oksana zabuzhko, who in 1994, 28 years ago, writes an absolutely brilliant article called psychological america and the asian renaissance, and she takes the words of yury shevelyov to this article, the cartogen of our provincialism must be destroyed, and here is oksana zabuzhko already writes, and ukrainians in 1994, let me remind you, already have a syndrome of neurosis of non-recognition, when it annoys us terribly that people look at us as something unknown or as a fragment of an empire, some such misunderstanding is about our inability to speak uh talk about yourself and so on, let's start with the fact that now we are sitting 30 years after that. and i am talking to the director of the ukrainian institute, which, by the way, was created not so long ago

. of them that you named , she is at least a few more years distant in history, and this is the year 89, and this is another text by oksana pokhlovska, which was published in the literary journal of ukraine, which was called starting from the ruins of the cosmodrome, where she also sets a certain semantic and frame, because we now call it cultural diplomacy, of course, those texts that i solved, and many other texts that, in particular, were later included in the book, or oksana pakhlivska's europe and, of course, the texts of oksana zabuzhko, for me today are a kind of technical task for the ukrainian institute, which was founded significantly later than they dreamed of, but here i also want to quote the phrase of oksana zabuzhko from the article

you mentioned, she says that we need to compare what we have to give to the world cultural diplomacy and what we can give to the world, of course it says that at the beginning of the 90s, ukraine was probably not institutionally ready for such activities, ukraine itself probably still did not know the forgotten and erased pages of its history, ukraine still had a certain way to go in order to decide which it wants to project itself outward and should have been founded and developed. this is the ecosystem of cultural institutions and the generation of managers who can manage these institutions, the generation of artists, curators, thinkers intellectuals who make up the body of modern ukrainian cultural diplomacy, that's why it seems to me that in some sense we have of course been harnessed for a long time, but in the end, we probably didn't make a false start along with it. don't you have

the feeling that so far he has been harnessed for a long time? those russians who later became slavists in various departments began to form their optics of looking at us as europeans, not only european, western liberal thought began to form such a the idea is so far from reality, if it is about culture, about our intellectual environment , and so on, we can say that we have wasted a lot of time, i think that we can say it right here, but this work of russia began long before ukraine gained independence in 1991, that is western academy western humanitarianism was imbued with soviet studies, which then until now are often

identified with russian ones, and as a result , the role and place of ukraine and other states of other communities that established the soviet the union as a political entity, but of course this work should have started from the first days of ukrainian independence, and a lot was written about it at that time. oksana pokliovska was the co-founder of the international association of ukrainianists, and literally in her articles she wrote out step by step what steps should be taken by ukrainian embassies abroad having founded ukrainian cultural centers and centers of reanistics, foreign and actually ukrainians what scientists who as of 1991 were simply detached from the international scientific exchange and dialogue in order to reorient this western academy, which has been infiltrated by russian optics and russian generatives, to the study of ukraine and

through optics, the actual subject to ukrainian, then i want us to talk now about the activities of the ukrainian institute, but to compare a few years so that you worked until february 24 and after february 24, when such an unprecedented attention to ukraine exploded, so what programs are you doing now, how does the ukrainian institute work? let's start with that, of course, i'll start with what areas the ukrainian institute actually worked with until february 24. and after that, it's the breadth of artistic programs through which we establish cultural ties between people in the fields of cinema

, literature, visual arts, music and we present the achievements of ukrainian culture in these disciplines and sectors abroad, these are academic programs where we cooperate with centers of ukrainian studies in western, mostly western universities, and these are interdisciplinary programs that also include, for example, programs in in the field of civil society, that is, those achievements are manifested by our er, that is, civil activism, protest, horizontal interaction of all that, with which we today, i think, in particular, successfully oppose russian aggression and war er, so create such a reliable influence for our armed forces, so these directions we lost them, we saved them, unfortunately, due to the economic situation, all state cultural institutions are currently working with a zero project budget, so we are looking for funds for all our activities from donor partners. thus, we

preserved almost 80% of their projects this year and launched many new ones, for example, a large project of postcards from ukraine, which is dedicated to the destroyed and lost architectural heritage of ukraine after february 24, behind it is a large and research analytical work and such a work on archiving these losses but also their communication e outwardly through the optics of the closeness of the architectural traditions of ukraine and western europe, because it is precisely because of such a commonality, for example, that it is possible to achieve some kind of communication result, of course, many of these projects respond to the challenges of the war and to foreigners about ukraine because the attention is crazy information is sometimes scarce and people want to learn more about ukraine precisely because of the culture to understand what is happening here realizing that the wikipedia article is not enough and the basic knowledge that they could or

could not get in their formal education or life experience, they also lack what are these questions about what and what are the answers to what questions does ukrainian here give who are your greatest writers or what are your greatest artists or cinema and what kind of questions are these there are really many requests for such basic top-10 ukrainian books, ukrainian modern films or ukrainian plays, this is an understandable format . festival or fair. they always differ in terms of the program and some of their own principles, so you have to approach it individually, but from my experience, for example, recent trips to france and germany, where we try to start these new partnerships on the wave of interest in ukraine we hear mostly the same

thing we sympathize with you we know you now that you are like that it's a pity that we woke up with this news that you exist on february 24 but it's good that we now know about you but we we don't know anything about your sphere of culture, we don't know the points of entry into this sphere, we don't know the names, we don't know who to invite, for example, as a curator for an exhibition, or where to get the scores of ukrainian e-e composers that are often in ukraine, it should be said that they are unavailable, that is, this one interesting today we have a moment when, on the one hand, the attention is phenomenal, on the other hand, people sometimes do not even know how to approach ukraine . a beautiful writer from poklov, a professor at the university of sakinsa in rome, and

she in particular spoke about ukrainian institutions. this is a quote from oksana pokliovska, i see a message from the institutions in ukraine from these systems to consciously work with the event, in particular, the ukrainian institute . it must work on the budget provided by the state. the strategy of the ukrainian institute is absolutely correct in a few years. they managed to do unprecedented things. for example, the program for translating ukrainian literature from your this is a huge step forward, but this step is suspended in the air today. it lasted only a few years while the state supported these institutions, now it is possible for the state will say that he cannot date them because of the war, but i feel convinced that they have a whole range of confirmations that the state is not interested in these institutions , it does not deal with them, it does not even understand their

meaning . it is not the first year that the trend of marginalization of culture and cultural institutions has occurred during the crisis. of the cultural fund, we now understand that the situation is even more complicated and even worse, and the best in the coming months and maybe years, of course, i think that this will not be the case, that is, the state must understand that the cult is the sphere of culture and the sphere of cultural diplomacy , especially today, it is a guarantee of survival, it is a guarantee of the survival of society as a meaningful community people who understand why they are a community and understand why they are and where they are going and i think that when this is so myroslava i have an attack

on action i understand that when the acute phase is not will end or when we get tired or when we still want to return to a more balanced way of existence and do not pay enough attention to these cultural institutions, we will neglect them, this will mean the defeat of the maidan reforms, what we are currently relying on because i have my feet it will be very unfortunate. i believe that this is categorically wrong. i just ah, actually, i wanted to ask what gives you optimism to believe that eh is in power or in the authorities, so any eh is eh actually in those in those authorities who have been harnessed for so long with cultural diplomacy, what will they have, this is the understanding of the importance of cultural diplomacy of cultural institutions, what i mean. i

talk a lot with representatives of the government on the air, and most of them, i will honestly say, are people who think like neo-orcists, you know first because the base and then the superstructure, everyone convinced me well, literally every mp that culture is not the main thing and actually i don't think that people of some new quality will come so er, that is, as a symbol to be me, i do not believe that in the near future er this is this instruction regarding culture will change, it is clear that after the war, after the victory, we will have difficult times, you will simply cooperate with some private private donors, or how it will be. i think it would be wrong to completely rely on private donors. i agree with oksana pokhlovskaya that this the foundation function for the state, it is one of the signs of the presence or absence of

full-fledged statehood must be financed from the state budget. at the same time, while preparing for this conversation, i also thought about this marxist thesis about the basis and the superstructure, and i think that i will explain what i mean. it seems to me that what is expected of us and, in principle , of the sphere of culture, is not the basis , but the superstructure is expected. that we must demonstrate quick results, that these must be public media projects, this is it neoliberal eh hard to measure the effect of culture with money or quantitative indicators that do not go anywhere and this is not a disease of only one ukraine but the basis in this case is not this at all and there is something about which in particular oksana said that in the early 90s this is her spoke about the fact that the cultural ties and cultural interactions of one community with another community must necessarily be translated into new

institutions. this is her fundamental thesis, which is very important, that cultural exchange and cultural understanding between states, between communities, between countries must be based, first of all, on intellectual the culture of this country, and secondly, on strong institutions, and until this base is built, any superstructure will hang in the air, any superstructure will have a situational effect, have a media effect, have a form will we have the visibility or satisfy the situational political interests of certain stakeholders of this process, but it will fail, it will fall, and every time there is a change in the managerial elites of generations, political cycles will change one of these, we will start all over again. this is my biggest concern in this situation, and i personally would wanted to leave the ukrainian institute and this will happen sooner or later in such a state that it does not fall, that this base, that it be this base of cultural

diplomacy, which can then be layered already any additions, i will come back to oksana zabuzhko, there is a new interview, it is great for ukrainians, how i took bohdan's advice from her, and oksana talks about the fact that the world sees us in colonial russian optics, er, not through the russian proto- cana . not only because of russian propaganda, but until now, because of western liberal opinion, what kind of iron-concrete iron-concrete was formed in the universities there by generations of russians there , we talked about it and here she says that back in april she was in italy and the first book on which which was published, which was fresh on the shelves, this is a fresh- baked book, as she says, a book, a brochure , it has long survived its madness on makomsky, chomsky,

why ukraine, about the fact that in our war, you are not russia, but the west, she says that this is perhaps the only edition on which the hand of a confused italian could reach and here is my question actually two in one, what about your program of translation of ukrainian books and what are the new editions now so that you not only er well , we have something standing on a shelf in er rome let's say this but also some of our editions that you explained about ukraine, it should be said that the program for supporting translations of ukrainian literature into foreign languages ​​is a program of the ukrainian institute of books, not ours, it is called translate ukraine . was within its framework, we supported almost 100 translations of ukrainian and

classical and modern and children's literature in various languages, and this seems to me to be a big breakthrough for the second year already - this program existed at that time i hope that it will be possible to find funds for it. at the same time, this is part of a more complex problem, because sometimes the capacity of the translation field is limited by the lack of translators , especially in a language that is more exotic from the point of view of ukraine , and this year and next year we are also planning projects and programs of actually valuable the development of translators from ukrainian to french , english and german, partnership with institutions in berlin, england and paris and france, because without this we will still be situations when it is more conditional, there is a simple translation per year, well, the field of translators in the world

simply does not work, besides, the thing is, for the second time, we will present a prize for translators from ukrainian to other languages ​​of the world, the dragomant price , i hope it will take place in berlin, approximately in october this is also a way to increase the prestige of this profession, which very often in western universities is also very marginal, because even those postgraduates who go to study ukrainian philology and other related disciplines after graduating from universities, they simply do not have the opportunity to work because there is no order, there is a market that will allow them to earn and that is why such honors no, this is also a way to indicate that the state cares about its language, cares about translations in its language and, er, closes various stages of this translation process because the translation of the book is the final metaphor of this process, it is preceded by a lot of work, and in relation to our books by our authors, which explain

ukraine to a westerner, so many different things about culture, so about history, about some others things that can be seen today on the shelves in the west, we have such books. i think that our great allies here, and we should thank them fantastically for this, are serhii the bad, timothy snyder, and apple boom, which explain and tell about ukraine already from the position of the outsider, yes. that is, it is the position of a foreigner. well, serhiy is actually half a foreigner here, but a representative of the western american institution , in particular and ironically, there is more trust in them than in ukrainian voices, what snyder says. what serhii says, what anne says is accepted with more trust by default than the lesser-known

voices of ukrainian historians or intellectuals, and this is also a question of such inferiority, marginality , which ukraine has everything to instant maps of foreigners a-a i also wanted to ask and this is by the way again well, bohdan barak's interview with oksana zabuzhko, they talk about the voices that are supposedly the voices of ukraine, let's say they talk about the director serhiy loznytsia, who represents at international festivals of ukraine he is already a ukrainian director, who for me personally is simply a man of the soviet worldview. yes, but he represents what is later considered ukrainian culture. so, for a long time , we pretended that we did not see it, that it was

normal, uh, we pretended that russian director khizhanovsky is creating a narrative about our disaster in babiny yar, and that’s normal. do you think there are many such people in the world, or are there many voices that speak about ukraine and actually present a distorted, distorted picture of ukraine? its culture, its society, is really such a textbook example, because he is a very authoritative figure in the international film community , and right now we are literally in correspondence and disputes with the film festival in sarajevo, which is a wonderful film festival that has a very interesting and long history, which is being held this year in just two weeks the great perspective of serhiy loznytsia as a representative of the ukrainian film community of ukrainian

culture and we point out to him that he really cannot be considered a representative of ukrainian culture or even more so the only voice that ukraine will be talked about in the world in particular due to his inadmissible, in my opinion, public statements about the emergence of ukraine in 1991 and the fact that he is a representative of russia's great russian culture and this is generally a toxic top great russian culture that appears in so many conversations we have western institutions or , in principle, with foreign ones, but hm, it should be said that many are really reluctant to admit our position or to harass our position or to adjust their programming habits france is here especially in this sense, the country is very adamant about its rosophilianism and its sentiments towards russia. i think that such voices that harm ukraine in the world are openly harming or at least not or killing other authoritative and capable voices, there are not

so many, but another problem is the amateurism of many good voices, and i certainly do not want to come across accusations of elitism or some kind of arrogance, yes, to the work of other people, but i have to state this as a fact, many projects that currently exist in the world of cultural ukraine, initiated by individual people or community organizations or simply groups of ukrainians abroad or whoever is there, are often insufficient in terms of their native quality, and this can be seen because we are competing on a very competitive field, especially in europe. to compete and on a difficult mission, you will no longer go to ukraine or you will leave for a short time. the last thing that is very important for me is to

talk. we have been actively discussing for six months how much the event turned out to be. morally and intellectually blind to russian totalitarianism, which has been maturing in front of everyone for over 20 years, and here russian culture was very important in the sense of the usual normalization of evil, because it was the russians who formed this picture, the concept means forgiveness. and as they say, volodya yarmolenko and tetyana harkova formed such a philosophy of crime without punishment, that is, a world in which the criminal should be pitied, sympathized with him, and not condemned. because there are no guilty people in the world, as lyto said, and now i think, i think about what after the war nothing will end after the war, the myth of the national war is hiding in the russians too, and we will start a competition of literature, a competition of treatises,

which he describes to himself, and here oksana khvorostina perfectly said that the main thing is that remarque should not be found in buch among the rapists in buch and did not describe his sufferings and his own his own great crimes without punishment e there in buch, do you see these threats and do we have an answer or are we ready for this competition, i definitely see them even more so when i think about russian modern culture and the need to undermine her greatness and majesty and about the culture that will appear after our victory. i am afraid of one thing that this russian culture will be myth-creating, but it will not be reflexive . i hope that ours will be both this and the other because to create a myth that will fall on these sentiments

of expectation towards russia on the part of western intellectuals and communities disappointed by it, this will be a great danger because, relatively speaking, they very easily and simply explain to their admirers or detractors abroad that they say everything was fine and that’s how it should be was done and russia is a victim here and we move on, let's just forget it, it's very big, it's a very big danger, and that's why in my personal circumstances , i often talk about the added value of culture, what do i mean, any cultural work, work, book, film, i don't know about the object of design has some specific value simply because it exists, it was created by some creative act .

if it does not bring these new meanings, if it does not explain, does not reflect, is not critical of itself, is not a mirror of society, then it has no added value and there is no place in cultural diplomacy and international cultural relations to have a place in such a culture, this is what we need to talk about too in the context of russia. by the way, i saw that svitlana povalyaeva is a wonderful writer, poet and mother of the murdered roman town hall warrior, and she wrote yesterday, by the way, spreading the announcement of our program, she wrote yesterday er, about the fact that where do we get a cold mind when we are killed, tortured, when our land is burned, and the intellectual western environment, such as an outstanding philosopher and vermas, are called to be balanced, not to be too emotional, not to disturb the peace and the basis of his theory of

rationality er, are you faced with such how do you respond to eh here is this request for equanimity detachment my colleagues and i even formulated our internal response to these to these objections to these requests we decided to be uncomfortable we we decided to provoke. we decided to provoke in the good sense of the word and not simply not to give in to such calls because very quickly it is attention to us about me and we really do not want to find ourselves in a situation where this discourse of appeasement and not so inviolability of everyday peace becomes dominant and at discussions, in our statements, in the projects that we plan for this and next year, we try to be uncomfortable, because otherwise we lose, we also have to understand the limitations of our institutional and social resources, and we have

to understand that we will come out of this victory from this war weakened very much because the more we will be tame now the more now we will be such urban lunatics in the eyes of others the more surely and we can expand the limits of this this this this norm here this is allowed here this that that they are ready to tolerate from us, because they need to be expanded, they cannot be like what you say about, it was, i thank you, hunger, as always. thank you to the ukrainian army that such a conversation was even possible. speak and this was the program proper names we will see you next wednesday and my guest was volodymyr shiyko and the director of the ukrainian institute all the best glory to ukraine