common culture my name is sofia chilyak and this is the first part of the conversation with vitaly portnikov, a journalist and publicist. we will talk with them about whether putin's death will mean the end of the war and whether a democratic russia is possible. of ukrainians is really waiting for the death of the dictator, so will the death of putin mean the end of the war in ukraine, well , first of all, volodymyr volodymyrovich is 69 years old, the president of the united states is joseph biden he is almost 10 years older than him. and what is going to run for a second term is also my level of modern medicine, so from this point of view, even if someone is waiting for putin’s death , the question arises when it will happen in two years. in 10 years or in 15, putin has all chances if he is a healthy person well, we are talking about natural death because from the point of view of unnatural death there are no indications

at all that what putin is doing is contrary to the interests of the russian elite and the people, that is about natural death. it can happen in 15 years. this means that we will be in such a conflict for 15 years, it can also be the syrian conflict that has been going on for 10 years, so it can be anything, but i would never bet when it comes to history on any events that can happen, so to speak , suddenly, these are not trends, these are dreams, of course, if yosypov was seriously read, he had not died, because in march 1953, i would not have been here, but on the other hand, stalin's death did not cancel the very idea of ​​state anti-semitism the truth of the soviet union so here, too, huge questions can simply be more radical actions, less decal actions , trends are important, besides, you understand, we are

political experts. from the fact that we talk about deputization after putin from what happened after the death of stalin, we simply draw such a parallel or we draw a parallel that happened after the years of these, oh, the funeral general secretaries of brezhnev andropovy chernenko that changes began and after the death of stalin , changes began and after the death of all these soviet grandocrats, changes began, this is true , but on the other hand, this does not mean that this is some mathematical rule, it can be different, history always has the opportunity to develop in several directions, i always i say and if putin is, er, um, not stalin, but he, after all, at the time of his death in january 1924, he was a sad

real dictator. well, there was some kind of new economic policy, but we are now talking about something other things about the civil war about the red terror about the destruction of freedom of speech about the construction of the dictatorship of the proletariat about the occupation of ukraine by belarus belarus all this happened under lenin and people who, say, expected the death of lenin as some kind of transition to a softer rule could say that look among lenin's associates there are people like the trotskys, who are radicals. and there are people who are moderate and cautious, like the bukharins, if bukharin becomes lenin's heir, and by the way , it almost happened because oleksiy rykov, an associate of bukhalin, became the head of the council of people's commissars

they can soften the regime with the real head of the soviet union stalin compared to stalin lenin he was a very soft and reasonable leader who said that in russia after putin will come to power eh just such a liberal conditional khrushchev and not conditional stalin is absolutely real, now the russian political leadership may have people who believe that putin is too cautious that he is slowing down the conquest of ukraine for no apparent reason, that he thinks the humidity of these special operations and not in the logic of a real war that needs to be started in order to free the occupied russian territory by the west. i even know the name of such a person, this is dmitri medvedev, a person who was already the president of the russian federation during the war against georgia, well, this is just one of the examples, but it may turn out that there are more such people, it is obvious that there may be more moderate leaders again after all,

at the moment when putin is gone, we do not know which of them will remain in the leadership at all. putin surrounds himself with aides all the time, well, that is, all of this is absolutely unnecessary now, kremlinological studies all criminologists in the 90s were completely unaware that the soviet union could disintegrate , that it was threatened with such a crisis, they were unaware of the main trend in the soviet union of the struggle between the party apparatus and the chekist , and we, the people involved in political processes in the country, were unaware of this at the time, but we definitely realized what they did not realize the weight of national processes in the soviet union, what western criminology did not realize and what, by the way, the chekists also did not realize the real the level of this hand was then broken down in the soviet union in such a way that in this sense, we see now it is absolutely obvious that the russian state as

such, as a territory precisely as a state, has not come to terms with the loss of territory that in 1991 was characterized as new independent states and declared their independence thanks to the fact that the cyst to a certain extent underestimated the possibilities of party management of processes and banned the communist party with the help of the brs, but it is absolutely obvious that at the beginning of the 90s and the commonwealth of independent states were perceived in moscow as a counter-state and actions on the integration of the former soviet republics were perceived as the future creation of such a new union state, the eurasian economic union, and what might happen in this situation, what we are witnessing may be what we are witnessing . the methods by which, in principle, since

1991, they have been trying to solve this, it is in the interests of the czech elite, because it simply believes that the fact that it came to power, but not in to this territory of the state, it is already a mistake, it is in the interests of business, summer, because it wants to expand the market for theft. these are just such i would say incomprehensible problems from the point of view of the development of the territory, it corresponds to the interests of the russian people, as it sees itself as the persian nation, it corresponds to the interests of this mass of a large part of the ideologues of the of the imperial world who believe that ukrainians and belarusians are an organic part of the russian people who have returned in principle to the concept that

existed in 1917 that this is an orthodox empire once and that there are russians that consist of great russian and little russian belarus, so that in principle some social there are such sufferings that opposed the joining of the ukrainian lands to the russian federation, against the reproduction of historical russia. of the pereyaslav council for the partition of poland during the second world war or it will not break well, then we get a historic chance to remain on the political map of the world as an independent state. how long will it take? i do not know how long this conflict will continue. i don’t know. and i’m absolutely not ready

to say that after it ends, russia will agree to that option and that it receives in the event of our victory, that is, internally russian society may not agree with this, it must also be realized. that is why it is necessary to look for guarantees of non -attack because, after all, it is necessary to understand that this russian empire, unlike the pre-war and world war ii, is a nuclear, e-e, own parts of the russians, continuing this topic, the ones that are good russians, they just dream and see the victory of ukraine as a guarantee for building democracy in russia, that is, they actually see a new democratic russia on our blood. but is it realistic to build this new state after decline after the decline of the regime, we do not know how the development of these events will take place, because what is the victory of ukraine, the victory of ukraine for us

is the recapture of our own territories, an exit to our own territories at the border, relatively speaking, in 1991, this is such an ideal option, it is absolutely obvious that the ukrainian troops will not fight on the territory of russia, we all think that people who grew up in the soviet historical traditions and i simply think that it is necessary to think differently in the historical traditions of the second world war that it is necessary to come to berlin or to tokyo and there will say that now there will be democracy , since no real processes will take place on the territory of russia, because we will not even know whether the russians will perceive the liberation of our own territory by the ukrainian troops as their defeat, they can consider it a victory that they managed to save russia under western aggression, this anti-russia who dreamed that she would come to bryansk, voronezh, krasnodar, that the nazis would kill

our women and rape our children there. she stopped at the so-called ukrainian borders. well nothing, we will gather our strength and strike again, that is, it does not matter what the russian propagandist will say at this moment. the main thing is that there will be no televised defeat. this is what we can not understand the second point, we do not know the depth of the economic problems that will arise in russia as a result yes, these may be economic problems that may not allow russia to militarize further, but are these economic problems that, in principle, let's say this, will exempt the russian state from fulfilling social obligations to moscow and st. petersburg that this is the main thing, well, a russian province, you see, if we didn't already have this myth about a lot of russia, the truth is that this is a poor country, the soldiers of a rich country don't, uh, send home everything that's bad well, you have to understand this for sure if your wife has a uh white sign beautiful suits you definitely won't

look at other people's beautiful suits because you just will you think you won't notice it and the same applies to some household appliances there if most of these people don't have it this is a russian province it looks like this, the third point, which is very important, is the national issue of the late 80s and early 90s, the national issue in russia itself, it was quite acute, we talked about the possibility, if not of the dissolution of the russian federation itself, then at least the separation of part of the territory from it came out about the fact that some russian republics, not all, but looked at themselves as the future of the union republic, these are rich territories, this is primarily the republic of tatarstan, the chechen republic, to a certain extent, the republic of bashkortostan and the republic is a commodity now and the republic of the yakuts now

i have to tell you that during the putin years the regime did as much from the point of view of the russification of non-russian peoples as we did the bolsheviks, that is, even the father. i would say the conditionality of multinationality and multiculturalism that existed in soviet russia was actually destroyed by putinists self-immolation of the udmurian scientist albert raga a few years ago near the building of the general state council of the udmurts of vizhevsk, she absolutely clearly demonstrated this. at one time, i saw certain signs of this for myself degradation in the fact that in tallinn i bought collections of poets of the finno-ugric peoples of russia, which were published at the expense of the estonian government in translations into russian or from the estonian language and the original language,

let's say in the komi language or the mari language or the mordovian language, both of which meant simple the fact that estonia, as one of the joint-hungarian countries, cares about this culture, and in russia, putin himself insisted that the teaching of national languages ​​in the republics of russia be limited only to small primary classes, and voluntarily, another very important point social, we see a large number of representatives of national minorities in the russian army, which is entering ukraine. we must clearly understand what a huge number of these people are. people in order to create a family, get their own apartment, there is only one way to the armed forces, the military stream, and various social opportunities there

actually do not leave the boys, who, as a rule, are young strong guys from the countryside, where the tradition of some kind of folk struggle remains, this sports, other things, there are no other chances than to go to the armed forces, then these people are now starting to die in the war for the russians, the number of victims that we see now is not obviously nationally critical, it is there it's just possible no one answered for some aginsk boryansk national district it's a relegation in the near future by the way it will happen later in russian i think it will just look like there there is nothing to replace there, because these are regions where russians do not go, they leave. this was the situation after the second world war. i read a journalistic columnist about how the same buryats died by the thousands for moscow in the winter of 1941 about no one ever said

this, because you know that the average soviet soldier is a liberator, he is a true thing, he is a russian, in the last resort, the slavs even deleted the birch trees from those heroes who raised the flag over the restag, because i was ukrainian and not of russian origin. well, here you have all the answers to such questions. so, can russia be divided according to national borders? well, it seems strange to me, er, now the same is provided even if you imagine that some er, number of national republics from the composition of the russian federation really issued using its relaxation, it will still not change the real population of its territory. these are small territories. another important point is when they tell me that russia will be divided along regional borders, and then i ask these people who say that to me in ukraine, do they understand that these people are russians, ethnic russians, that

there seem to be 110 million ethnic russians living in russia, and if we do not consider it serious to assume the possibility of the collapse of ukraine along ethnic regional borders, saying that ukrainians live in us and in donbas on galician ukrainians, why should we think that russians are democrats or not democrats, they treat their country differently. well, they can be people of totalitarian thinking, they can be democratic people, but they are russians at the same time there are also those who live in the far east, those who live are all believed to live from central russia, those who live in the north of russia, and for the creation of these kharkivians , a huge amount of blood was burned when ivan the terrible destroyed the great novgorod and his predecessors there tver principality or ryazan there, that is, there are differences. they are much more leveled there than here. if we talk about regional borders

and differences in the same ethnicity, then i believe that here ukrainians should seriously think about the fate of their own states when they consider it possible for russia to break up along some economic , economic, regional borders. of course , one can imagine that russia is capable of being a real federation if it is there. and i don’t really understand how the far east, siberia and the far east can exist in a de facto unitary state. central russia, of course , federal principles are needed here. well, but this is a question of how capable this nation is of federalism, that is, of discussion in politics. this is a question for which there is currently no affirmative answer. in fact, we talked about the fact that we need to pay attention to ourselves, and now the process of derisification has begun in ukraine. yes, this is the renaming of streets, the demolition of monuments, the seizure of books in russian

, the ban on the import of books from russia and belarus. support, but also criticism, and whether the process of de-russification will help ukraine. and actually, you know the process of demolishing the conditional monuments. i think that monuments are a thing in general, such a thing of absolute language, for the simple reason that part of the territory ukraine was a part of some empires, another part of other empires, and from each of these empires it left its own monumental heritage to this heritage, of course, there was a calm attitude as long as this heritage is not used for aggression, no one is bothered, say, in galicia or bukovina and the austrian heritage is true, it is the monuments of mickiewicz, of course, he wrote works that corresponded to the freedom-loving character of the ukrainian people, now the question arises of what to do with the

russian imperial and the first because, in essence, ukrainians have always wanted to mark their own cultural presence with monuments to shevchenko , and not only in ukraine itself, but also around the world. i always asked what is important about a monument to shevchenko or an understanding of what ukrainian culture is, yes, russians always wanted to mark their presence with monuments to pushkin, let's say lenin's soviet russia was sleeping and pushkin's imperial russia because she understood that the cultural index is still far from the political one. so now we actually perceive putin's russia and inherit not just soviet russia, because with we have already parted with this russia. and as for the russian civilization as such, this civilization has a claim on our land, but maybe you remember that i am among those people, and i have been criticized for this many times, who talked about what

ukrainian children should read pushkin and blok in the ukrainian language and that there is nothing so bad about it and that if a person's native language is ukrainian, then there is nothing like that well, the tragic thing is that this person receives some knowledge about the cultural heritage of other peoples in his own language and not necessarily in the original language well, how is it such a happiness to read from the original well, i apologize, but byron is a happiness to read in war, it looks much more interesting than in translations and lope de vega looks better in spanish with convincing cervantes unfortunately, the person is not multilingual , especially at school or even at the university, she knows a limited amount. well, as a person who reads polish poetry in the original or belarusian, i will tell you. well, of course, it is more interesting to read mickiewicz in polish than in translation, but not everyone has it we give to do

a person has some common foundations of cultures, and this has always been disputed, now in the wake of this, you know, patriotic upliftment, and immediately from the fact that the country that raised its flags of pushkin and tolstoy acts like this, we renounce the cultural heritage as such, everything will balance out after the war. i generally i don't think that we need to think about it now, they said, but already during the second world war, they didn't want to listen to beethoven or wagner, they didn't want to, they didn't want to, and they didn't want to read goethe from zgine either with a chiller, even taking into account i was interested in the jewish origin of the genes, not the origin , but the language. i always tell the story, as i was told by my israeli friends, who are originally from

e.e., but were born there before the second world war, and the jews of riga before the second world war had german as their native language. happened after the war, you speak with your mother, you don't go, you don't speak latin or russian, you speak german , this is the language in which lullabies were sung to you well , this person told me that almost the entire class in which she studied was the classics of hebrew children who remained in the case after they all moved to israel, there were 30 students, 30 people, for the first time after the war years and their children speak hebrew, they did not keep those languages ​​although they knew not only german, russian, they simply moved to another dimension of civilization because it was just painful, you know, when the person who

kills your relatives talks to them , utters the last words of the execution in your native language, it is to a certain extent a disaster inside the house, uh, one of those acquaintances of mine, i said that my mother is all the same to at the end of her life living in israel, talking to him not er, in hebrew with his father, also german-speaking people all the same until the end of her life, spiegel prescribed well , because she still could not, it still remained a part of her identity, identity absolutely definitely, but she wanted to have and you understand, i wanted to have a ring, a different identity, that 's why i think that the question is not really about culture, but the question of identity. russification and decolonization and withdrawal from

russia. follow the social culture, we stay in touch. congratulations, this is a program, the cultural instinct for the social culture. this is the second part of the conversation with vitaly the porter. in the first part, we talked about whether the death of putin can really stop the war, and also whether it is possible democracy and liberalization in russia, and in the second part of the program we will talk about withdrawal from russia, decolonization, de-russification, and also what should be the strategy of ukraine to comply with security guarantees. so we continue with them they talked about the fact that we need to pay attention to ourselves, yes, and now the process of de-russification has begun in ukraine. yes, this is the renaming of streets, the demolition of monuments, the confiscation of books in the russian language, the ban on the import of books from russia and belarus . of course , support, but also criticism, and whether

the process of de-russification will help ukraine, and actually the process of conditionally removing monuments. i don't really understand people who today say that they do not renounce russian culture, but want to talk in russian because it is more convenient for them. i want to ask what kind of cultural heritage they will pass on to their children, then if they want to speak a language that will not have any cultural load , then this is a strange position, to say the least, if you switch to the ukrainian language, you begin to perceive russian culture differently as a foreign one, and then you don't have such a hard feeling and such a sharp reaction because you see how this culture simply becomes one of the fragments of your own development and the development of humanity. by the way, you will see that it is not like that

big because i don’t believe in a big culture at all, you understand. if you are an english-speaking person, it is absolutely obvious that in your cultural worldview there can be and this is also a very cultured person can be some part of russian culture and that is not secondary relatively speaking chekhov’s cherry orchard or some -e works of russian composers tchaikovsky or rachmaninoff or shostakovich or stravinsky and we must see that it is also rooted there imperial they often have real roots there in ukrainian culture not in russian culture in many cases there is even russian of classical culture, because it is an imperial culture, but you don’t care about it so much, why am i calm about it? i

never considered it my native culture, why do i even go through everything, it’s almost indifferent, i don’t really understand it, i do n’t really understand it, how can it be, not at all critical so how to treat the understanding of one's culture despite the fact that, as you know, i am a russian philologist first and foremost. i studied at the russian branch of the faculty of philology in dnipro before switching to journalism. well, i put here and then before that, i am simply interested in the cultural e-e heritage that is interesting to study, that is interesting to understand, obviously i speak russian and i am interested, but it is not mine, i have seen people for whom it was native well, also a lot in dnipro, you understand as a rule, it is also there were people for whom it was foreign, but they wanted to perceive it as their own . i did not perceive it in my childhood when i began to read, let's say, jewish writers in different languages,

russian, ukrainian, then polish was added there, well, in those languages ​​in which to read i saw that this is that world which is my family world, the world of my values, these are my writers now, by the way, what do i see after a decade of silencing the ukrainian school curriculum, there remains a helmet-aleihem and pushkin or dostoevsky disappears from it. i also feel such a childish moment of triumph because as you understand, when i studied at school, no jewish child could even understand what his own culture was. that they talked to each other in front of me but there was really a great literature there. by the way, ukrainian e-e is directed from the point of view of heritage, because it was on ukrainian land, and even before that there was already a jewish polish writer or singer, they were different and sholom-aleihem and mendel, you can

also create other famous jewish writers who were here. i saw that they had something about what recently, what was mine about this, let's say, the great mystical culture of the jewish world of a jewish town in ukraine. well, of course, i see that yes culture that is jewish that spoke in poland or the united states or somewhere else it is also very close to me then i read in ukrainian writers i saw that these are books about my neighbors not about me obviously but i saw how the people who live next to me they live like this they laugh so much they cry so much they experience something in the end there is still a moment of language i have been speaking ukrainian since childhood i also felt that this is when i read there conventionally speaking uh writers who wrote in uh