Ukraine’s Culture of Freedom: A Conversation with Bogumiła Berdychowska

daily_life_maidan-luty-2014-fot-emeric_fohlen_nurphoto-gettyimages-524925926-s.jpg, large, Maidan, February 2014, photo: Emeric Fohlen / NurPhoto / Getty Images

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What constitutes Ukrainian culture is the love of freedom, claims Bogumiła Berdychowska in conversation about Ukrainian intelligentsia, Ukrainian culture, and the truth of time. A Polish publicist specialising in Ukrainian history and Polish-Ukrainian relations, she coordinates the Ministry of Culture and National Heritage’s Gaude Polonia Scholarship Programme dedicated to creators from Eastern-Central Europe, mainly from Belarus and Ukraine.

Editor’s note: This interview was conducted on 28 February 2022, in the first days of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine. It is published here as a record of that moment and of the immediate cultural, social and political responses to the war.

Zuzanna Liszewska-Soloch: What is the current condition of Ukrainian intelligentsia? What is their role in all that is happening?

Bogumiła Berdychowska, 2010, photo: Piotr Gamdzyk / East News

Bogumiła Berdychowska: The Maidan events of 2013 and 2014 were a spontaneous protest movement, a true revolution around which a variety of symbols and cultural initiatives abounded. After all, one of the defining symbols of Euromaidan has been the Romantic piano standing on a street, oftentimes described at length by the press. The situation right now is vastly different: with ballistic missiles overhead and metro stations in all of Ukraine’s major cities, such as Kharkiv or Dnipro, turned into bunkers, it’s difficult to even talk about culture, the role of culture, or the emergence of great works of art. It’s not a time for contemplation or reveries. Masses of Ukrainian artists and intellectuals are simply fighting for their homeland, just like all the other citizens. Some are joining the military. Some – like Swiatosław Wakarczuk, the leader of Okean Elzy, a band popular across the entirety of what used to be the USSR – are recording and broadcasting inspirational messages to their compatriots or the world. Others, such as the writer Serhij Żadan, are engaging in civic activities as well.

ZLS: It’s often the language that constitutes culture.

BB: Ukraine’s case shows us that the matter is actually much more complicated. We’re currently witnessing Russian-speaking Ukrainians proving to be true Ukrainian patriots, dying for their country. We see images of elderly Ukrainian women directing multi-level Russian profanities at Russian soldiers. Wołodymyr Rafiejenko, an author writing both in Ukrainian and in Russian, has said, for instance, that he won’t let the Russian language be taken away from him because it’s the native language of his mother. Andriej Kurkow, the director of the Ukrainian PEN CLUB, who wrote Dzienniki Majdanu (The Maidan Diaries) in Ukrainian, has also written all his novels in Russian.

ZLS: If not language, then what, in your opinion, defines Ukrainian culture and sense of identity with all their diversity?

Bogumiła Berdychowska during the 70th anniversary of the publication of the first issue of ‘Kultura Paryska’, 2017, photo: Jakub Orzechowski / Agencja Wyborcza

BB: It’s a certain set of values. What constitutes Ukrainian culture is, however trivial that may sound, individualism and a love of freedom. In his work Dzienniki Obozowe (The Camp Diaries), my favourite Ukrainian poet Wasyl Stus writes that what Ukrainians and Poles share is the centrality of freedom to our lives.

ZLS: Is there a must-read work from the canon of Ukrainian literature for these tragic, immensely difficult for Ukraine and the entire Europe times?

BB: It’s a time of a huge breakthrough. Although the war has been going on for eight years due to the fact that Crimea was given up without a fight and the struggle for Donbas was scarce, there was a persistent feeling of the unreality of it all. However, if anyone thought that the Russian aggression aimed at the whole of Ukraine would look like the occupation of Crimea, that it would be a show, a televised demonstration of Russian power, with helicopters and bulletproof vehicles, that Ukrainian heroism would be limited to singing the national anthem – anyone who has ever thought that can now see that this has changed irreversibly, that it’s not what the story of Ukraine is anymore.

I would certainly recommend the aforementioned Żadan, who writes both poetry and prose. If anyone would like to understand. Anyone interested in the terrifying consequences of the Russian aggression in Donbas and what’s happening currently definitely ought to reach for the novel The Orphanage, whose Polish translation was published as soon as a couple of months after the Ukrainian release. When it comes to readings relevant at all times, I would recommend Oksana Zabużko, Jurij Andrychowycz, the extraordinarily talented Tania Malarczuk, and the essays of Aleksander Bojczenko.

Those interested in visual arts absolutely must familiarise themselves with the works of Mykyta Kadan.

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Serhiy Zhadan with the Angelus Award, 2015, photo: Bartłomiej Kudowicz / Forum

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ZLS: What happened to the Polish-Ukrainian collaboration programmes – Gaude Polonia and the Polish-Ukrainian Youth Exchange, organised by the National Centre for Culture? Have they been suspended due to the current situation?

BB: Nothing has been suspended, but we are trying to respond to the challenges of the moment. We’re giving up on strict deadlines and introducing individualised scholarship dates. Sometimes we also bring forward the scholarship dates for people who were initially supposed to come to Poland at a later time.

ZLS: How would you comment on Polish society’s reaction and all the initiatives meant to aid Ukraine?

BB: What must be said is that exactly what needs to be done, gets done. I’m enormously impressed by the sheer scale of the aid provided, Polish society’s investment and the fact that, say, people from Warsaw drive to the border to pick someone up and find themselves waiting, since so many people have already extended a helping hand. Currently, those willing to help are more numerous than those requiring help (that has been the situation up until now anyway), even though so many refugees have already crossed and are still crossing the Polish-Ukrainian border. I believe that the Ukrainian migrants who fled to Poland after 2014 have a significant share in these initiatives. All of us, including each and every Culture.pl reader, meet Ukrainian people in daily encounters – while getting vaccinated, at work, or at university. Research conducted a couple of months ago by the College of Eastern Europe has demonstrated that such direct contact has caused a great rise in Polish society’s sympathy for our eastern neighbours.

ZLS: There have been some critical voices saying that the reaction is diametrically different than in the case of the humanitarian crisis on the Polish-Belarussian border…

BB: The mobilisation of society and its incredible level of self-organization are being demonstrated in a situation of a direct threat. As rockets are falling on so many Ukrainian cities, people understand and agree that they need to operate in a state of higher readiness. No one has any doubt as to how they should act, which is fascinating.

ZLS: Thank you for the conversation.

Warsaw, February 28, 2022

Bogumiła Berdychowska – a Polish publicist specialising in Ukrainian history and Polish-Ukrainian relations. A Polish philology graduate at the John Paul II Catholic University in Lublin. Between the year 1989 and 1994, she chaired the Office for National Minorities under the Ministry of Culture and Art. Then, until 2002, she worked as Deputy Head of Polish Radio’s Programme V. At the National Centre for Culture since 2003. The editor of Jerzy Giedroyc’s correspondence with representatives of the Ukrainian emigrant community. Since 2014, a co-founder and member of the Civic Committee of the Solidarity with Ukraine.

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