NEW GENERATION CHOOSES PEPSI But State Prizes Are Still to the Taste of Many

The Committee for the Taras Shevchenko State Prize of Ukraine in open session with journalists present discussed the nominees and after secret ballot announced the winners. They are prose writer Roman Andriyashyk for his novel Bystander, composer Mykola Dremliuha for his Symphony No. 3 dedicated to the victims of the man-made famine of 1932-1933, artist Tetiana Yablonska for her series of portraits in 1993-1997, conductor and leader of the Dumka (Thought) academic capella for their concert programs of Ukrainian choral music in 1992-1997, and a group of artists including Mariya Lytovchenko (in co-authorship with Ivan Lytovchenko), Volodymyr Pasyvchenko, and Volodymyr Priadko for their triptych "The Flow of Slavic Writing" and monumental panel "White Land" for the Vernadsky National Library.

Five other prizes were not awarded anyone. There were no candidates at all in the category of journalism and publicistics, perhaps because the field is in a pretty poor state with us. There was only one nominees in the field of "theatrical art and cinematography" there was only one nominee, and few voted for it. Viacheslav Kryshtoforovych’s film, "Friend of the Deceased," was recognized as being a fine psychological mystery but nothing more, and got only two votes. The Crimean Tatar Theater’s rendition of Macbeth was supported by almost half the committee members, but after discussion, failed to win the prize.

The most dramatic situation occurred in the three categories "literary and art criticism," "works for children and adolescents," and "the small state prize," where the jury found the candidates more or less equal and failed to award anyone anything.

Editor's note: In a previous issue we published Yuri Andrukhovych's point of view on the state prize. Today Yuri Illenko, the well-known Ukrainian film director gives his reasons for leaving the Awards Committee.

Once I refused to accept the prize which was awarded to the film, or rather to the director of the film "Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors," Serhiy Paradzhanov, because the prize was awarded posthumously. They waited until he died and gave him his prize 25 years later than they should have, when the film made its triumphant appearance.

I wouldn’t accept a laureate’s diploma from the hands of the committee then. I was ashamed, I said, on behalf of the deceased Mykolaychuk and Paradzhanov.

Time passed and the old committee was broken up. The President appointed a new one, and quite unexpectedly I found myself on it. First I wanted to reject such a privilege. On second thought, I decided that we were living in another dimension, in an independent democratic state. So, I thought, I had to join the committee and do everything possible to assure that, in its new incarnation, it really would promote the flourishing of Ukrainian arts.

In the very first year of its existence the committee faced a problem that denied settlement from within. The committee (wittingly or not) by awarding state prizes stated that everything was all right and even wonderful with Ukrainian culture. That it was bubbling with energy, was strong, sound, and flourishing.

And meanwhile, Ukrainian culture has experienced severe ruin which might be compared to only man-made famine of 1933, when the gene pool of the nation was largely destroyed. And now the gene pool of culture is being destroyed. Not to mention the fact that even the form of the laurels has hardly changed since the times of the Communist Party nomenklatura: the same narrow circle of committee members appointed by the President (earlier by the Central Committee), for some reason exclusively from previous prize-winners, the same designation from clan (not to say corrupt) structures (unions or publishing house secretariats, etc.) and, the most importantly, the preparation of decisions for the President.

The President has established a structure which creates for him an image of a wise and generous father of a prospering nation. Every year on Taras Hill the President on behalf and in the name of Taras Shevchenko crowns the high water marks in his flourishing culture.

I can’t stand hearing any more about a ballerina falling from hunger during a performance; I can’t stand seeing the students in film direction taking exams using their fingers instead of a motion pictures screen, and candles instead of electric light, for there are planned blackouts in the institute; I don’t want to know about novels being written on the back of old manuscripts (just like during the war). I am disgusted by the television whose screen, like a washing machine, never stops splashing out soapsuds of soap operas, while talented fellow movie-makers trade petty goods on the market.

That’s all. It’s no longer possible or desirable for me to be a member of this team, playing the game of the king’s new clothes. The King is naked. Art is dead. Well, not yet, but it’s in its death throes. The bombastic President’s demonstrations to grant, for example national status to a film studio, turned out to be a farce. Having appropriated the film studio in order to prevent it from being privatized by film-makers, the government stopped financing it. Today the National Dovzhenko Film Studio doesn’t have anything to do with cinematography. It is a heap of property and real estate used rather effectively by smart operators, effectively for themselves, and for themselves alone.

Art is in agony, but we fabricate the impression that it’s alive.

Individual artificial manifestations of its being alive, produced by the self-sacrificing efforts of the great masters despite the state’s real policy to ruin culture, like the concert of Dumka choir or Silvestrov’s Metamusic at the Philharmonic Society, or nomination of a Ukrainian film, "A Friend of the Deceased," for an Oscar, only accentuate the general picture of the culture’s clinical death.

And I am only the dead victim of the President’s management of Ukrainian art and a friend of the deceased whose name is Ukrainian Art.

Photo by Serhiy Hutiyev:
Those who chose Pepsi greet those who won the state prizes