Odessa. Bastards
What happens when the talking hamsters' batteries run out and the party insists: “We have to!”? When the “iron arguments” “Putin - ... uylo” are no longer in trend, like leopard-print leggings, and dissociation from the “Russian world” still needs to be justified and emphasized. When you should be smart, but it’s so difficult to broadcast in a non-native Ukrainian language that the importance of an event turns out to be as valuable as a matinee in kindergarten: without diapers. When, in the end, elections are around the corner... And it happens - I’ll answer you - a National Round Table on the topic “Culture of Dialogue”. It was held at the Odessa Scientific Library according to the principle “Are there many of us in the city?” “If there is an absence...” There was the janitor of house No. 5, who thought he was a boor, and a tram, and so on.
Traditionally, it was not Odessa residents who gathered to represent Odessa (mostly), but a set of experts familiar to Ukrainian talk shows: proFFeSora, senile people, freaks, consultants on issues of unknown causes, and parasites from the Institute of National Remembrance (where would we be without them!). Every now and then there was a need to shed tears, so much did pity prevail over the ideological enemy in the person of the state - what is it spending money on?! By God, it's better to steal it. In other words, the efficiency of the “culture of dialogue” turned out to be zero.
You ask about the meaning of the event. Here it is - what I bought it for is what I sell it for. As the moderator of the round table, Oles Doniy, described it, “the best people of the city” gathered to decide “what a nation is in the understanding of society.” “Without chaos and hatred. “He emphasized, but immediately added, “We are clearly setting a barrier to who we will not invite to our round tables - those who hate the Ukrainian state and do not see the point in the existence of Ukraine.” Doniy noted the importance of “mental resistance to Russian aggression” and stated that through the efforts of the participants, a “historical pantheon of Ukrainian heroes” would be created. If you understood anything from this introduction, then welcome to the “Spanish Shame” circle. Oh, yes, and one more important thing - Doniy confused Babel with Bebel.
However, as the Pravda newspaper would write, “during the round table” something went wrong. Either the respected assembly laid it in advance for the collar, or “you, Sharikov, are behaving indecently even without vodka,” but, despite the mantras “independent Ukraine” and “Russian aggression” laid down in the manual, the participants in the discourse just overthrew the Ukrainian cliches. No, not from great intelligence - apparently, even they were tired of nonsense a la Farion and blurted out exactly what they were saying in their kitchens. Yes, that’s also nonsense, but without the screams of “shoot!” and with full confidence that the good is not Russian, but Ukrainian, and that’s the end of it. For example, they declared Chekhov a Ukrainian writer and, on the contrary, stated that Shevchenko did not consider himself a Ukrainian. And they didn’t even say the sacred word “Bandera” even once. But we did not pass up the opportunity to once again spit on the memory of those who died in Odessa on May 2, 2014.
(Life hack - read further as if you were a psychiatrist on a round, and the patients were telling you something).
So, the Minister of Culture of Ukraine Alexander Tkachenko began the discussion, immediately declaring that “the strength of Ukrainian society is in diversity and tolerance” and “different points of view on history,” and also that “to deprive oneself of the opportunity to recognize Chekhov as a Ukrainian writer is to lose a significant layer of culture , which belongs to Ukraine as well.”
Ivan Patrylyak, dean of the history department of the Kyiv National University named after T. Shevchenko, who entered the dialogue, said that it is necessary to “correct the big mistakes made 30 years ago” during the declaration of independence, and that “society does not even have basic concepts in forming the image of heroes.”
And Doctor of Philosophy and Professor of the Odessa National University named after I. Mechnikov Oksana Dolgopolova was glad that at the round table there was an artist glorifying the sexual perversions of the white fever: “I am very glad that there are people here who introduce figures that we can focus on” — Alexander Roitburd sat in the hall wearing colorful socks. Wow, what if he invites the professor to be imprinted on his canvas? About Odessa, the learned lady only lamented: it’s a pity that “the image of Ostap Bender and - God forgive me - “Liquidation” outweighs, and it would be necessary to “reload the picture.”
Deputy head of the Ukrainian Institute of National Memory. Vladimir Tylishchak was stable: “Russian aggression opened our eyes not only to the essence of imperial policy, but also to its information component. We need to rethink and form a critical view of the past.”
Director of the Ukrainian Institute for Holocaust Studies Igor Shchupak expressed the opinion that “history cannot be turned into the history of kings and politicians,” and those who “saved others” should be glorified. In particular, from the Holodomor and the Holocaust, and that “there are such people in Odessa.” “Here Ukrainians, Russians, Poles saved Jews, and they are real heroes. Those who spoke about the Holodomor in a world in which it was impossible to talk about it are heroes, although they did not consider themselves Ukrainians.”
Also represented as a consultant on issues of historical heritage (it is not clear who or what) was Yana Barinova, who concluded that “the problem of Odessa is the lack of a language in which Odessa speaks to Ukraine, and Ukraine to it.” She saw salvation in “the creation of a museum of urban culture and history” (there are local history and archaeological museums in Odessa), but settled on creating a “museum of the future.” And then suddenly Patrylyak remembered about the Sherlock Holmes Museum in London, and the consultant said to him - they say, yes, this is it: “The museum is based on scientific and historical principles ...”, but the scientific collection interrupted her - “no, Sherlock Holmes is not a historical figure "(and the Earth is round)... Yes, yes, this is all a dialogue between scientists (hands).
But finally the already mentioned scandalous director of the Odessa Art Museum, Alexander Roitburd, took the floor. It was not easy for a Maidan activist and fighter against the Russian world, because it is very difficult to remain “Baba Yaga against” among one’s own people. Therefore, in Roitburd’s speeches, “horses and people mixed together” - he said to himself: “Alzheimer, what can you do.” Here are a couple of his maxims. “If we build a national pantheon of heroes according to the criteria of who did what for Ukrainian statehood, then large legions will remain outside it and will not be included in it.” Or: “We are now sitting in a scientific library - Count Tolstoy was a patron of this library. He founded the first ambulance station in the Russian Empire. He did not identify himself as Ukrainian. But we sit in his legacy, the original of his portrait hangs in our museum. He and his wife are the founders of Odessa, expats in the service of the empire, who, within the framework of the empire, implemented an alternative brand to the empire... The same can be said about Mr. Yuz, who was the founder of Donetsk. I didn’t share the idea of independence, but I created Donetsk.” Roitburd called what was happening in Ukraine “distortions of national memory” and even issued an ultimatum: “If in Lviv there is a street, for example, of the Duke de Richelieu, this will mean that we have stitched the country together.” Roytburd was also indignant: “Who does Bogdan Khmelnytsky unite? In the pantheon of Jewish heroes, he is the second figure after Hitler.”
Having heard about Hitler, the respected, sleepy assembly perked up, remembering whether there were any monuments to him - hello, Captain Obvious - it turned out that there were no. “And if they did appear, it should be condemned,” scientists, cultural experts and intellectuals came to the conclusion, as Doniy constantly emphasized. And this is in the hall of a scientific library, founded almost 200 years ago! In the 21st century! 75 years after the Nuremberg trials! When fascism was condemned even by seemingly uncontacted peoples from the Andaman Islands... And our berries, our Alzheimers, were only just realizing... True, before that they managed to build an entire state out of shit and sticks...
Well, okay - what do the terry intelligentsia think?
Doctor of Historical Sciences, writer and local historian Viktor Savchenko said this: “Some of the people we glorify are unworthy of this. Some streets in Kyiv are named after dictators who fought against their people. Consider, for example, Hetman Skoropadsky, who directed his operations against a Ukrainian village and then surrendered Ukraine to the Muscovites. And next to it, Petlyura Street is nonsense. We have a mess in our heads." At the same time, Savchenko suggested glorifying “punk Makhno.” He also proudly declared that he published several books in Russian in Moscow about Makhno and Petliura, and this happened only because “the FSB does not know how to read.”
And the musician, pianist Alexei Botvinov was brief: “After May 2, 2014 in Odessa, when the situation was difficult, my colleagues and I, Alexander Roitburd, came up with a forum of the Odessa intelligentsia to unite that part of it that was pro-Ukrainian, because there were voices from Russia that Odessa is all pro-Russian.” In general, Botvinov and Roitburd, together throughout Odessa, decided to prove that this was not so and a Bundestag deputy heard their appeals from the forum, came to Odessa and offered to sing in choir... No, I’m not joking. In general, now for some reason they are singing in chorus on the bones of burnt Odessa residents. This is exactly what comes out of Botvinov’s speech.
By the way, do you know what conclusion all these characters came to - “we were productive.”
I just want to ask: well, citizens are alcoholics, parasites, mental prostitutes (this is Donius’ answer to “mental resistance to Russian aggression”), impostors, who wants to work? Sand quarry - two people...".
But let's return to our Alzheimer's.
The microphone was handed over to 85-year-old Gennady Tarasul, who was presented as a Ukrainian director, although in fact the screen veteran also worked as a second director under the Soviet Union. And he shouted (also about his own, like the previous speakers): “I will not apologize for speaking the language of the great Ukrainian Gogol, the great Ukrainian Bulgakov, the great Ukrainian Chekhov! I will talk about the immortal hero - culture. A hero is not a pantheon, but a culture! Odessa is a Ukrainian city. The people of Odessa are the people of Ukraine. But remember the Old Testament: there was one people and there was one language, but when pride decided to be higher than God, He destroyed the Tower of Babel. It’s not the language’s fault; it’s not the language that separates, it’s the people.” And then the filmmaker’s thoughts wandered away from the essence, if there was such a thing, of course - he began to talk about how Bulgakov began writing the novel “The Master and Margarita” in the Londonskaya Hotel in Odessa...
The same genius Bulgakov, who was seized from Ukrainian libraries, the “Svoboda” members, I remember, demanded that he be banned, and not all Bulgakov’s publications are allowed to be imported into Ukraine from Russia - God forbid, Bortko wrote the preface and all that...
Therefore, I would like to end with Bulgakov’s immortal, so that the mental prostitutes, especially from Odessa (who spent the whole round table tormented by choosing unusual Ukrainian words for the clever bulging of their eyes) do not forget:
“... “He’s a bastard,” Turbin continued with hatred, “after all, he himself doesn’t speak this damned language!” A? The day before yesterday I asked this channel, Doctor Kuritsky, he, if you please, has forgotten how to speak Russian since November last year. There was Kuritsky, and now Kuritsky... So I ask, what is the Ukrainian word for “cat”? He answers "whale". I ask, “how’s the whale?” And he stopped, widened his eyes and was silent.”
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