“Heroes are born when authorities are either inactive or incompetent,” – Oksana Levkova

Interview, Opinion

левковаThe head of All-Ukrainian organization “Don’t be indifferent!”, author of projects directed to support the Ukrainian language, literature and history Oksana Levkova who visited more than 3 thousand Ukrainian schools told about the educational and cultural policy in Crimea, Donbas and the movie “Holodny Yar”

Society reacted positively towards the release of “Holodny Yar” movie.  How do you consider, whether the public opinion changed after the Maydan, as in one of your interviews you said that people got used to think that the Ukrainian meant the second rate? Is it easier now to work with the public society being the pro-Ukrainian organization?

I swear that millions of people didn’t change their mind about Ukraine after Maydan at all. When I cross the boarders of my friend’s group that includes three-five thousand people or drive 100 km away from Kiev, I am in another world, where not everyone understands what happened on Maydan. Not everyone understands that monuments should be set to the heroes. Even when in town N 30,000 people sincerely sympathize with family of the fallen during the Revolution of Dignity, they come out their huts for his funeral but still say: “So what? Better let the monument of Lenin stay than some new monuments.” But Lenin isn’t our history. No matter which way you look at it, he is a history of Russian Bolshevism. But those who stood for the European standards of life in Ukraine and against white-blue ex-con are really ours. As there are still a lot of people with such muddle in heads, I need to keep on working.

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The main purpose of the film is to give young people an idea of Holodny Yar as a place of unprecedented struggle against Russian invaders almost a century ago. Having this “statement of purpose”, the film goes to Donbass and Crimea. Can you tell what reaction you expect to face with taking into account that there is imposing of everything Russian on these territories?   

The response to the film already was when it has not been finished yet. It is because we have hundreds of contacts with other public activists in the eastern and southern areas. They are wonderful people waiting for us both on the occupied and partly-occupied territories. The film will travel through intellectual environments, clubs and libraries. We are going to visit the places where Ukrainian-oriented people or the ones who hesitate being more Ukrainian than Russian are waiting for us.

It is believed that Donbass is the region isolated from the intelligence. What do you think about that?

We have never thought that Donbass is the region, which is cut off from the intellectual thought of some pasteboard “Another Ukraine”. That’s why we always held various events there (as opposed to numerous non-governmental organization in Kiev). At that moment it comes to my mind that Oksana Zabuzhko said in one of the publisher forums: “Don’t think that only Galician intellectuals see themselves as someone special and/or the ultimate truth. Intellectuals from Odessa think the same about themselves as well as Kharkiv and Donetsk ones.” I absolutely agree with that. So we have never put the question in such a manner. For example, we organized the project “Remix 482”: Djs from the band “TNMK”, “Tartak” and “Boombox” visited night clubs in Donetsk, Kharkiv and Odessa and arranged disco parties where only remixes of songs of Ukrainian artists were played. We went to these regions knowing that the local young people will take us well. By the way, once we held the composition contest on the topic “Who is Ivan Mazepa for me”. We received 50 000 applications and as a result, we selected 10 winners from the whole Ukraine. 90% of them were not from Ternopil and even not from Khmelnytsky region. It was Nikolaev, Chernihiv, Donetsk and Crimea. So if I were originally from Halychyna, probably, I would be raised in a little bit different way but to some extent there is Russian blood in me and I lived in the Khabarovsk Territory for many years. When I arrived in Ukraine, I found the time of arguments between Russian speaking and Ukrainian speaking people in the comprehensive secondary school of the city of Starokostiantyniv (Khmelnytsky region) where I studied. At first, I hated the Ukrainian language and learned it long. Ukrainian words seemed to be funny for me. I also had such a kind of experience, so I know what it means when something is imposed on me. For this reason I don’t feel arrogant as many people from Halychyna do to people from Donbass, Kirovohrad or Kharkiv regions.

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We can see photographs of military men, Donetsk “cyborgs” on the posters to “Holodny Yar”. Is it possible to draw parallels between events of Yar and today’s events in Donbass? 

Sure, there are some parallels. First, the rebels from Holodny Yar made decisions themselves almost a hundred years ago. They gathered together on the town’s meeting and determined tactical things themselves although they really recognized UNR authorities. Similarly, our “cyborgs” in Donbass solve problems together because Kiev heads are not sure where to go and what to do. As I understand, the military leadership didn’t realize yet how it is possible that our Slav-brother attacked us. Secondly, the responsibility rests with a little Ukrainian man: fighters from Holodny Yar were supported by society. The book of Yury Horlis-Gorsky, who appears at the beginning of our film, contains the paragraphs about farmers selling weapons on the market in Medvedivka (one of the villages in Holodny Yar). Now it is the same situation: the society supports “cyborgs”. Although it sounds strange but we funded the army as well as other areas of economy but there are no results.

There are certain heroes in the events demonstrated in this film. Today’s soldiers also should be glorified in media. How do you think whether this phenomenon is useful for society? Are there too many people raised to this rank?

Heroes are born when authorities are either inactive or incompetent. Currently we don’t have many heroes especially because they didn’t exist at all during the last years. Just think about modern literature. Is there the image of hero? Are there hero images on TV? Following many cultural specialists, I affirm that there is a prevalent image of a loser in modern Ukrainian works (the same is during the 1920’s). Therefore, there is a need for heroes in our society. But if we dip into all-European or global context, we will find that there are no heroes yet and will not be. I mean that now heroism is concentrated juts in Ukraine and if a child goes to study in Poland or he has solid relationship with the United States where he emigrates, there is already no hero. Irrespective of our attitude to that, we all live under the conditions of liberalism and cosmopolitanism, so heroism, pathos and revolutionary romanticism won’t surpass it.

Did the activity of the social movement “Do not be indifferent!” change in Crimea? Now there is the active liquidation of the Ukrainian books on the peninsula. What can be done in this situation?               

I brought books there late January of this year. We wanted to start the project M.E.C.W. (Modern Epatage Creative Word) but the occupation happened and a book burning began, especially in the Naval Lyceum in Sevastopol. After that, we took books back instead of bringing them there. Our activists from Sevastopol passed them: they brought books in bags to Zaporozhye because they had relatives there and then these books were send by “Nova Poshta” to Kiev. How to help in such situation? Ukrainian schools were closed in Crimea but it is impossible to make a “masked gunman” follow each teacher of history, language or literature. Ukraine-oriented people will distribute the Ukrainian culture in secret as well as it was a hundred years ago.

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What should the Ukrainian authorities do in Crimea, where, in fact, schools with teaching the Ukrainian language don’t work, in order to focus the attention of the youth on the Ukrainian? 

The government had to spend money on creating patriotic movies, after which people don’t become separatists. But that should be done ten or twenty years ago. It had not to offer unreal forms of patriotic education as well as exclusively ethnic or religious formats. That’s why, for that moment we are going to distribute this film in Crimea. But, honestly speaking, all projects we organized on the peninsula during last nine years can be long-term. If only there were money and concerned people.

Who provides funding for printing books, handbooks and the film?

We found the money for printing at the same place as for this movie. At first, I use my legs, which helped me visit three thousand schools in Ukraine, and meet with people. And then I circulate materials prepared by professional historians in a masterly manner and philologists and creatively decorated by my activists (the ones provide the content and the others are responsible for the form). The main thing is not to think that it’s humiliating to ask for money. It is just the opposite! It is exciting! There can be quite unexpected crowdfunding cases. I went to Lviv in August, visited a drug store and saw a flyer that said: “Dear friends! In view of the military situation, there will be limited import of Russian goods…”  When I read this flyer attentively, I thought that I would find a common speech with those people. You know, it is just the same as, for example, you feel that your mind is attuned with a mind of some author. I stopped in the nearest café and wrote a letter to the director of this drug-store chain. I received the answer in twenty minutes. So in such a way I found the money for arranging the trip for our historians-reenactors who will represent “Holodny Yar” in Donbass. Before now I didn’t believe that it is possible to do in this way but as the years go by, I see that public activists simply have no other choice.

For reference: The project M.E.C.W. (Modern Epatage Creative Word) started in January 2014. During its existence the activists of “Don’t be indifferent!” visited 17 schools in Simferopol, gave sets of Ukrainian teen literature and books “Ivan Mazepa: Made in Ukraine” written by Olga Kovalevskaya and published by the movement “Don’t be indifferent!” The winners of the Petro Yatsyk Ukrainian language competition were awarded in the upper secondary school number 33. The agreements with Simferopol schools about conducting creative Ukrainian language lessons by students-philologues from Taurida National V.I. Vernadsky University in spring were achieved.

Photos are from personal archive of Oksana Levkova.

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