Action and reaction, the art of politics and political art in Ukraine. Part two

On my last evening I was taken by my hosts to a Jewish restaurant in Podil, a gentle neighbourhood of fading grandeur with restaurants, tree lined squares and a lively energy.

The busy market sells fruit and herbs and hand knitted socks, and the glitzy supermarket European biscuits and caviar. The British Council offices were just around the corner.

I asked for a local drink and they suggested I try vodka with horseradish – 38% proof with a fiery start and a textured end. Over a Jewish meze and our second small flask of vodka, the conversation turned to language and ethnicity.

We were 7 artists and producers of whom 6 were Ukrainian. They came from across this vast country and had studied both in Ukraine and abroad. Most had traveled widely and their English was near perfect. They were ethnically Ukrainian, Russian and Jewish and one had a Polish boyfriend. Their parentage was mixed and they still had friends in Crimea and Donetsk.

My few days in Kiev had already taught me that on the streets and in the houses, the offices, museums and galleries Russian and Ukrainian languages are interchangeable. There are no signals, at least to the outsider, that one or other of the languages will be spoken and there is a quiet expectation that you will understand both.

I heard for the second time this trip, that the war in Donbass was not an “ethnic issue” – it was a “Russia issue”, and that the divide between people was not a division of ethnicity, but a division caused by politics and Russian expansionism.
My new friends were born in Soviet times. In the world of their youth to get ahead you became first a Pioneer, then a Komsomol, and only then would you have access to the benefits of the party. In their schools they were taught about Soviet culture in Russian, and Ukrainian writers were celebrated as talented Soviets. Indeed the glorious socialist realist murals in the 1956 Expocenter depict Ukrainian endeavor as second only to Russia herself.

It took the collapse of the Soviet Union in the early 1990’s for Ukraine to become an independent county. What’s followed was the Ukrainisation of Ukraine where the official language became Ukrainian, the colours of the flag became widely visible in public life and new business and political leaders  attempted to redefine the country’s soul.

In schools, in today’s Ukraine, Russian books have stopped being taught as national texts and are taught instead as foreign literature alongside other international authors in translation. My colleagues’ opposing views rolled back and forth across the table…

‘Is it not right for Ukrainian children to learn in Ukrainian?” ‘But surely any literature is best read its original text? “ “Did I not understand that if you go to a bookshop, even today, most books will be in Russian?” “Yes but what would be lost if all children just spoke Ukrainian, will it not make our children more insular?” ‘But surely we need a period when we break the hegemony of the Russian language?” “But if that happens, are we not just throwing away a given multiculturalism which will, in the long run, make us stronger.” ‘This should not be an argument. We should appreciate the art and not restrict our access to it for political purposes.”
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As I sipped my vodka I felt honored to be part of these conversations and privileged to have the opportunity to come back to spend more time with these new friends…

In 2015 Clymene took part in the British Council Canny Creative Fellowship in Kyiv, Ukraine. The fellowship placed her with the Congress of Cultural Activists and CSM, Contemporary Arts Institute. These blogs reflect her brief time embedded in the culture and politics of Ukraine.

Action and reaction, the art of politics and political art in Ukraine. Part one

Kateryna Radchenko is an artist and curator living in Odessa, whose work reveals unheard, forgotten or forbidden stories. Her exhibitions and projects often take place in unusual places, and she regularly works with photo archives to explore Ukrainian history, religion, and political storytelling.

We met for coffee in the café of the shiny international hotel chain the British Council had booked for this visit to Ukraine, and she told me her story:

On the 21st of November 2013 Kateryna was passing through Kiev en route home. She had intended to see friends and stay just one night, but she found herself unable to leave. Kateryna remained in Kiev, and in and around the Maidan Nezalesnosti (Independence Square), for two months.

The Maidan revolution is credited as starting with a Facebook message sent by Mustafa Nayem, a journalist from Afghanistan living in Kiev. Mustafa was in the parliament reporting on the president’s signing of an agreement that would bring Ukraine closer to the European Union. President Yanukovych had lost the faith of many Ukrainians with his brutal and overbearing pressure on political opponents, journalists and protesters, but the prospect of this agreement had signaled new hope.

When it became clear that the president would not sign the agreement, social media erupted with angry disappointment and Mustafa responded with: “come on guys, let’s be serious. If you really want to do something don’t just ‘like’ this post, write that you are ready and we can try to start something…”

By the time Kateryna arrived at the Maidan the numbers were swelling, and by nightfall at least 1000 people had gathered. During the next few days her friends and colleagues traveled from across Ukraine to show their support, taking shifts to sleep on the floor of her room. Through Facebook the world learnt of the violence and the first deaths, and the need for supplies for the wounded, the hungry, and the protest itself. Describing the makeshift hospital and media hub Kateryna said. ‘Now we were not just artists, now we were activists, we were journalists, we were medics.”

When the police started to use tear gas on the protesters, a call came for milk and lemons to counteract its effect. Kateryna sent out a Facebook message that she’d go and buy some and called for others to do the same. Within moments ‘the wife of an oligarch’ in her SUV picked her up, with a car full of supplies. She dropped Kateryna off at Maidan with the lemons and milk and returned to do the same again. Maidan was now a protest of the many.
Over the bitter winter months the occupation of Maidan continued with the loss of 130 lives, most of them civilian protesters. As artists became activists, so activists became artists, making sculptures, posters, banners, and films to tell the world what was happening. Yanukovych would step down and a new phase in Ukraine’s self-governing history would begin.
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Kateryna has an exhibition at the Museum of Religion, Lviv in October 2015. http://www.museum.lviv.ua/

In 2015 Clymene took part in the British Council Canny Creative Fellowship in Kyiv, Ukraine. The fellowship placed her with the Congress of Cultural Activists and CSM, Contemporary Arts Institute. These blogs reflect her brief time embedded in the culture and politics of Ukraine.