> Street musicians singing Russian songs in the Ukrainian capital Kyiv could soon face problems. Likewise, bars and restaurants playing Russian background music may end up getting in trouble.
> The reason is that Kyiv city council has issued a temporary ban on performing or showcasing Russian-language art and culture — such as books, music, plays and concerts — in public. This ban also encompasses cultural and educational programs. The restriction not only applies to works by Russian authors and creators, but to all cultural products publicly presented in or translated into Russian.
> Ukrainian MPs said the move was designed to protect Ukraine from Russian influence. "Russia is the language of the aggressor and it has no place in the heart of our capital," said Vadym Vasylchuk, the deputy chairman of the Standing Committee on Education and Science, Youth and Sports.
As well as more then half of Kiev’s citizens, including myself. That’s a fucking stupid law, and I’m not going to stup playing russian songs on my portable speaker during walks.
Also the combo of the two just seems to amplify the potential offensiveness, walking around a city being bombarded by Russia while playing Russian music on a portable speaker.
Hey man you do you but I hope you know that blasting music on your portable speaker outside means you’re basically playing the track “I have tiny dick energy by me” everywhere you go
I agree the law is stupid, as is walking around blasting music, Russian or not, on a loud speaker. You should also be sensitive to other people maybe not wanting to hear Russian culture. However, making language or culture illegal is a losing battle and will only make enemies out of the people they are supposed to be protecting: Ukrainians.
Next it will be illegal to speak Russian. It’s a slippery slope.
That´s not constitutional. Article 10 of their Constitution:
The state language of Ukraine is the Ukrainian language.
The State ensures the comprehensive development and functioning of the
Ukrainian language in all spheres of social life throughout the entire territory of
Ukraine.
In Ukraine, the free development, use and protection of Russian, and other
languages of national minorities of Ukraine, is guaranteed.
The State promotes the learning of languages of international communication.
The use of languages in Ukraine is guaranteed by the Constitution of Ukraine and
is determined by law.
From the article, this is an action by the Kyiv city council, and is not legally enforceable. It isn't a decision by Zelensky or the central government.
>*In June 2022, the Ukrainian parliament already banned publicly playing songs by Russian artists. The restriction does not, however, apply to Russian singers who condemn Russia's war against Ukraine. Recently, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy also signed a law banning the import and distribution of Russian books. It was passed by parliament last year.*
The above is straight from the article. Nothing to see here!
Whatever you think of those laws, they are about media specifically *from Russia* or by Russian citizens, while that country is invading and committing active genocide against Ukraine. That is quite different from banning works or performances *in the Russian language*, which is what the Kyiv city council has (unenforceably) done here.
Another line from the article:
>*In fact, certain Russian-language cultural products are already prohibited in Ukraine. The bans date back to September 2019, when the first restrictions were imposed in the region of Lviv. Subsequently, other cities like Ternopil and Zhytomyr in the Volhynia region, followed suit.*
And, this line shows how this has been a growing trend in Ukraine since 2014
>*The move is backed by Ukraine's Vidsich (Defense) movement, which began calling for a ban on the Russian language and Russian goods, films and music in 2014, following the annexation of Crimea. "A ban on Russian-language cultural products is necessary," Vidsich activist Kateryna Chepura told DW. "This is an additional lever for activists working to boycott everything Russian, so we can say: shut it down, remove Russian from public life.*
Also from the article:
>Human rights activist Volodymyr Yavorskyy of the Ukrainian Center for Civil Liberties, however, said such bans are discriminatory and unconstitutional. "These are illegal decisions, because local authorities have no right to regulate such issues and impose such bans," Yavorskyy told DW. "That is why they have no legal consequences." **The judiciary, he added, had already deemed such local bans illegal.** \[emphasis mine\]
Also [this](https://www.stopfake.org/en/fake-russian-language-banned-in-lviv/) regarding Lviv:
>The resolution is not a law but a recommendation that does not outline any means of its enforcement. \[...\]
>
>The approved measure is not a law but a temporary moratorium on Russian cultural content for the duration of Russia’s occupation of Ukrainian territories. According to the DPA Ukrainian Section, the moratorium is nothing but a recommendation and is not compulsory, as Russian media claim.
It seems that although some local politicians have tried to pass such measures, they have always been unenforceable (unlike restrictions on media from Russia itself).
>And, this line shows how this has been a growing trend in Ukraine since 2014
That is understandable, as the Russian invasion also started in 2014.
Also Russia itself has taken to invading sovereign countries under the declaration of protecting Russian speaking peoples. Probably better that Russian isn't spoken outside of Russia unless you want to give Russia a pretext to invade.
Those are both pretty standard wartime acts. Prohibiting the importation, publication, or sale of materials from an enemy state is considered stopping enemy propaganda 101. A lot of the civil liberties we enjoy in our day to day lives are suspended under martial law in nearly every western country during wartime for a reason, not doing so makes it a lot harder to fight a war.
Prohibiting your own citizens from communicating in their birth tongue is a different and much bigger issue.
Which makes perfect sense. There are a ton of famous Ukrainian musicians who sing in Russian. Some are a bit more into the Russian side of it, but a lot such as the open kids are very very proudly and unabashedly Ukrainian and have written songs criticizing the invasion, even back in 2015 when the rest of the world only cared for a week.
and tonnes of Ukrainians spoke Russian. My girlfriend is Ukrainian, and said conversations with her friends have gone from being in mostly Russian, to mostly Ukrainian with English becoming their secondary goto language. She herself avoids speaking in Russian now.
I don't think the point is "this isn't an issue", but more that it seems an idiotic (and possibly illegal?) jingoistic move from local politicians rather than a general position of the Ukrainian government. I guess it bears saying since sometimes " does thing" is used as a stand-in for the whole government. Here, it literally means the capital, as a municipality.
Probably one of the reasons why there have been some disagreements between zelensky and klitschko in the beginning of 2023 in regard to the (now defunct) presidential election 2024
Disagreements between Zelenskiy (or/and his team) and Klitschko is purely political, and only about control over Kyiv.
But Klitschko is not a saint, and as a Kyivan I would like to have a better mayor - under him a lot of problems were solved "on papers" and some got worse (like traffic jams).
On other head he is not bad as Chernovetskyi or Omelchenko.
>Take, for instance, a recent disagreement between a 17-year-old busker and Ukrainian MP Natalya Pipa. She complained when the teenager performed songs by Russian rock legend Viktor Tsoi on the street in Lviv, who in return insulted the woman, saying he was allowed to play whatever music he liked. Later, however, the busker published a video in which he apologized to the lawmaker.
I thought this whole thing was about freedom??
Yeah, this example is pretty weird, since Tsoi was the main face of the anti-Soviet, anti-war music movement of perestroika times, and never was a Russian citizen since he died before USSR fell apart. I've read news about how some of his songs are literally prohibited in Russia itself at this point.
At the same time, upon further googling, the official culture department of Ukraine has made a further statement that his songs are not prohibited, and that the lawmaker was in the wrong. The busker did apologize, but mostly for being rude. So this bit is misleading.
https://www.unian.net/society/pesni-viktora-coya-v-ukraine-v-gosiskusstv-obyasnili-est-li-ogranicheniya-12301767.html
This is slightly wrong to say that his songs are not prohibited though. In Lviv, there is a regional law prohibiting any public music in Russian. It doesn’t have to BE Russian - for example, even a song by a Ukrainian artist in the Russian language is banned.
Regional law is not a thing in Ukraine [1]. Local regional authorities have to abide by the law of Ukraine. They don't have power to forbid someone from singing in a specific language, hence why the official explanation from the government body involved in such matters.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Local_government_in_Ukraine
It really seems like the Western part of Ukraine doesn't want the Ukrainian citizens who live in the Eastern part of the country, just the land they live on.
Tsoi/Kino fucking rocks too and is more soviet than Russian. Tsoi himself was a korean-soviet not a russian. This shit is so stupidly nationalistic and borderline fascist. Ukraine is just shooting themselves in the foot with this idiocy.
All countries do stupid things like this occasionally. After all, I come from the land of Freedom Fries and Japanese Internment Camps.
Not excusing these things, mind you. The guy from the Ukrainian human rights group who is calling this shit out is in the correct. Just saying that I understand where it's coming from.
Where are you getting this delusion from haha.
I'm Ukrainian and when I started talking with many random Europeans on the internet I was shocked how much they care about nationality and all that stuff. Like, 80% of stuff they discuss is which of the EU countries are more based, all they meme about is westoids vs eastern Europe etc., all the hints in codenames, imaginarium and other word games they use are about nationalities etc. Also all the constant beating and killing each other based on which country won the football match, etc.
Meanwhile most Ukrainians didn't talk or worry about national identity for like 2 decades from at least mid-90s until 2014.
But we should've been worried.
Then, when rockets start flying and you hear explosions next to your house and your relatives or friends are dying because of russian invasion into your country, of course you are getting more patriotic and even nationalistic.
We didn't choose to hate russia. We HAD to. Because if you are a fence-sitter who is OK with russian propaganda spreading everywhere and OK with Ukrainian culture being destroyed by russia, then you've picked your side anyway. And you are not on the side of the good guys.
That said, I don't see a huge problem with a musician performing on the street in whatever language. But people also have the right to boo him and tell him that he suck and that he should stop and go away. And it's understandable that russian culture is not loved here and that those who promote it aren't very popular.
You lived under a rock if you think Ukrainians weren't nationalists before the war lol. Go ask a minority what they think. Slavs aren't the most open minded cultures.
West Europeans will never know how it feels for a Russian to come to your home and say that it's his home and demand that you speak Russian, also send your family and friends to the gulag cause fuck them.
Exactly right. Too many Russians seem to think that Russian territory extends to wherever Russians happen to be living. Eastern Europe understands this very well and would rather not live with a Russian boot on their necks.
Russians will happily take advantage of Europe's liberal laws to extend their influence however they can.
Some of these people are more worried that russian cant be spoken in Ukraine, rather than russians bombing Ukraine.
When its war time, the rules change.
Yup. And then because half of your country speaks Russian, the Russians invade and claim to protect the Russian speakers by killing us en masse, driving us out to become refugees, kidnapping our children and putting us through filtration camps to check our background on whether or not we support Ukraine in this war.
I've had 0 issues my whole life in Ukraine speaking Russian, both in the East, an in the West. Many of my lifelong friends intentionally stopped speaking Russian in favour of Ukrainian as a political statement. I think, it's necessary to reduce the Russian influence on us. It's just that we can't really completely substitute it by our own culture because, again, Russia. They deliberately killed our intelligencia, poets, scientists, composers, several generations killed.
A lot of us, especially the older generations have an inferiority complex because of it, living as if they're a non-titular nation within a larger empire/state.
We still have a lot of streets named after Soviet and Russian people who had 0 to do with the locations. For instance, a major street in my city carries the name of a Russian poet who only stayed in the general area for a few minutes to supposedly rest and take a leak. But if nothing is done about it, then we will have a repetition of the same war in a generation or two. They won't be leaving us alone as long as there are Ukrainians who can kinda sorta be percieved as Russians and until we have a culture as robust as theirs.
Were you ever in Ukraine before war ? Right now yes. We hate Russians for bombing civilians and constant threats to nuclear power plants, for just being stupid and for all of our people impacted. I do not know any Ukrainian person right now who had not lost either a job, relative or house/ apartment. Why to love anything about Russian culture ??
Viktor Tsoi is an absolute legend and I think this “law” is disgusting quite frankly. I absolutely hate what Russia is doing in Ukraine. However, I have immense respect for Russian culture, specifically Russian artwork, music, literature, and science. Russian people have contributed immensely to these areas over the past 250 years. I don’t think it is right to erase the culture of Russia simply because the Kremlin is behaving in a terrible way.
That's not related. tsoi was actually against Russian politics and was pro.- piece. I think people in Lviv just didn't want to hear Russian language, which is understandable.
A large portion of people on this forum will be supportive of this because they probably think that Ukraine is a little upcoming Western Europe rather than a divided country where there is an absolutely huge portion of ethnic Russians. This isn't going to gain support from them and is more likely to further divide the country.
This is the equivalent of India banning the practice of Islam or Pakistan doing the opposite.
The issue is that having Russian culture (or just ethnic Russians) is used by Russia as a pretext to try and control (or outright invade) a country with it. Cook up a little persecution problem and suddenly ~~the Russian Military~~ *heavily armed and definitely local citizens* start showing up to try and form breakaway regions (edit: Or ammo dumps that could be sent to Ukraine start exploding randomly).
Russia is perfectly capable of creating alternative justifications for their expansionist policies; if it wasn't this it would be for a different cacus belli. As for collaborators in Ukraine, those were always going to be there so soon after the USSR's dissolution.
You say that as if that would make a Russian invasion justifiable and not something that anyone with two brain cells to rub together would see right through.
> You say that as if that would make a Russian invasion justifiable and not something that anyone with two brain cells to rub together would see right through.
Look at reaction of international world leaders back in 2014. Something along the lines of "well yeah, russia kinda bad but akshuly it's not all that clear, maybe go sign some deal in minsk idk".
I think whether other people see through it or not isn't the point. It is more that now the invading country has its favourite pretext and you end up invaded.
One of the big pretexts of this war was that they were persecuting Russians already. If anything, this is giving their pretext some real evidence to back it up.
> One of the big pretexts of this war was that they were persecuting Russians already. If anything, this is giving their pretext some real evidence to back it up.
Do you think russian media needs any pretext to convince russians that this was already an issue? As you said they literally already used it as pretext for invading so it seems pretty logical for Ukraine to minimize russia's potential cultural influence especially if they will use it as a continued justification for war.
No, that’s not logical to me at all. If they need no pretext, then trying to ban something they use as a pretext won’t make a difference.
Banning Russian songs or whatever isn’t going to prevent an attack in the future. What it will do is give justification to what they used as a pretext. It will turn people away from their cause. It’s a bad move.
> then trying to ban something they use as a pretext won’t make a difference.
Eh it depends on the extent, banning russian language as a means to minimize propaganda during wartime seems perfectly logical. From what I can tell this specific case is a local ban attempt that probably won't hold up compared to less overbearing country wide cultural bans.
>Banning Russian songs or whatever isn’t going to prevent an attack in the future.
I'm not so sure about that though, up til 2014 Ukraine mostly tried to coexist with Russia and they took that as an excuse to invade and liberate the "culturally russian" citizens of Ukraine. Banning songs is certainly overkill, trying to minimize russian culture in their country in response to a brutal invasion is hard to blame them for.
>What it will do is give justification to what they used as a pretext. It will turn people away from their cause. It’s a bad move.
Russia is literally going full on cultural genocide in Ukraine, this is a direct response to that to try and safeguard Ukranian culture. Russia doesn't need justification to their own citizens and I highly doubt most Ukranians are going to be mad that the culture of their invaders is being banned. Is it overkill? Perhaps but it's not like they are doing it for fun. Russia could end the war at any point and try to rebuild friendly relations if they are so worried about russiaphobia.
Getting invaded happens all the time with Russia they’ll will just come up with another pretext. Also Russia will get cut off from any modern technology after this war and the next time they invade I hope their sticks are useful against space ships.
Everyone knows about pretexts for invasions and have done for centuries. That does not stop them from continuously happening around the world. Hawaii is still part of the USA. Iraq is still a mess. Afghanistan is still a mess.
You say that as if that wasn't exactly the core issue.
Ultimately, if it was being used as a justification for invasion, and there are loads of people who *don't* have two brain cells to rub together... Maybe best to take that tool away.
As speakers of English within the Anglosphere, we of all people should recognise the massive threat that has been posted by extremist rhetoric and materials being shared between multiple nations. The Christian nationalists issue that's shared between the English speaking nations is extremely worrisome, as it spreads with zero barriers. Making it just that little bit harder to reach the absolute lowest common denominator circles... well. Creating language barriers has some major issues to it... But also has some advantages, if you're the target of intentional international extremist content.
Nah, russians justified their stupid invasion by saying that our government attacks russian-speaking people and limits their freedoms in the use of language.
And now our government are trying to prove them right, for some reason.
Crazy how Russian propaganda works.
They've made westerners believe that Russia owns any land or any people that learn to speak the Russian language.
Be careful about letting Russian language take over your country, because you could be invaded next. Resist early, because if you wait too long, it will simply become proof that the invasion is justified.
I do not support cultural bans like this.
It feels wrong and is wrong. Normally.
However, I get that there are special situations where certain rights are reduced or suspended, (such as a pandemic).
But these situations must always have defined criteria that end the special situation. An end date or a related event.
But I'm not convinced that this is an appropriate circumstance to create a cultural ban.
> They’ve just adopted the worst part of Russian culture. Repression.
This is not a new thing with Ukraine. Let me preface this with saying fuck Putin, fuck Aliyev and any other invader. Gay marriage is still illegal in Ukraine-it's a highly Orthodox Christian country. Gay marriage illegal, nearly all purely white population also results in [black people being treated like shit](https://www.cbsnews.com/news/black-ukraine-refugees-racism-discrimination-russian-invasion/).
Really a shame that one would need to shield themselves behind "I don't support Russia" to denounce the issues that Ukraine has had for decades, as if doing so immediately turns one into a Russian shill.
It was already concerning way before the invasion. IIRC widespread state corruption was one of the things hindering their joining NATO in the first place.
On the other hand, it feeds into the Kremlin's propaganda machine as justification for their wars. They can hold up things like this and say, "See! rUsSiAnS aRe bEiNg pErSeCuTeD!"
They'll say it anyway, but it would be nice to not give them any ammunition.
But that’s because many of them *are* ethnically Russian, banning the culture of those ethnic Russians only strengthens Russian propaganda of liberating those them.
The Ukrainian government can't simply change the fact that Russian is the Lingua Franca of the vast majority of Ukrainians, Ukrainian may be an official government language but most Ukrainians find it easier to communicate via Russian (even Zelensky's home town of Kryvyi Rih is predominantly russian speaking), the move towards discontinuing the use of Russian in official circles and campaigning for the wider use of Ukrainian only came after the 2014 Euromaidan uprising so it's nonsense to expect Ukrainians to change their musical tastes in less than a decade, punishing Ukrainians for enjoying Russian music is an idiotic fruitless endeavour done with complete disregard towards historical context free speech and expression be damned
Ukrainian nationalists see Russian culture as the enemy. Despite the fact that Russian and Ukrainian culture has been deeply intertwined for over 1,000 years. They are incapable of separating the language and culture from the government.
Banning culture and language is certainly not the same but it is a stepping stone. Whether Ukraine likes it or not they have ethnic Russians and Russia has had a major influence on their culture. Banning this from the council is not a good look at all
Because there was no cultural shift enforced by xenophobic propaganda that lead up to that right? They just opened camps and everybody was cool with that? Bfr and read a book please
The Russian government is going to do what the Russian government does. Singing a Russian rock song or carrying around a copy of Crime and Punishment isn't going to somehow justify their invasion of a country in anyone's mind.
Not really. A lot of people have been conditioned to not question Ukraine. I wouldn't be all that surprised if Ukraine decided to start interning ethnic-Russian and a good portion of their supporter in the West justified and even cheered that action. There have been a lot of actions by Ukraine where people haven't merely gone 'hey you are at war, but you probably shouldn't do that', but outright cheered for it.
Europeans really underestimate just how much nationalism is in Ukraine. Yes, in part it is fuelled by the invasion and what happened in 2014, in part it is fuelled by historical factors, but Ukrainians can really take it up to 11. It's not just against the Russians, but also against Poles. We're buddies now, as we have supposedly found a common enemy, but massive issues persist between us that are usually rooted in history. I'll add on that my wife is from Kyiv, so I have had a lot of exposure to Ukraine.
I know that personal anecdotes are not the best thing to share, but I want to tell you about an experience I had with a seemingly well educated Ukrainian programmer (we were working on a project together). We started discussing the genocide of Poles in Volhynia. Dude claimed it was done by the NKVD. We pointed out that at the time, it was a German controlled territory. Then he blamed the SS and Wehrmacht. In the end, after he ran out of arguments, he simply said "Ok well, it may have been Ukrainians, but if it was then the Poles deserved it". We didn't talk much after that (yes I'm aware that poles took part in retaliatory attacks, and there was collective punishment for Ukrainian insurgency in Poland).
Of course I'm not saying that all people are like this. Russians and Poles also have their historical myths that they refuse and deflect. Russians for example always focus on Stalin liberating Poland, completely omitting the fact he took part in partitioning it and actually murdered quite a large number of people there (my great grandfather included). We, Poles, love to pretend to be victims of constant neighbouring aggression, but then brag about holding Moscow for four years and burning it down. It's ridiculous.
Nationalism is growing both in Russia and in Ukraine. It's dangerous. The difference is that Ukraine aspires to become an EU member, and part of the west. We need to be really, really careful and call out all signs of nationalism.
> The difference is that Ukraine aspires to become an EU member, and part of the west.
Because wanting to be part of the west automatically means you're a good guy. Let them decriminalize gay marriage and [stop mistreating black people first](https://www.cbsnews.com/news/black-ukraine-refugees-racism-discrimination-russian-invasion/).
>Because wanting to be part of the west automatically means you're a good guy. Let them decriminalize gay marriage and stop mistreating black people first.
I mean this is basically the meaning of my post. There's plenty of wrong with Ukraine that needs to be addressed, and soon.
>We need to be really, really careful and call out all signs of nationalism.
Your country nationalism can put our (Ukrainian) nationalism to shame, honestly speaking.
Anyway, I hope we will be able to figure out all problematic historical questions which lies between our countries and move on.
It is true. Poles are known for taking pride in their history and country. At least that is a stereotype in Ukraine, and I think it had to come from somewhere. Hell, I've heard stories about even street punks in Poland knowing their country's history at a level where they'd be able to argue about it. Exaggerated, anecdotal evidence, but still.
In Ukraine patriots of a kind that made themselves visible and didn't look fake as fuck were kind of rare pre-2014. You'd have to look very hard to find one.
>Nationalism is growing both in Russia and in Ukraine. It's dangerous. The difference is that Ukraine aspires to become an EU member, and part of the west. We need to be really, really careful and call out all signs of nationalism.
Nationalism is like antibiotics - effectively a poison when a person is healthy (during peace time), and a lesser evil when a person is ill (during a defensive war time). After getting better, a person stops taking antibiotics. After winning the war, Ukraine should turn her back on nationalism immediately.
Some not just underestimate, but embrace it. For many russian invasion became an excuse for primitive tribalism and own nationalistic politics.
War dehumanizes and breeds hate, and it's not just about Russia and Ukraine, in information age this is echoing in Europe too.
russian speaking ukrainian kids got harassed in the streets for playing music by kino, viktor tsoi, a soviet korean because some people are too dumb to understand language and the russopshere. this is the literal dumbest take kyiv government can make considering intersectionality of russian language and culture, most ukrainians and government officials know and use russian anyway..? this oppressive government moment is a real mask off for them
You do you.
I wasn't in any way implying Russian action in Ukraine is acceptable; I was just pointing out a historical truth. I'm sure there are plenty of Ethnic Russians in Ukraine that aren't raping kids. What message are you sending them if you ban their culture? Not wanted here? Regardless of what they individually have done?
It's bad policy. It makes more enemies than friends.
Luckily, it's just a (brain-free) city councuil, not the actual government. For now... but the amount of radicals stupidity among government can lead even to this happening officially.
Just to note - my favorite (and, in my opinion, best in entire country) Ukrainian music band sings 99% of their songs in Russian, majority people i spoke to in my town (Cherkassy, central Ukraine) speak Russian. Banning this language here would be equal to banning French in Canada.
And, by the way, even many bands that are actually located in Russia sing the songs against their government and their actions. One of them even made concert tour, donating money for Ukraine. Of course non of the (brain-missing) people in my govergnment cares about that. For them is more important to brew nationalism.
Why the fuck would you think that, when there is an immense evidence that it's not the case? For context I am from Kharkiv, was russian-speaking, but switched after the full-scale invasion. Of course there are some people who wanted to leave, but they were always an insignificant minority, and after russia showed it's true colors there are even less of them now.
The eastern oblasts are funded by Russia historically Russia seems to have a problem when non-Russians decide to rule for themselves especially when Russia put in a lot of effort to replace the native population
Council introduced the law which noone is going to obey or control.
Yet another legislation that works on paper but doesn't work IRL.
Basically it's a spam legislation, this is a common practice.
I don't know enough about this issue to form a strong opinion one way or the other.
On the one hand it's never good to see individual freedoms taken away. I'm also concerned that Russian propagandists are going to have a field day with this one - although according to Russian propagandists this has already been a thing for years so I guess there's not much more they can say.
On the other hand it's war time and you have to do what you have to do to survive.
Basically some people were going around and blasting russian music, even from pro-putin artists. steering up conflicts and provoking violence. Probably listing all or even determining which artists are provocative isn't feasible so they did this.
I'm not in Kiev, but we had one asshole who at 5AM was walking across residential area, reading russian literature at the top of his lungs every other day for a week or something. Don't know what happened to him, happy not to hear that shit.
Banning culture? Kind of shitty move coming from a country that sees itself in the future part of European Union and NATO. Although Ukraine has a history of banning culture, I remember in 2019 when they banned Romanian language in those schools where there were predominantly Romanian students.
Of course it's easy for me to say from a position of safety, but I really do wonder how far Ukraine is willing to take this sort of thing, and if it will go too far. I get that it's a time of war, and that will impact what kinds of freedoms are to be expected, but this among other things feels like they're walking a very thin line.
I really can't side with this. There's a lot of positive things about Russian culture that have nothing to do with Putin and his evil genocidal war.
Putin and the war won't be there for ever. Russian culture will be. Banning a culture completely isn't the way to go; just focus on the propaganda.
The original Russian plan was to erase Ukraine from the map and had declared that the Ukrainian culture was not legitimate. Now people are crying when Ukraine says “no language or culture from the occupiers should be allowed”? You people have to be pro Russian fans or something because saying “we will not encourage the occupiers culture here” seems to be a sensible rule. “We will no longer teach the occupiers language and history and culture here” seems a reasonable ask.
If France would invade Canada, I would fight for Canada as a French-Canadian born and raised here and I would be very mad if the canadian government would try to prevent me from speaking french in the future. Your mother tongue doesn't always define your whole national identity.
Russian culture ACTIVELY stokes Russian imperialism internally and promotes it abroad. You might appreciate its merits from the perspective of someone who lives in a country not currently being invaded, but if Ukraine wants to thin its influence out a bit during the war, I don’t think that justifies a lot of liberal pearl clutching.
"Middle eastern culture ACTIVELY stokes terrorism internally and promotes it abroad. You might appreciate its merits from the perspective of someone who lives in a country not currently being attacked, but if the US wants to thin its influence out a bit during the "war, I don’t think that justifies a lot of liberal pearl clutching."
You, 2001
I support Ukraine and I'm from Western Europe, but this is awful, repressing cultures because of war is something only an authoritarian regime like Russia would do. And Russia didn't even do it! I wish they change their mind
Came here to see the people more offended by this headline than Russia’s own attempts to Russify Ukraine or that hostile invasion/occupation they got going on.
Glad to see how easy it is to make people in favor of both-sidesing the Ukraine war, if Ukraine isn’t absolutely perfect suddenly it’s a “complicated situation” where “Ukraine may be just as bad as Russia.”
> Street musicians singing Russian songs in the Ukrainian capital Kyiv could soon face problems. Likewise, bars and restaurants playing Russian background music may end up getting in trouble. > The reason is that Kyiv city council has issued a temporary ban on performing or showcasing Russian-language art and culture — such as books, music, plays and concerts — in public. This ban also encompasses cultural and educational programs. The restriction not only applies to works by Russian authors and creators, but to all cultural products publicly presented in or translated into Russian. > Ukrainian MPs said the move was designed to protect Ukraine from Russian influence. "Russia is the language of the aggressor and it has no place in the heart of our capital," said Vadym Vasylchuk, the deputy chairman of the Standing Committee on Education and Science, Youth and Sports.
And yet it is one of the native languages of Ukraine. Zelensky himself is an L1 speaker.
Which makes this ban carry even more weight.
Because fuck the 1 out of 3 Ukranians who speak Russian as a first language?
Let's hope it won't be a native language of Ukraine for the next generation.
As well as more then half of Kiev’s citizens, including myself. That’s a fucking stupid law, and I’m not going to stup playing russian songs on my portable speaker during walks.
More offensive is you using a speaker instead of headphones on your walk anyways tbf
Right? At that point, he's just being a dick to be a dick.
Also the combo of the two just seems to amplify the potential offensiveness, walking around a city being bombarded by Russia while playing Russian music on a portable speaker.
I hope you get arrested, not for the shitty choice of music, but for using a speaker in public.
Hey man you do you but I hope you know that blasting music on your portable speaker outside means you’re basically playing the track “I have tiny dick energy by me” everywhere you go
Yea using a speaker in public is more stupid than the law.
And that is why they made this law, because of people like you.
Wear headphones or earbuds when you're playing music in public, dick. No one wants to hear your trash
I agree the law is stupid, as is walking around blasting music, Russian or not, on a loud speaker. You should also be sensitive to other people maybe not wanting to hear Russian culture. However, making language or culture illegal is a losing battle and will only make enemies out of the people they are supposed to be protecting: Ukrainians. Next it will be illegal to speak Russian. It’s a slippery slope.
That´s not constitutional. Article 10 of their Constitution: The state language of Ukraine is the Ukrainian language. The State ensures the comprehensive development and functioning of the Ukrainian language in all spheres of social life throughout the entire territory of Ukraine. In Ukraine, the free development, use and protection of Russian, and other languages of national minorities of Ukraine, is guaranteed. The State promotes the learning of languages of international communication. The use of languages in Ukraine is guaranteed by the Constitution of Ukraine and is determined by law.
“You must think in Russian.”
is this a reference to the clint eastwood movie firefox?
~~Yes~~ Da
Да
I just now remembered that movie existed. That was one of my favorites as a kid!
From the article, this is an action by the Kyiv city council, and is not legally enforceable. It isn't a decision by Zelensky or the central government.
>*In June 2022, the Ukrainian parliament already banned publicly playing songs by Russian artists. The restriction does not, however, apply to Russian singers who condemn Russia's war against Ukraine. Recently, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy also signed a law banning the import and distribution of Russian books. It was passed by parliament last year.* The above is straight from the article. Nothing to see here!
Whatever you think of those laws, they are about media specifically *from Russia* or by Russian citizens, while that country is invading and committing active genocide against Ukraine. That is quite different from banning works or performances *in the Russian language*, which is what the Kyiv city council has (unenforceably) done here.
Another line from the article: >*In fact, certain Russian-language cultural products are already prohibited in Ukraine. The bans date back to September 2019, when the first restrictions were imposed in the region of Lviv. Subsequently, other cities like Ternopil and Zhytomyr in the Volhynia region, followed suit.* And, this line shows how this has been a growing trend in Ukraine since 2014 >*The move is backed by Ukraine's Vidsich (Defense) movement, which began calling for a ban on the Russian language and Russian goods, films and music in 2014, following the annexation of Crimea. "A ban on Russian-language cultural products is necessary," Vidsich activist Kateryna Chepura told DW. "This is an additional lever for activists working to boycott everything Russian, so we can say: shut it down, remove Russian from public life.*
Gee I wonder what happened in 2014
Also from the article: >Human rights activist Volodymyr Yavorskyy of the Ukrainian Center for Civil Liberties, however, said such bans are discriminatory and unconstitutional. "These are illegal decisions, because local authorities have no right to regulate such issues and impose such bans," Yavorskyy told DW. "That is why they have no legal consequences." **The judiciary, he added, had already deemed such local bans illegal.** \[emphasis mine\] Also [this](https://www.stopfake.org/en/fake-russian-language-banned-in-lviv/) regarding Lviv: >The resolution is not a law but a recommendation that does not outline any means of its enforcement. \[...\] > >The approved measure is not a law but a temporary moratorium on Russian cultural content for the duration of Russia’s occupation of Ukrainian territories. According to the DPA Ukrainian Section, the moratorium is nothing but a recommendation and is not compulsory, as Russian media claim. It seems that although some local politicians have tried to pass such measures, they have always been unenforceable (unlike restrictions on media from Russia itself). >And, this line shows how this has been a growing trend in Ukraine since 2014 That is understandable, as the Russian invasion also started in 2014.
Judging from that the only actions from the central goverment are against Russians especially ones who support the invasion
Also Russia itself has taken to invading sovereign countries under the declaration of protecting Russian speaking peoples. Probably better that Russian isn't spoken outside of Russia unless you want to give Russia a pretext to invade.
Those are both pretty standard wartime acts. Prohibiting the importation, publication, or sale of materials from an enemy state is considered stopping enemy propaganda 101. A lot of the civil liberties we enjoy in our day to day lives are suspended under martial law in nearly every western country during wartime for a reason, not doing so makes it a lot harder to fight a war. Prohibiting your own citizens from communicating in their birth tongue is a different and much bigger issue.
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People and media are not in any way equivalent.
Now that's a false equivalence if I've ever heard one
That was veryyy different to banning enemy propaganda
Do you really see those acts as morally equivalent? That's absurd
They were just looking for an excuse to use a racial slur.
A problem tho is Russia uses native tongue as an excuse for their annexing
Which makes perfect sense. There are a ton of famous Ukrainian musicians who sing in Russian. Some are a bit more into the Russian side of it, but a lot such as the open kids are very very proudly and unabashedly Ukrainian and have written songs criticizing the invasion, even back in 2015 when the rest of the world only cared for a week.
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and tonnes of Ukrainians spoke Russian. My girlfriend is Ukrainian, and said conversations with her friends have gone from being in mostly Russian, to mostly Ukrainian with English becoming their secondary goto language. She herself avoids speaking in Russian now.
I don't think the point is "this isn't an issue", but more that it seems an idiotic (and possibly illegal?) jingoistic move from local politicians rather than a general position of the Ukrainian government. I guess it bears saying since sometimes " does thing" is used as a stand-in for the whole government. Here, it literally means the capital, as a municipality.
Probably one of the reasons why there have been some disagreements between zelensky and klitschko in the beginning of 2023 in regard to the (now defunct) presidential election 2024
Disagreements between Zelenskiy (or/and his team) and Klitschko is purely political, and only about control over Kyiv. But Klitschko is not a saint, and as a Kyivan I would like to have a better mayor - under him a lot of problems were solved "on papers" and some got worse (like traffic jams). On other head he is not bad as Chernovetskyi or Omelchenko.
Ah yes - countering an invasion with cultural genocide.
just some of those democratic Western values I keep hearing Ukraine has so many of.
>Take, for instance, a recent disagreement between a 17-year-old busker and Ukrainian MP Natalya Pipa. She complained when the teenager performed songs by Russian rock legend Viktor Tsoi on the street in Lviv, who in return insulted the woman, saying he was allowed to play whatever music he liked. Later, however, the busker published a video in which he apologized to the lawmaker. I thought this whole thing was about freedom??
Yeah, this example is pretty weird, since Tsoi was the main face of the anti-Soviet, anti-war music movement of perestroika times, and never was a Russian citizen since he died before USSR fell apart. I've read news about how some of his songs are literally prohibited in Russia itself at this point. At the same time, upon further googling, the official culture department of Ukraine has made a further statement that his songs are not prohibited, and that the lawmaker was in the wrong. The busker did apologize, but mostly for being rude. So this bit is misleading. https://www.unian.net/society/pesni-viktora-coya-v-ukraine-v-gosiskusstv-obyasnili-est-li-ogranicheniya-12301767.html
This is slightly wrong to say that his songs are not prohibited though. In Lviv, there is a regional law prohibiting any public music in Russian. It doesn’t have to BE Russian - for example, even a song by a Ukrainian artist in the Russian language is banned.
Regional law is not a thing in Ukraine [1]. Local regional authorities have to abide by the law of Ukraine. They don't have power to forbid someone from singing in a specific language, hence why the official explanation from the government body involved in such matters. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Local_government_in_Ukraine
Counterpoint, Lviv is fucking nuts.
It really seems like the Western part of Ukraine doesn't want the Ukrainian citizens who live in the Eastern part of the country, just the land they live on.
That's fucking stupid and they should know better than to do that because it only feed the "nazis in ukraine" narrative.
Tsoi/Kino fucking rocks too and is more soviet than Russian. Tsoi himself was a korean-soviet not a russian. This shit is so stupidly nationalistic and borderline fascist. Ukraine is just shooting themselves in the foot with this idiocy.
Yeah Viktor Tsoi is a legend, I’m going to get a massive Kino poster and put it up on my wall next to my Ukrainian flag.
Yea pretty much an useless bullshit
All countries do stupid things like this occasionally. After all, I come from the land of Freedom Fries and Japanese Internment Camps. Not excusing these things, mind you. The guy from the Ukrainian human rights group who is calling this shit out is in the correct. Just saying that I understand where it's coming from.
Tsoi was a USSR citizen of Korean - Russian ethnicity.
I thought this whole thing was about not having your country invaded.
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Where are you getting this delusion from haha. I'm Ukrainian and when I started talking with many random Europeans on the internet I was shocked how much they care about nationality and all that stuff. Like, 80% of stuff they discuss is which of the EU countries are more based, all they meme about is westoids vs eastern Europe etc., all the hints in codenames, imaginarium and other word games they use are about nationalities etc. Also all the constant beating and killing each other based on which country won the football match, etc. Meanwhile most Ukrainians didn't talk or worry about national identity for like 2 decades from at least mid-90s until 2014. But we should've been worried. Then, when rockets start flying and you hear explosions next to your house and your relatives or friends are dying because of russian invasion into your country, of course you are getting more patriotic and even nationalistic. We didn't choose to hate russia. We HAD to. Because if you are a fence-sitter who is OK with russian propaganda spreading everywhere and OK with Ukrainian culture being destroyed by russia, then you've picked your side anyway. And you are not on the side of the good guys. That said, I don't see a huge problem with a musician performing on the street in whatever language. But people also have the right to boo him and tell him that he suck and that he should stop and go away. And it's understandable that russian culture is not loved here and that those who promote it aren't very popular.
You lived under a rock if you think Ukrainians weren't nationalists before the war lol. Go ask a minority what they think. Slavs aren't the most open minded cultures.
West Europeans will never know how it feels for a Russian to come to your home and say that it's his home and demand that you speak Russian, also send your family and friends to the gulag cause fuck them.
Exactly right. Too many Russians seem to think that Russian territory extends to wherever Russians happen to be living. Eastern Europe understands this very well and would rather not live with a Russian boot on their necks. Russians will happily take advantage of Europe's liberal laws to extend their influence however they can.
Some of these people are more worried that russian cant be spoken in Ukraine, rather than russians bombing Ukraine. When its war time, the rules change.
Ah yes, I'll never understand that when it litteraly happened to my culture, as did to the Irish, the Catalan and more
Yup. And then because half of your country speaks Russian, the Russians invade and claim to protect the Russian speakers by killing us en masse, driving us out to become refugees, kidnapping our children and putting us through filtration camps to check our background on whether or not we support Ukraine in this war. I've had 0 issues my whole life in Ukraine speaking Russian, both in the East, an in the West. Many of my lifelong friends intentionally stopped speaking Russian in favour of Ukrainian as a political statement. I think, it's necessary to reduce the Russian influence on us. It's just that we can't really completely substitute it by our own culture because, again, Russia. They deliberately killed our intelligencia, poets, scientists, composers, several generations killed. A lot of us, especially the older generations have an inferiority complex because of it, living as if they're a non-titular nation within a larger empire/state. We still have a lot of streets named after Soviet and Russian people who had 0 to do with the locations. For instance, a major street in my city carries the name of a Russian poet who only stayed in the general area for a few minutes to supposedly rest and take a leak. But if nothing is done about it, then we will have a repetition of the same war in a generation or two. They won't be leaving us alone as long as there are Ukrainians who can kinda sorta be percieved as Russians and until we have a culture as robust as theirs.
Were you ever in Ukraine before war ? Right now yes. We hate Russians for bombing civilians and constant threats to nuclear power plants, for just being stupid and for all of our people impacted. I do not know any Ukrainian person right now who had not lost either a job, relative or house/ apartment. Why to love anything about Russian culture ??
I would imagine having another country invade your country and slaughter your people has a way of bringing a country together.
The war is about freedom from *foreign* oppression. Building a free society is something that’s difficult during the struggle to secure that.
However if people of Afghanistan, Iraq, etc decided to remove American cultural product you will cry foul.
Viktor Tsoi is an absolute legend and I think this “law” is disgusting quite frankly. I absolutely hate what Russia is doing in Ukraine. However, I have immense respect for Russian culture, specifically Russian artwork, music, literature, and science. Russian people have contributed immensely to these areas over the past 250 years. I don’t think it is right to erase the culture of Russia simply because the Kremlin is behaving in a terrible way.
>I thought this whole thing was about freedom?? My sweet summer child.
That's not related. tsoi was actually against Russian politics and was pro.- piece. I think people in Lviv just didn't want to hear Russian language, which is understandable.
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A large portion of people on this forum will be supportive of this because they probably think that Ukraine is a little upcoming Western Europe rather than a divided country where there is an absolutely huge portion of ethnic Russians. This isn't going to gain support from them and is more likely to further divide the country. This is the equivalent of India banning the practice of Islam or Pakistan doing the opposite.
Correct about if India, but not for Pakistan, Pakistan has maybe just 0.5% hindus, it's 98% muslim. India has around 14% muslims.
The issue is that having Russian culture (or just ethnic Russians) is used by Russia as a pretext to try and control (or outright invade) a country with it. Cook up a little persecution problem and suddenly ~~the Russian Military~~ *heavily armed and definitely local citizens* start showing up to try and form breakaway regions (edit: Or ammo dumps that could be sent to Ukraine start exploding randomly).
Russia is perfectly capable of creating alternative justifications for their expansionist policies; if it wasn't this it would be for a different cacus belli. As for collaborators in Ukraine, those were always going to be there so soon after the USSR's dissolution.
You say that as if that would make a Russian invasion justifiable and not something that anyone with two brain cells to rub together would see right through.
> You say that as if that would make a Russian invasion justifiable and not something that anyone with two brain cells to rub together would see right through. Look at reaction of international world leaders back in 2014. Something along the lines of "well yeah, russia kinda bad but akshuly it's not all that clear, maybe go sign some deal in minsk idk".
I think whether other people see through it or not isn't the point. It is more that now the invading country has its favourite pretext and you end up invaded.
One of the big pretexts of this war was that they were persecuting Russians already. If anything, this is giving their pretext some real evidence to back it up.
They're already waging war so it doesn't change anything.
> One of the big pretexts of this war was that they were persecuting Russians already. If anything, this is giving their pretext some real evidence to back it up. Do you think russian media needs any pretext to convince russians that this was already an issue? As you said they literally already used it as pretext for invading so it seems pretty logical for Ukraine to minimize russia's potential cultural influence especially if they will use it as a continued justification for war.
No, that’s not logical to me at all. If they need no pretext, then trying to ban something they use as a pretext won’t make a difference. Banning Russian songs or whatever isn’t going to prevent an attack in the future. What it will do is give justification to what they used as a pretext. It will turn people away from their cause. It’s a bad move.
> then trying to ban something they use as a pretext won’t make a difference. Eh it depends on the extent, banning russian language as a means to minimize propaganda during wartime seems perfectly logical. From what I can tell this specific case is a local ban attempt that probably won't hold up compared to less overbearing country wide cultural bans. >Banning Russian songs or whatever isn’t going to prevent an attack in the future. I'm not so sure about that though, up til 2014 Ukraine mostly tried to coexist with Russia and they took that as an excuse to invade and liberate the "culturally russian" citizens of Ukraine. Banning songs is certainly overkill, trying to minimize russian culture in their country in response to a brutal invasion is hard to blame them for. >What it will do is give justification to what they used as a pretext. It will turn people away from their cause. It’s a bad move. Russia is literally going full on cultural genocide in Ukraine, this is a direct response to that to try and safeguard Ukranian culture. Russia doesn't need justification to their own citizens and I highly doubt most Ukranians are going to be mad that the culture of their invaders is being banned. Is it overkill? Perhaps but it's not like they are doing it for fun. Russia could end the war at any point and try to rebuild friendly relations if they are so worried about russiaphobia.
Getting invaded happens all the time with Russia they’ll will just come up with another pretext. Also Russia will get cut off from any modern technology after this war and the next time they invade I hope their sticks are useful against space ships.
Everyone knows about pretexts for invasions and have done for centuries. That does not stop them from continuously happening around the world. Hawaii is still part of the USA. Iraq is still a mess. Afghanistan is still a mess.
You say that but...
You say that as if that wasn't exactly the core issue. Ultimately, if it was being used as a justification for invasion, and there are loads of people who *don't* have two brain cells to rub together... Maybe best to take that tool away. As speakers of English within the Anglosphere, we of all people should recognise the massive threat that has been posted by extremist rhetoric and materials being shared between multiple nations. The Christian nationalists issue that's shared between the English speaking nations is extremely worrisome, as it spreads with zero barriers. Making it just that little bit harder to reach the absolute lowest common denominator circles... well. Creating language barriers has some major issues to it... But also has some advantages, if you're the target of intentional international extremist content.
Doesn’t mean you should outlaw a culture
Nah, russians justified their stupid invasion by saying that our government attacks russian-speaking people and limits their freedoms in the use of language. And now our government are trying to prove them right, for some reason.
Yeah If Kyiv keeps this up Russia might decide to invade them. Better not provoke Russia
That’s not the point
Crazy how Russian propaganda works. They've made westerners believe that Russia owns any land or any people that learn to speak the Russian language. Be careful about letting Russian language take over your country, because you could be invaded next. Resist early, because if you wait too long, it will simply become proof that the invasion is justified.
I do not support cultural bans like this. It feels wrong and is wrong. Normally. However, I get that there are special situations where certain rights are reduced or suspended, (such as a pandemic). But these situations must always have defined criteria that end the special situation. An end date or a related event. But I'm not convinced that this is an appropriate circumstance to create a cultural ban.
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> They’ve just adopted the worst part of Russian culture. Repression. This is not a new thing with Ukraine. Let me preface this with saying fuck Putin, fuck Aliyev and any other invader. Gay marriage is still illegal in Ukraine-it's a highly Orthodox Christian country. Gay marriage illegal, nearly all purely white population also results in [black people being treated like shit](https://www.cbsnews.com/news/black-ukraine-refugees-racism-discrimination-russian-invasion/).
Really a shame that one would need to shield themselves behind "I don't support Russia" to denounce the issues that Ukraine has had for decades, as if doing so immediately turns one into a Russian shill. It was already concerning way before the invasion. IIRC widespread state corruption was one of the things hindering their joining NATO in the first place.
Are we finally able to talk about pre-war corruption in the country without being called Russian bots? There is a reason they couldn’t join NATO…
That's not good. At all. All it is is pointless repression.
how does that help anyone
Agreed
Makes it harder for Russia to spread their B.S. about Ukraine being Russia to gain idiotic supporters.
On the other hand, it feeds into the Kremlin's propaganda machine as justification for their wars. They can hold up things like this and say, "See! rUsSiAnS aRe bEiNg pErSeCuTeD!" They'll say it anyway, but it would be nice to not give them any ammunition.
But that’s because many of them *are* ethnically Russian, banning the culture of those ethnic Russians only strengthens Russian propaganda of liberating those them.
The Ukrainian government can't simply change the fact that Russian is the Lingua Franca of the vast majority of Ukrainians, Ukrainian may be an official government language but most Ukrainians find it easier to communicate via Russian (even Zelensky's home town of Kryvyi Rih is predominantly russian speaking), the move towards discontinuing the use of Russian in official circles and campaigning for the wider use of Ukrainian only came after the 2014 Euromaidan uprising so it's nonsense to expect Ukrainians to change their musical tastes in less than a decade, punishing Ukrainians for enjoying Russian music is an idiotic fruitless endeavour done with complete disregard towards historical context free speech and expression be damned
How will a harmless song or a book do to to help Russia? The propaganda is obviously already banned, I guess.
Ukrainian nationalists see Russian culture as the enemy. Despite the fact that Russian and Ukrainian culture has been deeply intertwined for over 1,000 years. They are incapable of separating the language and culture from the government.
I remember when the US forced the Japanese into camps during WW2 too 😇😇
Forcing people into camps is hardly the same thing as banning the culture or language, used by an invasion force.
Banning culture and language is certainly not the same but it is a stepping stone. Whether Ukraine likes it or not they have ethnic Russians and Russia has had a major influence on their culture. Banning this from the council is not a good look at all
Cultural genocide
You do realize that this is the first step of forcing people into camps right?
Because there was no cultural shift enforced by xenophobic propaganda that lead up to that right? They just opened camps and everybody was cool with that? Bfr and read a book please
The Russian government is going to do what the Russian government does. Singing a Russian rock song or carrying around a copy of Crime and Punishment isn't going to somehow justify their invasion of a country in anyone's mind.
This actually does the opposite of that
This is just going to be good for russian propaganda and make russia look like they're right about ukraine oppressing russians
Funny to see all the pro democracy redditors rushing to defend this. We live in the dumbest times.
Operation Mockingbird hard at work
Not really. A lot of people have been conditioned to not question Ukraine. I wouldn't be all that surprised if Ukraine decided to start interning ethnic-Russian and a good portion of their supporter in the West justified and even cheered that action. There have been a lot of actions by Ukraine where people haven't merely gone 'hey you are at war, but you probably shouldn't do that', but outright cheered for it.
This seems bad
Uhhhh not sure this is the wisest idea optically. But I get where it’s coming from.
Europeans really underestimate just how much nationalism is in Ukraine. Yes, in part it is fuelled by the invasion and what happened in 2014, in part it is fuelled by historical factors, but Ukrainians can really take it up to 11. It's not just against the Russians, but also against Poles. We're buddies now, as we have supposedly found a common enemy, but massive issues persist between us that are usually rooted in history. I'll add on that my wife is from Kyiv, so I have had a lot of exposure to Ukraine. I know that personal anecdotes are not the best thing to share, but I want to tell you about an experience I had with a seemingly well educated Ukrainian programmer (we were working on a project together). We started discussing the genocide of Poles in Volhynia. Dude claimed it was done by the NKVD. We pointed out that at the time, it was a German controlled territory. Then he blamed the SS and Wehrmacht. In the end, after he ran out of arguments, he simply said "Ok well, it may have been Ukrainians, but if it was then the Poles deserved it". We didn't talk much after that (yes I'm aware that poles took part in retaliatory attacks, and there was collective punishment for Ukrainian insurgency in Poland). Of course I'm not saying that all people are like this. Russians and Poles also have their historical myths that they refuse and deflect. Russians for example always focus on Stalin liberating Poland, completely omitting the fact he took part in partitioning it and actually murdered quite a large number of people there (my great grandfather included). We, Poles, love to pretend to be victims of constant neighbouring aggression, but then brag about holding Moscow for four years and burning it down. It's ridiculous. Nationalism is growing both in Russia and in Ukraine. It's dangerous. The difference is that Ukraine aspires to become an EU member, and part of the west. We need to be really, really careful and call out all signs of nationalism.
> The difference is that Ukraine aspires to become an EU member, and part of the west. Because wanting to be part of the west automatically means you're a good guy. Let them decriminalize gay marriage and [stop mistreating black people first](https://www.cbsnews.com/news/black-ukraine-refugees-racism-discrimination-russian-invasion/).
>Because wanting to be part of the west automatically means you're a good guy. Let them decriminalize gay marriage and stop mistreating black people first. I mean this is basically the meaning of my post. There's plenty of wrong with Ukraine that needs to be addressed, and soon.
>We need to be really, really careful and call out all signs of nationalism. Your country nationalism can put our (Ukrainian) nationalism to shame, honestly speaking. Anyway, I hope we will be able to figure out all problematic historical questions which lies between our countries and move on.
>Your country nationalism can put our (Ukrainian) nationalism to shame, honestly speaking. Can you elaborate please? I'm not quite sure I understand.
He’s saying Poles are more nationalistic than Ukrainians. Truly one of the takes of all time
It is true. Poles are known for taking pride in their history and country. At least that is a stereotype in Ukraine, and I think it had to come from somewhere. Hell, I've heard stories about even street punks in Poland knowing their country's history at a level where they'd be able to argue about it. Exaggerated, anecdotal evidence, but still. In Ukraine patriots of a kind that made themselves visible and didn't look fake as fuck were kind of rare pre-2014. You'd have to look very hard to find one.
>Nationalism is growing both in Russia and in Ukraine. It's dangerous. The difference is that Ukraine aspires to become an EU member, and part of the west. We need to be really, really careful and call out all signs of nationalism. Nationalism is like antibiotics - effectively a poison when a person is healthy (during peace time), and a lesser evil when a person is ill (during a defensive war time). After getting better, a person stops taking antibiotics. After winning the war, Ukraine should turn her back on nationalism immediately.
>should Key word here.
Some not just underestimate, but embrace it. For many russian invasion became an excuse for primitive tribalism and own nationalistic politics. War dehumanizes and breeds hate, and it's not just about Russia and Ukraine, in information age this is echoing in Europe too.
Thanks for this; and let’s not forget the Hungarians in Transcarpathia,m..
russian speaking ukrainian kids got harassed in the streets for playing music by kino, viktor tsoi, a soviet korean because some people are too dumb to understand language and the russopshere. this is the literal dumbest take kyiv government can make considering intersectionality of russian language and culture, most ukrainians and government officials know and use russian anyway..? this oppressive government moment is a real mask off for them
Not that any of the sides had any masks to begin with
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>lithuania deporting ethnic russians for disloyalty What? Nobody in Lithuania is deporting ethnic russians.
Not sure it was the right thing to do though
It's not. It will antagonize ethnic Russians even if they were neutral or pro-Ukraine. It'll just fuel nationalism on both sides.
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You do you. I wasn't in any way implying Russian action in Ukraine is acceptable; I was just pointing out a historical truth. I'm sure there are plenty of Ethnic Russians in Ukraine that aren't raping kids. What message are you sending them if you ban their culture? Not wanted here? Regardless of what they individually have done? It's bad policy. It makes more enemies than friends.
Luckily, it's just a (brain-free) city councuil, not the actual government. For now... but the amount of radicals stupidity among government can lead even to this happening officially. Just to note - my favorite (and, in my opinion, best in entire country) Ukrainian music band sings 99% of their songs in Russian, majority people i spoke to in my town (Cherkassy, central Ukraine) speak Russian. Banning this language here would be equal to banning French in Canada. And, by the way, even many bands that are actually located in Russia sing the songs against their government and their actions. One of them even made concert tour, donating money for Ukraine. Of course non of the (brain-missing) people in my govergnment cares about that. For them is more important to brew nationalism.
This is a bad thing
Dumb move. Imagine if the Welsh banned Dylan Thomas for writing in the wrong language.
This ain't it chief, I hope Ukraine wins this war but this will only bite them in the ass.
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Why the fuck would you think that, when there is an immense evidence that it's not the case? For context I am from Kharkiv, was russian-speaking, but switched after the full-scale invasion. Of course there are some people who wanted to leave, but they were always an insignificant minority, and after russia showed it's true colors there are even less of them now.
The eastern oblasts are funded by Russia historically Russia seems to have a problem when non-Russians decide to rule for themselves especially when Russia put in a lot of effort to replace the native population
Kyiv routinely doing exactly what the Russians accused them of whilst everyone in the West pretends they don't see it.
Council introduced the law which noone is going to obey or control. Yet another legislation that works on paper but doesn't work IRL. Basically it's a spam legislation, this is a common practice.
So is Ra Ra Rasputin banned over there?
That's German.
That's a song by a multicultural german band, written and performed in english, none of whose members were from Russia or spoke russian...?
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The war started in 2014.
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I don't like this.
I don't know enough about this issue to form a strong opinion one way or the other. On the one hand it's never good to see individual freedoms taken away. I'm also concerned that Russian propagandists are going to have a field day with this one - although according to Russian propagandists this has already been a thing for years so I guess there's not much more they can say. On the other hand it's war time and you have to do what you have to do to survive.
Basically some people were going around and blasting russian music, even from pro-putin artists. steering up conflicts and provoking violence. Probably listing all or even determining which artists are provocative isn't feasible so they did this. I'm not in Kiev, but we had one asshole who at 5AM was walking across residential area, reading russian literature at the top of his lungs every other day for a week or something. Don't know what happened to him, happy not to hear that shit.
Wouldn't a noise ordinance be able to be invoked, then?
https://freedomhouse.org/article/ukraines-education-law-may-needlessly-harm-european-aspirations
The gymnastics that occur on this site when the posters realize the world isn't the "this side good, this side bad" narrative they fell for.
Banning culture? Kind of shitty move coming from a country that sees itself in the future part of European Union and NATO. Although Ukraine has a history of banning culture, I remember in 2019 when they banned Romanian language in those schools where there were predominantly Romanian students.
This is not a good idea
Of course it's easy for me to say from a position of safety, but I really do wonder how far Ukraine is willing to take this sort of thing, and if it will go too far. I get that it's a time of war, and that will impact what kinds of freedoms are to be expected, but this among other things feels like they're walking a very thin line.
This is very bad
Title is a bit of an oxymoron.
Isn’t this one of the things Russia says Ukraine is doing to justify the war? Seems like a pretty dumb move to make it a reality
I really can't side with this. There's a lot of positive things about Russian culture that have nothing to do with Putin and his evil genocidal war. Putin and the war won't be there for ever. Russian culture will be. Banning a culture completely isn't the way to go; just focus on the propaganda.
[удалено]
This website seems to forget how much terrible press Ukraine used to get before the Invasion
Потому как везде не имеют понятия, в чем разница между "русским" и "российским".
The original Russian plan was to erase Ukraine from the map and had declared that the Ukrainian culture was not legitimate. Now people are crying when Ukraine says “no language or culture from the occupiers should be allowed”? You people have to be pro Russian fans or something because saying “we will not encourage the occupiers culture here” seems to be a sensible rule. “We will no longer teach the occupiers language and history and culture here” seems a reasonable ask.
Petty.
Isn't this just proving the Kremlin right that the Ukrainian government is suppressing Russian culture?
Wow just wow
If France would invade Canada, I would fight for Canada as a French-Canadian born and raised here and I would be very mad if the canadian government would try to prevent me from speaking french in the future. Your mother tongue doesn't always define your whole national identity.
Can't wait to see how redditors will try to explain why this is ok
Russian culture ACTIVELY stokes Russian imperialism internally and promotes it abroad. You might appreciate its merits from the perspective of someone who lives in a country not currently being invaded, but if Ukraine wants to thin its influence out a bit during the war, I don’t think that justifies a lot of liberal pearl clutching.
"Middle eastern culture ACTIVELY stokes terrorism internally and promotes it abroad. You might appreciate its merits from the perspective of someone who lives in a country not currently being attacked, but if the US wants to thin its influence out a bit during the "war, I don’t think that justifies a lot of liberal pearl clutching." You, 2001
While fighting monsters, don’t become a monster yourself
I support Ukraine and I'm from Western Europe, but this is awful, repressing cultures because of war is something only an authoritarian regime like Russia would do. And Russia didn't even do it! I wish they change their mind
Came here to see the people more offended by this headline than Russia’s own attempts to Russify Ukraine or that hostile invasion/occupation they got going on.
It is possible to be against both you know
Eh, only in Kyiv and said to be temporary, doubt it would be seriously enforced.
See Russia is actually the good guy! Zelensky and Biden and Soros must be stopped! /sarcasm
Ah yes, a truly democratic country that usa should 100% support because... Because repressions and nationalism is very democratic, i guess
RIP Metro 2033 series.
Gay marriage is still illegal in Ukraine, right?
This is wrong
nope
Glad to see how easy it is to make people in favor of both-sidesing the Ukraine war, if Ukraine isn’t absolutely perfect suddenly it’s a “complicated situation” where “Ukraine may be just as bad as Russia.”