Besides music, in which he took an organic interest since childhood, Oleksii Kuznietsov has also been engaged in boxing, in order to be able to defend himself. He was very successful in sports, but at first the future winner of the talent show X-Factor was afraid of singing. Yet he graduated from a music school, and is now studying at the Donetsk Music College, Academic Singing Department. He is also working at the Donetsk-based Anatolii Solovianenko National Theater of Opera and Ballet. As the newspaper Segodnia found out, the boy’s father is now disabled. The participant’s application form mentioned that Oleksii dreamed of giving his father a chance to walk and build a church. Now, having won the STB channel’s project with a cash-prize of two million hryvnias, he can realize his dream. Perhaps one should not just wonder at the boy’s talent and his professional skills as a performer, but, taking into account his family history, also at his ability to overcome the inertia of his surroundings. How can one survive in a marginalized world and not lose interest in real things or the desire for self-development? What can make a teenager from the village Novofurmanivka, located between Makiivka and Khartsyzsk (as well as teenagers from many other Ukrainian towns and villages) take serious interest in classical music?
“When Oleksii was three, my husband was already ill, and he often asked Oleksii to switch the TV channels. When doing this, the boy himself stopped on classical music programs and listened to them, apparently charmed by the music,” Oleksii’s mother Liubov told The Day. “For some reason, there were classical music programs on TV at the time of the USSR’s collapse. Unlike today. So, this music was a choice of his own. We did not impose anything on him; let’s put it this way, we never stood in the way. And this interest grew over the years. Surely, like any teenager, he listened to rock music, metal, and club music, but each time he returned to classical music, and when this happened, he was a totally different, pure person. Classical music is his dream, and I think he will surely put it to life.”
This is a paradox. The collapsing empire had high-quality music, and now in “cultured” Ukraine there is not even a hint of it. What happened? In a sense television has been depriving the entire population of opportunities.
The winner of the “silver prize” of the X-Factor project Maria Rak, Borodianka, Kyiv oblast, who accepted the second place with uncommon grace, says that in her development she always counted on herself. “In our country a young talent can make his or her way through only thanks to own initiative, energy and intellectual faculties,” Maria supposes.
Our country badly needs such talents with their energy, initiative, and intellectual faculties. They are responsible for modernizing Ukraine.
“Shows attracting unrealized talents from all over the country make us ask the country’s leaders the following question: why doesn’t anybody need talented people in Ukraine, why do they go for self-realization abroad?” questions Vitalii Vorobiov, a journalist at the newspaper Vecherniy Donetsk (Makiivka), “Of course, Makiivka and the Donbas on the whole are extremely proud that namely Kuznietsov has won the country’s biggest singing competition. As voting was underway the newspaper Vecherniaia Makeevka called on the city’s residents to vote for their fellow townsman. I am sincerely glad that he won. And I would be happy for any participant, as for a man whose dream has been realized.”
Though X-Factor is merely a TV show, it has become a wonderful path for social mobility, which is in a deplorable state in Ukraine, by moving the best upwards. For mobility should be based on merit, not connections. We apply this principle while judging The Day’s Photo Contest, and the same principle has had its effect in the talent show X-Factor. After all, this principle should work not only in the creative sphere, but in other domains of Ukrainian life as well. However, for this social selection mechanisms must be developed, a kind of social natural selection of the best and brightest; one cannot save a country with a population of 46 million with TV shows alone. However, such shows can play a very important role, i.e., to show people that talent and self-development are rewarded.
