"Odesa did not use its resources until 2022," Volodymyr Beglov

Can Skovoroda be a hipster? How have Odesa and Lviv changed? We talked about this with cultural manager Volodymyr Bihelov. Watch the interview on YouTube and read a shorter version on Intent about society, culture, activism, and lunches of division.

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I read your title, it's so thorough: Volodymyr Beglov is a Ukrainian poet, philosopher, journalist and radio host, lecturer-promoter, social activist, philanthropist and fighter against discrimination in all spheres of life, founder and co-founder of the independent music information radio station Skovoroda. Based on this background, I have a first question: how do you see your role in modern Ukrainian society?

I am no longer the creative director of The Ukrainians. I am now a hired employee, running the YouTube channel Planet of the People. I used to have a lot of fun and joy when I figured out how I should be titled. I work as Volodymyr Beglov and my place of work is the city of Lviv. That's how I define myself, because if you look at it, all the projects that have been in my long biography in one way or another are projects that I want to make Lviv, and Ukraine in general, a better place to live. These are Radio Skovoroda, the Human Rights Education Center, and some other stories. I mean, you still work in the same party, do some cool things with the same people. That's why I'm Volodya, who works in Lviv.

Okay, if you're Volodya, who works in Lviv, and you've already mentioned Radio Skovoroda, tell me how this project came about. I had this question: why Skovoroda? I understand that it is a representative of Ukrainian culture. But, you know, it's so Kharkiv. And you are from Lviv. I'm always interested in talking about unification, about how Ukrainian culture is combined with each other, that we don't divide it into several sectors. That's why I'm curious about Skovoroda. Did you want to realize its philosophical meanings or did you just like the naming?

First of all, the naming is cool, you'll agree. Secondly, I remember this moment: we were in a pizzeria, coming up with the name with the co-founders, and Artem Galitsky, who is now actually running Radio Skovoroda, was eating soup, and we were eating pizza. At some point, he finished his spoonful and said: Skovoroda. And everyone loved it. But I think that the philosophical meanings of Skovoroda are important and fundamental for Ukrainians, but I think that it also refers to values, to a way of life. And in general, to consider Skovoroda exclusively Slobozhansky is criminal and sinful, I would say. Yes, Kharkiv, Slobozhanshchyna, should, maybe, must be proud of this Ukrainian. But, especially if we listen to researchers such as the late Myroslav Popovych, Taras Liutyi, or other people who study the work of Hryhoriy Savych, they will tell you that he is an absolutely European philosopher. Skovoroda unites us with Europe, and therefore, if we were young, toothy, cheerful, uninhibited, wanted to make an online radio station, and participated in the Ukrainian revolutions, these European values were not an empty sound for us. That's why Skovoroda is a cool naming that fits perfectly with what we wanted to do. Quite often, some representatives of the academic community scolded us for calling Skovoroda a hipster. Yes, but when you use this word-Andriy Lyubka also used the word hipster in his preface to a book about Skovoroda-you bring it closer to the modern world. In the graphic representation of Skovoroda, we also made it a little bit trendy. Why not? Well, Grekhov can interpret Shevchenko.

PHOTO: Intent / Natalia Dovbysh

For people who haven't listened to Radio Skovoroda, what would you recommend they listen to for the first time? I told you that I discovered the history of Ukrainian hip-hop. What topics are covered on Radio Skovoroda?

Now I'm following this child from a little bit of a distance. I'm like a father who has left the family and is watching the fence of the playground. But there is one project that I think is even somewhat unloved at Skovoroda. Lviv hosts a cultural congress every two years. This is a big event that brings together cultural actors from Slobozhanshchyna, Kyiv, Odesa, and all other regions. In 2023, the theme of the Congress of Culture was Ukraine unmuted. It's just when people start talking about Ukraine in Europe, when we finally get microphones and can talk about ourselves, not some "Russian" studies in Western universities. Unmuted seems to me to be a very apt word. Back then, a cultural manager from Poltava region, Yevhenia Nesterovych, had a podcast project on Radio Skovoroda called Ukraine unmuted. She invited representatives of Ukrainian culture, not only of the artistic and not so much of the artistic kind, but also of the analytical and managerial kind. And so they reflected on the new revelation of Ukraine in the European context. So I recommend listening to it, because there is a lot of valuable information there.

You said at the beginning that you wanted to talk about Lviv and make it more popular. Could you tell us what Lviv is like for you now?

It's a cool city. With huge challenges, with sacred Ukrainian shit, but great. I think that Lviv has become a much more beautiful city, unfortunately, after February 24, 2022. I was standing outside a cafe in the center on Halytska Street, smoking a cigarette, and in the 10 minutes I was smoking I said hello to people I know from different Ukrainian cities. It was such a concentration of everything. There were some LGBT activists there. There was Oleh Drozdov, an architect from Kharkiv, some TV people, again, Espresso, a TV channel from Kyiv. And I realized that I had to use this. Together with literary critic Iryna Starova, we came up with the project Plans for Tomorrow. We invited all these people who had evacuated to Lviv to talk about Ukraine. The Warsaw Reconstruction Project was launched during World War II to begin rebuilding immediately after the victory. And we started thinking about Ukraine in the same way. And this concentration has now stabilized, reached a plateau, and the city has become much more interesting. We still have people from Dnipro, we still have some people from Kharkiv, from the south of Ukraine, and again from Kyiv. This brought a little more competition not only in business but also in culture. Some new cafes were opened, new artistic cultural environments were formed, and students, after all, came to public and private universities. And I think this is very cool for the city. I loved Lviv even before February 24. I liked the phrase "Holy Galicia". But now the city has become even more interesting.

If we talk about cities, in every interview we touch upon the topic of Odesa, because Odesa has also changed after the full-scale invasion. And thanks to the people who come to Odesa, we try to understand ourselves better. So my question to you about Odesa is this: what can you name as an example of Odesa culture that you know?

The short answer is probably Reutburd and the art museum.

Do you see these changes that I'm talking about a full-scale invasion? Has the image of the city changed for you?

Thank you for this question. When I came to Odesa in 2022, I was very angry with the city. It seemed to me that it was very irresponsible, having such a historical resource, such a cultural resource, and so many people living in Odesa, not to use it. I had a question for Odessans: is there a clear answer to the question of what is an Odessan? What does it mean to be an Odessan? I understand that I can be criticized from Lviv now. But I, for example, grew up a little bit rubbing my side against the Dzyga Art Association, the Lyalka Club, and some of the things that made a Lviv citizen out of a Lviv citizen. And I was angry at the time. In addition, there was a huge amount of this Russian language, unwillingness to switch to Ukrainian with a client, high curbs, few coffee shops, and so on. But years have passed, and now I'm back in Odesa. I can say that I have a lot of positive impressions. First of all, the language aspect. Again, I am a discriminator. I understand that it is very comfortable to talk about the language issue from Lviv, because Lviv is originally a Ukrainian-speaking city, and you become Ukrainian-speaking in Lviv, whether you want to or not, because the city provokes you to do so. In Odesa, it's more difficult, but now I'm in the service sector and when I overhear conversations between young people in parks, I'm happy because there is a lot of Ukrainian language and it makes me happy. As for the other things, I don't have enough experience in Odesa to comment on them. But it seems to me that new cultural spaces have opened in Odesa, and they need to be explored.

Марія Литянська