these optics in the minds of those western intellectuals of those western environments that we call the cream of the cream and you, ms. oksano, are the best interviewer on this topic, because in fact you started to build ukrainian in europe at the beginning of ukraine's independence, so you know these environments very well. we let's talk more about ukrainian studies, but i 'll start with something else. it sometimes amazes us ukrainians that western societies support ukraine, and this support is complete and, as we see it, sincere and undeniable, and it is more than the support of western societies intellectual circles and the western academy, as we say, so what is everything that looks conservative, everything that looks mentally dissolved in the russian colonial view of ukraine, and i will start with such a scene in the 14th year, when

the annexation of crimea was already taking place in my broadcast in ukraine in kyiv there was georges eva, a russian wordsmith, a french historian of literature, and a professor at the university of geneva, who told me when i was asked about the crimea, he told me, well, i’m sorry, but russia has a historical right to the crimea, do you remember the fat and sevastopol stories, and i i understood that the situation with this colonial lens regarding ukraine is very difficult for us. my first question is, is it possible for you to generalize how the western academy is currently reacting to this full-scale invasion of the russian federation. can you describe the reactions of people who are with you, for example, in working in italy, you know , the question is extremely difficult, because it all depends on the university, the context, the

specific country, and the tradition of slavic studies in a specific country. view of the general characteristics of this issue i cannot even give you, because i can say about my university, i was absolutely amazed when suddenly the whole university, literally at all levels at all levels, responded absolutely positively from the side of ukraine firmly without any what kind of nuances for me it was er, well , you know, the absolute opening of even your own context, on the one hand, on the other hand, when we started a series of um, a series of already such meetings, er, in order to deepen already from students and so on in order to deepen this issue . for example, again, on the part of the students, there

was understanding, and on the other hand, there were students who demonstrated for peace and and we know very well that when a conversation for peace begins, what does it mean with i will not name the other universities, but i know that my colleagues have very negative impressions because there were literally all colleagues there, well, in this, so to speak, they worked for the anti-ukrainian regime every time about the russian regime and this one and the same that is this is a very differentiated differentiated view at our university there is simply a very old um old tradition of ukrainian studies and with a certain with a certain concept actually in ukrainian studies as a part of european e-e studies and it has been for years and decades actually this is, so to speak, the main part

the main core of my work is related to niva and such cases. yes, these are cases, and today it can be confirmed that such an evolution is taking place, because you absolutely do not have such a view of these things now. as far as i know, he stus is translating and he has changed his orientations, but you know it can be gratifying to change orientations and so on, but the matter is deeper, the matter is simply macroscopic problems related to oceanography, where a new stage begins, and in this and this new stage, we have to take with us from the previous stage. it is good that it was done, but a lot needs to be changed because, of course, there are many lacunae, the problems of the same stereotypes, and

we will have to fight with this for many more years, and then we must also take into account the generation of russians. is changing now, a new generation of russianists is coming, and among them there are people with a normal european vision of the ukrainian problem. you said stereotypes. well, i thought that we were really facing, well, at least we were faced with a lot of such imperial colonial stereotypes regarding the perception of ukraine . what are ukrainians for such an archaic society with some kind of

aggressive nationalism that is some kind of vertical culture that mykola stole with the nazis in the second world war more than other european nations so that is a lie and we are for the last 30 years yes what are you watching so wise in the west, these stereotypes changed somehow , they seem to have been overcome, or they were like that for 30 years, so they remain like that to us. you see, these stereotypes belong to the most archaic part of slavic studies. of the stalinist context and and and and the dynamics of formation. that's why these stereotypes are not

so much. now they are in the academic environment, they are in political circles, they are in journalistic circles. this is because she is a journalist . yes, and that's why, in fact, in italy, the process is very complicated right now , because there is a part of journalism that is in absolutely stalinist positions, and there is a part of journalism that is afraid of all this and is trying to create new coordinates in which consider ukraine there is now a whole such hmm a whole skirmish has developed between such an italian- american journalist gianni rio and er-er such a large detachment of journalism who er-er believed in russian propaganda and he literally er-er created this list

putin fershtein that is er-er such a squad of intellectuals who absolutely do not understand and do not want to understand ukraine, but what concerns slavic studies and what concerns ukrainian studies in this, even if these stereotypes are already, so to speak , not working at full strength as they worked 40-50 years ago, but we must also look at the position of ukraine and how ukraine worked with these stereotypes, because if we encountered in slavic studies such a position that ukrainian literature is rustic, that ukrainian literature is archaic, and so on, then we will look at a certain the discourse that prevailed in ukrainian literature was still some 10-15 years ago about the fact that

ukrainian literature is rustic and that it is lagging behind europe, that it is necessary to fight against it with chronicles and so on, we heard it from the inside of ukrainian literature this type of thing touches me very much in quotation marks, the statement of one of the literature about how it is now customary for us to speak with this epithel, who said, "we were stupid to apologize for believing that this is postmodernism , apparently it turns out to be his no, you know, when people read these things, i just want to disconnect completely from any contacts with my own environment in ukraine. postmodernism was not thought of, not spoken of, not worked in this plan, in which it is necessary to develop ukrainian studies, and then we throw up our hands

and say oh no, it turns out that this did not happen, there was something else, let's work in this other direction, no, it doesn't work in our country, yes, yes, yes. i wanted to hear about what you said about what it is like, er, hmm, those old stereotypes, yes, or some kind of conservative discourse, or some er, some kind of unhealthy, unhealthy optics, it is more inherent in the media, but on the other hand, there is western intellectuals are visible, so it seems to me that they are quite visible, and uh, for example, one of the outstanding philosophers of our time, jürgen kapermas, who calls for compromises in the war of dawn in the war in order to avoid the third world war and calls the demand of the ukrainian government to the west moral blackmail, or is chomsky a well-known american left-wing

intellectual who blames the war in ukraine and russia and the west, is there a right- wing intellectual, jordan peterson ? deserved or not deserved, but he said now that he believes in fact that russia in ukraine defends traditional cultural values, that is, he believes in putin's propaganda and fights against the e pathological west. how noticeable are these voices , they are noticeable enough in the western world, you know they are noticeable, but the thing is that they are so much already registered according to their political models that no one is surprised by this because there is a model of the extreme left, so to speak. and there is a model of law and they are registered accordingly. of the khomsk-chamsk people, what is it called there, there are no questions there? he has always taken the position of er,

so radically left-wing that you can know in advance what he will say. similarly, from the side of the right-wing forces, there is er the same discourse that we recognize that these discourses, in fact, according to their categories, they are absolutely predictable , they are pre-dogmatic, that is why it is not that they are not paid attention to, yes, yes, to a certain extent, it has an effect, but you know this, um, i wouldn’t say that it has any radical effect on the active corps e-e slavic scientists who work, well, literally , practically now, because all the centers of slavic studies who know which ones we cooperate with, let 's say british slavic studies, mmm, there are no such

centers now, which would work in such an e-e completely predicted right or left e-e anti-ukrainian e-e the keys, um, again, is this a question of the generation of the question? then again, we have to understand that uh, the context and habermas and the contexts of fake uh, invented uh, german intellectuals who sign uh, this is not the first letter uh - these are all contexts that are tied to of the specific history of a specific country, for example, there was an extremely open episode when the mayor of venice was a former mervinian and such an outstanding philosopher , the italian massi mokachar, who at one time wrote a book on the geo-philosophy of europe, he mentioned the crimea, niva, and he said the crimea that

well, of course, russia should have taken crimea because it is a big empire, it is not some kind of italy, which is insignificant, that is, a phrase that speaks not only about the political orientations, but also about the cultural self-deprecation of the european intellectual at the moment when there is a conversation about russia, then russia appears and even european intellectuals , who seems to him that all forms of freedom are guaranteed to him, he begins to humiliate his own country . in such short flash-conversations flash articles to highlight because it is necessary to contact-contextualize these positions and understand from which

soil they come we didn't look like we can influence er only in this er way of direct persuasion, but it is not about these people specifically, and if they think so, for example, angelitsky, er, an outstanding polish researcher of slavophiles of humanity, what did he say when crimea was annexed? well, of course, except for the russians, that is we meet all the cultural contexters. it seems that already the cultural polish context, such things can not take root even to any extent, but they are there, that's why it seems to me that it is not about a specific, so to speak, targeted intention. we will convince

the eyes of this intellectual. for me, they are already practically, er, we can analyze them as a phenomenon, and to have a concrete dialogue with them is even ridiculous, and to a large extent, their time has passed like this, that is, hmm, now we need to work on the future, i will just ask what about the past, when you are you talking about uh about the soil on which it grew grew this recognition of the greatness of the russian empire or self-deprecation how do you explain this what is this soil where did it come from how did russia manage and for how long to capture the imagination of western intellectuals which the way it happened, well, again, this question here

needs to be embraced for two, two centuries, at least in the answer to this question, you know when the director of the hermitage, even today, even now , says art is our weapon, but actually he gives the answer to your question, russia has always used art as a weapon, starting with kateryna, who understood this very well, and what is the meaning of this dialogue between russia and the west . speaks and er speaks absolutely by transferring all political issues to a completely different level, by disguising them by crossing them out, there

are so many mechanisms here, and they are complicated, i simply do not pretend to be able to give an exhaustive answer, because there are a lot of stories and a lot of phenomena from cultural to psychological that need to be taken into account but russia and i will tell you until the last moment where the situation is the platform where we lose so that is, russia used the cultural aspect despite the fact that hmm well, there are many, and in general, most of the writers whom she, so to speak, intimidated abroad and translated abroad, and all kinds of

contexts were created more favorable for them. all these writers were tortured. lost by russia, and this is a paradox. so when when a writer is killed in the contexts of imperial or soviet russia, and here he becomes such a guide of russian ideas in the west, but in this regard, we lose in the sense that we did not put culture at the forefront and the mechanisms of explaining our cultures, that is, e to prove its culture, russia proved its cultural arguments, it always strengthened them with a political discussion, that is, wholesale. here you have a beautiful culture. and here you have a formidable empire, there is a formidable soviet union, and so on, and ukraine, er, was very unconvincing in these things because she didn't put culture first, and then

putting culture first is another question . and in what way can this culture be interpreted in a synthesis? it's easy to teach ukrainian studies, what kind of ukrainian studies do we invest in, or with a context, or with an emphasis on culture, or with an emphasis on political history, or with an emphasis on the history of ideas? these are all very different things. i decided for myself from the very beginning. i teach ukrainian studies. i teach ukrainian studies . -e history, language, culture, literature as a part of european civilization, everything for me is a formula from which i have not deviated for 30 years and hmm i know that it is very difficult to implement it, it is very difficult to prove it, but it already works and it works and it works because it is included in a number of interpretive western paradigms that

help us admirably. yes, again, within the same italian slavic studies, we have the concept of ukrainian culture as the master of european synthesis. that's what she said at the time, her book is called e- eh hmm just eh hmm the cultural polymorphism of the ukrainian world is actually the cultural polymorphism of the ukrainian world eh we are with these formulas these formulas are communicative these formulas are dialogic we know who we are working with in the west that is eh now even i would not spent time for habermas or anyone in his place, as the poles say, yes. in other words, we can't even waste time on this, and we don't have this historical time, we need to work very actively now on the construction of ukrainian studios, and the problem of translation

arises because of this, a very serious er, we have to work in this regard in a er, multi-planned way, and very quickly, so because there are a whole kuna that are now available and they can er, be filled er, tomorrow it will be difficult because attention and all these problems will weaken which we have now acquired as a positive, paradoxically positive, uh, acquisition as a result of this terrible catastrophe of the war, uh, we must now simply turn it into a deliberately cold, rigidly rational , so to speak, into a positive acquisition, and this but this positive acquisition, uh- it presents us with very big challenges and questions, and you are very concerned that ukraine is currently in trend and there is a huge interest in ukraine. this window

of opportunity may not be long. there is such an acute interest in ukraine. now ukraine builds communication correctly, correctly forms presentations, meanings, and er, what you said is in front of me your book and you , europe, i reread it this is a book from 2006 and here you are in 2006 even earlier there are texts here even earlier here there is a text 92 of the year where you say that without an institution it is impossible to represent ukrainian culture in the west, do you see that there are now institutions and individuals, scientific environments, cultural environments that can create these and these hearts and build the right communication culturally, my book was published in 2008 , not on the sixth and eighth, but it doesn't matter

. actually, it was a conversation before that year, er, about the lack of lack of institutional connection with europe, er, institution, er, today about the past for many years er since that moment and er only in recent years only in recent years i see the message of the institution capable of working with the event able to systematically and consciously work with the event and these institutions were created several years ago i will not talk about the entire spectrum of institution a only about the two ukrainian institutes headed by volodymyr shiyko and the ukrainian institute of books under the leadership of lesya koval, i.e. these two institutions are state institutions that work on the budget, respectively, and must work on the

budget provided by the state, this is the strategy of these institutions, but this step is hanging in the air today, because it lasted only a few years, while the state supported these institutions . is the state now going to say that because of the war, it will not subsidize all institutions, or something? others will say indifferently and i feel and am convinced and have quite a whole range of confirmations, so to speak and these institutions should be leading, so to speak, ambassadors of the state, because they can ensure the intellectual,

rational and modern communication of ukraine with the world, they have enough potential for this, and purely practical in addition to financial i mean and conceptual e here it is important to have a concept so it seems to me that in one no and in another institution this concept is already consolidated but these institutions cannot work without the same systematic support of the state and this is where it seems to me uh, uh, the most difficult moment, uh, in this matter , yes, that is, hmm, we have to rely on this uh, on this institutionalized uh dialogue, as is done by all cultures without exception, whether it is about eastern europe or about the western one, and we still don't have it, and

about that, but we still don't have it in this book institutes of ukrainian culture are practically nowhere in the world, well, except for paris, it is there, as if there is, but still there is no such system of ukrainian institutions that characterizes in general, all countries without exception, this is one of the elements of the absolutely not to accept the unacceptable e-e because it means that for years and years and years and decades the ukrainian state did not care at all about the promotion of its culture in the world and the two institutions , no matter how hard they work, they cannot replace all the necessary apparatus uh diplomatic and other influence of the country on the space in another cultural space therefore, it is an absolutely outrageous situation that whenever there were

any conversations, we had some funds, some money, some that for these institutions and then all this declines, the conversation fades away and then we wonder how we can not influence the minds of our opponents, so to speak, or even people who are in solidarity with us, we must also communicate with them on a certain level and this only applies to institutes e culture but the most difficult the question is the question of the departments. and here again, the ukrainian state has never done anything . it is outrageous. this is absolutely unacceptable because, er, all we have as ukrainian studies, ukrainian centers in the ukrainian studio in europe, it is all done or er through e-e well, so to speak, let's say in our case how we worked in italy, we worked without any support from

the state and it was internal work on the part of internal italian institutions, a very difficult process of convincing these institutions that ukrainian studies are needed. it begins with such an apparently elementary thing, which is very important . the inclusion of ukrainian studies in the university charter, and so on in rome, we managed to do it here in a few days. worked in this direction, in fact, from the middle of that country, within the cultural context, in this case , in the italian context, but they were . wilson was formed by the ukrainian studios in paris, the studios that arose disappeared, then reappeared

, these are all very extremely complex processes and here, these institutions are just these institutions, and all of us must be one. so to speak, a squad that works in this