"Decolonization": How Russia Appropriated Ukrainian History, Culture, and Voice

With this publication, Intent continues its series of reviews dedicated to contemporary Ukrainian publications. The reviews for Intent as part of this project are written by Maria Galina—a Ukrainian writer, poet, and literary critic, and winner of literary awards.

Don’t be put off by the fact that the book *Decolonization: Essays from Ukraine* (Kyiv, “Komora,” 2026) is such a massive tome. In fact, those 616 pages also include translations into English and German, as the book was published with the support of two projects—the Heinrich Böll Foundation and the website Sharethetruths.org. Here I refer to the substantive foreword by Lyubov Terekhova, the compiler and scholarly editor, who recounts the history of the book’s creation and explains why the study of colonial perspectives proved important during the Great War, that is, why (to quote her) “history, economics, and culture are also weapons in Russia’s war against Ukraine.” It’s important to keep in mind that this book is also intended for foreign-language readers, and it consists of 21 essays by 20 authors, in which (to quote the announcement again) “Ukrainian writers, journalists, philosophers, public figures, historians, and researchers from other fields reflect on the nature and legacy of imperialism.” The authors (Ostap Ukraintsev, Mariam Nayeem, Tetiana Filevska, Anna Melnychenko, Tetiana Derkach, Olga Homilko, Illia Levchenko, Anna Yatsenko, Oleksii Ovchinnikov, Oksana Dovgopolova, Nazar Gorin, Lyubov Terekhova, Tetiana Vodotyka, Yulia Kovalenko, Inna Bilonozhko, Maria Nazarenko, Iryna Lishchynska, Svitlana Shlipchenko, Gennadiy Kazakevych) explain how language, historical narratives, religion, sports, art, energy, business, and the production system remain instruments of influence, even if the empire has long since disappeared from the map.” In fact, we’re dealing with about 200 substantive pages of a very pleasant publication, which is also charmingly illustrated by Oleksandr Hrekhov, who clearly loves cats (so do I, which makes me happy): his illustrations for the articles tone down the grandiosity and, surprisingly, increase the level of trust in the book. Because that’s exactly how serious matters should be discussed, even if it’s laughter through tears. Add to that reproductions of paintings accompanying Illia Levchenko’s essay “Our Strangers: Art as the Soft Power of Russian/Soviet Colonialism,” archival photographs, and more… All in all, it really is a very beautiful book.

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PHOTO: Maria Galina

The introductory article by Tetyana Filevska, Creative Director of the Ukrainian Institute, titled “Decolonization as a Right and a Duty,” is dedicated to the need for education and ongoing engagement with Western institutions. This is because Russian manipulative narratives portray Ukraine’s resistance to the aggressor as a purely internal conflict. There is a possibility, she writes, that due to historical factors, for those colonized peoples who suffered violence at the hands of Western European empires, it may indeed appear that way—because a distinctive feature of Russian imperialism is that “the subjugated were of the same race and religion” as the colonizers (with certain qualifications, of course).

I’m not going to delve into the study of empires at all, because I’d never get out of it, but, let’s say, Eastern empires are a slightly different matter. They are precisely continental in nature and expand through the conquest of neighboring lands, whereas Russia, imitating Europe purely on the surface, tends more toward Asia, in my view. But take, for example, modern China—is it an empire or not? In reality, colonization takes many forms, as does resistance (one need only think of the United States), but in this case, the paradox truly lies in the fact that, as the author writes, unlike the Muscovites, who gradually appropriated everything for themselves—right down to their own name—Kyiv had “a more complex and sophisticated structure of cultural and social life.” So this book refutes those Russian claims about “one people” and clearly demonstrates how Russia appropriated the cultural, economic, and scientific achievements of its colonies, presenting them to outside observers as “its own.”

An essay by Ostap Ukraintse (I try to keep track of his social media posts), which opens the first chapter of *The Convulsions of History*, is precisely about how Russia manipulates consciousness through narratives, and why the Word is an instrument of both enslavement and liberation. For example, he writes that the official Russian narrative never calls a war a war. Anything but—an “internationalist duty,” “the elimination of terrorists,” a “special military operation,” and so on; or, through dehumanization and othering, it strips the victim of the right to agency (often through fabricated historical justifications)—“Banderites,” “nationalists,” and so on... But it is the Word itself that is capable of restoring national agency. In general, writers have reason to be proud, because their significance grows immensely in times like these.

What interests me most in this collection are the pieces that are, in one way or another, connected to art—which, to use medical terminology, can be both poison and medicine… and even a diagnostic tool. Here, the first case is more relevant, because art is one of the most effective means of propaganda; it shapes people’s worldviews without them even realizing it. For example, it was obvious to me (though by no means to everyone) that the film *Liquidation* (from Wikipedia: “a 2007 Russian feature film series directed by Sergei Ursulyak. The plot centers on the Soviet authorities’ struggle against criminal gangs in Odesa”), which was warmly received by most Odesa residents, actually promoted the narrative about “Banderites” and “separatists” in the Odesa region, that is, it was nothing more than disguised propaganda. I would like to draw your attention to the fact that the film was released in 2007, meaning it was commissioned immediately after the Orange Revolution. There was actually nothing spontaneous about the Russian campaign of 2014; it was planned in advance precisely with the support of art as a form of weaponry. Here it is worth mentioning Yulia Kovalenko’s article “Fifty Shades of (Neo)Colonialism in Russian Cinema,” which examines how, through cinema, Russia (and before it, the USSR) promoted its image in the West, while simultaneously pushing Ukrainian national cinema out of the cultural sphere. And, by the way, deliberately caricaturing the image of Ukrainians in Russian mass-market TV series, particularly in “My Beautiful Nanny” (which, incidentally, is a remake of an American sitcom—which comes as no surprise to me) or “Soldiers.” Film is not only about shaping public consciousness, but also about money. And when a single entity—a totalitarian state—controls both the tools of ideological influence and the money...

Of course, under any aggressive totalitarian regime, there are forms of artistic or ideological resistance—whether conscious or subconscious—and it would be interesting to examine certain phenomena from this very perspective. Unfortunately, the author is limited by the format of the essay.

I would add that, in my opinion, the so-called marginal genres—which, under conditions of colonial pressure and ideological coercion, become zones of relative freedom—deserve a separate study. For example, the brilliant two-part animated film *Treasure Island* by director David Cherkassky, which was produced at the *Kyivnaukfilm* studio in 1986–1988, ranks 49th–50th on the list of the 100 best films in the history of Ukrainian cinema.

But in general, it can be said that national art in all its forms was deliberately marginalized or homogenized by the metropolis. See Ilya Levchenko’s article “Our Own Strangers: Art as a Soft Power of Russian/Soviet Colonialism,” dedicated to the fate of the Transcarpathian School of Painting and the difficult internal conflict of the talented artist Tetiana Yablonska, who, against her will, became an ambassador of the “new socialist realist method” in Transcarpathia. Here we have the same “single client” scenario. To quote: “In the absence of a market economy and a network of private galleries, collaboration with the authorities became perhaps the only way to survive while remaining an artist.” Were there exceptions? Of course there were, but they entailed a life “on the margins”—a conscious downsizing.

Here’s what I want to say. In addition to marginalization and standardization, another strategy of imperial influence was anisotropy. That is, in the case of the Soviet Union, imperial cultural products were actively promoted in the colonized countries (which were euphemistically called “republics”), while national cultural products remained largely confined to the national sphere. In my view, this had an unexpected side effect: despite the ideologues’ original intentions, national culture did not ultimately dissolve into the imperial one.

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PHOTO: Maria Galina

But when it comes to control over the cultural environment, architecture was the art form that was entirely dependent on the client. As we have already noted, the sole client in the USSR was the state. Thus, Svitlana Shlipchenko’s article “On the Imperial Soviet Narrative in Architecture and Urban Planning and the Politics of Colonization” offers a concise yet highly informative overview of colonial architecture, ranging from Greek “new-style” city-states, the 16th-century Spanish “Laws of the Indies,” Napoleonic France, and the Russian Empire (the project to develop Poltava’s administrative center was designed by Russian architects and approved in St. Petersburg) all the way to the mass standardized construction of the USSR, which followed the latest trends in global urbanization but through the prism of Soviet policy on the global migration of the masses and, as a result, that same standardization and the erasure of “national” identity. Add to this the deliberate destruction of architectural monuments of the past and the obligatory Lukich statue in front of the administrative buildings. As a telling detail, the author mentions the evergreen trees planted next to the “seat of power,” which simultaneously alluded to a cemetery-like atmosphere and to the “eternal order.” In other words, it’s once again about standardization, and in this case, it was nearly impossible to avoid it. And this is precisely the kind of environment that is physically impossible to escape—whether for an artist, a creator, or simply an ordinary citizen. The article ends (almost) with the intriguing phrase, “A period of tectonic shifts was approaching.” I would actually love to read the author’s monograph on this topic—all the way up to the present day...

To wrap up this topic—Oksana Dovgopolova’s piece “Two Russias: A Variety Show at the Mariupol Drama Theater.” The fate of the theater, destroyed along with the civilians who were hiding there in the shelter, is known to the whole world: it has effectively become a symbol of Russian aggression. Its hasty reconstruction by the “new authorities” has also become a symbol of sorts. This was meant to manifest both the “norm” and “civilizational expansion”—a blissful dissolution in the embrace of “great Russian culture.” To destroy it, to hastily remove the bodies (we still do not know how many people died there: 600? More?), slap together a stage show on the ruins, and build over the ruins—this is a strategy of simultaneous devaluation, desacralization, and appropriation, typical behavior of an aggressor. As if to say, “So what? Nothing ever happened.” Now it’s even better...

This is meant to demonstrate, the author writes, that there is no such thing as a “culture outside of politics,” and there are no “two Russias,” because it is culture that “determines a state’s place in the conventional hierarchy of global leadership.” I’m actually certain that the so-called Slavic studies departments at Western universities were initially viewed by the USSR, and later by Russia as instruments of “soft power”—and existed, in particular, thanks to donations from purely humanitarian, reputationally impeccable institutions. It is precisely for this reason that influential Russian culture contributed to the fact that no one viewed Ukraine as a separate country or its culture as a distinct culture—partly through the appropriation of its achievements, partly through their devaluation. Russia, the author writes, has used culture as a weapon for far too long—as a tool to silence voices and justify expansion. That is precisely why I focused primarily on the cultural aspect here.

And finally, regarding the South specifically. Tetiana Vodotyka, in her article “The Road to Change: Ukrainian Entrepreneurship Between Imperial Pressure and Independence,” writes about the complex relationship between business and the empire (first the Russian, then the Soviet) using the example of the Vadon dynasty, entrepreneurs from Kherson. The dynasty’s founder, Joseph Vadon (here I’m loosely quoting the Belarusian researcher of technical innovations Tim Skorenko)—was the only member of the family to survive the plague outbreak after fleeing France in 1793. Fleeing the revolution, he moved to Odesa. He mastered the blacksmith’s trade, married a fellow French émigré, had a child, and in the 1820s moved to Kherson, where, eventually, as a man no longer in his prime, he founded an ironworks. A year later, the workshop experienced a dramatic rise in business after receiving a government contract to supply gun carriages ( the Crimean War was in full swing at the time), and in 1855, Vadon and his sons built an entire factory in Kherson. In the 1890s, his eldest son, Alexander, moved to Mykolaiv and started his own business there, while his younger son, Eugene, continued his father’s business. Eugene was a prominent figure in Kherson: a member of the city council and a hereditary honorary citizen. It was Vadon’s factory that built the first warships in Kherson (1914). The family was enormous—nearly 50 relatives in all—and everyone was involved in the business. What happened next? Shortly after the revolution, the factories were nationalized, and most of the family returned to France. Alexander died of a heart attack in Mykolaiv, while Eugène managed to adapt somehow; he legally changed his name to Yevgeny, worked at his former company until 1924, and then, when the NEP began, founded the “Metalist” cooperative based on the company. The cooperative was successful, manufacturing agricultural machinery and performing various foundry works, and Yevgen’s photograph even appeared on the city’s honor roll. But the Soviet Union did not let intelligent and enterprising people go so easily, and in 1937, both he and his son Boris were arrested. Yevgeny was sent to the Unzhlag (located between Nizhny and Kostroma), where he was executed in 1938, while Boris served eight years in the camps. The cooperative became the Starostin Machine-Building Plant. Both were posthumously rehabilitated: Yevgeny in 1957 and Boris in 1989. Even before his rehabilitation, however, Boris had graduated from the conservatory and become a musician.

A different fate befell the Kachorovskys’ “underground” business, now the Ukrainian footwear brand Kacho Group, which weathered the Thaw, the Stagnation, and Perestroika. The business began as a home-based venture run by the couple in the 1950s and was later officially continued by their granddaughter... There were also private medical consultations, small home-based ateliers, and even what was then called “speculation” or “black-market trading”—given that Kherson, Odesa, and Mykolaiv were all coastal cities, and sailors did bring back goods. In general, writes Tetiana Vodotyka, the state came to be viewed either as a resource to be exploited or as a partner that could be deceived. Hence corruption —as a means of solving problems. This is also the root of the worldview we still observe today (to put it cautiously—from time to time), hence the ambivalence toward business—which is both a carrier of the atavisms of the imperial legacy and a new worldview—as well as the attitude toward it. The author looks to the future with optimism; let’s try to share in that optimism.

Let’s not forget that this book is intended, among other things, for a Western audience. So it’s no surprise that what seems obvious to us can sometimes come across here as a bit simplistic and didactic, but Ukraine (as mentioned again in the preface) has been in the shadows for far too long. So some things need to be clarified. And, by the way, one more thing. As mentioned in the introduction, some authors have chosen to write the words “Russia,” “Russian Federation,” and “Putin” with lowercase letters, thereby expressing their protest against Russian aggression. My editor does the same with my texts: he removes capital letters from Russian place names and the surnames of their political figures. I’m all for accuracy, but I never argue with editors.

Марія Галіна