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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

Festival as Conspiracy

13 November, 2012 - 00:00

The Days of Ukrainian Culture in Krakow were noticed by local visa and registration authorities only.

I love Krakow. Using this as a heading would sound unpatriotic. Maybe worse. A lead-up like “I love Ukrainian literature” would sound stylistically stilted. However, this author would love to head this article and use a leadup in the above wording. Krakow and Ukrainian literature, the two notions so very close to my heart, coincided in time and space when the Days of Ukrainian Culture were celebrated in that Polish city. At the beginning of June several dozen cultural actions took place, geared to give one an idea of Ukrainian culture, if only a vague and weakly structured one.

Frankly speaking, I came face to face with the Ukrainian culture phenomenon (formulated by my esteemed colleague Yuri Andrukhovych as “mod—Ukr—culture”) earlier, at Ivano-Frankivsk’s VVIR (Visa and Registration Department). The bureaucrats’ cynicism — and I mean not only visa procedures, of course — is progressive, and the Ukrainian state is progressing in the same vein. In this sense the VVIR bookworms are a case study in the lasting Soviet mentality. The way they receive people in their offices, talk to them, and show them who is boss should be displayed on the next Candid Camera, so one and all could see how we live and how this way of life should be stricken from the records of civilized history. I am sure that if, instead of Lviv’s Les Kurbas Youth Theater, Cheremosh or Mertvy Piven (Dead Cock) rock groups, Liudkevych Music School orchestra, artists Yuri Koch and Volodymyr Kostyrko, a team of VVIR bureaucrats were allowed to tour Krakow, their performance would cause a real sensation. People living literally miles west of Ukraine have no idea that Franz Kafka’s sinister ideas exist not only on paper. Our bureaucrats would just have to show a regular workday onstage and the ticket receipts would be fantastic!

I am not Kafka, so I will not endeavor penning my VVIR perils. After all, I would never turn up there if I had Kafka’s innate fear of the bureaucratic machine. I would not have received my foreign passport (even though I had a formal invitation from the Polish Consulate). In fact, it was thanks to my friend, non-conformist artist and publisher Mykhailo Vitushynsky, that I finally got to Krakow. He said I could fight the system only by using a system approach and overcome my Kafka complex by Kafkaesque method. We went there and my friend made a masterful performance, speaking with a slight but distinct Polish accent, posing as a Polish consular official, causing a small upheaval in every office, demanding that I be “cleared” and allowed on my way to Poland forthwith. And you know what? All my papers, allegedly not submitted or lost due to postal malfunctioning, miraculously surfaced. I saw office employees scurrying up and down corridors, barked at by their respective superiors. Thirty minutes later I was issued a compact red book with the Ukrainian trident. My foreign travel passport. Something unbelievable for anyone with a “post-Soviet” bureaucratic experience. However, this surrealistic picture would be incomplete without a TV crew appearing on the scene to make a big thing of the VVIR moving to the new premises. The crew — young men and women laden with equipment — must have got the scare of their life pushing through a thick crowd of tearful women and scowling men waiting their turn to step into the next office to face yet another dull and unresponsive official. They headed for the manager’s office for an interview, another sham good-humored hot-air session. For me, this ended the Days of Ukrainian Culture in Ivano-Frankivsk.

In Krakow, things were different. Not much but enough to gladden a Ukrainian heart. Somehow, I felt that much of what was happening was irrational. I saw crowds of tourists — college and school students — exploring ancient squares and streets, come for the weekend, seeking fun, buying souvenirs, colas, ice cream, listening to street musicians, watching mimes. There were horse-driven carriages inviting one to a ride through the city. And boy scouts riding battery-driven cars. Taverns on every corner. And all the while there were some strange Ukrainians busy with their Days of Ukrainian Culture in some obscure clubs. Some attracted public interest — like the Cheremosh group staging a real folk-fest at a local student club — but this was basically consumer interest... Frankly, we were not noticed in Krakow, and nor was Andy Warhal’s gorgeous exhibit (incidentally organized by an ethnic Ukrainian). All municipal and tourist services were good and bread and circuses were plenty, watched by swarms of Germans, Americans, and Japanese with their invariable Kodak cameras. Possibly there were German, US, or Japanese Culture Days being celebrated elsewhere, but the crowd did not seem interested.

 

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