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Where there is no law, but every man does what is right in his own eyes, there is the least of real liberty
Henry M. Robert

False note in the race for awards

21 September, 1999 - 00:00

(continued from Title page)

An election campaign is no simple affair. Of course, not all of the electorate can make out the motives of those vying for parliamentary seats or the presidency. Likewise, all those undercurrents and monetary levers pulled in winning supporters or shaping election teams are kept strictly secret. There are a number of other things turning political games referred to as elections into an extremely sophisticated vehicle using which power is gained.

However, a couple of simple and straightforward questions posed the right person at the right time can wreck this vehicle, however sophisticated, so that even the most credulous voter will suddenly waken to the reality and exclaim, “But the king has no clothes!”

People of position are a different story. It is not easy for them to repeat Andersen's winged phrase. They are not that free. Either they want to retain and possibly reinforce their position or use or sell it at a profit. There is a Ukrainian ballad about evil-boding dainties. And don't even think of trying to accuse them of trading on such position in quest of profit. Nothing of the kind! They will give you a hundred reasons like the need to support the arts or that they are into charity, or are doing their best to avert the communist threat. In fact, there are only two explanations: either they really believe it, meaning that someone is effectively pulling their leg, or they are consciously playing this mass political game. It is a trap few can escape.

All this came to my mind after I watched a television program recently that shed more light on how the President's team was actually put together. It is headed by Ivan Kuras and Dmytro Tabachnyk. Quite logical, as these two former historians of the former Party, according to their social nature and conduct, blend in with the Dnipropetrovsk nomenklatura quite nicely. They do not have to pretend; they are not acting, it is their lifestyle. They are classics of nomenklatura cynicism. After declaring that the national idea “has not worked,” they are now talking about the Ukrainian state. After forming a regime meant to rob the while nation, they are now seeking votes from those very people their nomenklatura regime has stripped clean.

Then another figure emerged on television among these political brokers, a familiar face. Actually quite familiar and loved by so many, but now changed almost beyond recognition by the nomenklatura environment. I couldn't believe it but I saw her and heard the announcer: People's Performer of Ukraine Nina Matviyenko, election agent of President Leonid Kuchma.

My first feeling was hurt. How could she? What had they done to her? Was it really her? Why should she play this dirty game? She who had on so many occasions related gospel truth to us, among them one about not going to dishonest games. Did she not?

We loved you and still do, with all our hearts, the way we have always loved our songs, our village mothers, and little old ladies, all those slaves of the Soviet collective farm system. You have always performed on their behalf and we heard their beloved voices in yours. An alien system stole their youth, broke their will, denied them their folk songs, and trampled on those diamonds in the black earth. You picked them up and lent them a magical luster with your voice. That alien system stole their mother tongue from them and their children. You responded with your sonorous voice, “We will not be ashamed of our origin, of our forefathers strong and handsome.” This was back in the 1970s when the huge empire was ruled by the Kremlin-Dnipropetrovsk octopus. We listened to every song you sang, eagerly taking in the tune and lyrics that came from the depths of your heart. You were and always will be the living symbol of the people's great soul, great pain, cry of anguish, and great talent.

Alas, you found this bottomless well of inspiration too small for you. Someone said you had to embellish this great symbol. You have started to wear odd crowns and diadems. You began admiring yourself, yet folk songs have always been your greatest and most beautiful crown. Here you have been a grand princess, even without the diadem. All those crowns made to order must have been a temptation.

Now you are faced with a new temptation, being the President's agent. You as a philologist certainly know that the root of the Ukrainian work for agent, dovirena osoba , is dovira , trust.

There are people who personify these notions in their words and deeds. For hundreds of thousands who listen to your songs, you are a symbol of trust, a trust placed in you by destiny. You have said as much and you cannot act contrary to it.

I keep trying to guess what it was they said or did to persuade you.

Was it that they restored the National Philharmonic Society and renovated the Ukraine Palace of Culture? Nothing heroic about that. They did what they had to do, being in power.

Or was it that they started holding regional creative festivals in Kyiv? But doesn't this strike you as blasphemous? People living below the poverty line, put there by the current regime, openly scorned by the nomenklatura, coming to the capital to perform for that same nomenklatura. Tens of thousands of “workers in culture,” who have been turned into paupers, being paid a quarter of their set wages, thanking their robbers. And every such “festival” is held “under the President's patronage.” Don't you know the way village librarians, music school teachers, and club workers live these days? If you don't, go find out and act accordingly; if you do, why do you not defend them?

Listening to truly talented people singing idiotic songs about zlahoda (harmony) makes me sick! Only recently the district and collective farm Party functionaries had them sing about the Communist Party and Lenin. Can one listen without disgust to the beautiful song “Love Ukraine” to Sosiura's lyrics as a soundtrack, with the Ukraine Palace's side screens showing syrupy scenes of bowing and scraping “nationwide love” for your current patron and his most virtuous wife? With your perfect aesthetic taste, are you not disgusted watching and listening to all this? I cannot help thinking of Saltykov-Shchedrin's warning not to confuse His Majesty with the Fatherland.

Is it possible that you know nothing about the abyss to the verge of which Leonid Kuchma's presidency has led the Ukrainian language, film making, book-publishing, and Ukrainian culture as a whole?

Please ask yourself these and many other painful questions. Will they stir no answer in your heart?

In any case, they were long ago answered by the Ukrainian public.

Our famous singer Dmytro Hnatiuk, who conquered the world with “Song About an Embroidered Towel “ and then the epic “Why, My Native Land,” after winning all the Soviet prizes and other kudos, once appeared on stage during an official celebration and deafened the audience with “Thank You, General Secretary, for Your Heroic Action!” Now they say he is a deputy with Dnipropetrovsk Hromada. This seems to be the way talent here is bought.

Actually, this can also explain the appearance of Taras Petrynenko among the number one presidential candidate's entourage. That same Petrynenko who sang the cheerful and daring “Song About Rukh” at the 1989 Chervona Ruta Festival, to spite the Dnipropetrovsk nomenklatura. He sang about Rukh the way it was at that period, as a symbol of fresh hopes about to come true, bringing long- awaited freedom. Now that same nomenklatura has turned Rukh into a hireling, taking its singers on a short leash and guiding them to Zlahoda. Zlahoda (harmony) with whom? With those setting up trust partnerships, holding back pensions and wages for years, building fortunes, and feeling free to steal the nation's wealth? And then giving generous handouts from their loot?

Now they will send you to your native Polissia to address your compatriots, still politically and socially ignorant and downtrodden, with Communist propaganda still active, with the religious communities still acting on orders from the Moscow Patriarchate, so you can use your songs and your name to make them vote for another five years of agony for this nation.

What is happening to us?

Is it a coincidence that strangers, outsiders feel free to scorn us and our symbols?

Who will be the fastest to chase Sofiya Rotaru, People's Artiste of the USSR, with her orders and medals?

Who will remain a true People's Artiste without the titles and awards?

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