Russia-Ukraine War Briefing : The war on Ukrainian culture

 

New York Times - July 15, 2022

By Yana Dlugy

Hello. This is your Russia-Ukraine War Briefing, a weeknight guide to the latest news and analysis about the conflict.

The death of a 4-year-old girl, who was killed in a Russian missile strike, captured the horror of war. Russian missiles struck two universities, a hotel and a mall in the southern city of Mykolaiv. Lawyers for the U.S. basketball player Brittney Griner said she had a prescription for the drug she mistakenly carried into Russia. An American living in Ukraine has been taken into custody in Russian-occupied territory, his family said. Follow our live updates. Track the invasion with our maps.

Ukrainian volunteers used sandbags early in the war to protect a statue of Princess Olga of Kyiv.Daniel Berehulak for The New York Times

The war on Ukrainian culture

President Vladimir Putin has maintained that the Ukrainian language is a dialect of Russian, that Russians and Ukrainians are “one people” and that Ukraine as a nation was invented by Soviet leaders.

The reality is that, while the two languages are close relatives in the Slavic family, they are distinct, as is the two nations’ history, intertwined though it may be.

With Russia actively trying to erase Ukraine’s national identity, the country’s music, literature, movies and monuments have become battlefields, my colleague Jason Farago writes.

A critic at large for the Times, Jason spent two weeks in Ukraine, traveling to the war zone to report on the role that cultural identity is playing in the conflict. The true culture war of our age is the war for democracy, he writes. Ukrainian culture, past and present, has become a vital line of defense for the whole liberal order.

I spoke to him just as he was about to board a flight. Our conversation has been lightly edited.

Why does culture play such an important role in this war?

Jason: Wars destroy culture. And this one is no different.

The last 25 years brought with them an absolutely appalling tide of cultural destruction. The war in Syria, particularly, resulted in dreadful damage to that country’s classical and Islamic heritage.

What’s different about this war is that it has had cultural roots from the start. It is a war that is being prosecuted as an effort at cultural extermination — and therefore it is fair game, as opposed to simply collateral damage.

That’s why Ukrainian culture is not simply a collection of beautiful things that we would like to see preserved, because we want that in every war. It is an active part of the war effort that is not simply about the survival of Ukraine as a state.

Cultural life has partially resumed in Kyiv. In early July, dancers prepared to take the stage at the National Opera of Ukraine.Emile Ducke for The New York Times

What stood out for you in reporting on Ukraine’s cultural life?

There is no denial of war among artists, writers or musicians. I spent a lot of time meeting younger artists, photographers, writers. In particular, I went to a nightclub — Kyiv had this incredible nightclub scene before the war.

There was no sense when I was on the dance floor that there was a war over here and this was our escape room. No way.

What I will always remember is the kind of congruence, the kind of simultaneity of something unimaginably horrible and dangerous and something intensely beautiful, where there is such an enormous lust for life.

The other thing was the profound engagement that people in Kyiv had with other regions of the country.

The idea that the Donbas, or Kharkiv or Mariupol was somehow more Russian or less Ukrainian had been pretty thoroughly dismantled in 2014 in the imaginations of most people whom I met.

That’s something that really began in 2014: A substantially greater engagement among young artists with their own country. People told me they were traveling more domestically, that they were doing collaborations with people in Donetsk, or Luhansk, or with Kherson.

A performance this month at Closer, one of the clubs that made Kyiv a nightlife capital before curfews were imposed.Roman Pilipey/EPA, via Shutterstock

Was there anything that surprised you?

This is a country in which the Soviet past is very deeply linked to Russian domination, and yet I found a much greater interest in the Soviet era as something that is a legitimate part of Ukrainian history, even if it is something that they want to move past or deconstruct.

This was linked to the idea of understanding Ukraine as something both east and west, something that is both Kyiv and Kharkiv, something that is both Ukrainian-speaking and Russian-speaking.

That said, there is an enormous pushback against the Russian language now. The idea that Kyiv was a city that was meaningfully bilingual is really being pushed to one side. I found people do not want to speak Russian now.

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How the war changed your worldview

As a university student, it is incredibly disheartening to see exacerbating conflict and division in the world my generation is inheriting. It’s hard to keep hope for the future alive when looking at the news. The war in Ukraine has opened my eyes to the discrimination in reporting and the public’s failure to maintain interest in conflicts outside of the West. Though the war in Ukraine is clearly affecting the entire world, it must be noted that the potentially genocidal conflict in northern Ethiopia is not widely reported on. – Raleigh Kuipers, Michigan

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What else we’re following

In Ukraine

Strikes that have hit civilian areas have made destruction a backdrop to daily life. A British volunteer aid worker held by pro-Russian separatists in the east has died in detention, his family and the separatists said. The uneven flow of arms to Ukraine hints at differences among allies about whether Russia should be punished or accommodated. War crimes investigators face a formidable task, with as many as 20,000 cases and with multiple countries and agencies involved in efforts to prosecute.

In Russia

Russia banned the investigative news website Bellingcat and its main local partner, Politico reported. The Kremlin replaced the head of the Russian Space Agency, who had threatened to stop partnering with the U.S., The Washington Post reported.

Around the world

The Times looked at how Germany is preparing for a possible cutoff of Russian gas this winter. President Emmanuel Macron of France said the country should also prepare for a total cutoff. Chinese exports of microchips and other equipment, including some with military applications, have increased since the start of the war, The Wall Street Journal reported. A Ukrainian-born lawmaker, Victoria Spartz, has been criticized by fellow Republicans for speaking out against President Volodymyr Zelensky, Politico reported.

We also recommend

The New Yorker reported on psychologists treating rape victims in Ukraine as part of a grass-roots effort. Putin will pursue his imperial ambitions regardless of the cost, Andrei Kolesnikov writes in Foreign Affairs. World leaders should not fall for Russia’s narrative that it can outlast the West in the war, the Russia expert Fiona Hill tells Foreign Policy.

Thanks for reading. Enjoy the weekend I’ll be back on Monday — Yana