Akzent investigated why the language issue has become so contentious in Odesa

I think the issue is that there are more people sitting here in this session hall who either don’t understand or are deliberately destabilizing the situation in Ukrainian Odesa. Given the full-scale invasion, given how many missiles are flying—including toward Odesa—cities destroyed, children killed, printing presses with Ukrainian books burned down. This is a sign, I believe, for each of us that we must do everything to ensure that in the public sphere—and I’m emphasizing exclusively the public sphere of our city—no Russian songs are played, no Russian poems are recited, and so on, neither in theaters, in our restaurants, and in bars, of course, because today we face a major threat to national security.

                                                                                                                              Olga Kvasnytska

That is, we’re talking about a moratorium on Russian-language cultural products—exclusively on Russian-language cultural products. Specifically, this isn’t just talk; it’s a definition of what constitutes a cultural product. It’s clear; it’s in Ukraine’s Law on Culture. So what interests us most are—um—performances, songs, theatrical productions, and books. Well, these are probably the categories with the highest number of complaints we receive at the Secretariat of the Commissioner for the Protection of the State Language; this is a rather significant issue. We’re talking exclusively about this. In other words, the public sphere and the private sphere are clearly distinguished. 

                                                                                                                                     Anna Nerush