barefoot, starved and almost disarmed, headed by Mykhailo Pavlenko, decided to go on a partisan raid in the First Winter Campaign that would last from December till May. Meanwhile, Petliura went to Warsaw. Petliura’s army turned out to be more decisive than Petliura himself.” It looks like these mistakes are being repeated. Can you draw any analogies between the 1920s and today’s situation? “This is a complicated question. In similar situations I say unpopular things and I turn out to be guilty. For example, I was blamed for the promotion of separatist ideas. In fact, they took separate phrases out of the context. At the beginning of the 1990s I was the spokesman of the Ukrainian Republican Party. Then I said: If Ukrainians want to build an ethnic state, not to have problems with the occupation of the media and cultural space, and avoid the threats to the native language, it’s possible to create such a state in Dnipro Ukraine, Halychyna, Volyn and Slobozhanshchyna [around present-day Kharkhiv oblast. — Ed.]. If we want a state with a political nation, we’ll manage to build it in many decades, and if we get back to this in 20 years, we’ll see that we haven’t done a single step. That’s what I said then. It turned to be a bitter prediction, the truth, as it’s extremely difficult to restore national justice within the present Ukrainian borders and our rachitic democracy. The wise fathers of Ukrainian nationalism saw this threat. In particular, Mykola Mikhnovsky said: ‘a nation that won’t liberate itself before democracy comes, doesn’t have any chances.’ Now we feel his wise words on our own backs. “As for the analogies with the 1920s, I see them in the fact that Ukraine is separated, it’s still divided into Ukrainians, Malorussians
and Khokhols [ethnic slur mocking Ukrainian Cossacks. – Ed.], and not into the west and the east. That is why we can’t chose the leaders we would need now. The nation is very weak, it’s crushed, genetically-modified, and it has a corresponding leadership. That is why now we are so often humiliated and dishonored.” Our present government’s policy is rather pro-Russian. However, it seems that Ukrainians are moving faster in this direction than even the leadership. Those who transformed from Khokhols into Ukrainians under Yushchenko, are now moving back. There are many warning signs: nationalism has become a dirty word, and the local inhabitants hardly commemorate the heroes of Kholodny Yar republic. Are we still dealing with some mutated form of the Soviet Union? “By the way, you use the banned word ‘khokhol,’ just as I do… I’m accused of xenophobia, in particular for using in my novel the words ‘katsap,’ ‘moskal,’ ‘yid,’ and ‘khokhol.’ I found out that these words were banned in 1929 by the Popular Education Commissariat, whose modern analog is Tabachnyk’s ministry.” “Modern Ukrainians are still afraid of the word ‘nationalism.’ We understand the word ‘nationalist’ as meaning ‘extremist’ or even worse. Regarding our criteria of nationalism, all European countries are nationalist. Sarkozy is a nationalist, Merkel is a nationalist, too, as she says things that the Ukrainian president would never say, like: every person in Germany that doesn’t speak the German language is undesirable for us. In our country her words would be classified as nationalism, or even fascism. The Ukrainians are afraid of this word and the corresponding thinking. The process of recalling basic things is very slow. “You mentioned the people living in Kholodny Yar. I can say that, first of all, not all of them are the rebels’ descendants, as the direct relatives of the fighters were repressed or killed.
In the often disingenuous Ukrainian media space people who stick to their positions and systematically defend them are almost heroes. Some even call them radicals. Vasyl SHKLIAR is one of those “radicals.” He gives off an “unformatted” impression, earnest to the point of rudeness, and prides himself in “calling things by their proper names.” This is probably because
he spent most of the last 20 years browsing through archives, traveling to Kholodny Yar, communicating with the witnesses of the time, and writing his novel Black Raven, whose characters are versatile and “unformatted,” too. Those “things called by their proper names” provoked a symptomatic explosive reaction in the Ukrainian media space (though they are
almost a hundred years old) and an evident nervousness among certain groups of people. But there was also a positive social reaction, with tons of letters from eastern Ukraine, a three-hour queue for the author’s autographs next to the Kyiv bookshop Ye, and a whole “maidan” of Vasyl Shkliar’s admirers near Ivan Franko National University in Lviv. Meanwhile, Ukrainians have only
started recalling the events in Kholodny Yar of the 1920s. Actually, Black Raven is the first fiction novel about them. It may encourage a lot of people to start learning about early 20th-century Ukrainian history and all the inaccuracies and irreparable mistakes tied to it. To learn more about the book and those events The Day presents an interview with the author of Black Raven.
Those who survived were the heads of village councils, members of poor peasants committees, various activists and their descendants, correspondingly. When we organized the first commemorative soirees for Kholodny Yars atamans, they were attended by six to eight people maximum and they were very cautious. When we hold the similar events now, they attract many more locals. I believe that the revival process is irreversible, but it progresses very slowly.” Obviously, literature should play a significant role in this process. Your novel is the first fiction book about the dramatic events in Kholodny Yar. There are not many documentaries either. This may mean that we do not fully understand the 1920s. Do you think Ukrainian literature played its proper role over the last 20 years? “Our literature is only approaching historical topics. When Ukraine gained independence, many writers just got lost, as they were used to writing within certain limits. Freedom was a serious challenge for them, and they weren’t ready to accept it. Many simply had a breakdown; others started working far from historical topics. I think that another reason is that the genre of historical novel is very complicated. Writers, especially Ukrainian writers, often have to move by touch. The historical novel requires that the writer be aware of more than just the chronicle of those events, the writer has to know a lot of details, even about women’s underwear in those
“They thank me for having opened their eyes and changing their ideas. By the way, they write in Russian. They send money for the filming of the novel. By the way, the first money for the film came from Alchevsk. Recently, a man from Novosibirsk sent 8,000 rubles, saying that he ‘originates from the Donbas.’ “Probably, one of the merits of my novel is that I was the first to call the things by their proper names, without any hinting or euphemisms. Some writers understood that they have to either destroy Black Raven, or burn down everything they have written before.” Do you consider Black Raven your magnum opus because of its extreme honesty? “The thing is that I come from Kholodny Yar, so to say, from this territory of courage, as Zvenihorod ataman Ivan Liutenko-Liuty said. This courage has been living in our people, even though they were afraid of talking about it for a long time, and many people didn’t know anything about it. However, I remember when I was a little boy, the adults would say when playing cards: ‘Ace!,’ ‘Holy!’ (naked), ‘Bosy!’ (barefooted). They called the cards by the names of the atamans, as in Kholodny Yar these were Ace, Holy and Bosy. I could also hear from a distance an old man telling to another: do you remember Trokhym Holy coming to our village? He saw the telegraph wires on the poles, took out his revolver, bang-bang,
end. My novel is about those people. About those who remained faithful to their slogan ‘Freedom of Ukraine or death’ during a time of despair and incredible fatigue. They fought for their idea — that the longer they hold out in the woods, the more hope there will be that their goal will grow from their graves.” You worked a great deal in the archives. Did you manage to talk to anyone who could recall something else? “I went to Kholodny Yar several times a year. For example, I went to the village of Dementsi to search for traces of the master of Kholodny Yar’s Haidamaks regiment Prokip Ponomarenko. I heard that he died not long time ago, somewhere around 1996. I thought: I could have met this man and he could have told me so much! In the villages bordering to the village of Zhabotyn I found people who told me a dramatic story: after Kholodny Yar republic had been liquidated, he went to the region of Kryvy Rih. However, he was so homesick that he came back to Dementsi. He started living with a woman he loved when he was young, but they didn’t stay together as they were very different. On the other hand, he had two friends, his sworn brothers from those heroic times. The three Cossacks didn’t work in a kolkhoz a single day, they worked in the forestry or as guards. For some reason the Soviet government didn’t disturb them anymore. In the 1970s Prokip Ponomarenko committed suicide, as he couldn’t integrate into the society. I was told a moving story: the two friends sat down with dead Prokip, hugged him and started singing. “I heard a lot of similar stories. Certainly, not all of them are in Black Raven but all of them gave the novel its spirit. Starting a novel, one should know well the details of the time, much more than one writes. For example, when I wrote that the ataman was shooting a ‘Luis’ machinegun, I had to know the number of bullets it carried, its weight and other technical characteristics. I was so obstinate in my research that I was even offered to buy this rare machinegun. “I can tell you one more story. The head ataman of Kholodny Yar rebels Vasyl Chuchupak organized his headquarters in Motrona monastery. By the way, now it’s subordinated to the Moscow Patriarchate, just as in those times. So, I read in one of the sources that in Chuchupak’s room an American Underwood typewriter was heard and expensive cigarettes were smelled. Where could they have gotten expensive cigarettes in the woods? Of course, they raided Denikin’s army. It’s interesting that Camel and Marlboro were expensive brands at that time.” It looks like the novel influenced you a lot. You’ve even become more serious…
“I don’t think so. I’m just more tired than I was. My brother says nearly the same, that I still can’t leave the image of the Black Raven. I’m still fighting and making unexpected statements. Obviously, the novel influenced me. It took me a long time to get the feeling of my characters and it couldn’t have passed unnoticed.” You mentioned that one of the atamans of Kholodny Yar’s republic committed suicide. This is somehow connected to the discussion around Lina Kostenko, about the clash between the times and a person living in them. Obviously, we cannot embrace the methods used by the Kholodny Yar fighters. What do you think is the best form of resistance today? “It’s true that those methods are in the past. I discussed this with the famous soldier of the Ukrainian Insurgent Army Myroslav Symchych. ‘Father,’ said I, ‘aren’t we wasting our time? Maybe we should go to the woods?’ His reply was: ‘No!’ It’s clear that the world is absolutely different now, and the technical equipment is different as well. One helicopter can burn down the whole of Kholodny Yar. As for the methods of struggle, it’s a personal thing for everybody. “The Cossacks of that time had a strong motivation for revenge. Valentyn Symiantsiv, a member of the Black Cossacks third squadron [military formation of the Ukrainian Insurgent Army. – Ed.] told me an interesting story about the Cossack Tereshko. The Reds killed all his family, and in those times families were large. By the way, they killed his baby brother with a bayonet in his cradle. Later, when Tereshko killed an enemy he put a mark on his butt. Ladym, one of Black Raven characters embroidered crosses on his hat corresponding to the number of enemies he killed. Those guys didn’t fear death. They only feared to die without accomplishing their plan, to make their enemies pay in full. A comparison with the samurai inevitably comes to mind: when Japan lost they said that they were fighting a personal war. “Everyone has to fight their own war! According to their possibilities, profession, vocation, conscience, and, finally, conceit. I did it with my novel. I made a statement demanding to fire the minister of education because Black Raven drew the attention of not only my supporters, but of my enemies, too. When you’re in the center of attention you should say your decisive word, as there’s a chance to be heard.” In one of the interviews you said that you had received a comment from the producer of the Russian Channel 5 (St. Petersburg). It’s quite significant. Did you get any comments from Ukrainian media workers? And how would you asses the reaction of the Ukrainian media space to your novel? “I got very many positive comments from Ukrainian media workers. I have a lot of admirers among television journalists, especially in the Channel 5 and TVi. When I recall the channels that have the most of my supporters, the opposition media comes to mind. However, they are not alone: in fact, I have my grateful readers in all the channels, which is clear from their programs.” How’s the film going? By the way, why did you choose a foreign director? “When we created the committee to raise money for the film, I said during a press conference that I wanted to have a Ukrainian director. We organized a creative competition, a certain non-governmental tender. To be honest, there were a lot of applicants, mostly with experience in making short and documentary films at the end of the 1980s and beginning of the 1990s… Domestic cinema has degraded so much that it’s very difficult to choose. I addressed the young film directors. I thought: let it be someone unknown who would only get enthusiastic about this idea and want to make the film of his life, just as I did! I haven’t found such person so far. That is why I thought about Hoffman. My friends, the Polish writers Marek Wawrzkievicz and Ryszard Ulicki were in Kyiv. I told them about my idea and they discussed it with Hoffman. He became interested in this offer, but they needed a scenario. I wasn’t ready for this.
“Everyone has to fight their own war! According to their possibilities, profession, vocation, conscience, and, finally, conceit. I did it with my novel. I made a statement demanding to fire the minister of education because Black Raven drew the attention of not only my supporters, but of my enemies, too. When you’re in the center of attention you should say your decisive word, as there’s a chance to be heard.” times. Even if I don’t write about it, it has to be in my imagination. “Ukrainian writers took up historical topics, but their works weren’t resonant. Roman Koval wrote a solid documentary about Kholodny Yar. He consulted me when I was writing Black Raven and he edited the novel. Those documentaries influenced society, but not as much as they could have. “Probably, it will sound immodest, but Black Raven is the first novel that drew a wide response even before I was attacked. I think that Black Raven was unexpected even for many Ukrainian writers. It’s paradoxical that despite the fact that this novel has become a bestseller long ago and is read from the Crimea to Uzhhorod, nobody has written a serious review. Meanwhile, I get tons of letters from Donetsk, Berdiansk, Kirovohrad, Odesa, I mean, from the east and the south…” What do the people write?
and the wires hung. I recalled similar details. Even when the people called the rebels bandits, it stirred up my imagination. Later I read Horlis-Horsky’s book Kholodny Yar, which impressed me a lot. HorlisHorsky’s story finished in the spring of 1921, it was still the romantic period of our struggle, when hope for freedom remained, when the peasants supported partisans’ courage, gave them horses and food, and what was essential, their sons. Later hard times came. The New Economic Policy was introduced, the peasants started growing rich and said: ‘Guys, stop wandering in the woods! Come back! Get to work! We can live!’ Then some received amnesty, others used fake documents, notably those of dead Red Army soldiers, and went to the Donbas or somewhere else. Others managed to go abroad. However, there was a band of the most persistent that fought against the occupants till the
Photo from the website ISTPRAVDA.COM.UA
KHOLODNY YAR’S REBELS, 1922
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hough it may be hard to believe, Kyiv opera artists performed in Lviv for the last time in 1940, with a great and versatile repertoire. The tour started on March 26, 1940, with the patriotic production Ivan Susanin (the primary title of this work is Living in the Tsar’s Time; it tells about the Polish nobility’s campaign against Muscovy), followed by the then classical Ukrainian operas, specifically Natalka Poltavka by Mykola Lysenko, and ended with the opera Shevchenko by the contemporary Volodymyr Yorysh (Poet’s Destiny, 1940), based on the plot of the Sava Holovanovsky’s play. Galicians also saw such operas as The Queen of Spades by Pyotr Tchaikovsky, Madama Butterfly by Giacomo Puccini, as well as the propaganda play During a Storm with quite interesting music by Tikhon Khrennikov (the opera tells about establishing Bolshevik power in villages and how peasant petitioners Frol and Andrii went to the Moscow Kremlin on foot, seeking truth). The Kyiv theater also showed its ballets, the classical Swan Lake by Tchaikovsky and the heroic production Laurencia (the music was composed by the Soviet composer Aleksandr Krein in 1939, the ballet uses the plot of Lope de Vega’s play Fuenteovejuna, depicting the struggle of Spanish peasants against feudal lords). The theater’s archives keep reviews from that tour, which say that it was an immense success and symbolized fraternal unity of east and west. The tour can also be called a propaganda action of the then Soviet government, because we should keep in mind the fact that repressions already started at the time, and not all Galicians met “Red occupants” with flowers. What has been keeping the Kyiv Theater from going on a tour to Lviv for so long, though the company has performed in other corners of the world? Didn’t they receive any invitations? Did they have any other priorities? “Our singers, dancers, and musicians have taken part in concerts and productions of the Lviv Opera House as premieres, but it will be indeed for the first time in seven decades that the entire company of our theater will go there,” head of the information-publishing agency of the National Opera Vasyl Turkevych told The Day. “In Soviet times and at the beginning of independence theaters had other priorities. For us and our fellow artists from Lviv it was important to present Ukrainian art abroad. Incidentally, they have had fullfledged tours only twice in the capital (in 1993 there was a grand tour, when the Leopolitans staged the opera Moses by Myroslav Skoryk, marking the 100th anniversary of their theater; the premiere took place during Pope John Paul II’s visit to Ukraine). It should be admitted that there were technical problems for a long time. Before the reconstruction works, the Lviv Opera House had a small stage, which had too little space for our theater’s decorations. Today, after the revamp, the stage has been reconstructed and enlarged, so there is enough room for our monumental decorations to Norma and Lord of Borysfen. For our theater this tour will be a creative exam before the refined Lviv audience.” On April 8 the Kyiv theater will show its latest premiere, the ballet Lord of Borysfen by Yevhen Stankovych. The play will
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Western breakthrough EVENTS The National Opera House of Ukraine tours in Lviv for the first time in 71 years Photo by Ruslan KANIUKA, The Day
LVIV’S MUSIC BUFFS WHO COME TO SEE NORMA WILL APPRECIATE THE MAGNIFICENT BASS OF SERHII MAHERA AND HIS DRAMATIC PART AS THE CHIEF OF THE DRUIDS OROVESO
bring the audience back to the 5th century AD and tell about Prince Kyi, one of the founders of Kyiv. The libretto was written by Anatolii Tolstoukhov, Volodymyr Zubanov, and Vasyl Turkevych. The choreographer is Viktor Yaremenko, the conductor Oleksii Baklan, production designers are Oleksii Chebykin and Oleksandr Tzuhorka, and the main parts are performed by Olena Filipieva (Zoreslava), Kateryna Kukhar (Oktavia), Yan Vania (Kyi), Maksym Motkov (Irnek) et al. On April 9 the Lviv audience will see the masterly lyrical tragedy Norma by Vincenzo Bellini. The opera appeared on the bills of the National Opera House in De-
cember 2007, and this year the production won the Shevchenko Prize (director: Anatolii Solovianenko; conductor: Mykola Diadiura; Serhii Mahera plays Oroveso and Oksana Kramarieva plays Norma). The production shows the cruel time when the Gauls were conquered by the Roman Republic. Passions — love, treachery, revenge, insight, sacrifice — are whirling in this opera, and the lyrical scenes intertwine with patriotic motives. The role of seeress Norma will be performed by the young talented singer Viktoria Chenska (the Shevchenko Prize winner Kramarieva is on maternity leave), whereas Serhii Mahera will play the chief of the Druids, Oroveso.
Lviv music lovers will appreciate his splendid bass and the dramatic part he plays. The performance will also include the soloists Oleksandr Hurets (Pollione), Natalia Nykolaishyn (Adalgisa), Oleksandr Diachenko (Flavio) and Tetiana Kharuzova (Clotilde) et al. Norma’s cavatina, called by music experts “an exemplar of melodiousness and classics of bel canto” (the maestro Bellini rewrote it eight times, and created a real masterpiece in the end), makes the opera particularly worth listening to. The organizers of the tour of the National Opera say that these performances will become a creative breakthrough and a bridge between Kyiv and Lviv.
By Iryna HORDIICHUK, special to The Day
with me, and started to play in a manner typical of her. It was sharp, grotesque, and interesting. But it was not the way I saw the role. And I have a theory. If you understand that the actor is more talented than you, you should convince him that the director is cleverer. If you see that the actor is cleverer, you need to convince him that you’re more talented. I made Gurchenko understand that a director is more knowledgeable about the film than the actor. I said, ‘Wonderful! Inconceivable! But if I was shooting in France I would have invited Anouk Aimee.’ ‘I see,’ Liusia replied, ‘I will stay in the focus and keep silence.’ During the shooting I could come up to her and say, for example, ‘Raise your hand, wipe your nose,’ and she performed everything in a most obedient manner. It is not important for great actors from where the hint comes, their own observations, or someone else’s, they don’t care. “We did not see each other often. There might have been 10 meetings or so. But this never spoiled the very warm attitude to each other that we had. When I saw her, I would approach her from the back and kiss in the back of her head. Liusia would say without turning her head, ‘This must be Balaian.’”
R.I.P.
Applauding Liusia I The unique Liudmila Gurchenko died on March 30, 2011 Photo by Ruslan KANIUKA, The Day
NOVEMBER 2010 WAS THE LAST TIME THAT LIUDMILA GURCHENKO CAME TO KYIV. SHE PRESENTED THE MOTLEY TWILIGHT, HER DEBUT AS A FILM DIRECTOR. SHE COMPOSED THE MUSIC FOR THE FILM, PLAYED THE MAIN PART, AND SANG. THE ACTRESS THEN SAID, “I WILL DIE ON STAGE, OR APPROACHING THE STAGE”
n November 2010 Liudmila Gurchenko, a brilliant, universal performer, admired by the audience, marked her 75th birthday. However, as her friends aptly admitted, “Liusia will always remain 28 years old.” Gurchenko tried to look accordingly: she was slim, even fragile, and as always elegant and full of energy. Unlike some of her colleagues, she did not lose her head during the crisis, and continued to work in theater, record CDs, and improve the scripts she came up with long ago. She also made her debut as a director: she shot the film The Motley Twilight, where she performed the leading role, wrote the script, and composed the soundtrack. The artistic career of Kharkiv-born Gurchenko started in 1956 with her debut in Yan Frid’s film Road of Truth. The same year Eldar Ryazanov, a young film director then, offered her a part in a musical comedy Carnival Night, which brought fame to the formerly poor young student. This was followed by years of oblivion and despair, until Gurchenko was offered the role of a plant director in Old Walls. On the whole, the actress’s filmography includes nearly 100 cinema roles. The best known and admired by the audience are such films as 20 Days without War, Five Evenings, Mechanic Gavrilov’s Beloved Woman, Station for Two, Love and Pigeons, The Straw Hat. Gurchenko’s character in her debut film Road of Truth says the following phrase: “I came here not to keep silence.” The statement was crucial for Gurchenko, who became a great Russian actress. Proof of this will be the applause, by which the audience traditionally bids adieu to its idols. Roman BALAIAN, film director, Kyiv: “I so much love and appreciate Liusia that I cannot understand what has happened. Last time we met was in November in Kyiv; we had supper, talked for some three hours, and laughed. What can I say? A truly great actress left us, and we all are widowers now. “I remember when I started to shoot the film Flying in Dreams and in Reality, the script writer Vitia Merezhko recommended Gurchenko for one of the roles. Liusia read the script, came for a meeting
Oleh FIALKO, film director, Kyiv: “I will tell you frankly, it is hard to speak about Liudmila Gurchenko, especially on days of mourning. She was a star, in the most direct sense of this word, not spoiled with banalities. When I decided to shoot the film Imitator, I offered Gurchenko a very small role in the film. To my surprise, she agreed. Moreover, before going to Kyiv from Moscow she said with admiration, on one of the TV shows on the Central channel (it was the USSR), how she liked the script and the prospect to work in Ukraine, her homeland. We thoroughly prepared for her arrival. We were attentive, but the shooting process can never be foreseen, so the great actress often had to sit and wait for several hours until she was called to play. But I have never heard any scandals or whims from Gurchenko. “She is unique. She belongs to the history of cinema. She is an entire epoch, a continent. The loss of such an actress is truly irremediable. I don’t know when anyone like her will be born. I don’t think it will happen soon.”
National Opera Theater ♦ Ivan Franko National Drama Theater ♦ Lesia Ukrainka National Russian Drama Theater ♦ Drama and Comedy Academic Theater on the Left Bank ♦ National Philharmonic Society of Ukraine ♦ National House of Organ and Chamber Music ♦ National Opera Theater ♦ Ivan Franko National Drama Theater ♦ Lesia Ukrainka National Russian Drama Theater
By Tetiana POLISHCHUK, The Day
Photo by Yevhen CHEKALIN
PREMIERE Drama and Comedy Academic Theater on the Left Bank April 9 FOUR REASONS FOR GETTING MARRIED (based on Richard Baer’s story)
SVITLANA ZOLOTKO AND OLEKSANDR HANNOCHENKO
April 6-12 Curtain at 7 p.m. unless otherwise noted
Theater National Opera of Ukraine (vul. Volodymyrska 50, tel. 279-1169) 6 – Eugene Onegin, opera by Tchaikovsky 7 – Giselle, ballet by Adam 8 – The Barber of Seville, opera by Rossini 9 – Carmen-Suite, ballet by BizetShchedrin; Scheherazade, ballet by Rimsky-Korsakov 10 – A Zaporozhian Cossack beyond the Danube, opera by Hulak-Artemovsky 12 – Zorba the Greek, ballet by Theodorakis Ivan Franko National Drama Theater (pl. Franka 3, tel. 279-5921) 6 – Premiere. Urus Shaitan by Afanasiev 7 – The Taming of the Shrew by Shakespeare 8 – Romeo and Juliet by Shakespeare 9 (at 4 p.m.) – The Old Lady Sits Waiting by Rozewicz 9 – Solo-Mia by Bilozub 10 – The Brothers Karamazov by Dostoevsky 12 – Edith Piaf. Life on Credit by Rybchynsky and Vasalatii Lesia Ukrainka National Russian Drama Theater (vul. Khmelnytskoho 5, tel. 234-4223) 6 – Don’t Dress for Dinner by Camoletti 7 – The Uncle’s Dream by Dostoevsky 8 – Cemetery Club by Menchell 8 (at 8 p.m.) – The Tower of Pisa by Ptushkina 9 (at noon), 11 (at 4 p.m.) – Back Yard Games by Mazia 9 (at 6 p.m.) – The Last Love by Mukhariamov 9 – No. 13 (Out of Order) by Cooney 9 (at 8 p.m.) – Edith Piaf: La Vie En Rose by Havryliuk 10 (at noon) – Run for Your Wife by Cooney 10 (at 6 p.m.) – A Real Man on the Threshold of the Millennium by Dorst and Eler 10 – A Profitable Position by Ostrovsky 10 (at 8 p.m.) – Romeo@Julia.com (Norway.Today) by Bauersima 11 – Don Quixote. 1938 by Bulgakov 12 – My Mocking Happiness by Maliugin Drama and Comedy Academic Theater on the Left Bank (Brovarsky prosp. 25, tel. 517-8980) 6 – Playing Chonkin by Voinovich 7 – Mein Kampf or Socks in the Coffee Pot by Tabori 8 – 26 Rooms by Chekhov 9 (at 3 p.m.) – Premiere. Four Reasons for Getting Married (based on Richard Baer’s story) 9 – The Dangerous Liaisons by Laclos 10 (at 3 p.m.) – Sea…Night… Candles… by Bar-Joseph 10 – Cyrano de Bergerac by Rostand 12 – Three Sisters by Chekhov
Music National Philharmonic Society of Ukraine (Volodymyrsky uzviz 2, tel. 278-1697) 6-8 – 21st International Festival “Music Premieres of the Season” 10 – Yulii Galperin’s soiree (France) 11 – Ukrainian vocal music concert 12 – Vocal music concert National House of Organ and Chamber Music of Ukraine (vul. Velyka Vasylkivska 75, tel. 528-3186) (Curtain at 7:30 p.m.)
6 – Liatoshynsky Classical Music Ensemble conducted by Ihor Andriievsky 7 – Valeria Balakhovska (organ), Oleksandr Hosachynsky (cello) 9 – Ivan Kucher (cello), Viktor Tymets (clarinet), Volodymyr Koshuba (organ) 11 – Natalia Hrebeniuk (soprano), Larysa Reutova (piano), Maksym Sydorenko (organ) 12 – Mykola Lysenko Quartet, Maria Lipinska (mezzo-soprano), Ihor Ishchak (countertenor), Kateryna Bazhenova (harpsichord)
Circus National Circus (pl. Peremohy 2, tel. 486-3856) April 6-May 15 – Circus on the Water Beginning on Fri. at 7 p.m., on Sat. and Sun. at 1 p.m. and 5 p.m.
Museums Kyiv Sophia National Museum (vul. Volodymyrska 24) 5-10 – Exhibit commemorating the 10th anniversary of Prykarpattia’s University April 5-May 5 – Anatolia during the epoch of Ala al-Din Kaykubad III Open 10 a.m.-5:30 p.m. National Museum of Science and Natural History (vul. Bohdana Khmelnytskoho 15) Open 10 a.m.-5 p.m.Closed Mon., Tues. National Art Museum (vul. Hrushevskoho 6) April 5-May 1 – Liubomyr Medvid (paintings) April 8-May 9 – Havrylo Pustoviit (1900-47) (graphics) Open 10 a.m.-6 p.m., on Fri. — noon8 p.m., on Sat. — 11 a.m.-7 p.m. Closed Mon., Tues. Museum of the Hetman State (vul. Spaska 16b) April 6-May 1 – Yehor and Mykyta Zihury (sculptures) Open 10 a.m.-5 p.m. Closed Fri. Lesia Ukrainka Literary and Memorial Museum (vul. Saksahanskoho 97) Open 10 a.m.-5 p.m. Closed Tues. Mykola Lysenko Memorial Museum (vul. Saksahanskoho 95) Open 10 a.m.-5 p.m. Closed Mon.
Galleries Bottega (vul. Mykhailivska 22b) 5-20 – Mykola Ridnii (paintings) Open 11 a.m.-8 p.m. Closed Sun., Mon. Yevhenia Hapchynska Gallery (vul. Mykhailivska 16, kv.1) Yevhenia Hapchynska’s standing art exhibit Open 10 a.m.-9 p.m., on Sat. and Sun. — noon-4 p.m. Nebo (vul. Drahomyrova 14) 5-25 – Andrii Petryk (paintings) Open noon-6 p.m. Closed Mon. Olena Zamostian Art Gallery (vul. Illinska 9) 5-19 – Oleksii Boldin (photos), Ihor Tsykuta (graphics) Open 11 a.m.-7 p.m. Closed Sun., Mon. Visual Culture Centre (NaUKMA, vul. Skovorody 2) 5-22 – Natalia Shulte (photos) (photo exhibit proceeds to be transferred to children’s homes in Odesa and Bilhorod-Dnistrovsky) Open 10 a.m.-6 p.m. Closed Sat., Sun.
WHAT’S HAPPENING Visual Culture Center
April 5-22
A GIRL WITH A HORSE
PHOTOS BY NATALIA SHULTE Photo courtesy of the Visual Culture Center
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Vasyl SHKLIAR: We know less about the 1920s than about Kyivan Rus’ Continued from page 6
VELYKA BASTYDA FARMSTEAD. OIL ON CANVAS
By Anna SLIESARIEVA Photo replicas provided by the Mykhailo Hrushevsky historical-memorial museum
olodymyr Vynnychenko died a little over 60 years ago. Analyzing his artistic and epistolary oeuvre, reading his diaries, we are able to see Vynnychenko from an absolutely different angle. During his life he painted over 100 paintings. Last year marked the third stage of transferring the canvases from the US to Ukraine. Thus, all the paintings of the author of The Sunny Machine have returned to our state and are kept at the Shevchenko Institute of Literature. The pictures have been on display in a number of museums, notably in Vynnychenko’s homeland, Kirovohrad, and are currently exhibited at Kyiv’s Hrushevsky Museum (till April 3). “It is known that as a youth Volodymyr Vynnychenko had a talent for painting,” head of the Shevchenko Institute of Literature at the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine, doctor of philology Mykola Zhulynsky said, “His inner passion may have been somewhat quelled when he became an active political figure and litterateur.” Says Volodymyr Panchenko, professor at the National University of Kyiv-Mohyla Academy, doctor of philology, expert in history of literature and renowned connoisseur of Vynnychenko’s life and creative work: “Kirovohrad local ethnographers, Vynnychenko’s fellow townsmen, say that he could attend a drawing course at the Zemstvo Real College, while he was studying in another institution, the Elizavetgrad Male Gymnasium. But this is a mere hypothesis.” In the 1920s he started to create the works that are now on display, and continued to do so until he died. He painted for several reasons: he mixed in with the French artistic milieu, communicated with many artists, and remained in political and literary isolation. Roughly in this period he painted The Portrait of the Author’s Wife, Self-Portrait, and drew several sketches. Close communication with the outstanding artist Mykola Hlushchenko had a crucial effect on the development of his artistic talent. In the period between 1927 and 1934 Vynnychenko was part of the Paris school, Ecole de Paris, which was famous for its high painting culture and was represented by such Ukrainian artists as Hordynsky, Khmeliuk, Hryshchenko, Butovych, and Andriienko (in addition to Hlushchenko). In Paris, in 1929, Vynnychenko co-founded the Artistic Section in the Ukrainian Community. His interest for painting gradually increased, and his diaries carry interesting reviews of some artists’ pictures and various exhibits, which is proof of his specific vision of art. “Vynnychenko’s achievements in painting were astonishing from the very onset,” Hlushchenko said. At first Vynnychenko worked in the genre of landscape painting, later he moved to painting portraits and standstills, not only in oils, but watercolors too, as well as pencils and ink. But landscapes make up the larger part of Vynnychenko’s paintings. The author’s memories of Ukrainian landscapes are reflected in Velyka Bastyda Farmstead, Ukrainian Landscape. Vynnychenko also depicted French landscapes. “As an artist, Vynnychenko is an important character that was deleted
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from the history of Ukrainian art,” Oleksandr Fedoruk, an academician of Ukraine’s Academy of Arts, writes in his article “Volodymyr Vynnychenko as an artist.” As for the specifics of Vynnychenko’s paintings, they are quite distinct from his literary or political activity. “He was not promoting his literary or political views through painting,” said the artist Stanislav Hordynsky, who thought that Vynny-
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chenko was “far from being an amateur artist.” It was no accident that Vynnychenko’s works were preserved in the US for a long time. “Clearly, the question arises of why Vynnychenko’s paintings were kept in the US, though he lived in France. We can find the answer in his diaries and correspondence. The thing is that Vynnychenko had many admirers in the US, he planned to send his works there (and he managed
to do so) and then go there to organize an exhibit of his works and profess concordism,” Panchenko explained, “Concordism was his philosophicalethical doctrine, on which he worked for the last 25 years of his life. This is Vynnychenko’s theory of happiness, which referred to aspects of people’s self-perfection and the moral side of interpersonal relationships. So, Vynnychenko did send his works, but never followed them.” It should be admitted that Vynnychenko worked on the development of his philosophical theory with the same inspiration as on his pictures. Like painting, creation of his own “recipe of happiness” took up a great part of his life after he moved to Mougins. “The idea of concordism is a result of long contemplations, research, study of different religions, and moral principles and foundations that formed humanity for many centuries,” Zhulynsky told The Day. “Vynnychenko came up with this idea as he was seeking a formula to improve people and life, and form a ‘moral’ world. This may seem naive and unreal to some people. Indisputably, it is hard to believe that it would be possible to realize this idea. Humanity’s entire will is needed for this. But concordism as Vynnychenko’s system of beliefs and views is extremely interesting. I am sure that sooner or later humankind will have to pay attention to guidelines for lifestyle, interpersonal relations, treatment of nature, of people, and whether they live in harmony with themselves and their surroundings. Vynnychenko felt the need for harmonization of the people’s inner world with the surrounding world. He wrote his work Concordism for many years with this particular aim. I think today it is time to turn to it.”
“Thinking that I will have a Ukrainian film director I decided that the book would be enough to start with. So, we’ll sit down together and will decide on the concept of the scenario… Meanwhile, a lot of reputable people say: ‘You shouldn’t be so skeptical about the Hollywood.’ We’re used to thinking that it’s something inaccessible. They say that Mel Gibson would love to take up this topic as he readily makes films on material from exotic countries…” Have you raised enough money for the film? “Of course we haven’t. We haven’t initiated any large action like auctions, etc… I know that there are many businesspeople ready to invest into this film: I received the ‘signals’ from people who could contribute to its realization. However, first of all we should have a working group and decide on the director, as people are used to giving money to reputable people. When we decide on everybody, we’ll start raising money.” By the way, have you thought about who could play the role of the titular Black Raven? “The director has to decide on this himself, as he’s the author of the film. I think, we should go to the provincial theaters, as our stars Ivan Havryliuk, Natalia Sumska, Bohdan Beniuk, Anatolii Khostikoiev are older, and we need 20 to 30-year-old guys, though all the rebels looked older than they really were. The officials of Cheka wrote: “Denys Hupalo, aged about 35,” but in reality he was 24. They were marked by the load of a rebellious life.” How many copies of the book have been printed for now, are you planning additional editions? It’s impossible to find the book in Kyiv or Cherkasy today… “See, even such a powerful publishing house as the Family Leisure Club, working with the German investments and technologies wasn’t ready for such demand. They have printed about 50,000 copies for today, but it’s only the beginning… I find it difficult to give you the exact number, the more that the novel has been published by two publishing houses.” What’s next, after you finished the “novel of your life”? “Now I’m running out of time. I will definitely participate in the scenario for Black Raven. I also have the obligation to write a scenario about the Parisian period of Symon Petliura’s life and assassination till May. Oles Yanchuk will be the director of the film. It will be a fulllength feature film in which the story will be told by Lesia Petliura, the daughter of the Head Ataman. However, my essential creative goal is a novel about the woman-ataman Marusia. I have previously said that I had already exhausted the theme of the rebel movement that I would repeat myself. But I learnt about this personality and thought that such a heroine, the Ukrainian Jeanne d’Arc would give me a fresh look at the events and a new style. We imagined the woman-ataman as a severe anarchist, but in fact she was a young 16-year-old girl, called Sasha Sokolovska from the village of Horbuliv in Zhytomyr raion. The Sokolovsky brothers lived there, all of them were very famous atamans, and this location is still called Sokolivshchyna. Oleksa, Dmytro and Vasyl Sokolovsky were killed one by one. The last one was substituted by their sister who adopted the pseudonym Marusia. She directed a thousand of Cossacks, 700 infantrymen and 300 horsemen. She obviously had some ‘witch’s’ abilities. Legends about her live on. Some say that she died, others say that she escaped. All the women in the Sokolovsky family were sorceresses, and now in the village of Horbuliv lives Liza Sokolovska, her granddaughter, a sorceress as well. She’s very wise and intelligent. She says: ‘Marusia didn’t die. She could have immigrated to Canada and adopt another name in order not to cast aspersions on relatives in Ukraine.’ I’ll have to look for the end of this novel, too, though she probably died.” All those interesting things you’re talking about are poorly represented in Ukrainian intellectual life. Which fragments do you think need to be restored? Which issues
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should be studied in the archives, who should be interrogated? “Unfortunately, we’ve lost the possibility to talk to the witnesses or even their children. All we have is legends. When people find out that I’m working on a novel about Marusia, they call me and ask: ‘Do you know how she died? My father told me that she died near Berdychiv.’ Another one writes in the letter: ‘I know how Marusia died. She was on the machinegun cart, she was attacked and shot back, but they killed her.’ This proves that Marusia became a legend and lives on in the national psyche. “Personally, I’m most interested in the 1920s. It turns out that we know less about them than about Kyivan Rus’. Information about them was hidden; they even banned to curse the atamans in order not to mention them at all.” Oksana Zabuzhko and Maria Matios have written prominent and glorious books about the Ukrainian Insurgent Army, you wrote a book about Kholodny Yar. In any other country such a success would give rise to a lot of followers, to a certain competition between authors. Do you think our writers will take up this topic? “Yes, any success provokes a desire to follow it. Quality is another thing. The theme of Kholodny Yar is gaining popularity. Every year more and more people come to commemorate its heroes. NGOs named after Kholodny Yar appear. As for literature, it can’t have several strong books on one and the same topic.” Who are your guides, the authors you have mental conversations with? “I wouldn’t say that I always talk to somebody. Probably, I mostly think over something on my own. However, if we talk about my teachers, it’s definitely Hryhir Tiutiunnyk, who I was lucky to talk to and learn a lot of things from, which were important for me.” By the way, I heard an opinion that your Key is similar to Tiutiunnyk’s works… “I think that it’s not true for Key. At the very beginning of my creative work I was influenced a lot by Hryhir Tiutiunnyk. I wrote short stories then. I don’t think it was bad, as imitation can be different. Tiutiunnyk still remains a model writer for me.” Are you going to publish those stories that aren’t in the book? “Of course. For example, the one I told about Ponomarenko has already been published in the appendix of the new edition of Kholodny Yar by Yurii Horlis-Horsky…” How in your opinion did those events reflect in the Ukrainian literature of the time, both Western and Soviet? “I respect the literature of the rozstriliane vidrodzhennia (the Executed Renassaince), but I have a special piety for Malaniuk and Cherkasenko… It’s weird that during the 20 years when the rebels fought, writers gathered in Kharkiv and created VAPLITE, Pluh and Hart.” Ukrainian literature also represents Ukraine abroad. Were there any offers to translate Black Raven into other languages? “There were, even several of them. But I have my own approach to foreign publishers. I’m skeptical about the number of translations and I’ve never speeded it up. There’s a special situation with Russia, there they have bought the rights to the translation several times, paid me and the translators, but the books haven’t been published there since 1990. Yet they have published my selected works, so I don’t worry about it, I let them pay.” Will Russia ever become a country where Black Raven will be read without convulsions? “It’s hard to say. In my case the publisher has to take a risk. Viktor Yerofeiev wanted to publish my novel in his publishing house Zebra, but, unfortunately, it went bankrupt. One wealthy man suggested: ‘Let’s publish it in Russian and pelt the Crimea and the Donbas.’ I’m not ready for this expansion so far.” Which compliment concerning Black Raven did you like the most? “One nice girl told me: ‘You did a very crafty and unpleasant thing to me. After I read your novel, I can’t read anything else.’” By Maria TOMAK, Nadia TYSIACHNA, The Day, Oleh KOTSAREV
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