“What is common between Lviv and Chernihiv except for Magdeburg right?” asked Iryna Vorobei, journalist of Chernihiv Oblast State Television and Radio Company “Siver-Center,” Den/The Day’s Editor-in-Chief Larysa Ivshyna during recording of a TV program at the “Dialogue” TV studio. It turned out that, in fact, there are many things in common for these two cities since the guests in the studio spoke about the European character, inherent in these rather different yet close to every Ukrainian cities. On November 1, there appeared another link: on a special day for the residents of the Galicia capital in the capital of Sivershchyna a new book series “Subversive Literature” was presented for the first time after the 20th Book Forum in Lviv.
About 150 people gathered at Hryhorii Halahan Oblast Museum of Art in Chernihiv. The choice of the site was determined by the approach to the organization of the event – previously Den either brought photo exhibitions to Chernihiv or held meetings with students at universities. This time this was a try-out of a new format: instead of photos Den brought books and everyone interested in the declared subject could come. By the way, in the recent time the initiatives of Den have been either started in Chernihiv region or actively supported throughout the region. One of the most prominent examples is the collection Chernihivshchyna Incognita prepared in 2004. The current campaign, supported by the newspaper’s old friends, became the first event for the regional office of the charitable Foundation in Support of the Newspaper Den’s Initiatives, which just started its work in Ukraine.
The wide interest in the meeting was proved by nearly 30 announcements on various websites, as well as an extensive interview on the front page published by the oldest newspaper in oblast Desnianska Pravda – the way it’s done as a rule before an important social event is to take place. “Subversive Literature” series and its presentation became that kind of event for Chernihiv region.
First, Larysa Ivshyna made an introductory speech. As the author of the series conception she stressed: “Den’s Library arose from the fact that at some point the real political leadership in the country didn’t come into being. Then, at the turn of the 2000s another issue arose: someone had to get involved in the work with the society even though nobody quite realized in what way. This is how Ukraine Incognita originated. “Subversive Literature” series is the continuation of that project. The latter has hardly been discussed in the all-Ukrainian discourse. For example, here is a question from the history: who was right Mykhailo Hrushevsky or Dmytro Dontsov? It remained non-verbalized for a long time. But we want to see ourselves as strategically thinking people, those able to ask themselves difficult questions. Besides, in the modern world, national identity becomes another important resource along with economic factors (gas, oil). It is our alternative to many things, because the world will continue to develop under the laws of competition. However, two years ago the newspaper felt the growing interest from the public: changes are taking place, people seek the new quality of understanding. It is extremely important because our problems could be solved by other, other by the style of thinking, people. After all, we are now dealing with factor of inner motivation for changes. We, obviously, must start with something,” said the editor-in-chief.
The subsequent discussion unfolded around the declared subject. Here are some fragments of questions and answers from the discussion.
Serhii BUTKO, member of the Ukrainian Institute of National Memory: “What is the collective portrait of your average reader from the political elite – the decision makers? Are there many of them now?”
Larysa IVSHYNA: “I highly appreciate your work: there is a truly patriotic party in Ukraine – Ukrainian historians. Maybe, it is not incorporated into some political body, but it certainly performs its political work. What concerns our readers, if all Ukrainian politicians read Den/The Day, there would have been the Ukrainian political elite. However, we still have people who take interest and understand what we present. They come from different political parties. In any case, one must begin with person’s views and principles. These are highly valuable things and one must pay dearly for them. But the majority wants to earn money. We now have an unfavorable situation. When it changes, there will emerge real parties. Unfortunately, we can also witness a certain degree of lack of discipline in the society – go ahead and try to gather a meeting (the same is true about both the government and the opposition) without paying the participants. What meaning do the views have? There is a great distance between the suggested approaches. What should we do in order to see the elite reading and their minds (and not something else) became the criterion for electing them? This is a multifaceted problem that can be solved following the basis of self-government and respect for individuals. The main front is the individual and collective resistance to degradation. We have no right to lower the intellectual bar.”
Liudmyla ZINEVYCH, assistant professor of humanities at Chernihiv State Institute of Economics and Management, Ph.D. in Philology: “Lina Kostenko once said that Ukrainian poets are not being heard, Yurii Andrukhovych stated that people do not listen to Ukrainian intellectuals. You do a lot to bring their thoughts and opinions through to the wider public. Do you plan on extending your activity abroad? Here is why I ask this. I have recently come back from an academic conference in Minsk, where I was able to conduct one experiment: I asked students to write an associative array to the word ‘Ukraine.’ Here is what they wrote: salo (fat), sea, khokhols (Ukrainians). It was pretty scary. The professors complained that they now don’t have the opportunities for subscribing press from Ukraine the way they did before and, therefore, they don’t have an opportunity to learn much from our intellectual context. Do you plan to sell the “Subversive Literature” series abroad?”
Larysa IVSHYNA: “Apparently, it’s been long necessary for Ukraine to spread its intellectual product to the neighboring countries. The main thing that every journalist must master is understanding of the global situation, because without that he risks to remain distant from the events in his own country. What concerns our newspaper, we do what we can. We work with Russian and Belarusian counterparts, but in the future we would have to multiply our efforts greatly. We also need to take care of our reputation, see ourselves as a state in order to counteract to the negative information influence.”
Liudmyla CHABAK, director of the projects of the Institute for Regional Studies, Ph.D. in Philosophy: “How often do you organize such meetings with readers of your newspaper in other Ukrainian cities?”
Larysa IVSHYNA: “In the beginning of our cultural initiatives, such meetings took place very often. This didn’t always happen because of our strong desire to travel the country, but rather it was a reaction to the ‘solidarity’ of our colleagues back then: when we published the two of our first books, nobody wrote a word. Now the atmosphere around intellectual affairs is getting warmer, there are fewer people who think: ‘Is this really interesting to anyone? Why should we promote our competitors?’ In my opinion, before you learn to compete, you must learn to cooperate. The first link of such kind between different media became our photo exhibition and now it’s one of the good signs of recovery. And almost 15 years ago now we first used the method of going from home to home, to be more precise, from university to university. The first university we went to was Nizhyn University, again, in Chernihiv region. Then we had an incredible meeting in Pryluky.”
