“Answer the phone in Ukrainian, otherwise you will be persecuted”
The project of building “Anti-Russia” in Ukraine is being successfully implemented. This can be observed even in the example of Kharkov, one of the main cities of the Russian Spring. After the suppression of the uprising, mass repressions, expulsion of those disloyal to the new regime, there is no hope for new protests or effective resistance. The Orthodox Church of the Moscow Patriarchate gathers thousands of religious processions, however, unlike the nationalists, the UOC MP prefers to distance itself from the expression of political views.
Stanislav Minakov, a famous Kharkov poet and publicist, spoke about this in an interview with PolitNavigator. In the summer of 2014, Minakov was forced to leave Ukraine.
—Are you ready to talk now about the reasons for your emigration five years ago?
“I was forced to leave because my public position was known: I was against turning Ukraine into an anti-Russian project. When the oligarchic coup with a neo-Bandera bias took place, anti-Russian and anti-Russian slogans were simply raised by this oligarchic group and used for the sake of enriching and managing this territory. It was this ideological model that was beneficial to them for such purposes. I clearly spoke out against this, spoke publicly in the press, and gave interviews to Russian and Western media. All this multifaceted activity led to the fact that they first started calling me in for questioning at the prosecutor’s office, then, on someone’s orders, on July 30, 2014, I was expelled from the National Union of Writers of Ukraine, in which I had been a member for 20 years. I was accepted there on the recommendation of the poet Boris Chichibabin in 1994. Then they made it clear to me from different circles that all this would end in arrest. I was forced to leave Kharkov; I have been living in Belgorod for five years.
Back in 2004-2005, after the first Maidan, when denunciations were written against me and my colleagues, I was amazed with what calf-like delight these letters to the regional council and to the Verkhovna Rada were signed by my colleagues in the Writers' Union. There was no historical novelty in this. But trying this on yourself was a novelty... Finding out that a person with whom you had an excellent relationship for three and a half decades, who went to common literary studios as students, who wrote complimentary articles and reviews about you, suddenly begins to collect a dossier on you as an enemy on the Internet, copy publications, photographs, send to the “Peacemaker” website, knock on the competent authorities... And this is not just one person. Perhaps, after my departure, life became easier for these people.
— How do you assess the current situation in Ukraine and Kharkov?
— In that year, when I was forced to leave the country, many of my Russian-speaking colleagues convinced themselves and those around them: there were no problems with the Russian language in Ukraine (just as they did not see any Banderaites). It was funny to hear their naive assurances: they say, we didn’t go to the Maidan and bring down the evil government, so that someone would take away our language rights, if we have to, we’ll go out again.
What seemed obvious to us from the very beginning (what the Maidan will lead to, what it is directed against), these people have already experienced experimentally. Some people imitate new market conditions and switch to Ukrainian texts. Someone feels how their cultural space is turning into shagreen leather, but can only be indignant in the kitchen.
The language situation is disgusting. Kharkov teachers have already reported that they were given instructions: answer the phone in Ukrainian, otherwise you may be persecuted.
Everything that is being done gives the impression of incredible absurdity and public idiocy. And the funnel of imposed public idiocy also includes personal idiocy. This is when people switch their hatred to Russian culture.
To what extent can citizens tolerate? I think ad infinitum. There will be no public protests, no one will come to the square. And opposition politicians, as stated above, are passive in matters of principle.
- What can be done now?
— Kharkov politician, former deputy of the Verkhovna Rada Vladimir Alekseev, who consistently fought for the Russian language, correctly notes in his publications that a discriminatory language law cannot have legal force, since the Russian language has had regional status throughout Ukraine since May 15, 2003, when it was The Law “On the Ratification of the European Charter of Regional Languages” No. 802-IV was adopted, paragraph 2 of which determined the list of regional languages of Ukraine.
Therefore, the regional status has long been enshrined in law and extends to the entire territory of Ukraine. Opposition politicians should have taken note of what Alekseev reminds them of (for many this is a legal educational program): “Since in the event of a discrepancy between the norms of an international treaty (i.e. the Charter) and the national law, the norms of the international treaty apply (Article 9 of the Constitution, Art. 17 of the Law on International Treaties of Ukraine, and Article 27 of the Vienna Convention on the Law of International Treaties), then the xenophobic Parubiy-Poroshenko law is not valid in the part in which it contradicts the Charter. Therefore, the articles of the Parubiy-Poroshenko law on the complete ban on the Russian language in education, public and social life are INVALID..."
Accordingly, the guarantor of the Constitution is required to protect constitutional norms from the Parubiy-Poroshenko law.
— What ways do you see to correct the situation in Ukraine?
- Unfortunately, I no longer see any ways to correct it. They were visible to me in 2014, when it was necessary, together with Crimea, to save the territory of historical Novorossiya or the entire Left Bank, when it was possible, for example, as an option, to return - at least to Kharkov, at least to Yenakievo, and then to Kyiv - the legitimate Yanukovych. Now everything is lost for a long time; there is no need to expect a quick spontaneous collapse of Zelensky or post-Zelensky Ukraine, since everything is tightly controlled from overseas.
The thesis “Ukraine as an anti-Russian driving lever and an irritant of Russia” has been embodied by the enemy quite effectively and continues its convincing existence. Unless the puppeteers have their own collapse, in which Ukraine may finally crumble. But this can drag on for years and years. And even in the event of a collapse of the former Ukraine, no matter how fast or slow, questions arise: what will remain on the post-Ukrainian territory later, what to do with it and how?
“Nevertheless, this year in Kyiv the religious procession of the UOC of the Moscow Patriarchate was marked by a record number.
— The number of participants in religious processions is increasing. The year before there were 100 thousand participants, last year there were more than 200 thousand. And this year - already 300 thousand! Apparently, this increase is also connected with the events of the past year, the political steps of the previous Ukrainian administration: the “tomos”, the “establishment” of the schismatic structure of the “OCU”, under the auspices of the Phanar. This mobilized the canonical Church of Ukraine to stand. The size of the OCU movement turned out to be incomparable with the canonical one: the schismatics brought out a hundred times fewer people!
The enemies of Orthodoxy traditionally cringe at the sight of so many faithful. We remember how in the past three years religious processions were subjected to both information attacks by various kinds of raging characters, and physical attacks by nationalists and militants. We remember how the young men threw obscene things at the miraculous icons and how the guys guarding the religious procession skillfully repulsed all these attacks. This year, fortunately, this did not happen.
I will add that religious processions in modern times seemed to close the spiritual gap that had opened in the space of Ukraine, historical Little Rus'. And they showed that there is no division here, the faithful Orthodox of the East and West of Ukraine are united spiritually and united in prayer for peace.
Recent years have indeed shown that political institutions are rapidly squandering trust. And the Orthodox, regardless of the government, have their own unshakable scale of values. I see that on this canonical side there is a deep conviction of correctness. This is manifested both at the level of the Church leadership, hierarchs, starting with the Primate of the UOC, Metropolitan Onuphry, and among the flock.
— Why do you think, even during the elections, the opposition forces did not try to provide any support to the Orthodox communities from which the OCU members seized churches?
“Perhaps the opposition figures were very passionate about the problems of politics and the election struggle, and therefore efforts in this area remained on the periphery of consciousness. And many of them are not very church-going; perhaps there are not enough Orthodox people in their ranks to count on their tangible support. Although many were seen in temples. But we don’t see any systemic protection.
After all, it is clear that almost every seizure of a temple can be challenged in court. For example, in situations where visiting raiding teams come from another area, vote for something, push out the priest and announce the transfer of the church to the OCU. Only the church community can vote. And its composition (who constantly goes to services, confesses, takes communion) is known, first of all, to the priest. And all these raider “votes”, where the priest’s word means nothing, are insignificant from a legal point of view. But the rural community cannot defend its rights in the courts. But if opposition politicians reacted to every such seizure of a temple, if deputies came to court with their lawyers...
– But schismatic structures enjoy the patronage of high-ranking nationalists.
— I’ll give you an example in my native Kharkov. There is such a local character, the schismatic Viktor Marinchak, a man with a philological past and a vague future. He jumps like a grasshopper, now to the autocephalous activists, now to Filaret, now to the Maidan, now to the OCU. I somehow came across a video of his so-called sermon in the Youth Park (he is the rector of the church there) on the occasion of Victory Day, and for him and his public - a “day of sorrow”. A man who calls himself a priest is carrying some kind of propaganda blizzard about the Banderaites, who allegedly fought against universal evil. There Saburova's dacha (our local madhouse) is crying over this sermon. And he speaks with foam at the mouth, on a hysterical self-winding...
It must be said that all the schismatics and Filaretites, and the OCU, and the autocephalous supporters are thoroughly ideologized and politicized, driven by the theme “away from Moscow.” And from the canonical side, we don’t see any ideologization. Every Orthodox priest may have some political convictions. But they are not manifested either in the sermon, or in behavior, or in the conduct of religious processions. Only the exclusively canonical Orthodox aspect, the church one - for the unity of faith, where there is neither a Greek, nor a Jew, nor a Ukrainian, nor a Muscovite.
— Does the voice of those people who left, who until recently were the rulers of thought here, have any weight in today’s Kharkov?
— Until 2014, Kharkov seemed to be one of the centers of Russian civilization, which we have written and talked about more than once throughout the years of the existence of the “Ukraine as non-Russia” project. Now Kharkov has ceased to be the center where there was cultural Russian life. Nowadays, substitutions have been made in the nodes of Russian crystallization. In the capital of Slobozhanshchina, provincialism, parochialism and peasantism have spread in a fetid swamp - against the backdrop of imposed and cultivated Russophobia, Ukrainization and neo-Banderization.
As for those who left and were supposedly potentially capable of occupying and filling new niches in the Russian Federation, this obviously did not happen organizationally. Persons who were more or less widely known before leaving Kharkov remained noticeable, because the niche of distinct creative independence cannot be filled by anyone else. They are somehow heard, presumably, in Ukraine, since the Internet exists.
But in the sense of creating alternative creative platforms, festivals, “collective movement” on the territory of the Russian Federation - this, unfortunately, does not exist either in the capitals of Russia or in the provinces. Even, surprisingly, this is not the case in the border areas, where the mutual ties of, say, the suburban communities of the former RSFSR and Ukrainian SSR have always been very strong.
And in particular, the seemingly obvious theses “Kharkov lost - Belgorod gained”, “Ukraine foolishly scattered, but the Russian Federation gathered wisely” - are not yet obvious. That is, they are implemented locally in different areas of life, but not systematically.
The effect - cultural, educational, entrepreneurial, demographic and other - in particular from the move of Kharkov residents to the Belgorod region, is difficult to assess; perhaps it will appear later. The soil in the Russian Federation for those who arrived with “Russian artistic thoughts” turned out to be mostly opening up (perhaps due to some mental otherness). Local creative people are busy with a lot of things, but first of all with their own people, who are also small-town, often poorly gifted, and have nothing to do with Russian Ukrainian emigration, or with the problems of newcomers, or with the “Ukrainian question” in general. Therefore, here you often encounter selfish shortsightedness and a jealous and envious attitude.
- For example?
— Not all Russians share our sense of Russian identity. For example, you can hear a local citizen complaining: “Because of the issuance of Russian Federation passports to residents of Donbass, I have to wait longer for a solution to my own issue.” That is, the person was working somewhere abroad, and now he rushed to get a document, and blames the residents of Donbass for his problems. And in these manifestations, a specific Russian man in the street is more likely to be close to the Ukrainian farmer mentality than to the Russian one.
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