It’s a madness that in Ukraine, Russia used to shape a picture of who Ukrainians are, – publisher Mariana Savka

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In a coffee shop in Kyiv, I couldn’t hear Russian nearby, so I just moved, isolated myself, because I didn’t want this influence on me anymore.
Photo: Tvoe Misto/Ivan Stanislavskyi

Photo: Tvoe Misto/Ivan Stanislavskyi

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Ukraine has always taken security quite lightly, primarily informational and mental. Now, it’s important to pass laws to protect our country, in particular, to ban the import of Russian books into Ukraine. Maryana Savka, a publisher and poet, editor-in-chief and co-founder of «Staryi Lev» Publishing House, emphasizes the urgency of this decision.

Ukraine has always taken security quite lightly. After all, security concerns not only borders or spies, which we also had a lot of, but also information protection. This war has been waged for a long time, there were efforts to make us a conglomerate, an object country with manipulated people who use Russian memes, songs and love it. Because love is the greatest bond. How to fight with what you love? This means cutting off one’s hand, cutting off Russian identity. This is very difficult.

We underestimated the situation inside the country. We in Lviv were a bit narcissistic because we decided on our identity. But it’s not like that, we are one organism.

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Therefore, I do not know what prevents the president from signing the law banning the import of Russian books into Ukraine today. I suspect that this is the influence of other people on the president, and he is subject to this influence.

This law is important, and it is safe. We did not care about informational and mental security, we did not understand what values ​​and what kind of country we were building. In the early 90s, we did not agree on what we were building, and now we have huge problems with it. The intelligentsia, the descendants of the soldiers of UPA [Ukrainian Insurgent Army], decided that the Ukrainian language is the state language, the titular nation, while the other part had a different opinion, never agreed with it and did not respect it. If you live in such a country, when communication is bad, when part of the people do not respect the other part, then there is a conflict. And we lived as if behind walls, behind the borders. And they also lived with Russian television. This is just madness: Russia shaped a picture of who Ukrainians are.

If you remember when we started our startup – «Staryi Lev Publishing House» [in 2001], the book market at that time was «hard», we poked around with our books, hearing: «You are so small, who would work with you?», or «your books are in Ukrainian.» Then, we realized that most book chains do not want us, because they have Russian capital at their core. Even when I entered these bookstores, I felt how the saleswomen looked at me with disdain...

But the large-scale invasion of Russia doomed Ukraine to large-scale Ukrainization, this is already happening. This is the thing that changes the vector of thinking behind this choice. And it seems to me that it undermines the lazy habit of not using the Ukrainian language. Because yes, it is supposedly not convenient, but it cannot be like that anymore. This is a painful process. Before the war, this question did not trigger me as much as it does now. In a coffee shop in Kyiv, I couldn’t hear Russian nearby, so I just moved, isolated myself, because I didn’t want this influence on me anymore.

Read also: Ukrainians speak refined Russian, here it sounds like the language of freedom – historian Yaroslav Hrytsak

Language entails culture. Some Ukrainians like not only speaking Russian but part of Russian culture, because it’s impossible to separate it. Russian writers are not included in this imperial process, no matter what century it is. And you don’t notice this, and the films that were created in the Soviet Union are Russian in their essence, as well as the current cartoons like «Masha» [the Russian cartoon «Masha and the Bear»]. They’re so densely filled with Russian memes, their models of thinking, that children, even when watching them translated into Ukrainian, involuntarily become adepts of Russian.

There are some people who will not switch to Ukrainian because they were programmed this way, and this is an impossible process, but the majority of people should become Ukrainian speakers and this will be the process of creating a Ukrainian political nation.

Photo: Tvoe Misto/Ivan Stanislavskyi

By Mariana Savka, translated by Vitalii Holich

The author’s column is a reflection of the author’s subjective position. The editors of «Tvoe Misto» do not always share the opinions expressed in the columns, and are ready to give those who disagree the opportunity for a reasoned answer.

Follow us on Facebook and Instagram. Lviv Now is an English-language website for Lviv, Ukraine’s «tech-friendly cultural hub.» It is produced by Tvoe Misto («Your City») media-hub, which also hosts regular problem-solving public forums to benefit the city and its people.

 



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