A vogue manifesto from Oleh Skrypka

Oleh Skrypka and The Day have almost a five-year history of contacts and cooperation. On June 18, 2004, the newspaper carried a big-size announcement of the Dream Country ethnofestival, an interesting project of the Vopli Vidopliasova (VV) front man. A month later, we published (in two parts) a story of the festival.

History knows more than one instance, when progressive like-minded people rally together in difficult and uncertain times, creating milieus of their own. The same happened in our case. Well before the “Orange events,” each of us had been preparing a context for changes, for there can be no basis for political and social reform without one. Oleh was busy recording new albums, going on tours, organizing vechornytsi, and initiating a vogue for ethno. We also launched The Day’s Library series, the books of which began to discover an unknown Ukraine. This went on until we came across each other and saw that our initiatives are consonant and, therefore, we should join our efforts.

Oleh Skrypka visited our editorial office the other day with a suggestion that we be the main informational partner of the Dream Country festival which is going to emphasize environmental protection this year.

Well, do you think Ukrainian society, particularly, Ukrainian musicians, are prepared to think in environmental categories?

“Absolutely. All we need is that Dream Country and The Day should be the catalyzers of this process. The vogue for ethnic attire, which we once suggested at our vechornytsi, then caused quite a ripple in society.

“It is common knowledge that Dniproside hills and Andriivsky Uzviz are in a mess, after all, like everything around Kyiv. And not only here. You come to the Carpathians and see that they are polluted, too. I was surprised that even faraway nooks deep inside the mountains, where it is not so easy to get without a guide, were also littered. The same in the Poltava region, to which I come to visit my relatives.

“We are planning to hold three events in Kyiv: tidying up the Holosiiv Woods, a water reservoir, and Andriivsky Uzviz hills. We are going to call on Ukrainians to join us and launch local cleaning campaigns. Dream Country suggests doing this with songs and dances. The musical group that will answer our call and take the most conscientious social stand will be invited to the festival. We are also going to accept video recordings to select the winner.”

Do you think the number of those who accept the Dream Country-propagated values has increased?

“I would like to say that these people are in a majority. But, unfortunately, they are in a minority, even though of a very high quality. The most devoted activists of the ethno movement are students. They are open to cooperation, and we are actively recruiting them as volunteers. Obviously, this youth and we are turning from marginal people, if I may say so, into the Ukrainian mainstream.”

You said at the first Rock Sich festival on Kyiv’s Trukhaniv Isle that you favor the music of free people. Do you mean the generation that is accepting your and our initiatives?

“I would not say it is a generation. I think there is a certain share of free people in every generation. I read recently that some young people, who did not live in the Soviet era, do not even hide that it pleases them to wear T-shirts with a portrait of Lenin (they perhaps think it is in fashion?), dance to Yury Antonov’s remixes, and call hryvnias rubles… And there are old-age uncles who lived the greatest part of their lives in the Soviet Union but they did not accept that system and remained free deep in their hearts.”

Before 2004, you used to say quite harshly that Ukraine is in a total grip of mass culture, i.e. pop art. You were even involved in establishing the Club of Esthetic Dissent. Have many things changed in these almost five years? It is also interesting to hear your opinion on the style of presenting the cultural world that is opening up to Ukrainians.

“The very situation in the informational space has changed. But I will not say that the state of affairs has changed essentially or for the better. It has just changed. Even in the Kuchma era there was a powerful Internet with Ukrainian websites. It still exists today, but I can say that the Internet with anti-Ukrainian sites has the upper hand.

“There are some media, such as The Day, which are concerned about stylistics of the text when the question is how to better present Ukrainian culture. Incidentally, I recently discovered for myself a gorgeous publication called Perets. I subscribe to and present all my friends with it.”

In other words, there is no systemic approach to the popularization of our culture and presentation of our own history?

“If we compare Ukraine with France, the latter gained political freedom after the Great French Revolution in the late 18th century. Besides, one should take into account the mentality of Ukrainians. Ten or so years later, when we will remember the current times without too much emotion, we will understand that those were steps in the right direction. We are people of quick response and so we suffer to some extent because some of us are marching forward and the rest of society is trailing behind. To tell the truth, it was never easy for those who outrun their time. It is like in a package tour of Paris. You have seen very much and even bought some things and now you want to see historical and architectural monuments, while all the others in your group have bought cheap run-of-the-mill souvenirs and now walk gawking around and, to crown it all, chewing street-corner hot dogs. What a suffering it is! You cannot stray away from the group. Even if you can, you can do so just for a little while. For you came together and must go back together. We are in the same situation. Ukrainian society is very diverse. Some prefer borsch to fast food and listen to Antonov’s remixes, others are crying from housetops that they are patriots and then dig up a kind of Slavic idea… In a word, we are slowly learning to be Ukrainian.

“We should in fact create a contact milieu of our own, where one will feel comfortable, and be aware of our role. We must therefore orientate to ourselves or the like-minded people. For we are working for the future and can already see what kind of a Ukrainian world there will be tomorrow.”

What kind of?

“It is a high-quality mix of, among other things, Dream Country and rational, constructive and, what is more, positive articles in your newspaper.”

There are different views of what is positive. There is a positive that you create and the one that Comedy Club creates. Which positive do Ukrainians need today?

“All that we are doing should be of high quality, not only positive. Today our society is in bad need of this quality, especially the quality of taste. This applies to all that we perceive: architecture, songs, cooking, television, etc. Everything seems to have been done well, but there is no taste at all. The old Europe was built on aristocratic taste. Any song that goes on the air should not be lower than a certain level — in terms of tune, lyrics or even manner of performance.”

This is in fact the context: cooking, architecture, television. This is what keeps up the societal bar. Who or what is keeping this bar in Ukraine?

“It is not surprising that people are reaching out for traditions because they are a concentrated taste. Those who deal with folk wear say that embroidered shirts were of high quality before the 1960s, following which quality all but disappeared. Taste vanished — in the pattern, proportions, and color. It is not accidental that the society’s vanguard is turning to traditions. We can learn from them. So we should study very well our cultural tradition and orient ourselves to people who are standing in the vanguard of a cultural society. In addition to tastelessness, we also have such a problem as mistrust in the performer. We cannot see many good things just because we customarily think that everything is done badly in this country. Everybody thinks he is a boss in his own cultural space. Besides, we don’t know how to cooperate. And politicians are giving us a convincing illustration of this.”

Incidentally, have you ever thought of a political career (as some of your musician colleagues have)?

“This is a standard question. Firstly, they are not my colleagues. Secondly, it is obvious today that doing politics and fishing in troubled water is almost the same thing. There are no opportunities for a different kind of politics now.”

Ukrainian vechornytsi in Paris and Oslo is, so to speak, cultural expansion to the West. Ambitious plans. How did the vechornytsi go down with audiences? Who came to see them? We spoke about your mission of forming a positive image of Ukraine in Russia. And in Europe? Are individual writers, artists and academics capable of accomplishing this mission? Or does this require governmental support? For Ukraine is one of the few European states that have no cultural institutions in Europe and the rest of the world.

“State-supported Ukrainian vechornytsi could be a thousand times more powerful and resounding — in terms of impact, not quality. On the other hand, Ukraine has been accumulating an unrealized cultural potential for centuries on end. When you are organizing this kind of events, this potential strikes back like a compressed spring. The foreigners, who come to see vechornytsi, leave the place in shock. First of all, because the Western world is losing energy (and this is a different question). They have everything well-built and beautiful, all the people are clever. But they lack energy to create something. One can draw this energy from this kind of cultural events. When Ukrainians come together and there are all the conditions for conducting this event smartly, audiences themselves create this event by means of their energy. All this has been accumulating for years, and then we opened this box and saw a pearl. All the pearls can now make a very nice-looking necklace. But I won’t do this on my own. We are planning to organize the next vechornytsi in Moscow on April 1, Nikolai Gogol’s 200th birth anniversary, at a club named after Gogol. We are strongly supported, for the first time, by the Ukrainian embassy — it is one of the first serious steps towards cooperation with the state. A very positive signal.”

Do the foreigners who come to see vechornytsi identify the Ukrainian codes as European ones?

“They rather perceive this as superexotica. The world is no longer divided into East and West because the entire East is now in the West. Europeans are very fond of Arabic, Indian, and African soirees. For example, I once happened to watch a show in Norway, which was billed as modern dancing. But in reality it featured Norwegian girls who performed the belly dance. It is now part of Norwegian culture. But Ukrainian culture is not part of Western culture. For this reason, our vechornytsi are much more exotic for Europeans than African or Thai soirees. When Ukrainian music becomes as customary for them as Balkan music is, we will be in a European context. I personally feel myself a totally European person.”

And, in general, how do you position yourself? Are you, above all, a musician? A public figure? A stage director? One can see you at an underground club concert and then in the Dancing with Stars show…

“I am an actor, I play various roles. Yes, I have something to do with the underground, but I am not going to stay behind in the underground for the rest of my life after a concert. Or if I take part in a glamour project, it does not mean that I will only listen to pop songs thereafter. Likewise, if I like ethno, it doesn’t mean I will be wearing country gaiters all my lifetime.”

Is there going to be a French answer to the Ukrainian vechornytsi on Montmartre?

“There should be one. We planned to dovetail into French Spring. Unfortunately, we failed. So I have two plans: to postpone this event for a different date or to remodel the project. It may be a series of French soirees.”

And Rock Sich?

“The situation is the same: either in the fall or next year.”

The same with the Festival of the Heroic Song?

“The same. You know, I have an inclination to spew forth and implement ideas, but then it is difficult to keep them going. Let us wait for better times. Or let us wait until society gives me an opportunity to launch this kind of a project.”

What is the program of the Moscow vechornytsi?

“It has already been drawn up and, I would say, tested. There will be La Grande Orchestre, I as a deejay, and the etho group Choboty z Buhaia. We performed like this in Paris, Dnipropetrovsk, and Lviv.”

What is VV doing now?

“We are conquering the virtual space. CDs are now receding to the background because people prefer to use the Internet and download music from the Web. It is topical and very convenient to present your musical works in the Internet. It is quite a common practice in the world. We had long been promoting the song Lado, shooting a clip, and then presented it, for the first time in our practice, in the Internet. We were not mistaken. It is not so important for a musician whether his song sells well or is in rotation: the main thing is that it should reach the listener. We are going to launch other songs in the same manner until we have gathered enough compositions for an album. This will perhaps take a year or two. We have already recorded a few songs, including our version of the Ukrainian Anthem.”

At the Festival of the Heroic Song, you are turning to the historical, not only cultural, tradition. Why? What do you want to put across?

“A cultural tradition cannot exist without history. If we consider ourselves cultured people, we are obliged to know our history. It is perhaps for this reason that we have language problems and ethnic misunderstandings among people. Our history is either hidden or distorted. If you are based on false history, you tend to behave inadequately. This is why we have an inadequate society. Knowledge is spiritual health. And if you know what has been occurring in Ukraine’s history in the past hundred years, you will also understand the politics of today.”

Now let us get down to this day. There is a question about Eurovision. It is still unclear whether or not VV wanted to take part in the song contest.

“I looked into the situation and saw that VV cannot participate in the Eurovision contest for a number of reasons. It was the agency with which we worked that applied for our participation. I was out of Kyiv at the moment. When I came back, I understood that it was impossible. Particularly, for technical and material reasons. It is not enough to be able to sing and to be a genius.”

But does the Eurovision format suit VV?

“I can see now that it does not. All these scandals…”

One of the most high-ranking Ukrainian TV channels recently showed a new project of Sviatoslav Vakarchuk. It is a successful idea. And do you intend to make a deal with a popular channel about showing Dream Country or the vechornytsi?

“I have always been pressing this case.”

And what are they saying?

“Wrong format. But this year we have an excellent chance to perform on television.”

To sum up our conversation and your current and future initiatives, what kind of a vogue manifesto would you proclaim for Ukrainians? What is in vogue today?

“It is in vogue to be positive and cultured, which means to know the history, culture and language of your country. It is in vogue to be environmentally and ethnically conscious. It is in vogue to read The Day and… not to smoke.”