Can you be a Russian speaker, and even an “ethnic Russian”… and a Ukrainian patriot? This is the case of the writer Andreï Kurkov and millions of his compatriots who, even if Ukrainian is not their first language, are today completely united with the fight of a people invaded by an imperialist neighbor… of the same language.
A neighbor whose leaders, led by its president, firmly believed that Ukrainian identity was an oddity, even an imposture, and who saw in the Russian language, and the fact that it is extremely widespread in Ukraine, one of the reasons why the soldiers of Moscow would certainly be – in the whims of Vladimir Putin – welcomed as saviors.
Andrei Kurkov is the author of the novel The Penguin, written in 1996, a worldwide success translated into more than 40 languages. He has just published in French (editions Noir sur Blanc) the Diary of an invasionshortly preceded by his last novel Gray beeswhich is located in Donbass divided between pro-kyiv and pro-Russians, in the wake of the first Russian intervention in 2014.
THE Newspaper begins on December 29, 2021, when the drumbeats become insistent and threatening, and ends on July 11, 2022, when the terrible battle of Bakhmut begins. A volume 2 is already ready and being translated…
Passing through Montreal in recent days on the occasion of the Book Fair, the “Russian-patriotic-Ukrainian” writer explained to me, as a novelist, but also as an essayist that he is, why the language does not is not the only, or even the main, cement of Ukrainian identity (a case distinct from that of Quebec). Why the invasion decided by Putin had the opposite effect to that expected by the invader. And how Russia is today engaged, to its misfortune, in a process that he calls “Soviet regression”.
“I write in Russian, it’s my language and, although I speak Ukrainian perfectly, I stick to Russian. But all my books [43 selon une liste de Wikipédia en ukrainien ; 17 disponibles en français] appear simultaneously in Ukrainian. »
Ukrainian is a Slavic language that could be placed approximately equidistant between Russian and Polish. The author gives interviews in all these languages. He also speaks French, English, German and a few others fluently. He notes that nationals of smaller peoples, as opposed to those of “big nations” (implied: imperialists), are more often inclined to be polyglots.
On the difference between Russians and Ukrainians: “Russians are fatalists; they rely on higher forces. Their leaders today want to lock them in the past, in fear of the rest of the world seen as an enemy – with the exception of a few allies: Iran, China, North Korea. Russian power is trying to transform its subjects into people of victims — including in the mystical, religious sense. We are witnessing a sort of Soviet regression. »
“Ukrainians are not fatalists, they are more rebellious, individualist, even anarchist. There were many communist-anarchists in the 1920s. The individual and his freedom, democracy, including local, are generally more dear to Ukrainians than to Russians. Thanks to Putin, thanks to Russia, they have consolidated their collective identity. »
By a tragic paradox, and by a positive perverse effect, explains Kourkov, this murderous invasion modeled what modern Ukraine is, what it wants to be. More clearly than ever before, and in proportions of at least 80%, it sees its future in the West, in Europe, in a democracy opposed to oriental and paternalistic despotism.
But haven’t the fatigue and blockage of the front for six months – the apparent failure of the famous “counter-offensive” – taken away Ukrainian determination? Are there not voices being raised in favor of a territorial compromise? Isn’t President Zelensky’s star fading?
“It’s true,” replies Kourkov, “the intellectuals are moving away from him; the president’s rating has fallen to 75%. But if you dare to utter the words “territorial compromise” today… then 80%, even 85% will consider you an enemy, a traitor. »
We are therefore not – not yet – at the point where we would be ready to consider, in Kiev, in Lviv and elsewhere, the construction of a western and democratic Ukraine, member of the European Union… on 83% of its official territory (figure which reflects the current state of Russian occupation). “They would continue to bomb us anyway. »
Is a Russian-Ukrainian reconciliation possible in the future? “Twenty or thirty years after the end of the war, perhaps,” Kourkov ventures. But this war will never be forgotten. »
“There are graves of soldiers in every city and village in Ukraine. Many boys and girls live without their fathers, killed in combat. They will carry this emotion, this memory of a father killed by the Russians and will pass this emotion on to their own children. »
The number of Ukrainian soldiers killed in 21 months of war is a state secret in Kiev – Western services speak of 100,000, perhaps 125,000 – while, for civilians, the UN has just released the figure. of 10,000 people killed by the bombings. “Don’t forget either that 7 to 8 million Ukrainians are refugees abroad, and that 600,000 to 700,000 soldiers are at the front. »
No, this war is not over, and it seems plausible that a volume 3 of the Diary of an invasion will see… alas, soon the day will come.
François Brousseau is an international affairs columnist at Ici Radio-Canada. [email protected]