The New Executed Renaissance

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Clarissa

May 31, 2024

52 Ukrainian writers and translators have been killed by Russia so far in the current war.

The moment Ukrainian culture enters into a period of flourishing, Russians organize yet another Executed Renaissance. This is a term that was first introduced to describe the murder of pretty much the entirety of the Ukrainian cultural elite during Stalinism. Nothing remotely similar happened to Russian artists, of course. Stalin only killed writers who wrote in Russian if they a) insulted him personally and b) were Jewish. Everybody else – no matter how countercultural – lived and remained free. They wouldn’t get published and would experience penury, but the Russian-language Bulgakov, Tsvetaeva, Akhmatova, Pasternak, etc could be as anti-regime as they wanted, and nobody touched them.

At the time when the executions of Ukrainian artists began, there were about 250 of them. At the end of Stalin’s murderous wave, only about 30 remained alive. And still, they managed to preserve the culture and the literature. It’s an incredible story of how people save their culture from extermination in the midst of one of the most brutal totalitarian regimes in history.

Today, we are experiencing the extermination of Ukrainian culture by Stalin’s fans and followers all over again.

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2 responses to “The New Executed Renaissance”

cliff arroyo

May 31, 2024

“experiencing the extermination of Ukrainian culture”

As terrible as the war is I wouldn’t go that far. russia isn’t close to controlling the whole country and all reports are that use of Ukrainian vis a vis russian is booming and there’s no sign of that changing (that I know of).

I think there was a poll a few months ago and over 80 % of those polled did not want any kind of public roll for russian.

It is weird that most people don’t recognize the ethnocidal* basis of the war which, far from being denied, is openly stated by very many russians publicly time and time again.

*roughly russians say there shouldn’t be a country called ‘Ukraine’ it should be a province of russia and there shouldn’t be people calling themselves ‘Ukrainians’ as they’re really confused russians and there really, definitely should not be a language called Ukrainian which is a Polish-Jewish-Nazi plot or something (they do seem hazy on those details). They say this very openly repeatedly and midwits start whinging about NATO (hands fall, as they say in Polish).

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1. Clarissa
  
  May 31, 2024
  
  Yes, it’s true that people are more appreciative of their own culture than ever. But these deaths of our best artists and intellectuals are a wound that will take a very long time to heal. Somebody has to create art, and it’s a pursuit that only very few people can engage in.
  
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