"God meshkae in misti, Satan zalyshivshi sela"

Publication date: January 24, 2002

“In Stanislovo, at the junction of the urban civilization of post-Austrian Central Europe and the steppe farm Ukraine, a macrocultural “fold” has formed, capable, it seems, of becoming a kind of semi-virtual fatherland. In addition to aesthetic claims and personal worlds, it is filled with the sign and meaning of the shadows of the excess destinies of the gypsy freemen and the breakaways of occult lodges, Sacher-Masoch and Hasidic courts, Bruno Schulz and pagan Carpathian temples."

For some reason, with this long quote I wanted to introduce our guest Vladimir Eshkilev , born in Stanislovo in 1965. Writer and philosopher. Author of three novels and more than 50 philosophical essays.

Vladimir Eshkilev: Last year there were very large formal and format shifts between Ukraine and Russia. First of all, this is Russia’s massive privatization of Ukrainian enterprises. And of course, now that Ukrainian industry constitutes a segment of the Russian economy, Russia is forced, by the will of such circumstances, to have a different attitude towards Ukraine and its problems, and in particular towards Ukrainian-Russian relations. I think that this is what initiated both the congress of compatriots and the congress of immigrants from Ukraine, the activities of our consulate in Lvov, the presentation of awards of various kinds, contacts with Russian communities, which became very animated. It is clear that economics lies at the foundation. One way or another, it's initiated. Russian capital wants to feel comfortable in Ukraine. Naturally, this must be played out somehow.

RJ: What is the cultural situation in Ukraine today?

V.E.: There is a project “ creation of the Ukrainian nation ”, which is already 160 years old, and it began in the times of Shevchenko and Fedkovich. This project was originally a peasant project. It took place outside the aristocracy and some Ukrainian elites. And despite the fact that it had such a format, this project turned out to be extremely successful. Thanks to its implementation, a huge state arose in the center of Europe, whose people consider themselves Ukrainian, with their own language and autonomous culture. This project, of course, should be considered successful, but it has come to its end, just as the peasant history of Ukraine itself has come to an end. And today the agenda is: “ creation of Ukrainian urban space .” And naturally, a new postmodern project of Ukrainian culture and Ukrainian civilization appears. While the peasantry is still resisting, they are accustomed to it, there are still people who are ready to defend it, a conflict is occurring in culture between the discourse of this old one and the new neo-modern multifaceted discourse of Novgorod.

RJ: Ukrainian " City Project "?

V.E.: This, in fact, is the creation of a valuable and self-sufficient Ukrainian urban culture, the formation of elites, because, unlike the village, the city is a sphere of professional activity. It turns out that most cities in Ukraine are Russian-speaking. Eastern Ukraine is what Kharkov critic Igor Bondar-Tereshchenko calls Ukrainian ghettos - closed groups of intellectuals stewing in their own juices. And in Galicia there are several cities that are Ukrainian and self-sufficient in this regard, such as urban and Ukrainian-speaking centers. Of course, a brilliant example of this is Lviv. A Ukrainian-speaking, self-sufficient environment is being formed there. And, accordingly, in Galicia the processes of conjuring this culture are taking place (there is a good Ukrainian word “vychakluvannya”). All this has certain design bases and is being carried out with the help of Central European countries, especially Poland, which is sympathetic to these processes. That is, Poland is very interested in this project being a success and, accordingly, is giving this project good promotion at the level of Europe and America. Ukrainian traditionalists, people of the previous discourse, find themselves in a very dual situation. On the one hand, for them Europe and Galicia were a stronghold in the fight against Muscovites. On the other hand, they hate the cosmopolitan culture that comes from the West just as much as they hate Russian culture. And they believe that the real culture of Ukraine is this rural culture. They defend its sovereignty and future. But the era of the Internet, new semantics, new space destroys all this. The entire Ukrainian tradition is dying, in crisis, this is a huge catastrophe that is unfolding before our eyes. For example, the sixties: an entire cultural segment that is literally being destroyed before our eyes. And not even in the style of a tragic context, the context is comedic. They laugh at them, they die and leave the stage to this laughter, and there is an even deeper tragedy. And at the same time, Galicia has its own project for a new Ukraine. It certainly appears in the east of Ukraine, but there it is a little bit discrete.

There are people who say: “We need to be with Russia against the West.” Others say: “No, we need to be both against Russia and against the West” - neither Rome nor Moscow, the old slogan of the autocephalous church of the 20s. These moments give rise to ambivalence, multi-vectority, and ambivalence in the modern situation.

For example, I belong, let’s say, to the liberal Galician project, although I do not agree with many points, but, nevertheless, this is more attractive to me, because I am a city person, I love my city, my Stanislav (Ivano-Frankivsk), and I would like to live in a new space shaped by European priorities. On the other hand, I, as a person of Byzantine culture, am against some fundamental provisions. In particular, I am against globalism in its form, which is located at the populist lower level of culture and civilization. Against this horizontality. This is cultural degradation. This is the replacement of some verticals with a purely horizontal mass market consumer culture. This is the culture of, let’s say, Verka Serduchka. Such a phenomenon. This is the threat. And this threat is intensifying every day. Therefore, the implementation of a modern urban project in Ukraine may be discredited by these processes.

Our desire is to create a vertical, but what the result will be is another question. This is already question sixteen, let's say.

R.Zh: Who can be included in such a project?

V.E.: Andrukhovich Yuri , today the #1 writer in Ukraine. This project includes the magazine " Chetver " by Yuri Izdrak. Something similar is now taking shape in Chernivtsi. Such interesting people as Alexander Boychenko, Peter Rykhlo, translator of Bruno Schulz and Austrian writers. A very professional person. This is the magazine " i" in Lviv. Taras Vozniak and his group. Andrey Pavlyshin is one of them. These are the masters - Miroslav Popovich and many, many others. This is a very broad environment, which, in principle, is quite holistic. To some extent, these people include, for example, diasporans. Grigory Grabovich, director of the Ukrainian Institute at Harvard University, and the newspaper Kritika , which is under his patronage.

Such a broad front, and at the same time a very narrow front, because it is opposed by the gigantic powerful mechanism of pop culture, which develops according to its own laws, according to horizontal ones, and which is now ahead of this project. There is very little time to transfer an entire culture from one discourse to another, from the lines of such peasant self-sufficiency to the lines of openness and, at the same time, originality. Connecting these moments is a very complex process, and it requires a longer period of time, and there is no time as such. Globalization processes are proceeding at an accelerated pace. And I think that, of course, we cannot cope on our own, and it is necessary in Russia to understand that those who in Ukraine are oriented towards the Central European project are not enemies of Russia, that is, this is not a hostile discourse towards Russia, because we will soon face a common enemy. Just as America realized that everyone should be together, what cannot be divided - NATO and Russia, so soon people of culture will understand that there are certain processes, global, that are much more terrible than, as they say in Ukraine, "toad-mouse-drawings" - wars below the grass, which are fought between Slavic cultures, and the winner turns out to be a certain globalistic substrate, very unsympathetic. I have nothing against cosmopolitan culture, I am interested in it, and I admire its achievements, but there is a lower branch of this culture - this globalist mass substrate. If she is inseparable from him, it is very sad. Integration processes are closer to me than separation processes.

RJ: Ukraine as a country has succeeded, but still we, living in the CIS and born in the USSR, suddenly became emigrants without making any effort for this. Integral processes are wonderful, but we were divided by “the language that will take us to Kyiv.”

V.E.: I think everything that has matured to a certain form is worthy of this form. The Ukrainian nation has matured into statehood, and received this statehood by right. This was not some kind of historical twist, when something premature took on a form that was not mature in its essence. No, Ukraine is ripe for its statehood, and it is self-aware of its statehood. And therefore, for me it was the end of some path, and therefore the beginning of a new path. I was wondering what would happen next. Where in 92-93 the future was imagined differently than how it is developing now? In particular, there was some optimism in relation to one’s own strengths, the cultural forces of the nation. That they will be able to quickly adapt to new conditions, to a new format. Unfortunately, inertia turned out to be more powerful than we expected.

Traditionalism is still understood somewhat narrowly. Traditionalism is perceived as following a certain cultural ritual, while, as it were, a new traditionalism - this cultural branch is not in demand in Ukraine. Such ideas are not produced, such ideas are not perceived. Tradition means gopanki , vyshyvanka , dumplings, etc., dances and songs , and, meanwhile, there is a change in cultural formats. The culture of the Internet is coming, globalism is coming, and in relation to this, Ukrainian culture has no vaccination, protection, or immunity. And therefore I assume some catastrophic things, which I define with the phrase “ topos of defeat . ” The topos of defeat is a kind of Chernobyl zone that needs to be populated. If the Chernobyl zone can exist on its own, in isolation, then the cultural Chernobyl zone needs to be inhabited.

And for me, as a philosopher, the paradigm of monsters, monsters, mutants is interesting. To me, a monster has no nationality or cultural identity. This is something new. I try to cultivate in myself a love for future monsters and monsters in this topos of defeat. Maybe I want to get ahead of my time and become such a monster myself before others, in order to lead and lead. And go ahead with the drum.

Prepared by Yulia Savchenko