Television named after «dear Leonid Brezhnev»
The new Minister of Culture and Arts of Ukraine Yury Bohutsky granted a surprising interview last Friday to UTN-Panorama (UT-1 TV channel) on the occasion of his appointment. Even if we have some problems, said the brand-new high-level official, they all have long been in the process of solution, naturally, thanks to Presidential decrees (No so-and-so), and all we have to do is work in compliance with Presidential decree No so-and-so to remove the last warts from the radiant face of national culture. If this ministerial interview had only been heard by, say, the employees of almost ruined district libraries and village clubs! Or by our film makers who have already forgotten how to shoot a movie. And by our... — the list is endless.
However, Minister Bohutsky's logic becomes quite adequate if by culture you understand the culture of political position-taking. As I see it, such a TV appearance is an absolutely concrete answer to the question why Ukraine (Ukrainian TV included) totally lacks vim and vigor in forming national consciousness, national myths, and national culture consistent with the modern level of human outlooks, modern rhythm and quality of life, and modern information techniques. This is also an argument in the debate with those who are inclined to seek the reasons for this sad fact, by a deep-seated tradition, above all in the absence of the required number of «nationally-conscious» Ukrainians and, on the contrary, the preponderance of «conscious» or «subconscious» Moscow guys in our media, publishing houses, theaters, etc. And even though there is a certain grain of truth in this statement, let us only recall one commonly known fact. Over quite a long time, our state-run TV has been governed by Zynovy Kulyk from various high chairs. Could you possibly find a more patriotic and «conscious» «adept» of national culture? And what do we see in UT-1 programs as a result? Anything else but the same «hicksville» images, but only in different genres — with mawkishly melodramatic hand-wringing and kitsch «newspeak?» Are there at least two or three projects of a decent level between the two apparent extremes (rather relative at that): «Everything is not bad in our house» and «National hit-parade» programs? Or do we often see on UT- 1 screens Oksana Zabuzhko, Oleh Skrypka, Yury Andrukhovych, Anatoly Matviyenko (not the politician), Yevhen Sverstiuk, Ivan Malkovych, Serhiy Krymsky, Vasyl Herasymiuk, Volodymyr Pavliv, Volodymyr Voitenko, or Vadym Skurativsky?.. Or have our TV channels adopted at least a dozen projects of these and other similar personalities able to think in a non-standard way and put the newest national ideas and values in an intelligible wording? No, we do not practically see such personalities or projects on our TV watched by the multimillion audiences (except for the low-circulation magazine «Peak» where Mr. Kulyk can sometimes let his tongue run away with him). They are dangerous for our TV owing to their free and exclusive thinking and well-established democratic views which do not fit in with the trend favored by UT-1 ideologists... It is safer and more reliable to put on the air a totally predictable and conformist almanac «The Basis» I am sure made by sincere people who, however, have stuck in the mud of outlooks, intonations and assessments typical of the Soviet 70-80s. The rare programs worthy of a modern intellectual — «The last address,» «The secrets of history» hosted by Dmytro Kharytonov, «A dialogue with the Sphinx» — are not associated directly with the realities and problems of today's Ukraine...
Ukrainian culture in its modern version is stagnant not because «you can't find enough Galicians.» The point is that Ukrainian European culture is a bomb planted under Ukrainian political and economic reality, totalitarian and Asiatic as it is. And this bomb is too dangerous for too many too high office-holders in our state. And unless we speak straightforward about this, we and our culture will be dealt with like call-girls: when a political expediency arises, we will be called and fondled, and when the time comes to do the «marital duty,» the authorities may, say, issue an instruction allowing university applicants to take exams in the Russian language...
Of course, I think that the causes of the poverty of our state-run TV also lie on a somewhat different plane. We stubbornly continue to flout the political, economic and cultural realities of nothing but an independent and self-sufficient state whose main objective is no longer self-determination and separation from an alien domineering civilization, but the creation of an own exclusive structure whose stability can only be guaranteed by the equilibrium of all its component worlds — ethnic, cultural, economic, political, etc. We still interpret «national culture» as something exclusively connected with Ukrainian ethnos. This results in vast cultural layers of peoples populating Ukraine being cut off the air of Ukraine's only national state- run channel. Meanwhile, a much broader idea of the «Ukrainian civil nation» (similar to, say, American) embraces the culture of not only Western but also Central, Eastern and Crimean Ukraine, including the Russian-language Ukrainian culture. Someone noted some time that the unity of Ukrainians is the unity of work for Ukraine, which is hard to deny.
And, finally, national culture is also not homogeneous from the angle of artistic level and the addressee. Ethnographic and folklore art goes hand in hand with a high-quality professional, modern and elitist art. There already exists even the layer of a high-style mass culture, urbanized and striving for the best world standards. But, alas, UT-1 seems to be exclusively oriented toward those impaired by «the dream of reason.» The calculation must be simple: exactly this kind of audience can easily «gobble down» the state-run channel's political «pap.» It is this kind of audience that will «swallow» the fact that UT-1, instead of serving the purpose of promoting a civil society, the only purpose befitting a budget-supported channel in a democratic country, only serves the interests of the state's political and oligarchic top.
The new Minister of Culture and Arts of Ukraine Yury Bohutsky granted a surprising interview last Friday to UTN-Panorama (UT-1 TV channel) on the occasion of his appointment. Even if we have some problems, said the brand-new high-level official, they all have long been in the process of solution, naturally, thanks to Presidential decrees (No so-and-so), and all we have to do is work in compliance with Presidential decree No so-and-so to remove the last warts from the radiant face of national culture. If this ministerial interview had only been heard by, say, the employees of almost ruined district libraries and village clubs! Or by our film makers who have already forgotten how to shoot a movie. And by our... — the list is endless.
However, Minister Bohutsky's logic becomes quite adequate if by culture you understand the culture of political position-taking. As I see it, such a TV appearance is an absolutely concrete answer to the question why Ukraine (Ukrainian TV included) totally lacks vim and vigor in forming national consciousness, national myths, and national culture consistent with the modern level of human outlooks, modern rhythm and quality of life, and modern information techniques. This is also an argument in the debate with those who are inclined to seek the reasons for this sad fact, by a deep-seated tradition, above all in the absence of the required number of «nationally-conscious» Ukrainians and, on the contrary, the preponderance of «conscious» or «subconscious» Moscow guys in our media, publishing houses, theaters, etc. And even though there is a certain grain of truth in this statement, let us only recall one commonly known fact. Over quite a long time, our state-run TV has been governed by Zynovy Kulyk from various high chairs. Could you possibly find a more patriotic and «conscious» «adept» of national culture? And what do we see in UT-1 programs as a result? Anything else but the same «hicksville» images, but only in different genres — with mawkishly melodramatic hand-wringing and kitsch «newspeak?» Are there at least two or three projects of a decent level between the two apparent extremes (rather relative at that): «Everything is not bad in our house» and «National hit-parade» programs? Or do we often see on UT- 1 screens Oksana Zabuzhko, Oleh Skrypka, Yury Andrukhovych, Anatoly Matviyenko (not the politician), Yevhen Sverstiuk, Ivan Malkovych, Serhiy Krymsky, Vasyl Herasymiuk, Volodymyr Pavliv, Volodymyr Voitenko, or Vadym Skurativsky?.. Or have our TV channels adopted at least a dozen projects of these and other similar personalities able to think in a non-standard way and put the newest national ideas and values in an intelligible wording? No, we do not practically see such personalities or projects on our TV watched by the multimillion audiences (except for the low-circulation magazine «Peak» where Mr. Kulyk can sometimes let his tongue run away with him). They are dangerous for our TV owing to their free and exclusive thinking and well-established democratic views which do not fit in with the trend favored by UT-1 ideologists... It is safer and more reliable to put on the air a totally predictable and conformist almanac «The Basis» I am sure made by sincere people who, however, have stuck in the mud of outlooks, intonations and assessments typical of the Soviet 70-80s. The rare programs worthy of a modern intellectual — «The last address,» «The secrets of history» hosted by Dmytro Kharytonov, «A dialogue with the Sphinx» — are not associated directly with the realities and problems of today's Ukraine...
Ukrainian culture in its modern version is stagnant not because «you can't find enough Galicians.» The point is that Ukrainian European culture is a bomb planted under Ukrainian political and economic reality, totalitarian and Asiatic as it is. And this bomb is too dangerous for too many too high office-holders in our state. And unless we speak straightforward about this, we and our culture will be dealt with like call-girls: when a political expediency arises, we will be called and fondled, and when the time comes to do the «marital duty,» the authorities may, say, issue an instruction allowing university applicants to take exams in the Russian language...
Of course, I think that the causes of the poverty of our state-run TV also lie on a somewhat different plane. We stubbornly continue to flout the political, economic and cultural realities of nothing but an independent and self-sufficient state whose main objective is no longer self-determination and separation from an alien domineering civilization, but the creation of an own exclusive structure whose stability can only be guaranteed by the equilibrium of all its component worlds — ethnic, cultural, economic, political, etc. We still interpret «national culture» as something exclusively connected with Ukrainian ethnos. This results in vast cultural layers of peoples populating Ukraine being cut off the air of Ukraine's only national state- run channel. Meanwhile, a much broader idea of the «Ukrainian civil nation» (similar to, say, American) embraces the culture of not only Western but also Central, Eastern and Crimean Ukraine, including the Russian-language Ukrainian culture. Someone noted some time that the unity of Ukrainians is the unity of work for Ukraine, which is hard to deny.
And, finally, national culture is also not homogeneous from the angle of artistic level and the addressee. Ethnographic and folklore art goes hand in hand with a high-quality professional, modern and elitist art. There already exists even the layer of a high-style mass culture, urbanized and striving for the best world standards. But, alas, UT-1 seems to be exclusively oriented toward those impaired by «the dream of reason.» The calculation must be simple: exactly this kind of audience can easily «gobble down» the state-run channel's political «pap.» It is this kind of audience that will «swallow» the fact that UT-1, instead of serving the purpose of promoting a civil society, the only purpose befitting a budget-supported channel in a democratic country, only serves the interests of the state's political and oligarchic top.
Newspaper output №:
№31, (1999)Section
Day After Day
