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2 No.<strong>36</strong> JUNE 12, 2018 DAY AFTER DAY WWW.DAY.KIEV.UA By Volodymyr KOSTYRIN Photos by Mykola TYMCHENKO, The Day This is only the first part of the project, which has already found a broad response among viewers, particularly on YouTube. Although the subject the author broaches is rather complicated, the audience reacted approvingly. The film’s author himself, who was born and raised in Luhansk, stayed behind in his native city until September 2, 2014, and saw the dramatic events of Russian aggression against Ukraine. Later on, Valentyn Torba wrote a book, I, an Eyewitness. Notes from the Occupied Luhansk, on the basis of his reminiscences and diary. The film is sort of the author’s video reproduction of his reflections on those events. “My book, published by the newspaper Den, must only be viewed in the reference frame of two other books in the ‘Contemporary History for Dummies’ series,” Den’s journalist Valentyn TORBA says. “A prolog of sorts to it is Ivan Kapsamun’s book ‘The Trap,’ or A Case without a Statute The harsh reality of war Last week Den’s journalist Valentyn Torba presented his film Luhansk: Occupation at the Kyiv House of Cinema Indeed, it is impossible to find the causes and effects of the current war without sinking into history – both the domestic history and the history of our country’s relationships with the neighbor that eventually became the enemy. “The main conclusion for me is that this film has a cause-and-effect relation,” says Ivan KAPSAMUN, controlled the city. Let me tell you how he began cooperating with Den. As early as during the so-called ‘Russian spring’ in the spring and summer of 2014, Valentyn’s biting and meaningful posts and blogs in Facebook, where he described what was going on in his city and region, drew the attention of Den’s editor-in-chief Larysa IVSHYNA who invited him to contribute to our newspaper. He agreed, sk: Occupation is a very serious work. Valentyn in fact adapted to the screen what Den had been writing about for many years. I wish my colleague success and want as many people as possible to watch it because, before occupying our territories, the Kremlin ‘occupied’ people’s brains. To ward this off, one must know contemporary history on the basis of the Den’s Library and the presented film.” 300 years ago and even earlier. The war is permanent, and it did not begin in 2014. We were being exterminated and manipulated in 1933 and well before that. And, instead of forming state institutions, the authorities palmed off certain individuals upon us, who were just ruining these institutions, ruining the groundwork for the restoration of our statehood. And why are governmental officials indifferent? Let me say an objectionable thing: I am convinced for some reason that the political elite seems to be feeling good even without Luhansk, Donetsk, and Crimea.” “It was about the Ukraine-Russia border,” civic activist, journalist, and political scientist Oleksii PODOL- SKY said after watching the film. “The first negotiations on this matter, in which I took part, began in 1995. Before that, we and Russia had never negotiated the border question. I was a diplomat at the time and first came to Luhansk, when we were trying to persuade the leadership to follow the Estonian way. I took part in the closed-door negotiations about the Black Sea Fleet, as well as in the talks about gas with participation of AT THE SCREENING OF THE FILM LUHANSK: OCCUPATION, THE FUTURE OFFICERS WERE DEEPLY MOVED NOT ONLY BY THE FOOTAGE AND CONTACTS WITH GUESTS, BUT ALSO BY BEING GIVEN THE BOOK “THE TRAP,” OR A CASE WITHOUT A STATUTE OF LIMITATIONS, A TEXTBOOK ON UKRAINE’S TRUE CONTEMPORARY HISTORY of Limitations which tells the prehistory of the political ‘trap’ into which this country fell. My film is sort of a video illustration to the trilogy Den published as far back as 2015.” Torba said after the screening: “I’ve brought some books and would like to gift them to the military present here. Here is the book ‘The Trap,’ or A Case without a Statute of Limitations by Ivan Kapsamun, editor of Den’s politics section. Note the phrase ‘without a statute of limitations.’ Our current problem is that we think in the terms that call us for artificial reconciliation. We think: well, OK, let’s forgive, forget, make friends, hug, and things will be all right. Do you remember, by the way, the fake photograph in the internet about how the Ukrainian-Russian border must look like? It shows people drinking, eating, etc., at the table. The killing of us begins with this illusory reconciliation. Nobody wants to ‘fraternize’ with us. They want to exterminate us, Ukrainians, wipe off our memory, and turn us into an eternal second-rate satellite. The aggressor is taking advantage of our weaknesses to this end. Therefore, we must not forget both the foreign and the domestic enemy.” editor of Den’s politics section. “This is the most important point. For what we have in the information space today is just a picture, sometimes a conclusion, with no explanation of what caused one problem or another. And many fall for this. This film practically shows the contemporary history of Ukraine, including the way the occupation of the Luhansk region was prepared and finally carried out. The film also recalls the Holodomor period and emphasizes that our country found itself in a very difficult situation in the early 1990s because it had a postcolonial and post-genocidal society. Such difficult times require very strong efforts to build the state. But, we saw in the film that, instead of building state institutions, the leadership of this country formed a clannish oligarchic system, in which we are in fact still living. The revolutions we had can hardly be called revolutions. Society was doing very much to break this system but, unfortunately, failed to do so. For society itself is sick and was unable to organize – neither after the first nor after the second Maidan.” Kapsamun also added: “Valentyn stayed in Luhansk to the last moment, when Russian troops in fact and then, on the chief editor’s instructions, I came into direct contact, as I edited many of his texts. We thus began to receive on-the-spot information and analyses of events. Later, when it became dangerous to stay on in Luhansk, Valentyn had to leave the native city. He moved to Kyiv, and the newspaper offered him a job on the staff. “In 2015 Den prepared a trilogy of books compiled by me (‘The Trap’), Torba (I, an Eyewitness), and Maria Semenchenko (Catastrophe and Triumph). The first is about why this country got into a ‘political trap’ on the example of high-profile murders of Yevhen Shcherban, Borys Derevianko, Vadym Hetman, and, as the apotheosis of the system, the attempt on the life of Oleksandr Yeliashkevych, the attack on and kidnapping of Oleksii Podolsky, and murder of Georgy Gongadze. Consequentially, the second book is about the living and dead heroes who went to war in the east and covered with their bodies the mistakes politicians had made. “To launch Den’s books, we in fact traveled all over Ukraine, doing the educational work the state is normally supposed to do. The film Luhan- “This is really a story that touches one on the raw, and I would like the people who have nothing to do personally with our Luhansk region to watch the first and the next parts of the film,” civic activist Maryna ZOLK- INA said during the film presentation. “I am often asked, because of my work, why certain decisions are not made. All I can do is give a not-soprofessional explanation of why we show this kind of reaction to this procrastination. In my view, this happens because those who must, by force of our choice, make decisions are indifferent. You, Valentyn, are not indifferent. You, as a journalist, a writer, and a person who makes no decisions, are not indifferent. So where should the central authorities draw strength to regain the temporarily occupied territories? Where is the source of the strength that will help us achieve this?” “In my opinion, our first source of strength is to be able to understand that the war will never end,” Torba answered this question. “Terrible words indeed, but we are now in the state of a permanent war. And if we try to persuade ourselves that things will be different, we will be wrong. Things won’t be different. They were not different Lazarenko and Turkmenistan. I finally saw that our leadership was the No. 1 traitor, that the agent of Russia, who was selling our state out, was the head of our state. So I, chief of the Russia department of our Foreign Ministry, deliberately joined the opposition to Kuchma. I was busy writing, running around, keeping a secret print shop, and so on. All this resulted in the Gongadze case. You should know that Gongadze and other likeminded people also participated in this. Do you remember Yeliashkevych? And Yurii Orobets? Many of them have already passed away. I am a person who took part in all of this and saw everything with my own eyes. Do you remember the Black Sea Fleet negotiations, when Crimea was being surrendered for a gas bribe? Such entities as RosUkrEnergo were a feeding trough for the families of our presidents. Torba was right to say that the war will go on. The film is about this, about how cynically Crimea and the Donbas were surrendered.” The author also plans to show the film in Sievierodonetsk, Luhansk oblast, which was lucky enough to be liberated as far back as the summer of 2014.
WWW.DAY.KIEV.UA DAY AFTER DAY No.<strong>36</strong> JUNE 12, 2018 3 By Andreas UMLAND The new German study “Die Ukraine in den Augen Deutschlands. Bilder und Wahrnehmungen eines Landes im Umbruch” (Kyiv: Buero fuer politische Kommunikation, GIZ GmbH, 2018. 111 pp.) carefully reflects a wide range of opinions held by German experts on the state of affairs in Ukraine and issues of its description, perception, understanding and misunderstanding in today’s Germany. Population and economy-wise, Germany is the most significant country in Central and Western Europe, while Ukraine, which has the largest area among exclusively European countries (some parts of Russia and Turkey lie in Europe, but most of them are in Asia), has turned into a geopolitically key state of East-Central Europe in the post-Soviet period. The Ukrainians and Germans have deep-rooted historical connections. One of such connections was the adoption of the famed Magdeburg Law by several Ukrainian cities in the 15th-19thcentury period. One of these cities, namely Kyiv, hosts a monument to the Magdeburg Law. In the post-Soviet period, Ukrainian-German cooperation in various fields of business, science, education, and culture has developed and continues to develop in a great variety of forms. In view of these and many other circumstances, it is surprising how little attention has been paid so far to the study of the relations and connections between the two major European peoples in the context of the study of European history and international relations. While the interest of Ukrainians in Germany has always been high, Germans have only recently begun to exhibit growing interest in Ukraine and information about it. In 2006, the Research Center for East European Studies at the University of Bremen began publishing a periodic electronic bulletin called Ukraine-Analysen, which has had 201 issues so far. At present, two specialized German-language websites – Ukraine-Nachrichten (News about Ukraine, founded in Dresden in 2007) and Ukraine verstehen (Understanding Ukraine, launched in Berlin in 2017) – are also improving the understanding of Ukraine in Germany. The work on systematic interpretation of the history of German-Ukrainian relations is progressing as well, albeit at a slower pace. In 2010, Hamburg-based historian Frank Golczewski published a major work on German-Ukrainian relations in the interwar period (Deutsche und Ukrainer 1914-1939, Paderborn: Schoeningh, 1,058 p.). Since then, there have been several studies and papers on the presentation of Ukraine in the German media (including distortions in it), as well as Germany’s participation in the transformations in post-Soviet Ukraine. The Ukrainian program of the German Agency for International Cooperation (GIZ) offers an extremely informative and illuminating description of the German perspectives on today’s Ukraine in their new study “Ukraine through the German Eyes: Representations and Perceptions of a Country in the Transition Period.” The study is based on the methodology of the GIZ’s previous project of studying the perception of Germany in the world, during which international experts on Germany were asked to Krieg, Krise, Krim vs. Dynamo Kyiv and the Klitschkos A German study tries to determine which perception of Ukraine is prevailing in German society answer the question of how the German state was perceived in their homeland. The study of Ukraine conducted by the GIZ in 2017 is also not a statistical study of the Germans’ attitude towards Ukraine, but a deep qualitative exploration of the impressions, interpretations, opinions, perspectives, assessments, stereotypes, knowledge and expectations that exist in Germany regarding Ukraine. This analysis is based on 1,014 statements by 44 German citizens who are more or less familiar with Ukraine or are interested in it for various professional reasons. The respondents include researchers, businesspeople, civic activists, journalists as well as cultural and political figures. The latter category encompasses some well-known individuals, such as the Green Party’s Member of the European Parliament Rebecca Harms or former Prime Minister of Saxony and serving Ambassador of the G7 in Ukraine, Professor Georg Milbradt. As initiator and immediate leader of the project Andreas von Schumann clearly points out in his opening remarks, the objective of the study was not “to search for [objective] truth” about Ukraine. Rather, “[we] wanted to isolate the similarities that can be revealed in different views [on Ukraine] of different people [from Germany], to discover the outlines of these perceptions [and] recognizable features of both the real and distorted portrait of the country.” Von Schumann points out two fundamental trends in the assessments given by 44 German participants in specialized interviews: firstly, the German experts questioned believe that the German “perspective on Ukraine is too narrow, the knowledge [of Ukraine in Germany] is too unsystematic, the attention of [the Germans] [to events in Ukraine] is too fickle, and assessments [of Ukrainian topics] are built on too shallow foundations.” Secondly, the German experts interviewed, according to von Schumann, expressed “a deep desire that Germany and the Germans find a common language with Ukraine more often and more actively.” This desire is based on several motives: the historical responsibility of the German people, the cultural diversity of Ukraine, the economic potential of the country, the need to ensure stability in eastern Europe and the possible incentives [flowing from such involvement] for the further development of the EU. And yet, as the respondents noted, the most obvious incentive for them was admiration brought by their own closer encounter with Ukraine. Regardless of the specific reason that put Ukraine forward as their principal interest, most [of the interviewees] stressed that the “clean sheet” of perception that had existed at first had quickly turned into a “colorful canvas” (page 7). As shown by the study, three negative ‘K’s have dominated the German perception of Ukraine since 2014: Krieg, Krise, Krim – i.e., the [military] conflict, crisis, Crimea. Two other ‘K’s with positive connotations, which are the once famous soccer team Dynamo Kyiv and the The Queen’s record achievements How America and Canada were able to watch the coronation of Her Majesty which took place 65 years ago REUTERS photo REUTERS photo name Klitschko, borne by Vladimir and Vitalii, two famous world boxing champions who lived in Germany for a long time and are still popular in that country, have only slightly improved this image. The GIZ study not only presents widespread German stereotypes about Ukraine, similar to those described above, but also offers numerous indepth assessments of the scope of various perceptions in Germany of such Ukrainian topics as the 2014 regime change, reforms, corruption, nationalism, external relations, European aspirations, cultural differences, relations with Russia, and the nation’s significance for Germany. The value of this study is not only in illustrating well the various German interpretations of these topics. Besides presenting the views of many leading German experts on Ukraine and their perspectives on the country they take interest in, the brochure also offers an in-depth presentation of how the German public should be informed in the future about the history and events in and around Ukraine. From the point of view of Germany’s importance for the EU’s foreign policy in general and for the Union’s policy towards Ukraine in particular, this study of the German thinking on various Ukrainian issues, which is now being translated into English and Ukrainian, will become mandatory reading for all those interested in the present and future of international relations of Ukraine, as well as its gradual European integration. Andreas UMLAND is an expert at the Institute for Euro-Atlantic Cooperation (Kyiv) By Natalia PUSHKARUK, The Day On June 2, Queen Elizabeth II celebrated 65 years since her coronation, held at the Westminster Abbey on the same day in 1953. Then, thousands of guests witnessed the historic ascension of the 27-year-old Elizabeth to the throne, while 11 million Britons listened to the event on radio, and 27 million watched it on TV. The CBS News writes that journalist Walter Cronkite was the first to broadcast the event in America, using an improvised studio in a hangar in Boston’s Logan Airport. Meanwhile, the Royal Central web resource reports that the Canadians and Americans were able to watch Elizabeth’s coronation on the same day as the British only because the BBC’s records of the events were transported across the Atlantic by Royal Air Force aircraft. Formally, Elizabeth assumed her duties as Queen on February 6, 1952, when she learned, while visiting Kenya, that her father, King George VI, had died. That is why the Sapphire Jubilee of Elizabeth II, marking 65 years of her reign, was celebrated last year. The Express publication notes that there were no official celebrations for the coronation anniversary in Britain this year, and Elizabeth spent June 2 attending one of her favorite entertainments, the Epsom Derby. Pictured: Queen Elizabeth II with John Warren, Her Majesty’s horse caretaker.
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