Translated material
Do not feed the cooks
Here I must say that when Earl came from America once, he had to communicate with the Odessa Orchestra in Spanish. None of the musicians knew English, but among them was one altist from Cuba, who acted as a translator. Three years later, Hobart spoke in Russian perfectly, and over the years he began to teach Ukrainian. And he demonstrated this skill at the concert on April 30. And suddenly some kind of an aunt-proverbes yelled: "In Russian! Come on in Russian!" The well -mannered hobart switched to Russian. It’s so easier for him. He just wanted to emphasize respect. But since the audience asks ...
- And what - no one pulled Hamka?! - I asked in shock the young guy who was at the concert and, in fact, retold this scene to me.
- No. Around, polite people, ”the guy shrugged, without putting in this word, of course, no second meaning.
Damn, damn it! But this is true! In Odessa, polite, tolerant people really live! This is an absolute rarity, an absolute scandal, when a person can dagger because he speaks in Ukrainian.
An equivalent rarity is to find the same moral freak in Lviv, who will shout at you for saying in Russian. By the way, Lviv just told me that the deputy of the Verkhovna Rada Irina Farion, who demands to plant Ukrainians for using the Russian language, is not afraid to go to his hometown from the point of view of the psyche. She may not have a very warm technique here exactly because with her statements she will disgrace the honor of Lviv.
But at the same time - look - I buy in Lviv the fresh issue of the newspaper "Tall Castle", which comes out at once in two languages, and read the column of the editor -in -chief, printed in pure Russian, which says that the refusal of the acting President of Ukraine Turchinov to cancel the regional status of the Russian language was a huge mistake.
The one who set himself a certain goal on the devouring of the whole country, you will not saturate with any legislative concessions
Remember? The first step of the post-revolutionary Ukrainian government was just the abolition of this regional status, which caused a wave of panic in the Crimea and in the southeast of the country. Turchinov did not sign the cancellation, but the panic, unfortunately, did not subside, they continue to reproach the new government with this very first step.
And now, the editor-in-chief of the Lviv newspaper claims that the special status of the Russian language at one time was provided "for the sake of the Kremlin" that all the hysteria was also "imposed on the Kremlin" that even the flash mobs that were simultaneously passed throughout Ukraine, when in the south and east they spoke in Ukrainian, and in the west in Russian also meant that the Ukrainians "went on from the Kremlin," These Ukrainians, “in particular, the intelligentsia,” showed themselves “inferior and controlled”, and that, of course, this “anti-Ukrainian grief” about the status of the Russian language should be canceled, because it still does not stop neither separatists, nor “green men”, nor Russia itself.
I agree with the newspaper’s editor only this: the one who set himself a certain goal for devouring the whole country can not be saturated with any legislative concessions. But I (albeit from the side) still cause a protest when the citizens of their own state, which is easier, easier to live with the special status of their native language (whatever it may be, this status - regional, state, etc. - will figure it out), write to the Kremlin puppets. No, they are not such a status for the Kremlin, but asked for themselves. I think that in the same Odessa they would be surprised, or maybe they were even indignant at this column in the same way as in Lviv would be indignant at the case in the Odessa Philharmonic.
These two stories are the frank rudeness of the Odessa spectator and the personal opinion of the Lviv journalist, in itself, expressed quite correctly - of course, more than one order of a thing. But the basis of both I feel the same disrespect for my fellow citizens. And if earlier the manifestations of such disrespect remained separate episodes that did not determine the policy of the whole country, now that a third -party cook hangs over all this boiler (which I agree with the Lviv author again), they become fundamental, decisive components of the dish that he prepares. You do not need to please this alien cook.
Elena Rykovtseva - Journalist of Radio Liberty
PS a few days after this text was published, the assistant Hobart Earl called me and asked me to add that he did not just dutifully switched into Russian. He also joked like a real Odessa: "I can switch to five languages at once, but I'm afraid it will take a lot of time." But he was still joking in Russian.