For more than thirty years, contact with France, with its intellect and culture, as well as frequenting our French friends, have played a major part in my life and the lives of everyone around us in Kyiv. Our book with Laure Mandeville, “When Ukraine Rises. The New Europe is Born”, testifies to a new and important stage in this relationship, at a time of unprecedented adversity. My French interlocutors often say that Europe lacks self-confidence. However, I well remember the skepticism with which we viewed our society on the eve of that incredible outpouring of energy that was, during the winter of 2013-2014, the Maidan Revolution. The deep experience I have of the interaction between our two societies allows me to testify that there are truths in French thought and the art of living that give confidence, despite intense skepticism.
Ukrainian literature has an appointment in Paris
In February 2022, many people in the West were convinced that the forces were too unequal and that Kyiv had no chance of returning the Great Bear to its own currency. But the Ukrainians did not know that it was impossible, and they did it.
sequel after announcement
When the Russians began bombarding Kyiv on the 24th of February, we agonized day and night at the danger coming from the northeast. But until you get used to the howl of sirens. Today, the news which comes to us from the West disturbs not our bodies but our minds… I dare not go so far as to believe that a rejection of reason will prevail in your political debates. I will only stress the tendency to blindness among those who allow themselves to be deceived by the tyrant’s lie on “traditional values”.
“I want to show what Ukraine is going through”: The Art of Resistance in Odessa
“Let the night fall! »
Why does Putin underestimate Westerners in general and Ukrainians in particular? The ridiculous contempt with which Europeans hold a bad trick on him here. Is he wrong in his worst assumptions about the reality of our societies? Or is he trying to distort reality to reduce it to its own brutal patterns? The special practices of the Soviet KGB are the levers used by this criminal force: extortion to starvation, cold desert and nuclear. He is looking for the weak link in our resistance in Europe. Will he find her and thus succeed in breaking the chain of our solidarity? Not only for him to be stunned “naive democracies”To divide them and sow discord among them. Threatening Europeans with cold and poverty is not enough. Because they still don’t have enough self-loathingWe will show them that their petty accounts matter more to them than the massacres of Bucha and Mariupol. To make them hate each other more. And they take responsibility for Shameful filth Their politicians (not the Kremlin). The tyrant considers others stupid and does everything to brainwash them. He works to catch the snare of corruption and extortion, and to lie to everyone who continues to call him black ” black “ And the ” a crime “ killing civilians.
Andrei Kurkov: “Putin has prepared Russian society for the idea that Ukrainian society must be destroyed”
With bombs and missiles, the Putinists cut off the light from the cities of Ukraine, inhabited by millions of people, and thus plunged them into darkness. Putinism’s ideology boils down to this: Discussions about the decadence of the West have gone on for far too long. Let the night fall! prove “Dark Ages” In our computers, our phones, and our heads. The total lie threatens Europe from “anthropological disaster” The Russian system has already weighted its population. Acceptance of slavery is on the rise. We see people mutilating their hands or feet to avoid being drafted into Putin’s army. Cut the protest. The mutilated drives into his bones and flesh the fear of the animal that will further mutilate him. Self-censorship and self-mutilation: this is the model that a tyrant has imposed on his fellow citizens and that he intends to impose on all of us.
The voluntary servitude (exacerbated by 21st century technologies) is “commercial proposal” What our common enemy is doing to us. Let’s not waste our time on pessimistic assumptions about the number of collaborators if your city is occupied. It is interesting to ask yourself if you personally know people who would never answer this cheater ” suggestion “.
sequel after announcement
“Diagnosis: A Guide” by Boris Khersonky
Answer: did
It’s time to take a closer look at these people. The Ukrainian resistance, its audacity and strength are still surprising. Journalists always ask me a question ” Why “. What is new in the current situation is explained by the question. Whose ? ». Day in and day out we see people risking and giving up their lives to be themselves. On this key point, you help others, and that means you and us. you and me. For your freedom and mine. Answer: act. Who, at this very moment, bears our most painful experience? Pain and anger did not stain our mind. In these days of affliction and darkness, we suddenly realized, to our surprise, what is more powerful than the forces of evil. Specifically, we saw the faces of previously unknown people who opened our minds to the fundamental question of knowledge Thanks to whom we are alive and free. Not only in the sense that we were not killed. But because thanks to them, we can speak and act like living and free beings. Like humans.
“You can see more clearly in the dark” by Tetyana Ogarkova
In the early days of the bombings of Kyiv, Kharkiv, Odessa and other cities of Ukraine, it might have seemed that the form of answering this question set Ukrainians apart from other Europeans, but it turned out not to be so. The first weeks of the Battle of Kyiv saw journalists from different countries around the world change their tone and point of view during our conversations, as this issue affected them. Some gave their lives to answer it. The faces of those who accompany friends, citizens, or soldiers on their last journey provide an incomparable answer to this question. A new historical wave of powerful meanings such as burning or shaking hands has invaded our inner being. her name ” Respect and appreciation “. This state of gratitude has been crucial to the visible or imperceptible events in the lives of millions of people on the cusp of this new age. Previously, this word could be heard during a conversation or translated into a gesture among other things. But now she has a question as her focus. Like a splinter of the body, it hurts the consciousness, preventing it from sleeping as usual. Everything has changed because we now clearly understand that thanks to others we can talk, write and wake up in the morning with ” good morning “. It has become an indispensable condition for our existence. They wanted to throw us into the abyss of despair and hatred, but what filled our lives more than ever was gratitude.
To say that we did not come to Earth alone but thanks to someone no longer seems like an axiom. A much-forgotten truth now becomes inescapable: that we are strongly felt by the new sense that we live not each in his own corner but behind the front line, behind the shoulders of those who defend us. It is a bit like being reborn to clearly feel that you are in the web of life thanks to others.
the festival A weekend in the east It will be held from November 24 to 28 in Paris. More than a hundred guests in thirty venues in the capital. Full program at: weekendalest.comIlya Kamensky, Ukrainian poet: “Will I be able to return to Odessa?”
Konstantin Segov, Organic Express
Born in 1962 in Kyiv, Konstantin Segov Internationally recognized Ukrainian philosopher and publisher. Heavily involved during the Maidan Revolution, he directs the European Center at Mohyla University in Kyiv and was co-director of the École Graduate School of Social Sciences (EHESS) in Paris from 1992 to 1995. For his tireless activity as a bridge-builder between cultures, Konstantin Segov has been honored by France Rank of officer of the Academic Palm Medal. He has just published with Laure Mandeville “When Ukraine Rises. A New Europe is Born ”(Talent Editions).
will intervene Sunday, November 27 at 5 p.m In the City Theater on “Telling the Truth: What Future for Ukraine?”, with Anna Kolin Lebedev and Tetyana Ogarkova. Animation: Sandrine Trainer, writer and director at France-Culture.
