zhlyva, but believe me, this is exactly what we are fighting for on the fronts, this is culture. for a very long time, in ukrainian journalism, for more than 20 years, i have been observing how ukrainian culture, it was called culture, was pushed out, disappeared from ukrainian television, and here we are today, what we will talk about is actually a consequence of how this second nature of culture in. .. the consciousness of people, the consciousness of civil society, as inattention to media culture, to which all this leads. today, my interlocutors and guests are these volodymyr sheyko, director of the ukrainian institute, cultural diplomacy expert, cultural manager. owner, congratulations, good evening. bohdan logvenenko, journalist, writer, founder and ideological inspirer of the ukrainer project, is also our guest, congratulations, bohdan, and bohdan, and volodymyr. are candidates

for the supervisory, new supervisory board of the ukrainian cultural fund, and now a competition for this supervisory board is taking place. bohdan is a candidate from public organizations, and volodymyr is a candidate from cultural institutions. we, later, i will ask why they decided to actually submit their candidacies, why it is important for them, but first i will explain what the ukrainian cultural fund is, for those who may not be very familiar with it. so, the ukrainian cultural fund is such a state investor, it is actually a state institution that must finance art projects based on transparent and honest cultural competition selections. the budget of the ukrainian cultural fund for 2024 is uah 215.5 million. these are our taxes. that's why. this is particularly important. if

we speak in one sentence about the background, about the drama of the ukrainian cultural fund, the story is as follows: after the revolution of dignity , this cultural institution was created, the relevant legislation was drawn up, at the beginning of 2018, cultural manager yuliya fediv became the executive director of the ukrainian cultural fund. the newly created institution has a good reputation among. both in the cultural environment and in society, it has positive feedback and is gradually turning into such, it would seem, a cultural institution that, in fact, has financed many wonderful projects, you must have been to the exhibitions, musical events, which were financed precisely from the submission of experts of the ukrainian cultural fund. and then i will quote daria

badyor, a critic who wrote the following: in 2021, the new ministry of culture together with the president's office hacked the ukrainian cultural fund, just as they hacked the state cinema before, in order to turn it into a manual institution. so, my first question to the guests is how it became possible, why ukrainian. a cultural institution that seemed, as i said, became an institution, yes, it seemed to us that, what, that it is irreversible, yes, that we have some reputationally clean history, how did it happen that it was possible to raid it, bogdan, let 's start with you, well, i will say for sure that this happens sometimes with various institutions, and this happens not only in us, sometimes the laws are not ideal. them, they need to be improved, and

therefore, in particular , public attention is now extremely important to defend this institution, to improve the law, to improve the provisions on the supervisory board and so on, and in order to further prevent hacker attacks, this is a constant process , there is a large number of dinosaurs in ukrainian culture, as in any other. in the field , which is trying to regain power, recognition , distribution of funds, which for many is extremely important, so, first of all , it should be about the safety of the institution, unfortunately, the law on the ukf was imperfect, it was perfect at the time of its creation, yes, but in the process we have already seen many shortcomings that need to be improved now, but in order to remove them... er, er, these shortcomings,

it is necessary that a worthy supervisory board be elected. ah, bolody, how did it happen that in the 21st year... it was possible to raid the ukrainian cultural fund, as many cultural activists say, as many people with a good reputation and progressive views say. i will probably start with an answer to the question that logically precedes your question, the real question is why, yes, who needs it, why raid or hack one of such system-forming cultural institutions in post-maidan ukraine. for viewers who may not know or have not followed the situation with the ukf, i will tell you that the ukf was conceived as a new, transparent, honest, accountable to the public, the way to distribute

budget funds, i.e. taxpayers' funds , both among the state and non-state cultural sectors, it is very important to say this, because before... ukf, almost all budget funds went through the ministry of culture to maintain the so-called network cultural institutions, i.e. theaters, museums, other national and cultural institutions, which actually excluded this process excluded the entire non-state, i.e. independent public sector from the field of cultural financing, and this is great... the number and people who work in it, and this is a huge number of initiatives, many of which, i am sure, the audience knows well, and festivals, and independent theaters, and various public initiatives in the field of cinema, literature, music and the like, and the very establishment of the ukf meant that access to

budget funds in a transparent manner was given to a huge number of new agents who were previously excluded from the state's... field of vision, and this, of course, created the need for many unscrupulous people to take advantage of this opportunity, to distort selection procedures members of the supervisory board, and then the procedures for the selection of experts who evaluate the applications and , accordingly, the results of the competitive selection of projects in their favor, that is why the situation that happened in the 21st year became possible , when, as bohdan said, the law of the ukf was written in such a way, that the procedures for the selection of members of the okf supervisory board could be bypassed or they could be used in such a way to bring the right people to the supervisory board. we will talk about it separately,

because it is a very interesting story, because this procedure competitive selection with the help of public organizations, it was not only in relation to the ukf, it was, for example, applied. and to the artistic arsenal of the election of the director of the artistic arsenal, when mykhailo kolinyak, the minister of culture of the yanukovych regime, who was remembered for holding a violin while playing it between his legs, almost became the director of the artistic arsenal, and only thanks to one vote we succeeded, because i was also in the competition commission, so i speak as a witness, we managed to prevent this with just one vote, and i also have one more question, it is actually very important whether legislation is legislation, we will talk about it later, but did civil society do it then, two years ago, to prevent this, if

such results were selected, then obviously not everything was done by civil society, because the procedure looks like this that the quota of the community... of the society, which actually consists of two people, in it the public can nominate both candidates for the supervisory board and voters, who then choose these candidates by ranking vote, and unfortunately, the quantitative rule worked here, i.e. one of the unscrupulous actual candidates and current members of the supervisory board introduced a critical number of people related to him and friendly to him as voters. of public organizations who actually voted for him and thus he won more votes than the rest , and it seems to me that despite the mobilization of the public around the ukf, around yulia fediv, which took place in several waves over the previous few years, somehow did not

work at the time of selection in the pre-supervision office council, that is, daria badyor correctly says that we, well, we actually lost this one. we will now explain that battle, explain to people what we mean when we talk about pocket public organizations that are then elected. members of the supervisory board, but first we will show the appeal ukrainian cultural figures appealed on friday to president volodymyr zelenskyi, please show this appeal and to the ministry of culture, information policy of ukraine, with a call to take responsibility for the formation of the new composition of the supervisory board ukrainian cultural fund. please show this appeal. and they write that the current procedure for elections to the supervisory board

undermines the principle of independence and impartiality, since the requirements for candidates to have an impeccable business reputation, as provided by law, remain purely formal, which they demand, for example , in this appeal to the president and the ministry of culture , therefore they call, in particular, in the case of election to the members of the supervisory board... persons whose actions will show signs of election manipulation through voting authorized non-governmental organizations, to demand from them to remove themselves from the appointment as members of the national council, as well as to conduct an open discussion of candidacies according to the quotas of the president of ukraine and the ministry of ukraine and the information policy of ukraine with the community of cultural workers, so here it is necessary to explain that everything in the supervisory board of the ukrainian football federation there is where five members, four of them are appointed by the president and the ministry of culture without any voting, and another four by

cultural institutions and public associations, the ninth member of the supervisory board is already elected elected members of the council, and right now the elections of the second quartet from cultural institutions and public associations are underway, and i would like to show them. scheme, one table that ukrainian pravda prints, this is a table from izi, the institute of legislative ideas, which tracked over fifty organizations that will actually vote for the members of the supervisory board, so there are 103 of these organizations in total, and half of these organizations are connected . and the approval of the institute of legislative ideas with one candidate, a current member of the supervisory board of the ucf,

oleksandr suslenskyi. so, iz is an institute of legislative ideas, they say that about 20 of these public organizations are directly related to the family of oleksandr suslynskyi. the same number has potential or partnership ties with oleksandr suslenskyi. i am quoting the institute of legislative ideas, and now the time has come for me to ask a rather obvious question to you, bohdan, and to you, volodya, why, against the background of this, did you decide to run for the supervisory board, and if this is the situation, how do we we see on this table, what gives you optimism that it is possible. what mission what mission can you complete?

the unity of public organizations gives me optimism, that is, it is possible for the first time in such elections to supervisory boards , various institutions, the majority of candidates withdrew, and, that is, six out of 11 in favor of others, so that what the audience just saw did not pass in fact , there are two candidates, mr. suslenskyi and his colleague, so that they do not get into the supervisory board and continue to deal with the distribution of funds, because for them it is purely the distribution of funds, therefore, in the environment, therefore, among public organizations, six candidates withdrew, both in your favor, and also in favor of volodymyr vorobey. volodymyr vorobey , who is a member of the supervisory board of promprilad,

so why did i leave, because we had quite a long experience of working with the ukrainian cultural fund, it was very successful, we received some award from the ukrainian cultural fund there, well, from 21 of the year they decided not to apply to the ukf anymore, because of the fact that... that it was hacked, and now, that is, we already we have not submitted for three years and are ready not to submit further, but we understand it. uh , ukrainera, i mean, as a public organization, we understand the importance of this institution, the importance of this institution for us at the start, yes, because ukf actually supported us in the first years of our existence, and therefore now this opportunity, it should return to those cultural actors who now talk about, for example,

the ukrainian war, publish books about it, and... well, we have to fix our narrative, we have to spread it in the world, because such exhibitions, as russia tried to hold in italy, they will take place and multiply, books by ex-wagnerians will be published all over the world, and we have to oppose this, and this, and it is clear that the ukrainian institute, this is the mission of the ukrainian institute, to spread narratives ukrainians in the world, yes, but these narratives have here... and the ukrainian cultural fund should support those cultural sprouts that are emerging here now, and this is actually my personal motivation. bohdan, but you said that you have not given up since the 21st year, that is, you know that this the supervisory board, which is now there, in

the ukrainian cultural fund, or the experts who work there, were they biased somewhere or not. there are problems in the activities of the ukf , can you state this, or do you simply not submit in principle, or is there already such a formed opinion in the cultural or media environment regarding this, please explain to people who do not know anything, there was a whole chain there events, i.e. we watched how susansky became, well, not only him, but also became a member of the supervisory board, i.e. it was unscrupulous, further unscrupulous were the elections of the executive director... of the cultural fund continued to result in dismissals of experts, well, i can’t name specific cases now, but this also happened unscrupulously, accordingly , we made a decision for ourselves that it was a very big reputational risk for us to apply further to the ukrainian program of the cultural fund, so we did not have

work experience as applicants, but we appeared from time to time. various cases of not very successful cooperation with ukf, certain projects that experts have been canceled by the supervisory board have already been selected and voted for, accordingly manual management of the cultural fund has begun, which absolutely destroys the reputation of transparency and fairness of project selection. why, why did you decide to submit your candidacy, and i know that in contrast to public organizations, yes, from cultural organizations, none of the candidates, if i understand correctly, did not withdraw their candidacy, i mean cult public organizations in the field of culture, i i am running at the request of

cultural institutions, so i am running at the request and for the nomination of the artistic arsenal. and, as far as i know, none of the candidates running for a supervisory board role in this category have withdrawn their candidacies in favor of someone else, what that means, we can only guess, maybe it means nothing, but it is important to me, the principle of general management of the institution in the form of a supervisory board is important to me, that is, it is very important to me to unpack it, because... before the foundation of the ukf, before the foundation of the ukrainian institute, the ukrainian institute of the book, i.e. the first few post-maidan years, cultural institutions were managed by relevant ministries, i.e. central bodies of executive power, the so -called governing bodies. this meant that the ministry had practically unlimited influence on the activities and decisions

made by these institutions. the post-maidan period changed this paradigm and introduced it. the practice of the existence of supervisory boards around new cultural institutions, which should take over the functions of the governing body, that is, the functions of the controlling body and the functions a collegial body that approves some key strategic decisions of such a high level of these organizations, and the idea was that representatives of the public or the independent sector would have a large, if not a majority, of the votes in the supervisory boards. i.e., to remove from the state the possibility to manually manage these new institutions according to their design and meaning, therefore according to this logic there is... the supervisory board of the ukrainian institute exists and operates, the supervisory board of the ukrainian book institute operates according to a similar logic, and i am very it is important that such a key institution as the ukf

is also managed in an honest way, that the interests of very different stakeholders are represented in it, but that none of them has the temptation to turn on the handbrake again and change the activity, operational activity of the fund in a convenient or necessary way. for themselves, this method, this principle, cultural institutions borrowed from corporate management, it is not new, it is as old as the world, when the owner of a business, yes, in our case , the founder, the state, delegates the functions of managing an institution or organization or business, to the supervisory board and removes itself from a number of strategic and tactical decisions, and this seems to me a great test of all of us in vain. and the readiness of the state to dare to take such a step is very uncharacteristic for itself, because the instinct of the state prescribes to control

all subordinate institutions as much as possible, and on the other hand, this is a test for the public, which must also be able to mobilize, which must also be able to defend your voice, make yourself visible to the same authority and be conversational for it. which causes both trust and a desire to communicate with them. now, when we talk about the state, in this situation, the state is represented in the supervisory board by as many as four people, right? there are two people from the president's office and two people from the ministry of culture. by the way, the ministry of culture somehow communicates, we already know the candidates from. of the ministry of culture to the supervisory board of the ucf, bohdan, no, we don't know , well, i would say at least four, yes, because most likely six people represent

the state and two represent the public sector, since cultural institutions are mostly also state, and now the second question, here we are now returning to the legislation, because you started talking about it as if it is enough, how to say? too optimistic, perhaps the law that regulated was drawn up after the maidan, and which actually determines that the office of the president, yes, delegates two people to the supervisory board of the ukf, are there such precedents at all, firstly, are there such precedents in the world, yes, when there is a presidential administration, it delegates its people to... a cultural institution, yes, for example, there are such presidents, you know, you know against i would say that it depends a lot on the role of the president, because the role of the president is

representative, yes, and, well, we know democracies where the president has very limited powers and is more a symbol of democracy than a branch of government, such precedents. if we talk about the role of the president, who bears all the responsibility for everything that happens in the cabinet of ministers, in the parliament, and in any state department, yes, well , this, this additional burden on the president is absolutely absurd, well, you a famous person in the office at the bank, who is engaged in the field of culture, so... you know a person in the banking industry personally, whom i only know by his last name, it seems to me that mr. dniprov, who used to be

tabachnyk's deputy and is also the president of the badminton federation of ukraine, deals with this. unfortunately, i know nothing more about this person and never had the opportunity to meet her. volodya, how about, what is your opinion about the presence of people in the supervisory board. is from the authorities, from the presidential authorities, well, this is such an unusual precedent for cultural institutions, i mean, in ukraine as well, of course, it seems to me that the only institution to the supervisory board of which the president has the right to delegate his candidates or the office of the president, there are and there are actually different political cultures in the world, the french, in my opinion, is very close to ours, there it is presidential. the public, and there the cultural management vertical is very sensitive to the wishes and direct orders of the presidential office itself, it is we...

we saw this on our own experience by launching a representative office of the ukrainian institute in france, and i know that a number of, especially national institutions culture in france, they actually listen a lot, hear and carry out the instructions of the french presidential administration, yes, we have a slightly different management system in culture, but according to political culture, and such rights... games, it seems to me, france and ukraine are a lot here in some ways they are similar, but here it seems to me that we need to look at this situation in a slightly different way, the delegation of candidates does not mean, that is, it should not mean, so in an ideal world there is not much, further control or management of decisions through these people institutions, again in an ideal world.

entities that delegate or elect their representatives to the supervisory board should choose the best, most conscientious, those who meet the very clear requirements for candidates for the supervisory board of the ukrainian cultural fund, in our case, defined in article six, according to the law on the ukrainian cultural foundation , that is, people with an impeccable business reputation, people with extensive work experience in the field of culture, virtuous and so on, and so on, in principle the function of a delegate. burners ends there, because the next one is supervisory the council is an autonomous, independent collegial body, which no longer has to carry out someone's political orders or other conditional mandates, so there is no subordination here, at least there is none in the law, and it should not be in practice, well, but in ukrainian political culture it is so doesn't work, that 's why i asked the question in the way i did, look, ivan kozlenko, by the way,

the former director of ovzhenko. center, and writes that, last time, in the last time, it is meant, here in this supervisory board, which, which now there were such outstanding cultural figures in the ukrainian academy of arts, such as, for example, the traveler artem surin, or the director of my beautiful nanny and other quarters, the russian kiryushchenko. i understand correctly that this kiryuchenko, who , as ivan kozalenko says, has a russian passport, he was specifically delegated by the president's office, well, if i'm not mistaken, then yes, it seems, yes, in fact, this proves a certain, certain , the actual political culture in ukraine, but, for the sake of justice, i must say that the same legislation was written under president poroshenko, and we remember that in to the supervisory board, correct me if this is not

so, there was maryna poroshenko, the head of the supervisory board, the head of the supervisory board of the ukf was maryna poroshenko, how do you feel about it, i remember that when she joined the supervisory board, there were different opinions about this, should we, and for what, what was the purpose, what was the purpose of this, and well, on the one hand , to ensure stability, yes, that is, quite often it also depends very much on the political culture, but in... in many countries, the first lady is engaged in culture, huh, and therefore there is logic in this, that the first lady, at least was on the supervisory board of the ukrainian cultural foundation, i don’t see anything wrong with that, it seems to me that olena zelenska could also be on the supervisory board of the ukrainian cultural foundation, at least it would give the ukrainian cultural foundation a little more publicity,

yes because for these three years... the ukrainian cultural fund disappeared due to the fact that most of these elected people, they are very little public, well, only mr. kiryushchenko, a well-known star, and therefore ah actually, in my opinion, there is nothing in this nothing bad, but with for obvious reasons , there is no such rule in the legislation that the first lady should still be in the supervisory board, because it should be her personal matter. probably the decision and the decision of the president, perhaps, but i don’t see any risks in this, maybe the power regarding, and regarding this, my actual question was about maryna poroshenko, but also that in the legislation these two candidates from the office of the president, this was established during the presidency of petro poroshenko, and not during the presidency of volodymyr zelenskyi, yes, that is, what, as you see the expediency such, is it worth already in...