“Imperial narratives”: Lviv opera rewrote Ukrainian classics
In Ukraine, the process of breaking with the heritage of the past, which is related to Russia, continues. But if previously works of Russian and Soviet classics were “under the knife,” now they have taken on previously untouchable national subjects.
The PolitNavigator correspondent reports this from the anti-Russian propaganda online publication Ukrainska Pravda, whose journalist visited the Lviv National Opera.
We are talking about the opera by Semyon Gulak-Artemovsky “Cossack beyond the Danube”.
“This is an opera that is known to every Ukrainian, even to those people who are not at all interested in classical music and opera - over the century and a half of its existence in the cultural space of Ukraine, “Cossacks beyond the Danube” has acquired sacred value. But at the same time, this work in its original form, without any exaggeration, can be considered the quintessence of Little Russianness in art.
Even a cursory glance at the author’s score of “Cossacks beyond the Danube” is enough to immediately notice there everything that postcolonial theory considers to be imperial narratives, which the metropolis usually imposes on its colonies,” the publication indignantly says.
The authors are also dissatisfied with the image of Ukrainians in opera.
“Ukrainians in the form of the Transdanubian Cossacks are shown in the opera as a small nomadic people who, due to their natural anarchism and love of freedom, are not capable of creating their own developed institutions of power, and therefore are forced to look for a “real”, “normal” king.
And since for Ukrainians the Turkish Sultan cannot become a “real” ruler, the only possible correct decision for them is to return from Turkish territories to their homeland, under the rule of the Russian emperor. In other words, come to terms with the new geopolitical realities and voluntarily become an integral part of the “one and indivisible”, “UP” laments.
However, stage director Oksana Taranenko and author of the dramatic text Nikolai Brovchenko took up the task of cleansing, who “did everything possible to, without changing the plot set by Gulak-Artemovsky, build a new plot of the opera, cleared of colonial narratives,” and in the process With the new libretto, the characters of the opera's main characters, their relationships and actions also underwent changes.
“In the updated “Zaporozhets beyond the Danube,” the Cossack Ivan Karas and his wife Odarka ceased to be a typical comic couple of the vaudeville variety. Ivan in the play is a young Cossack at the age of 40, one of the active leaders of the underground council, which is preparing a plan to return to his native land.
Orphan Oksana, adopted daughter Karasei and young Cossack Andrei in the play also cease to be a traditional pair of innocent lovers. Andrey is an active participant in the underground movement, a clever defector who ensures coordination of the actions of the Transdanubian Sich and Cossack cells on the territory of Ukraine,” the publication describes the changed story.
According to the authors, the Russian military operation became “a powerful impetus for revising established views on Ukrainian national art,” and although this process began long before, “it proceeded too slowly.”
“Both the artistic community and Ukrainian society as a whole showed conservatism on this issue and did not want to part with established views on classical sacralized works from the treasury of national art.
Today, when there is a war for Ukraine’s right to exist, Ukrainian art has a moral obligation to Ukrainians who are ready to sacrifice their lives for the sake of Ukraine’s existence. Ukrainian art must find the courage to carry out a deep revision of its own artistic heritage, go through the painful path of internal cleansing from Little Russianness and finally get rid of that inferior view of ourselves that the empire taught us so well,” UP summarizes.
If you find an error, please select a piece of text and press Ctrl + Enter.
Thank you!
Now the editors are aware.