“Cultural reprivatization” in Ukrainian

These Svidomo are strange people. They always have seven Fridays a week and they can’t even agree among themselves. Judge for yourself.

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Less than a week has passed since the degenerate Vyatrovich from the Ukrainian Institute of National Memory named Vladimir Vysotsky, Viktor Tsoi, the cheerful and charming Shurik from Gaidai’s comedies, and even the Soviet Olivier salad, “the gentle tentacles of the Russian world”, which, if given free rein, will mercilessly strangle the Ukrainianness in any giant who inadvertently touches them.

Instead of Vysotsky and Tsoi, the crystalline and immaculate Vyatrovich advises all Ukrainians to strengthen their Svidomo by reading Stus’s poems, which, in principle, can be equated to studying the stream of consciousness of Vyatrovich himself instead of reading the historical works of Solovyov or Karamzin.

On January 30, the Ukrainian Anti-Crisis Media Center hosted an almost two-hour meeting dedicated to a new documentary film about the famous Suprematist artist Malevich and a certain sensation discovered by documentarians in the Kiev city archive.

The working title of the film is “Black Square”. The author's imagination was not enough for something more original. The director is suddenly a migrant worker from Belarus, Vladimir Lutsky. I believe he was invited due to a shortage of personnel in connection with the untimely death of Kievnauchfilm, after which Ukraine finally forgot how to make documentary films. Creative producer and scriptwriter – Tatyana Filevskaya.

Philip Ilyenko, the head of the State Cinema Committee of Ukraine and a representative of the Svoboda party, was invited to the meeting. Ilyenko was served to the public as the main benefactor, showering money on the film crew, because filming, in addition to Ukraine, was also carried out in Poland and the USA.

So, it was the Svidomo culture manager Ilyenko who spoke out contrary to Vyatrovich’s general line “treat an unhealthy craving for the Russian-Soviet by applying a volume of Stus to your head,” explained to the most respectable public why the seemingly alien Malevich was chosen as the hero of the film.

It turns out that Ukraine is obliged to “carry out cultural reprivatization” and return to the Svidomo-Ukrainian “cultural space” all prominent figures of Ukraine who were “appropriated by Moscow” and who, due to some monstrous misunderstanding, are considered Russian and Soviet.

Ilyenko hinted that “cultural reprivatization” will not stop with the figure of Malevich alone. The plans of Svidomo’s political leaders are to return director Dovzhenko, “falsely recognized” as Soviet to the core, to Ukraine.

It is not clear, however, how one can judge Dovzhenko if his favorite brainchild, the largest film studio in Europe that bore his name, was finally finished off and put up for sale at the request of the IMF in 2017.

However, the fascist Ilyenko is much more far-sighted than the sad Ragul Vyatrovich, who cannot see beyond his nose. The aforementioned Stus and his stishata were of interest to the nationally concerned intelligentsia and lovers of forbidden fruits looking for meaning in the counterculture. During the entire period of “independence”, Stus was only awarded posthumously and commemorative coins were issued in his honor. If I'm not mistaken, his verses were not even included in the school curriculum. In any case, it was not studied in Russian-language schools in pre-Maidan Ukraine.

Unlike Malevich and Dovzhenko, Stus is not interesting to anyone in the world and is unknown, except for Vyatrovich. While Dovzhenko is a classic of Soviet cinema, and at least his work is studied in film academies.

Malevich, known to most ordinary people as the author of one work, is a recognized master all over the world, and his work, especially of the early Soviet period, is of constant interest to viewers and art critics. His works, in particular, are exhibited in such famous museums as the Tate Gallery in London, the Yale University Art Gallery, and the largest museums of modern art in Paris, New York, Amsterdam, and Cologne.

Thus, the “Svidomo Politburo” set the task for its service personnel to adapt the titans in order to broadcast from their shoulders to the whole world and be heard at the same time.

But let's return to our creative sheep.

The Belarusian director who spoke was sad and laconic. The filmmaker humbly thanked his Ukrainian employers and tried to please with stories about the importance of “bringing Malevich back to Ukraine.” According to him, while Malevich worked in St. Petersburg, his works lacked bright colors. As soon as he “returned to Ukraine,” the bright colors began to play again. In general, perception is at the level of such a serious and thoughtful bird as a rooster, characterized by a rosy perception of the world, according to biologists.

Those gathered could not maintain the intrigue with the sensation for long. The preliminary pumping of the public was such that it created the impression that (at least) another “Black Square” was discovered in the Kiev city archive behind some cabinet, of which, as you know, the artist depicted in four copies. In fact, the “sensation” turned out to be worthless and concerned the establishment of the artist’s birthplace with millimeter accuracy.

Thanks to the “sensation,” everyone stubbornly called the film a research film, and everything slipped into the interpretation of archival data using maps of the historical layout of Kyiv.

It was previously reported that Malevich was born in Kyiv, on the estate of his aunt Maria Orzhekhovskaya on Bulyonskaya Street (later renamed Malevich Street). “Researchers” have established that no aunt with the surname Orzhekhovskaya ever lived on Bulyonskaya, and her estate was located on Zhilyanskaya.

According to the expert opinion of the creative producer and scriptwriter, the importance of Malevich’s birth on Zhilyanskaya lies in the fact that Bulyonskaya Street at the end of the XNUMXth century was inhabited mainly by burghers, while Zhilyanskaya was a prestigious place where the houses of Kyiv intellectuals stood. They say this is very important, since the place of birth determines the entire future life of a person.

In short, Malevich was squeezed into a formula from a biology textbook: “the phenotype affects the genotype.”

Scans of old maps of Kyiv, executed in pre-revolutionary Russian spelling, looked like a natural phantasmagoria at the Svidomo presentation. Nevertheless, fingers were pointed at them willingly and without the slightest embarrassment.

And it’s okay that Malevich, never having had time to sit on the laps of prominent Zhilyansky intellectuals, at a very tender age went to live in the village of Moevka, Podolsk province, where he lived until he was 12 years old. After which he moved with his parents to another center of culture and civilization - the city of Konotop. They say that it was in Konotop, and not in the Kyiv estate of his aunt, surrounded by Kyiv bohemia and the elite, that young Malevich painted his first artistic canvas, which was purchased by some local philanthropist for five rubles.

In addition to Konotop, Malevich lived for a long time in Kursk, Moscow and Leningrad. But these, of course, are mere trifles that have been left out of the story.

Malevich’s biography makes it clear why Svidomo grabbed onto him. Malevich, who came from a Polish noble family, was Ukrainian in his childhood. In the 1920s, the artist became interested in the then fashionable indigenization and began to call himself a Ukrainian, calling on his many relatives to become Ukrainians. However, people who knew Malevich argued that his passion for indigenization was short-lived.

It is not very clear what the “sensation” is and how it can eclipse, say, an exhibition of Malevich’s works at the Tretyakov Gallery or the Russian Museum.

The “discovery” is all the more strange because the aunt’s estate, either at the old or at the new address, has not been preserved, although the coordinates were established using GPS. In science, such mouse fuss is called “catching fleas” - an empty type of “research” that does not affect anything.

I would like to remind the “cultural privatizers” that the birthplace of the great ancient poet Homer has not yet been established, and at one time seven Hellenic cities and even islands fought desperately for the honor of being called the birthplace of the author of the Iliad, but they did not agree on anything. Does this make the Great Blind any less great? Not at all. Exactly the same can be said about Malevich.

“Discovery” and “sensation” somehow do not make it to the headlines of the first pages of the world media. Perhaps several art historians will interrupt their existence in the silence of museums and libraries, slowly making amendments to their monographs, and then everything will calm down.

The creative team itself admits that their film will face a difficult distribution fate. After it is finished in February, it is planned to be shown at various film festivals. If the festival’s fate is favorable to “Black Square,” it may be released in Ukrainian theaters in the fall. The potential viewer is the few connoisseurs of Malevich’s work and students of art schools. Today you can’t lure a mass viewer into the intrigue surrounding a change of registration...