I’m taking you back to those glorious days when Ukraine had just gained its independence and commercial TV channels and radio stations began to sprout up like mushrooms after the rain. And it seems that the air of freedom has played a cruel joke on Ukrainians. Not knowing and not understanding how a free democratic society functions, how it protects itself from social diseases and preserves its integrity, not having the immunity that citizens of Western countries have, we immediately fell into the terrible trap of spirituality. How could this happen? I will explain in more detail, since no one will do it for me.
Western democracies, unlike totalitarian (or post-totalitarian) countries, have a very strong religious foundation. The vast majority of European and American citizens are people raised in the Christian or Muslim tradition. And these are not “zahozhany”, as they are sometimes called, those who run into the church once a week for a couple of minutes to cross themselves or light a candle. People in the West have certain religious, ethical, and moral principles in their hearts that have been formed since their grandparents, where it is customary to read holy books, discuss certain worldview issues, act according to the commandments, and so on.
You must admit that this seems like a bit of an anachronism to many of us! In the 21st century, you can believe ancient fables and still have those outdated and incomprehensible rituals where you have to stand for hours in a stuffy and cramped room.
I am telling you that if you still think this way, you know nothing about religious institutions in the West, about the waves of reform that changed them radically, but did not throw out the main thing: the Christian ethic of treating your neighbor as yourself, as well as humility and patience.
If you ask around, you will realize that there are many more churches in the world-including purely Ukrainian ones-than we have in Ukraine, and they cover about 80 percent of the population, from the youngest to the oldest. And who are the 20 percent, you might ask? Who are the rebels, revolutionaries, and renegades to whom democratic society is so loyal?
I have not conducted a specific statistical study of the social groups that make up this category, but if I were to characterize this conglomerate, I would say that it is a LEFTIST conglomerate. This can include everyone from social critics of existing systems and social rebels based on various trendy movements to outright satanists. In fact, they have nothing to do with God’s commandments…
I am deliberately not delving into this topic, letting the relevant experts discuss it, because it is not the subject of my analysis. And I understand why Western society is quite stable – because it has a strong spiritual foundation. But I am concerned about something else entirely – how it happened that in the modern information democratic world, this entire minority is so actively represented by an incredible number of TV channels, radio stations, paper publications, all kinds of public and international foundations that promote their essentially inhumane ideas around the world.
Now pay attention! For me, the bigger mystery is how this entire leftist conglomeration grew so rapidly and spread here in Ukraine. Why was it so easy and quick to push from power in the then-young Ukraine of the 1990s all our romantics – writers, historians, cultural critics, heroic dissidents and true Ukrainian intellectuals who dreamed of a free Ukraine! And how quickly this Ukraine fell under the pressure of all these “adventurers” and “decision makers” who, having no moral principles or rules, could only care about their own pockets. How did this “passionate minority” so quickly turn Ukraine in a direction opposite to Europe and the entire free world, as if calling us to it? How quickly this minority oriented itself in all this new phraseology about individual freedom, the free market, and the laws of entrepreneurship, and crushed our entire rich country under its feet, turning it into a kind of “rootless whore” ready to serve anyone who pays well.
In practice, the ideology of this leftism and taking off one’s pants in front of employers was once publicly voiced to me by one of the ideologists of our modern “show business,” who threw it over my shoulder half-jokingly: “Someone here is trying to make a ‘netlinka’ – well, we are simple people, we have to earn money…”
This “money”, cleansed of any moral principles and rules, was made by our “commercial” TV and radio channels the cornerstone of the entire modern information space of Ukraine.
The space where there is still no place for traditional Ukrainian song.
The space where traditional Ukrainian poetry or prose could be performed, which would inspire and uplift people. A space where native children’s lullabies and songs for very young Ukrainians would sound, as they do in the world. The space where Ukrainian philosophers, art historians, local historians, and other intellectuals of their country could communicate with the audience… Instead, this space was deliberately given to outright freaks, scandalizers, or jesters who caught their hype by becoming caliphs for an hour.
The newest bourgeois-leftist model of the information space no longer needed long-term projects with opinion leaders that would unite the country on the basis of common national values. They needed a manipulable society that could be easily turned on anyone at a moment’s notice.
The modern bourgeoisie needed new leaders of public opinion and mass influence who would be armed with “cardboard swords” and those lofty slogans, the essence and importance of which no one had even managed to fully explain to them. And words and slogans began to lose their sacred value!
And to prevent the younger generation from looking back at their grandparents, the top managers of the leading Ukrainian channels did everything they could to isolate and defame everything that our ancestors’ generation cherished and was proud of.
But someone had to be the ideological leader of this disguised leftism dressed in embroidery. There were attempts that ended either unsuccessfully or tragically. And finally, there was a figure who had been long and patiently guided, shaped, and nurtured by the masters of the information space…
“Meet the King of Ukrainian poets, Serhiy Zhadan,” the respected poet and publisher Ivan Malkovych flatteringly announced him at a concert many years ago. And I could not believe my ears and eyes. I began to listen. And I heard from Zhadan that:
“Everything you need for everyday life
A church, a supermarket and mobile coverage…”
But:
“We don’t even visit churches that have been built.
The saints explained everything to us in detail in words…”
Or:
“My mother told me that despondency is evil
I will be expelled from hell for my mother and booze…
…Mallows are blooming on my mother’s porch,
I was imprisoned in three countries for hooliganism.”
Because, as it turns out, this is how it really is:
“Hey, bro, you stuck to those tunes.
Why do you feel like a thief now?
Why are you ashamed of your roots now?
Who else will tell about the heroic generation?”
I’m sorry, these are not just quotes from the poetry collection “The King of Poets of Ukraine.” These are excerpts from his New Year’s song “show” that 1+1 channel aired on New Year’s Eve. I’m just going to keep quiet about the quality of the vocals, because we have different tastes and there are fewer and fewer good tastes in Ukraine, as there are no professional criteria now. I’m talking about art now, but I’m sure that now I will be accused of raising millions for the army, and what did you do? This is the essence of leftism: talking about one thing and then switching to another. What did you do for the revolution? We are now talking about other fundamental things.
And now for the project mentioned by Mikhail Sidorzhevsky. This is the same Mykhailo who today heads the Writers’ Union, which has long been out of favor with the modern media, which mocks and mocks this creative union as much as they can. This is the same Mykhailo who understands, as I do, as do thousands of our fellow countrymen, that everything touched by the hand of the “quarter” cannot have any cultural and aesthetic value, but looks like a mockery and an affront to Ukrainian culture and all generations of true Ukrainian artists.
But Mikhail did not say one thing that I will say now:
This could not have happened and would not have happened if at some point this terrible substitution of all true Ukrainian values had not happened. And not the spiritual leftism imposed on us, which we swallowed.
And the most terrible substitution, for which we are now all paying, is the most painful – the substitution of the “Cultural Project Ukraine” for the POLITICAL PROJECT UKRAINE.
Politics can never be ahead of culture. The nation is ripe for qualitative changes as its blood elite matures and grows stronger. And since Ukrainians have already been given such a historic chance, they had to protect their information space above all else, and pass on to future generations all our poets, prose writers, scientists, our spiritual and moral luminaries of different generations, and pass them on pure and unspoiled. And not to be dishonored in these leftist courts and laughingstocks, so as not to be doomed to destruction at the hands of our own ungrateful descendants.
And as long as this destruction and humiliation continues from within the country by all these people with proletarian thinking and global ambitions, I’m not sure that Ukraine can be saved. You can’t save a patient if they don’t believe in treatment and don’t want to be treated. Unfortunately, this is the diagnosis.