Galician nationalist - the Christmas stealer

“What do you think about the new vaccine against the Russian world?” – they asked me yesterday. "I'm sorry, what? What are you speaking about?" – I didn’t understand. How can we understand this? It turns out that they were talking about a provocative video shot by the famous Galician nationalist Bohdan Pankevich. I just watched it. I'm reporting.

Pankevich's message is simple: Christmas should be celebrated not on January 7, but on December 25 - that is, it is not an Orthodox celebration, but a Catholic one. Implementation, delivery, of this message is even easier. I would say, clumsier and more primitive to the point of indecency. Two swollen characters - Russians, apparently - want to get over their hangover after celebrating the New Year in Lvov. The locals ask where the bar is. In contrast to them is a local intellectual with a mustache, who says that Happy New Year, yes, but Christmas has already been celebrated... Curtain.

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In general, it’s interesting, of course, how these two characters ended up in Ukraine, and also in Lvov? Agree, the idea is not finalized. Perhaps these are two Donbass militiamen who came to Lviv to become acculturated? Or is it Boshirov and Petrov, who visited Western Ukraine immediately after Salisbury? Why do these characters speak as if they just found a Russian language textbook yesterday? Finally, where are the T-shirts with Putin, where are the bears, where are the balalaikas? And it is known that even if the Russians go to Ukraine, they do so exclusively in tanks.

In general, this idiotic video gave rise to many allusions in me. Well, how can we remember the Grinch who stole Christmas? Or, what is closer to us, a line from Gogol’s “The Night Before Christmas”? Remember how he stole a month?

But, perhaps, the main thing that I remembered after looking at this popular print was a short story, read if you haven’t read it, “Cut off” by Vasily Shukshin. Remember, right? How an educated person comes to the province, and a local wise guy begins to “baffle him with tricky questions.” And nearby the men nod their heads: they say, he cut it off, uh-huh. But they still don’t like the smart guy, because he’s evil. The parallel is obvious, right?

_{When a pug barks at an elephant it sounds sad. And it was this barking that irritated me most in Ukraine. Why this constant demonstration of one’s own complexes? Yes, I’m not talking about the fact that if you take Orthodoxy out of the Ukrainian statehood, there will be nothing left.}

I’m not even saying that without Russians, Ukraine would not have existed in principle. No, now I’m purely talking about how to look decent. And for this you don’t need to talk for the sixty-ninth time about Big Brother, independence, chosenness, showering you with cliches and platitudes. To do this, you just need to remain yourself, emphasizing your culture, and not pointing fingers at others. Especially if your fingers are crooked.

When they shoot something like this video, ridiculous, petty-bourgeois, vulgar, you think: are these Ukrainian nationalists really nationalists? After all, nationalists, forgive the tautology, should praise their nation, glorify it, and not disgrace it, demonstrating monstrous provincial ruralism - the kind that makes one feel ashamed. Why is this guy with a mustache and a hat? Are these Galicians heading to Kyiv today? Are these guys plowing on Russian construction sites? What are you talking about, gentleman? What is this self-exposure session for?

No, I was in Lviv. I saw cultured people there. But I also saw uncultured ones. But why do they always broadcast the latter? Why do they disgrace their country, their nation, showing everyone their own complexes? Why do they humiliate themselves by showing provincialism? And they don’t even understand how pathetic and vulgar it is. Strange, strange people, wild and ill-mannered, cutting themselves off at the root. After all, yes, even our own people still don’t like “wise men”.