A report on the condition of culture and ngos in - Kultura Enter

a Ukrainian poet (I have to remind here that the Russian writer Chekhov did notwrite poetry). So, the president of Ukraine does love literature as well but doesnot read it. Nevertheless, it is he who is the most successful Ukrainian writer:under the disguise of royalties for literary activities (speeches, articles, memoirsthat are to be written in the future) he managed to receive 16 million hryvnias(2 million US dollars), that is, an amount that has not been earned by all Ukrainianwriters together for the 20 years of independence. Just imagine what a highplace literature has to hold in the social hierarchy if it is through it that the highestofficial of the state launders questionable money.All right, let’s go further: a half of Ukraine is Russian-speaking, but there is noRussian-speaking Ukrainian literature since all Russian-speaking writers in Ukraineconsider themselves to be a part of the Russian literary process. Or, in addition:there are not many music groups in Ukraine that can gather such numbers ofyoung people as the modern Ukrainian writers Yuri Andrukhovych or SerhiyZhadan can do. A bit confused? Only the Ukrainian state itself is more confusingthan Ukrainian literature. Even a doctor will not help you understand Ukraine, butI will try to tell you briefly, in an outline, about its literature.Two literaturesLet me begin by telling you that here, in Ukraine, there are two realities, two kindsof consciousness – namely, a modern, contemporary one and a post-Soviet one.The former would not reign for all it is worth; the latter would not vanish, despiteall forecasts made years and years ago. This division has to do with literature as well.The Soviet Union has disappeared from the world maps, but its rudiments stillexist in different forms. For example, the National Writers’ Union of Ukraine thathas changed only its name and, in its essence, still remains the Writers’ Union ofthe Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic. In a short time of the national upheavaland renaissance, in the late 1980s, this organization became the centre of nationalstruggle for independence. It is from here that the Taras Shevchenko UkrainianLanguage Union, Prosvita, and Peoples’ Movement of Ukraine sprang up; thesewere the anti-Soviet impulses that made incredible efforts and raised hundredsof thousands of Ukrainians to struggle against the USSR. The establishment ofthe Writers’ Union, the “stars” of Ukrainian Soviet literature Ivan Drach, Dmytro132 andriy lyubka