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Answers for questions of Ukrainian Prospects Fund

Society
4. Have you felt the taste of social liberty of the last decade? Did Ukrainians succeed in liberty test?
5. How can you measure the level of realization of your talents during these years? How did you change yourself during that time?


Ivan Plusch, Head of Ukrainian Supreme Rada:

4. 16th July of 1990. The plenary session where the Ukrainian Republic Supreme Rada has just approved the State Sovereignty Declaration is closed. A delegation of national deputies persuaded me to go into the square in front of the Parliament building. Hundreds or maybe thousands of people were greeting us with tremendous energy and fervour. And I was looking at them and thinking we will have to apply much more energies and hard work to turn independent Ukraine into reality.

Ten years have gone – have Ukrainian people stood the test of freedom or not? Perhaps, they have.

Ten years ago freedom began winning on the macrolevel. Or maybe it was the display of national genes? From within came something that changed the self-realization of the whole nation forever. Our society passed through terrible ordeals Chornobyl, the truth about repressions, the truth about the war in Afghanistan, the truth about corruption, about purposeful character of the starvation of 1932-1933. We all had naked nerves.

Ten years ago Ukraine exploded with independence, and it was the victory of freedom. Later somebody tried to present it as their own victory. Every victory is usually known to have a lot of fathers. But the truth is that all of us were taking part in it voluntary or involuntary, holding office or declaring his or her opposition. Communists of that time underwent the same events as People’s Movement members of that time.

We can have an independent state and inscribe in the Constitution the most progressive ideas and words about freedom and human rights, but if there is no practical realization of them, it means that we have not passed the ordeal of freedom.

Freedom is more valuable than money. Freedom is more valuable than life.


Mykola Knyazhytskyj, member of Television and Broadcasting National Council:

4. Ukrainians did not pass the freedom ordeal as they did not know and still do not know what it is. The widest freedom Ukrainians had somewhere between 1991 and 1997. That freedom was called anarchy and lawlessness, which is indicative of a young state. This freedom could have been legitimated through subjecting it to people. The nomenclature hesitated for a long time and was afraid of Europe, Russia, America and people. But later it understood that it is all the same for Europe, and Russia, and America, and even Ukrainian people how these people would be ruled. And the nomenclature remained Soviet and was the most experienced in ruling these people, understood that the people had not changed themselves since the Soviet times and they could be ruled in the old way. Nobody has even noticed it was the ordeal of freedom.


Mykola Zhulynskyj, vice-Prime Minister, member of Academy of Sciences of Ukraine:

4. Undoubtedly. I wonderfully remember the years when there was always present the inner censure that regularly "advised": this would not go, do not write this, there is no hope for publishing this… I remember respectable people in the Institute of Literature who survived the terrible war years but were afraid of Central Committee instructor’s glare. And they wrote the reviews being so gloatingly quoted today. But these people feared not so much for themselves as for their families. And the last decade gave unique possibilities for self-realization. It is quite another matter that the today’s obstacles are not ideological but financial. To publish a book an author should ask or humbly beg somebody. Now in spite of the inner ease there are many nuances spoiling the taste of freedom.

Social freedom is the feeling and knowledge of the possibility of self-realization by a society and a person as well. But we are still unable to use this freedom. We are making no headway, we cannot summon our strength to advance in a united vigorous impulse – to feel ourselves in a new way. A lot of us are carrying the burden of post totalitarian thinking, ideological cliches and stereotypes that have spread for several generations and still are pulsing in our subconsciousness. We are still passing the ordeal of freedom. We did not manage to exploit many chances. We did not managed to organize ourselves in the forms of freedom that could give a notable result. Why? Because these is no consolidation in our society and no system of basic values across that society. There is no understanding of the common aim. If we hope that someone else will do everything we have no freedom. Freedom is responsibility for your own life.

But the moment of a spur to changes will come in any case: quality accumulation continues. And this new quality is ripening it is in the new generation. The generation that is not overburdened with an inferiority complex, a generation that can see that its self-realization depends on a nationwide perspective.

5. I have not turned them into reality yet. I have a feeling of being the soil something can grow on. For all my life I have not written any book I could be proud of. I have been writing a huge amount of different articles but my heart does not open to them.

I have not used my chance yet. As now I am a member of the government, I would like us to implement a pension reform, medicine system reform, and an education reform. To create favourable conditions for the development of Ukrainian literature and mass media in order to approach standards of the developed countries.

These are the main points I am trying to focus on. But the time for me is like a horse feeling it is to be saddled and therefore striving to break out. But I will try to saddle it.

I have greatly changed inwardly, felt my inner dignity. Some time I had a lot of complexes, I suffered from being not as handsome as I would like, I desired to have black forelock… And now I have no hair but I feel confident.

The fact that I have changed myself I attribute first of all to my age and experience, but the general social situation has also stimulated changes. In some other atmosphere I would feel absolutely differently.


Petro Tolochko, national deputy, member of Ukrainian Academy of Sciences:

4. If we compare the level of social freedom of the last decade with our previous life, we would undoubtedly find out noticeable changes for better. So I have felt the taste of our freedom to some extent. But if we compare the level of our social freedom with that of the developed countries with their old traditions of democratic development, we would find ourselves only in the beginning of our way. And besides we have recently slowed down our movement toward this desired social freedom.

To answer the question whether Ukrainians have passed the ordeal of freedom is obvious and has a single meaning – no. The new political leaders of the country did not produce it. For most of them freedom turned into a means of the unpunished appropriation of common property for their own good. It was not produced by the so-called the "fourth power" which moved from an ideological dependence in the past to an economic one in the present and seems to be enjoying such a state. We are returning to the unanimous idealization of our life, and attempts to view it critically are considered almost unpatriotic. It was not produced by our intellectual elite that is captivated by a sweet dream of the so-called revival of the Ukrainian statehood and urges people to endure for some time for the sake of this century-old dream, whereas in the meantime people are dying out. When we gained our independence there were 52 million of us but now the figure has decreased. Something is wrong with us. It has to do either with our freedom or with our inability to handle it.

5. Personally I have no reasons to complain of the last decade. Over this time I have published five monographs, about one hundred articles but nevertheless I am not fully satisfied.

I have not made mistakes in the past years so I have nothing to confess to at present. But the gravest former sinners are known to become the most righteous men. But I think that I am not threatened with it.


Oleksander Kryvenko, editor-in-chief of the "PiK" weekly:

4. I have not just felt it, I drank it to the full. In the early 90-es there was bacchanalia of freedom for self-realization of a public person (a journalist particularly). The common enthusiasm, embarrassment with the governing and state organs, disarray in the legal sphere and economic stability (turned to be short-term) gave great possibilities for every incentive. And the "hierarchic vacuum" stimulated these incentives as Ukraine has at once become the society of the dynamic hierarchy.

All caste groups that defined the career process for decades lost the monopoly of influence. And new social realities needed a large number of people with new, previously useless or little used characteristics, from knowledge of Ukrainian (English) and computer skills to skills (or readiness) to use the new technologies of civic society. The old elite groups were unable to meet these needs. And a lot of vigorous people have used this in different spheres.

Despite the significant limitation of freedom, Ukrainian society has not become stiff yet – there is some dynamic in forming the hierarchy. So conclusions about the total limitation of the social freedom remain forgone ones.

But have Ukrainian people passed the ordeal of freedom? A lot of persons and even corporate groups undoubtedly have. These people have created themselves, gained some social positions that can enable them to advance. But of course many people have not used their chances and thus lost what they had. But the nation as a whole – has it passed the ordeal? I think that a sound a valid answer should be given in about ten years.

5. I really realized myself – I took up posts that were inaccessible for me in the "old times", gained serious professional experience, and became rather famous. And what about the changes, I would name only one of them I began taking my mistakes more seriously.


Mikhail Voronin, president of the concern "Michael Voronin Vienna Paris":

4. I was one of the first founders of rent, collective enterprises. Of course, I stumbled but this gave me the possibility to develop. I founded the atelier and firm "Michael Voronin". Later I opened a school that trained specialists for the whole Commonwealth of Independent States, delivered seminars, and arranged my fashion show abroad. Six years ago we turned into a powerful enterprise and I had to reclaim all the staff. Today we win international prises one after another. I am Jewish but not every Ukrainian loves Ukraine as I do. It ails me when I hear somewhere abroad the scornful phrase: "Ah, it is Ukrainian". My foreign partners propose to pay us twice more if we change the label and write: "Made in Italy". But I say: "No!" I am not complaining and not asking for help. I know that any newly born state has problems analogous to ours. I am grateful to President Leonid Kravchuk – he gave us freedom. It was he who laid the foundation of future Ukrainian prosperity.

Yes, we have a lot of problems but I am sure: in several years things will begin to straighten out. There are a lot of things to be pleased with. I am glad to see Kyiv changing and being built day after day it becomes more beautiful. But Ukrainians did not manage to use the independence in full measure. Bureaucrats remained from the Soviet times who slowed up the movement to freedom and development. When this caste disappears, Ukrainian people will be able to realize themselves.

5. Starting my business I worked from 8 a. m. to midnight. Today I am also working in such a way because I have to advance, to perfect myself. I see what is happening in the world, I have a model and I am trying to approach it.

As far as five years ago I was compassionate. I feel sorry for people and was afraid of discharging anybody. Later I understood that in my factory among seven hundred people there was a dozen scoundrels who hindered the work of the rest and I did not give them the sack because I felt sorry for them. And I thought – what kind of chief was I was after all?

Today people are afraid of me. Today they say: "Voronin become as brutal as a beast." Today I can be compassionate only to the poor and the wretched. On the whole I became more rational and exacting. I have recently given a sack to some my friends because they began to presume upon their status. If I had not changed myself, my enterprise would probably have not survived.


Leonid Vysheslavskyj, poet:

1.Over this decade I published some books, and I am not only their author but also their editor, proof-reader and censor. On the whole I have published more than fifty books. But I have never felt so free, Never could I express myself so fully.

I am told: earlier you were published, and now you publish your books at your own expense, you are your sponsor. Yes, I said, but now I publish what I want. There is a great difference! It is the main point. There is a liberty of spirit. Independence of the territory, for all that, gives more chances to the liberty of spirit.

Disappointment has something to do only with economics. In this sense Ukraine is plundered and turned into a poverty-stricken country but only in this sense. Despite the economic breakdown we have doubtless spiritual achievements.


Volodymyr Kulyk, political scientist:

4. We were so enchanted by freedom that inevitably it had to lead to disappointment. Of course, we have experienced this enchantment on the different intellectual "floors" and with different emotional "temperatures", and now we experience our disappointment with unequal intensity and in widely varying forms as well.

Very often this disappointment is caused not by a lack of freedom in the external world but by a lack of inner freedom as well, and this prevents oneself from using available but of course limited external freedom. Even more, extension of the external freedom has revealed the lack of the inner one more brightly.

As the apogee of the enchantment was connected with the idea of independence, one of the bitterest disappointments was also connected with the fact that our independence did not bring expected freedom at least that freedom people were waiting for. Somebody decided that there was no real freedom yet, somebody else – that the very aspiration for it was a mistake. But most people, I think, regarded it with the pragmatic wisdom of bondsmen: we became independent and it could not be helped, and now we have to live as freely as we can. Of course, it is sad that our state contributes neither to our free life, nor to a satisfactory existence. At the same time people become used to the thought that the state will not solve their problems, and they themselves should be responsible for their own satiety and dignity and the ones of their relatives. Maybe this is the point where freedom begins.

Have the Ukrainian people passed the ordeal of freedom? But it is not over yet, we are gaining immunity and warming up. When you see farmers who do not feel like taking their shares and are still members of their kolkhozes I do not know how they call them now then, of course, no. But when you see people who for the first time in their lives take hoes to grow their garden, or people who go to Turkey to buy some goods in order to sell them here, or those who take foreign language courses then, of course, yes.

5. For me personally the last decade was marked with various displays of gaining my freedom and the realization of its limits.

I changed my job. I left physics, tried to work as a journalist, translator, editor and at least visited political science. I wrote some works, became famous to some extent, visited a dozen countries – and not only because I was talented and worked hard but also because I was lucky to choose a setting appropriate in time and place.

But I had to earn my living, not always doing what I would prefer, Usually I worked harder than I liked, and I never knew what I would do in a year or even a month in advance. Ignoring the possibility of having a more certain and permanent job (meaning public service), I had to skip from grant to grant, from subject to subject, from having no time to finish one task to night-time sitting on another one. I thought about leaving for a long time or forever for places where science is taken care of to a greater extent, and maybe there I would not have to skip so often, but the very thought about "forever" and unwillingness to struggle for my place beyond my native sun has restrained me up to now. And it was and actually is my freedom.


Dmytro Korchynskyj, leader of the public organization "Bratstvo":

4. I consider myself to be one of those who have really enjoyed the taste of freedom in Ukraine. I went through a lot of adventures and I stayed at large. I manifested myself radically in the home policy and I felt no pressure from the state. In no country of the "free world" would I have remained unpunished.

Ukrainians have passed the ordeal of freedom. The authorities did not suppress, the people did not revolt.

5. Over these ten years I have gained more experience than my parents did over fifty years.


Pavlo Movchan, national deputy of Ukraine:

4. I would divide this period into two subperiods. The first one when we really did taste freedom that promised significant changes in our society. And unfortunately, we did not use that freedom in full measure. As often happens in world history and more than once in our own history, it was used by adventurers. That is why today I feel some bitter smack of no freedom. A group of people usurped the right of freedom, insisting that it is for them. They seized the mass media and used money and power on the society to impose its stereotypes.

There is no freedom in Ukraine. Over last five years we lost our independence – both internal and external. The internal one lied in the releasing of the national potential. It was rising, it could have been realized but it was not allowed to do this. Pseudodemocracy replaced pseudoequality.

Ukrainians have not passed the ordeal of freedom. But that is not their guilt. There were Ukrainians who strove for freedom and gained it. But advantages were taken not by Ukrainians but by the nomenclature that had just changed its spots.

5. Over these ten years I changed significantly, I received a lot of information, I got knowledge about things I had not known before. Earlier I was a romantic but understood the problems and perspectives of the Ukrainian nation that marred our life. I know that the perspectives are illusory in this brutal world of gains. Actually the Ukrainian nation is in suspension. And all my knowledge, everything I managed to obtain, all my experience is useless.


Stanislav Arzhevitin, head of the bank "Azhio":

4. Somebody was infatuated with freedom but the nation on the whole has managed it. The main point is that time is needed to get used to freedom and to grow up in this atmosphere…

Let us recall that the reforms of Peter I caused the ascent in Russian culture and science only after 150-200 years. I hope in our case we will see the results sooner – the times have changed, now interrelations are closer, and information exchange is more intensive.

5. I think over these years that I have fulfilled myself in full measure. I managed to create a bank with independent management, with a staff having a strong sense of corporate unity and a bank having a slogan "Responsibility to society." And it is not only a motto but also our credo.

And what about the discrepancy between expectations of that time and today’s reality? I am not surprised with them. People say: "If you want to make the God laugh, tell him about your plans".


Taras Voznyak, editor-in-chief of the magazine "¯":

4. What can be called social freedom of the last decade? Is it some indulgence of institutional settings caused by transformational processes when machinery of one State was destroyed and that of another was just being created? Are absolute anarchy or multiple authority systems able to substitute real social freedom of a developed state? I think not. I believe a lot of what we managed to do over this decade was due to the gap between two state organisms – between the old totalitarian and new ones, the latter trying to transform itself into a post-totalitarian one.

On the whole our society is not still free enough. It is constrained by some external factors as well. And not only by material but mainly by mental ones. And what is more, recently there are tendencies towards the consolidation of the state as it is but this process (being in the main positive) does not always have a democratic character. Very often even common democratic principles are ignored. And unfortunately, if they are infringed upon some times it means that there are no principles at all and everything is permitted.

The saddest fact is that the nation itself is keeps silent. It has different reasons for this – abject poverty, absolute incomprehension of its significance, of the significance of every personality and its personal freedom and originality. It keeps silent because it was not struggling for Ukraine. It keeps silent because it is not even worthy of such a Ukraine. And it cannot see itself in the real dimension of a real Ukraine – it lives in the virtual world of Russian television, leaving it only time to time.

Have Ukrainians passed the ordeal of freedom? They have and they have not. They have because the project "Ukraine" continues. They have not because it is not as successful as mere mortals would like it to be.

5. For such people as me any distemper is the time of their personal freedom. In times of a strict totalitarian regime they either become dissidents or give themselves up to bitter irony to live according to their "inner freedom". And when the external pressure abates, they return to the society.

But it is impossible to flee the system all the time. Recent changes do not favor such living-out-of-the system people. Soon a new period of "escaping" or "ignoring" may begin for them. But in modern society we call this simply "privacy". It is instructive to remember that in Ancient Greece such ignoring or casting off the political life was called "idiocy" (without scornful shades).


Svitlana Panych, translator:

4. The taste of freedom is not that of coffee, it takes more than ten years to define it. I cannot say that now it is "easier to breath" than it was ten years ago. Yes, you are not asked some questions in public offices any more. You can openly cast doubt on the perfection of ideology or on some principles. At least there are alternatives – in social, political, cultural, educational spheres… But an alternative does not mean freedom. Alternatives are something "given from without", and freedom is an exceptionally inner state of personality or nation, being characterized first of all by responsibility for your own actions and your significance within your culture, and not just observing or consuming it. No alternative can be realized without this inner freedom.

Freedom take for all in all can exist only as a dialog of inner and outer forms of freedom. And we have not such a dialog yet.

Now we have limitless possibilities to do something. And these possibilities are coming from the blue, you just need your eyes to see them. They are very different book translations, subjects for reflections or articles, meetings, entering relationships but you can compose them into a single whole. It is the realization of everything happening in the world as a single whole that is the main change in my life over these years.


Ivan Bokyj, national deputy of Ukraine:

There are so many traps, so many snares on our way to freedom that it is more reasonable to talk about the absence of freedom. And the ordeal of freedom’s absence for Ukrainians is the problem not of years but rather of centuries. Only a few were able to escape these traps, to tear these snares: Taras Shevchenko, Lesya Ukrainka, Lina Kostenko… Conformism and the absence of freedom now corrode Ukrainian society even worse than in totalitarian times. The evidence is that the presidential election of 1999 and the referendum of 2000 proved freedom is only a possibility to say that 2+2=4 and nothing more.

Perestroika and Ukrainian independence turned me into a political journalist. I realized that I was an oppositionist. An oppositionist not towards independent Ukraine but towards the regime that actually is destroying this independence and dooming most people in this country to poverty.

Contacts with national deputies of different countries convince me of the fact that Ukraine has chosen a wrong way of entering the world process. Not a European one that can result in prosperity and well-being but a way leading to a criminal economy.


Oleksandr Vyshnak, head of the company "Ukrainian Sociology Service":

4. Of course, I have tasted freedom but I have not eaten plenty of real (not from something but for something) freedom of productive activity. We still have not such freedom. We have freedom of speech so I can express my thoughts freely. But we have no freedom of press so my thoughts will not be heard. Or will be heard only when they are not concerned with the authorities. But sociologists had such "almost freedom" even in the Soviet times.

The analogous situation is with sociological and political research. Officially you can research everything but nobody supports serious projects – neither our state, our foundations, or our private companies. And what is more, private companies and parties in both marketing and political research often need some predetermined result. But as professionals do not perform such orders the number of the latter decreases.

Thus over these years I have managed to realize myself on about 30-40%. But it is not so bad, it could be worse.

The question whether Ukrainians have passed the ordeal of freedom is, in my opinion, rhetorical. If even professionals have problems, what about do low-skilled or older people? People who cannot swim were thrown in the free market sea and told to learn to swim. But you should do this first on the shoals and not in the sea…


Roman Korogodskyj, cultural scientist, director of the publishing house "Gelikon":

4. Ukrainians have not passed the ordeal of freedom. And they could not have done this because of the genetic, subconscious feeling of having no freedom. Ukrainians will be free from this coding only in three to four generations. To achieve this we should learn to live independently, gain new experience and get a taste for new (more intensive, creative) life while not losing our originality.

The main point is not to waste time. For modern Ukraine time is the key factor. We have already lost ten favourable years…


Myroslav Marynovych, vice-rector of Lviv Theological Academy, layer:

4. I belong to the category of Ukrainian people who, perhaps, needed freedom more then the rest. By the word "freedom" I understand, first of all, freedom of thought and speech, creative work and self-expression. I received such freedom and nobody tried to deprive me of it over the last decade.

Regarding the level of social freedom on the whole, today it is impossible to definite it unambiguously. There is a great difference between the level of freedom being enjoyed by, for example, peasants and intellectuals, "new Ukrainians" and unpaid workers, the staff of public offices and private companies. The most tragic situation is, in my opinion, our peasants. In the most regions of Ukraine there is still feudalism burdened with post Communist permissiveness.

Uncontrolled freedom being enjoyed by "new Ukrainians" suggests the thought I once shared with my American friends: today Ukraine, and not America, enmeshed in its regulator rules and restrictions, is a free country. Today it is Ukraine and not America where there are "Klondikes" making huge profits and being ruled by the laws of classical American saloons.

It is difficult to say whether Ukrainians have passed the ordeal of freedom, there are also some gradations here. On the one hand, when I am in despair I can see how easily Ukrainians give back even that curtailed freedom they have obtained in the 90-es. For many people safety and minimal freedom again becomes more comfortable than freedom as it really is.

On the other hand, over the last decade Ukrainians had a good record for the problems they solved in a rather civilized way. These are, for example, settlement of the problem in Crimea, resolution of contradictions between Ukrainian regions, and peaceful adjustment of periodical collisions between our government and Parliament. We cannot be sure about the motives authorities were guided by while taking some decisions, but their cumulative effect is nevertheless a positive achievement which Ukraine can be proud of.

5. I am surprised that I managed to escape the tempting and enticing opportunities I could have seized: a possibility to become a national deputy, to hold prestige posts in governmental institutions. I managed to escape them because I was inured not to take up businesses you feel are not yours. I was captivated by the perspectives which a pious person has realized in our world.


Serhij Masloboischykov, film director:

4. Our world is the world swaying between violence and suicide, the world of extremes having its beginning and end but not its mean, the world with birth and death along its edges and with vacuum in its center, the world where a woman from a child turns into a mother, and a man is either an oppressor or a victim; where to live always means to live "contrary to" and not "for" something.

We still are burdened with the inertia of this state. Thus the level of inner freedom of a personality depends not on his or her social status but on the ability to realize himself or herself as a human being within the rich emotional spectrum.

Learn to live every moment and to feel and realize the entirety of life is, perhaps, the most difficult social and individual task.

A decade is a very short term for changes in a country with a huge train of morbid reflexes and complexes.


Andriy Pavlyshyn, translator:

4. As the most conservative and the least educated part of Ukrainian society, ethnic Ukrainians were not able to use the achievements of social freedom. And in the political sphere our nation is only in the formative stage and has to solve so many various problems simultaneously that it remains the attempts of Munchausen to drag him out of the swamp.

Freedom is a great and at the same time very individual good, and it is unreasonable to demand that a person or a society uses it immediately and in full measure – it is impossible to find oneself at the equator, at the poles and in the temperate latitudes at the same time.

5. I lived trying to realize myself at work maximally, and there was plenty of it. If there had been no social changes over last fifteen years, I would have faced only three ways: an academic career of a scientist-oppositionist, the destiny of a dissident, or emigration because of political motives. But all these alternatives would have been wasted time and energy, inadequate to my previous way of life. I hope to be useful for society in the next decade as well. The only thing I do not wait for is that it will begin to appreciate the work of Ukrainian intellectuals.


Petro Zhuk, director of the Center of Academy of Sciences of Ukraine territories informational problems:

4. My perception of taste of freedom is connected with the right and possibility of Ukraine to return to the European civilization it was torn away from.

The ordeal of freedom is not over yet, and it can hardly be over freedom involves the right of a person and a nation to choose between good and evil.

5. My perception of the world was imposed by the totalitarian system. So in recent years I struggled with it. Most strugglers of that romantic period did not understand the gist of freedom they were struggling for and therefore they were unable to achieve some concrete results. Nevertheless Ukraine gained independence that is on the road to freedom.

Of course, freedom brought some deformed aspects like real terror. Yes, during the breakdown of Communist system when we were actively struggling against it, I was not so sorely persecuted as in the times of freedom… But I consider this to be logical and natural: without these born by freedom trials I would not have changed myself.


Andriy Zholdak, film director:

4. No, I have not felt social freedom. Democracy, flourishing of arts, freedom of creative choice – they are still absent in Ukraine. And for all the displays of social freedom over the last decade, Ukrainians, in my opinion, would not pass this ordeal. They were not ready for it.

Fortunately, the new generation is already formed, it is learning foreign languages and is fond of visiting different countries. Thus we believe in those who are aged 10, 15, 17.

5. It is sad but the situation in today’s Ukraine is that the more talented people are, the less chance they have to realize what they have. Talented people have a year for three years. One year of creative work per three years of receiving permission to do it. Only about 3% of talented Ukrainians manages to realize themselves.

I cannot say that I did not realize myself or that my dreams and my hopes did not come true. I contributed to the new Ukrainian theatrical art. I am working by demands of the time and I want to speak about problems common to all mankind, to problems that exist both in Ukraine and in the world. The only peculiarity – I focus mainly on young people and foreigners because the theatrical audience in Kyiv is too conservative. I would be happy to be recognized here, to be given the possibility to work instead of searching halls for performances and asking chief directors to permit this or that play. Time flies quickly, and I am distressed and even terrified by the fact that every minute I can say something but do not do this… A producer should work continuously. Otherwise it will inevitably result in his or her death as a creative person. Therefore now I am learning English and in the near future I am going to leave for abroad. Unfortunately…


22

2001

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