and he wants you to help him, yes, but he has a clear request, he, you do not cope with his request, he no longer accepts you. in order not to burn out and keep himself in good shape, mr. ihor maintains a balance, he calls the time spent with loving people in his home as rest. there is the ability to combine both work and personal things. it is clear that we all raise children, we all have a family. personally , my family is the first place, but i love work very much, so, well, let's say, we live, i don't know, to work or to work, in order to live, i have not yet understood it for myself. since the beginning of the full-scale invasion, more than 15,000 wounded ukrainians have been treated here. ihor koshivka emphasizes that prosthetic people are not different, they are not broken. no, like every specialist of the medical association,

which gives faith in life after amputation and rehabilitation. natalya stare pravo, yuriy melnyk, espresso tv channel. events, events that are happening right now and affect our lives. of course, the news feed reports on them. however, it was not enough to know what was happening. need understand. antin borkovskii and invited experts soberly assess the events, analyze them, modeling our future. every saturday at 13:10 with a repeat on sunday at 10:10. studio zahid with anton borkovsky at espresso. every week , the saturday political club helps to understand the processes taking place in ukraine and the world. vitaly portnikov, khrystyna yatskiv, andriy smoliy and invited experts. based on

the facts, they give their assessment and forecast of the development of events, want to understand how our today will affect our tomorrow, watch the saturday political club every saturday on espresso. greetings friends! i congratulate you all on the holiday and the interlocutor of our broadcast today, ukrainian and american historian, professor of the department of ukrainian history at harvard university, serhii plohii, i congratulate you, mr. serhiy, and i also congratulate you on independence day, thank you very much, i congratulate you on the holiday, congratulations all viewers, listeners , and you personally, with the awarding of the taras shevchenko award, this is very much. thank you thank you

marker for this award award. thank you, i want to talk about historical memory, and you know, i have to confess to you, it is certainly true, sounds like a sign of poor taste, but i will tell you, there have been few history books that i read with such interest as the last school textbook on the history of russia, written by the former minister of culture of the russian federation mydinsky. and the rector of the moscow institute of international relations torkunov, because you know, when i read the books of historians, your books, i think that the gate of europe is such a beautiful pelicode from such an analysis of ukrainian history, when i then read medinsky's textbook, for me it is like watching , i don't even know how it is compare, well, some comic from which i am trying to find answers to the question of what modern russia breathes, the modern russian elite, how it creates and distorts ukrainian

history, i do not know if you have seen this book, yes, yes, i i actually saw it, no, i didn’t read it all, but i paid attention, of course, to the last chapters, and the feeling on the one hand, really, as you say, like a comic, that is, because the textbook crystallizes any approach, any idea, and this textbook... just a great textbook of today's russian radical nationalism, fascism, imperialism, that is , the term can be any, but on the other hand , you understand that it is done from the point of view of the impact on schoolchildren quite professionally, and that is , the flagrant flagrant unprofessionalism is historical, and very ... very dangerous professionalism when

it's about the way the textbook is structured, and for us, historians, it's like putin's article from the 21st year, on the one hand you want to... laugh, on the other hand, it's clearly not funny, because this, because these are documents , which form those those, crowds or hordes, or battalions that came to ukraine and may come in the future. this is a very important question. you and i studied history in soviet schools, i don't know to what extent it can be said that these history courses really influenced a large number of people and preserved in them the idea of ​​history, as it was. then essentially destroyed by the collapse of communism, how long do these dangerous narratives remain in people's heads, i mean long exactly when the social order changes, because we always say, here is putin's russia, it can the time of existence may come to an end.

does this mean that in the heads of those people who will learn from these textbooks in russian schools, these narratives of aggressiveness, disdain for all non-russian imperialism, that they will remain. even after putin, of course, they will remain, as the soviet narrative actually remained, for a very long period of time, that is, the so-called lenin fall, this is 2013-2014, the soviet union ceased to exist in 91 , but the marks markers of soviet history remained, they remained significantly less, or almost... did not remain in western ukraine or in the baltics, where mobilization, including this, this protest began during the anniversary of molotov ribbentrop's molotov pact, but in a large part, part of

the soviet union, in a large part of ukraine , those stereotypes continued for decades, to a certain extent they still continue, and they are supplanted not in... just and not so much by showing that these narratives are somehow scientifically or socially untenable, but they are supplanted when other e others narratives, and from my point of view i wrote about it the same fall of lenin, this, among other things, is also the moment when ukraine refused to live together in a world in which lenin is a hero and... victims of the holodomor, that is, heroes, victims , and all this is somewhere in one village, on one square, and they are celebrated at the same time, that is, this schizophrenia, historical schizophrenia finally came to an end, and one of these monuments had to be taken down, it was a monument to lenin, but again it happened

in 2013-14 and in a large part of ukraine, as the result of a decision of the verkhovna rada, not as a result of a decision of local councils. they will tell you that they actually tried to unite ukraine with such a mix of historical holidays or historical memory, do you remember the appeals of ukrainian politicians who said: let's have different heroes in different regions, relatively speaking, in the west and in the center the heroes will be fighters of the ukrainian insurgent army, in the east the heroes, relatively speaking, will be stakhanov and artem, who... to be honest , have nothing to do with ukrainian civilization itself, of course, i remember it very well, but it was not an attempt to unify ukraine, it was an attempt to collect votes, in each of the regions, saying in each region that

what is there has somehow historically developed, historically liked, and here the issue on the one hand really narrated . and the continuation of the existence of the soviet narrative, on the other hand, this is a more serious question, what should we do with the soviet heritage, in the people who were interviewed in the 14th and 15th years, completely ukrainian-oriented, patriotic and so on, they said: well, we can build cities in donbas, take away the monument to lenin and what will remain there, there are no other monuments, the city itself was formed. in the 1920s and 1930s, and this, this question is more serious than simply, it means to show that, therefore, the medina swindler or the long-standing soviet narrative is built on blood, it is

a question of what is actually ours, our consciousness, that we to do with the long soviet period, what should we do with the same squeaky one. what should we do with a politically divided history, that is , this is a more serious question that cannot be solved simply by some denial or listen but can we say that we are the first to solve such a question? i can give you an example of the story of north macedonia. i remember when i first started coming to north macedonia in the years after its independence, the national heroes of macedonia remained on its iconostasis, they were members of the communist union and komsomol members, but they fought for macedonian sovereignty as part of yugoslavia. then the next government tried to replace this historical narrative. turning to the hellenic heritage, to alexander of macedonia and his father, king philip.

now, i would say, there is a search for new compromises between this communist period, that is, the supporters of macedonia's sovereignty, and the pre-communist period, when macedonia was a significant part of the hellenic civilization. they are looking for themselves, maybe we need to look for ourselves in the east too, as america is doing it. i come to some american city, and there are people who are heroes of some fields. political or cultural battles of the 19th and 20th centuries, american cities were also created, i apologize, not in the 12th century, this is not athens and rome and not kyiv, nevertheless they have their own architectural image and their own image of those they are proud of, yes, i think, in terms of the number of settlements with the name of athens, america beats greece, that is, they are looking, looking, looking. level is like that in the classics, but i completely agree with you that this is a search, and what

very often looks like irritation to us, there are other words, of course for this on facebook and in the public space and so on, there are elements , elements of this search, and we are not unique, that is, we are a country that arises from ruins of a former empire, a multinational country, with a developed iconostasis and national narrative, and we were not dropped somewhere from above, that is, on some parachute, that is, often part of the same elite, the same sixties, they, they just as soviet as they are anti-soviet, that is, this is a natural, this is a natural process of forming a nation from within, from within the empire, and very not... this process of coordination, historical coordination, coordination, political, that is,

no, no, we are not unique, on the other hand, in each, each of these post-imperial nations has its own set of problems, has its own set of, let's say, some positive historical elements, the so-called usable past, which can be used for this. the formation of a new idea, and ukrainians in this sense are endowed with a very , very good history, that is, there is something to turn to, from the fact that there is kyiv, there are kyiv shrines, to the fact that there is a very developed cossack narrative, there is a narrative of struggle in 20 century against any invaders, very different invaders, that is, here we have, if we no... we can use it if we cannot come to an agreement through a better understanding

of history, which means a better understanding of ourselves, well, we will have no one to blame but ourselves, we are not deprived of history. well, here is a very important thing, it seems to me that history is distorted and hidden at the same time, because when i resort to some historical events that seem completely clear to me, because i thought that i just had to read. let's put it this way, the soviet or bolshevik version of history is on the contrary, well, conventionally speaking, changed signs, then i very often come across a situation when it turns out that simply the events were completely different, that it did not happen, what kind of conditional bad people fought against conditional good people, and now we ask good people for bad people and vice versa and we will understand how it is everything really happened, and then it turns out that it did not happen, that everything... is fiction, that everything is a myth, like the famous story with these heroes panfilovtsi, or the details

of the famous feat of zoya kosmodimyanskaya, or like in the history of the second world war war soviet propaganda always talked about the exploits of soviet pilots, they were definitely heroic people, but they never reported that, in principle, the pilots of the reich were much more effective and efficient than the pilots of the soviet union, and against this background, of course, all this looks more... less heroic, but at the same time more tragic, the price, the price of each flight becomes much different than it was in soviet propaganda, a huge number of such examples can be given, and the very fact that we do not know about... that we even we invent truths for ourselves, trying to somehow evaluate the situation on the contrary, it seems to me that this is also very dangerous, as you know, this is the first time i hear it and i hear it from you to change it relatively on the contrary, i myself experienced this period, the end of the 80s and 90s years, that is, the idea was

that change the sign and the world will somehow manifest itself. you'll understand it, and that's part of also being in these ideological wars and and and taking a certain certain side, and relative to that particular example you gave of airplanes and and pilots and heroes and losses, if i do not recall from 40 to 50% of all soviet losses. were related to the fact that with mechanical malfunctions of planes, that is, from 40 to 50% of losses, that is, this is exactly the reality that you cannot understand simply by changing plus, plus to minus and minus to plus, so really the story is very very multifaceted, and propaganda, what it is, how it

works, i.e. it is not necessarily an absolutely absolute lie, it also happens that way. but it takes some aspect of a big problem and highlights it as a marker as a marker characteristic of this whole problem, and change its plus to minus, well , another aspect can understand this, but not the problem as a whole, and only the understanding of this story as a whole, it seems to me that it can be the truth that can liberate us, that is, this this is the process. the process is much more complicated than, uh, changing signs. another very important aspect that i always think about now, when it comes to the future european integration of ukraine, is the historical memory that divides ukrainians and their neighbors to the west, well, we see that as soon as the slightest aggravation

of polish-ukrainian relations appears, it can be about anything, even about grain, the topic immediately arises: in volyn, an official or an intellectual immediately appears, who says: until you accept our narrative, you will get nowhere. now, literally these days, if you go to the transcarpathian region, you will see an absolutely amazing picture. in areas where the hungarian population lives, you will see billboards that, so to speak, commemorate the trianon tragedy. and in the areas where the ukrainian population lives, you you will see the same billboards dedicated to the trianon, only there on... that this is a triumph of historical justice, and this is happening literally in one ukrainian region during the war, and it is of course quite serious, i would say, it worries me, because i just imagine , which will begin when real, you understand, not virtual, but real negotiations of ukraine on joining the european union begin, and i

think that there may be tools that would allow us to find a common denominator, namely historical tools, a dialogue of scientists, common history books that would remove all these layers of the past? of course there is, and the only thing that is needed for this is the necessary political will, and it is clear that history and various historical memories in itself can provoke some political ones. conflicts, but usually these things recede into the background when politics changes, that is, the great war between russia and ukraine began, which became a threat not only to ukraine, it is felt, of course , in the baltics and in poland, and somehow historical, historical debate, at least on

for a while, the same polish society took a back seat. demonstrated a level of solidarity, which means that it was impossible to dream of at all, i am talking about the dominant role of politics in these historical discussions not in order to remove responsibility from historians, but in some things, it will be simply very difficult to agree, when it happened war on both sides and... each side considered itself, itself right in this, at some points you can just ideally, so to speak, put on... press pause, that is, well, it is not always possible, but it is worth it, it is also worth thinking about and talking about it, that is, the same polish-ukrainian relations,

during the war and the solidarity of the two countries, this may not be the best time to raise them and discuss them, because i actually saw recently an interview of a very good polish historian who came to kyiv and tried to convince his opponent... such a friend of ours, who has such views, he goes to ukraine, shows solidarity, here... a very, very strange situation, which in principle could not be that a person such a narrative, at the same time he is a sincere friend of the country, whose history,

to put it mildly, worries him, the past, the truth, that's what 's strange, of course, of course, and here is just the moment that the discussion and these there are no debates or disagreements. between the saints on the one hand, the sinners on the other, that is, the abominations on the one hand, the righteous on the other hand, that is, on both sides of this debate, and it can be completely fair from the point of view of both sides, there are different, there are different truths to certain, and uh, that's why i'm talking about that these things are probably ethical now... now to pause somewhere for both one side and the other side, but what i would like to add as well is that, well, some

elements of the story are delivered very well for some heroization, other elements are provided very well for overcoming, overcoming, for example, conflicts and contradictions, and also for unification from the point of view... the evil of memory, ukrainian, ukrainian memory, what is happening is extremely important today, what has been happening since 2014 is formation, the beginning of the 91st year, this formation is actually of the new ukrainian nation, on new foundations, and unfortunately, the last few years, especially the last two, give examples of self-devotion, heroism. eh, which is probably difficult to find even in history, including even ukrainian history, we historians studied some four days of ukrainian

independence in kyiv, that is, eight, seven or eight months under the german occupation of the hetmanate, the founding of the academy of sciences and so on, we have today, we are on the eve of the celebration of... independence day, that is, us we have, how many 32 years, this is the 32nd anniversary, yes, if i am not mistaken, 32 years of the existence of the independent ukrainian state, 8-9 years of wanton war, these things, which, therefore, not only changed society, changed us, but they also changed the future, the future writing about history, and this... this should become the basis for ukrainian unification, the history of ukrainian unification between 91-2014 and 2022-23, that is

, it is worth paying attention to this history through which we live, bloody, but also tragic and heroic, and eh, posterity will turn to to this story, to these years, to these days, to to these... nights in order to find support for yourself, psychological, moral, to find, to find heroes, to understand, to understand also not easy choices that people made , this is not only heroism, but i think that for us, as historians, this is a difficult task, but we should pay more attention to our last years, to our last decades and try... to build a new understanding of both the country and ourselves on the basis of this experience. i just want to find out something so fundamental

questions like what historically. the responsibility of the state is different from the historical responsibility of the nation, well, i'm just for illustrative purposes, when we talk about responsibility for the holocaust, we impose this responsibility on the reich, on the german state as such, and we know that there were states, they were state institutions, they -acted differently, but they were in different relations with the reich, but in one way or another they were participants as state institutions of the same holocaust, well let's say the croatian one... it was the same attitude towards the holocaust, but there was the bulgarian state of tsar boris and it was a different attitude to the holocaust, but all this can be studied precisely as the work of state institutions and as their dialogue, if at all it was then in a normal form with its own society, but in bulgaria there was a bulgarian manifestation against the deportation of bulgarian jews ended in success and people were saved, but if the people do not have statehood, if they are separate. representatives of this

people, let them participate in large numbers in these or other crimes, i mean, even not only the holocaust, i mean the volyn tragedy, etc., can we say that a people who do not have state institutions are just as responsible for this or that great crime as a state institution, as the state as such, because it seems to me , that in our understanding and in the understanding, by the way , it is also somehow equalized, i don't know how correct it is. it is clear that especially in the context of the second world war, especially in the context of the holocaust, there are countries and states that conquer and control others peoples and other territories, impose on them a certain model of behavior, ideological and so on, and of course they find the level of collaborators and so on

, but these are these are the captured territories, well , relatively speaking, what is the responsibility of the people in the concentration camp, in the same nazi one, for that , that they take one way or another, take part in some kind of connections related to crimes, i guess we don't put a lot of responsibility on it, a little more freedom. in the conditions, in the conditions of the occupation, but again it is quite limited, but - there is probably responsibility, certainly, and for me, they are very important here, for example, i will leave the second world war, the holocaust situation a little, but they are what i will talk about, they are connected, this is the question of today's

russian aggression against ukraine, is it a war ? putin, is this a russian war? and, it is clear that putin is a very important figure in all of this, in all of this history, but he is also a product produced by russian society, just as hitler was provoked, produced by german society, and this society creates this model of the state and this model behavior, and that pattern of behavior creates that society, so... uh, i think that, so the limit of how much it's some kind of regime that's occupied a country, de jure or de facto, that's an important component, but there is a responsibility, there is a shared responsibility, there is a social responsibility, and especially when it comes to what you do with this experience of yours, which is negative, which is criminal and so on, how you treat it, this, this...

if to talk about the historical component, it seems to me, is the most important component. well, then, if you turned to the topic of russia, then we can also ask a question here, which was very relevant in the first months of the war, now it is not talked about so much, but i tried to think about it too, and now i think that it is not the responsibility of the russians peoples in russia, the russians really have their own state, and indeed this state gave birth in one way or another. vladimir putin, and this is not even a question of national origin, because there are people of different national origins in the russian leadership, serhii shaigu, then vynets, let's say there by ethnic origin, but it is so clear that all these people serve russian chauvinism in one form or another, but the peoples of russia, who have quasi- states, which in fact do not protect theirs.