The Soviet Union killed millions of people so that Ukrainians would not know their own art, and the colonization of Ukrainian culture is still taking place
We talked about Ukrainian culture and its decolonization with artist and curator Olesya Drashkaba.
Olesya Drashkaba: The colonization of Ukrainian culture is still taking place. As an example, the comments on Facebook under the posts of people in embroidered shirts, where they write: «This is a rural aesthetic.» Now, of course, the situation is much better than it was even 5 years ago.
The Soviet Union worked very actively to destroy everything national in each of its occupied territories.
And it did so in several ways:
- By giving folk aesthetics the «rural» and «not modern” stamps.
- By mixing and assimilating all ethnic aesthetics so that the original would be lost.
The «sharovarshchyna» moment was created artificially. Now it is important to clean yourself from this filth and study purely Ukrainian art.
Color is a big part of Ukrainian art. I once thought about how to describe Ukraine in two words. So, color would be the first word. Ukrainian culture loves color. Even if you compare the icons, ours are bright, picturesque, and colorful.
«Finally, borscht happened to us»
Olesya Drashkaba: A very cool story happened with borscht. The fact that our borscht is now the cultural heritage of Ukraine, recognized by UNESCO, is very cool. Firstly, this is a great event of de-Russification because Russia always claims our borscht. I don’t know how, but for some reason, they decided to present it as their own dish. Borscht is a purely Ukrainian dish and even this is visible by its color.
- For Russians, the cultural war is one of the most important wars.
The first thing we must do in this struggle is to learn our own art. Now the world is very interested in Ukraine, and it is time to bring our message to the world. Here, the problem is that we do not know much about our own culture, nor do we know it well. The Soviet Union killed millions of people, so Ukrainians would not know their own art. Now we must rebuild it all.
