The immorality of realism: how not to lose humanity in the process of commemorating dead heroes
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Indignation, disgust, many angry posts and posts-reflections in social networks – this is the reaction to the installation of a strange object on the territory of the capital museum “Kyiv Fortress”.
On December 6, on Armed Forces Day, a “monument” to Oleksandr Matsievsky was solemnly opened on the territory of the complex – a full-length silicone figure of the fallen hero in a glass booth, reproduced with computer precision. The figure depicts Matsievsky in the last seconds of life before the shooting.
The debate about the ethics of commemorating fallen heroes, preserving their memory and the possibilities of perpetuating their names and stories has been going on among museum professionals for a long time. However, generally accepted practices and prohibitions have not yet been developed. For UP. Culture outlines the main topics of this discussion Roman Kabachiyhistorian and employee of the National Museum of the History of Ukraine in the Second World War.
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When we at the Museum were preparing a commemorative meeting for the fortieth anniversary of the death of the pilot Andrii Pilshchikov “Jus”, his mother Liliya Averyanova became our main partner in the preparation. I was impressed that Mrs. Lilia immediately emphasized that it should be a “living” dialogue in which her son’s story would “work” for others. As she herself declares that she continues his affairs.
We invited children and teachers from the Aerospace Center, to which Andriy went as a mature pilot, gave them paper and pencils, and offered them to draw airplanes of various models. We talked about the ways of life and struggle – for the rights of pilots in particular – one of the symbols of modern Ukrainian aviation. We watched a video of the flight, recorded by “Juice” himself to Ivan Marunich’s song “Your incredible way”.
| Evening of memory of Andriy Pilshchikov “Jus”, October 5, 2023. Photo: Roman Pupenko |
Mom handed over some artifacts related to Andrii to the Museum, for example, his camouflage paint for the pilots’ faces. She left something for the aero club and other places. Initiated the collection of signatures for the award of the title of Hero of Ukraine.
All this together looks like a complex of commemorative practices aimed at preserving the memory of a specific person, as those who are alive would like to see him. If we remember that during his life “Jus” got into the “Ghost of Kyiv” mural in Podil, as well as the fact that he was honored with burial at the Askoldova grave, it could lead us to the question: is this how a “real” tribute should look like, or It’s enough”?
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| A member of the Kyiv Aeroclub looks at the chevrons of “Jus”, October 5, 2023. Photo: Roman Pupenko |
Let’s pay attention to the fact that in this case we are dealing with the activities of a person who was known in one way or another: before the full-scale invasion, “Juice” left the Air Force, seeking better conditions and training for military pilots, and after returning to the service he had meetings with US senators and asked for faster deliveries of F-16 aircraft to Ukraine, with Sean Penn, whose movie “Superpower” included a conversation with Andrii.
And also the example of his mother, candidate of technical sciences of the Kharkiv University of Electronics, Lilia Averyanova, who made it her goal to continue her son’s struggle. It all looks clear and purposeful. The street in the center of Kharkiv, where Andriy Pilshchikov grew up, and the plaque on the school wall are “missing” from the complete “set”. Also “must be”?
Marking the space
Paradoxically, most families tend to start with the last one: the board, the street, thus “marking” the space. A well-known precedent in Kyiv is the process of renaming North Street, described by historian Kyryll Galushko, who lives there. There are already several fallen defenders from the street, and each of them, according to the families, claims that the street was named after him. Families or widows come to the meeting of the relevant commission in the KMDA with the “support” of their brothers and sisters, whose eyes should make the legs of the commission members, or those who have alternative proposals, tremble.
By the way, in Odesa – according to Serhii Hutsaluk from the Southern Branch of the Ukrainian Institute of National Remembrance – it was proposed to rename only the Heroes of Ukraine recognized by the state (currently there are six of them), instead of the streets of Soviet and Russian military figures. The first approach to voting has already failed. Here we see at least some principle in the approach, and we are talking about a million city. And when it will be a small village – will we have all the streets like this and a mosaic of different-style memorial plaques on the wall of the school/village council?
In fact, we are dealing with a process of chaotic, spontaneous, poorly controlled memorialization, in which communities or individual families rely on themselves. The Ukrainian Institute of National Remembrance was supposed to develop recommendations for communities, but they have not yet been made public.
Therefore, it often turns out that the Memorial Alleys designed after 2014 become too small, and they are compacted or reworked in connection with the flow of new fallen heroes. In particular, this is permanently happening with the Wall of Memory near the St. Michael’s Cathedral in Kyiv.
Projects of local memorials are transferred in time and space, as well as, in the end, the project of the National Memorial. And where they are even carefully planned, such as the pantheon in Ternopil, there are families who want a separate monument for their soldier where there are already unified ones, regardless of rank.
Changing concepts
Often, our exhibitions or exhibitions of colleagues from other museums dedicated to the current war become a place of spontaneous tributes. People bring flowers to our exhibition “Steel Titans of Bakhmut”, about the defenders of the “Bakhmut fortress”, as the soldiers themselves call the months-long defense of this city. As the curator of the exhibition Iryna Kotsabyuk noted, they bring not only flowers, but also wreaths to the exhibits about individual soldiers, as well as to the complexes of objects handed over from the front, they stand and cry. Thus, exhibitions acquire a different meaning and content.
Spontaneity has a chance where the trauma is still fresh and has not been processed in any way, where there are no supports and understanding, when the family of the deceased is ready to accept any tribute that is offered to them. A monument to Oleksandr Matsievskyi, a captured Ukrainian soldier who was shot for saying “Glory to Ukraine” was opened for Armed Forces Day. Therefore, in some reports, the monument was called the “Glory to Ukraine” exhibition.
“Unethical, immoral, insensitive to pain and living people”, – that’s how museum workers called this monument at one closed discussion. The discussion spread more widely, volunteer Vitaly Deinega, historian Vakhtang Kipiani, and media activist Maria Kravchenko from the “IZOLYATSIA” foundation joined the criticism.
What is the problem? Not only in naturalism – it is a silicone figure placed under glass in a public space, at the moment before the shooting. It is located on the territory of the “Kyiv fortress” museum, where a military hospital is located nearby. Many critics of the monument point to the feelings of traumatized soldiers – what they must feel when looking at a person who died.
Or – that looking at the monument in the immediate vicinity, a person is in the position of the one who will now pull the trigger.
The main argument of supporters of the monument: the mother gave permission, the mother approved, “no one has the right to tell the mother how to honor her hero son.” What is alarming in this story is that this is already the third sculpture, after Tbilisi and Nizhin, that depicts Matsievsky in this position, and this is the third sculpture that has been installed for public discussion. Why are competitions and commissions held for the development of memorials, but not for the opening of this kind of sculptures?
I will quote the words of Oksana Novikova-Vygran, the director of the “Kyiv fortress” museum: “We were in a great hurry, to open on this particular date. Very we are proud of what we discovered A symbol of indomitability. It is very important! The museum is visited by many people, including military personnel, students, children, and the elderly. Very it is important that we rememberat what price is this victory given to us.” The key words are “in a hurry” and “we have”. Will mom be against it? She won’t. Because for her, this is the pinnacle of justice – a monument in the center of the capital, and her skillful “benefactors” are nothing else. offered
Who, how and for whom?
In a situation where there is no monument to Simon Petliura in Kyiv, we get a silicone monument to the hero of the modern war. Such illegibility, according to Yaryna Yasynevich from the Liberation Movement Research Center, is due to the fact that “for a long time we were indifferent to monuments and commemoration formats, often we commemorated without due respect and delicacy”.
During Soviet times, every settlement without the consent of that population had to have its own “alyosha”, its own “collective farm worker”, its own “friendship of peoples”, a mini-memorial to those who died during the Second World War with the corresponding Red Army symbols. The freedom and democracy that came 30 years ago should not lead us to permissiveness, bad taste and kitsch.
As Alla Kyridon, doctor of historical sciences, noted at one time, “the culture of commemoration is related to two important processes: who contributes their content and who will read this content.” That is, it is important not only who is currently erecting a monument and how, or planning a pantheon, but also how it will be read by future generations.
Relatively speaking, young people, for whom Facebook is already an outdated format, who can withstand 1.5 minutes. videos in Tik Tok and beyond, her descendants. Even in the National Memorial, we will not be able to name or bury each and every one, especially when the war continues. But we can convey this respect with artistic images. Preferably understandable in the future.
The state and its institutions involved in the processes of memorialization and commemoration can no longer ignore this problem. Despite the fact that this work is associated with emotional stress, socio-psychological work with the families of fallen defenders, it must have defined directions and boundaries.
One of the proposals that has been heard recently is the development of a certain social contract and recommendations that would outline the red lines for the organizers of such practices.
After all, it is worth taking advantage of the fact that memory can be expressed not only in the traditional “monumental” format, but also in other, “living” ones: a scholarship of the name, a cycle of articles on a chosen topic, eventually the foundation of a festival like “Protasiv ravine of memory of Roman Ratushny”. While the war continues, while the wounds are intensively appearing, these questions will be relevant all the time.
CERTIFICATE:
Memorialization is the process of creating new places of memory: solitary graves, sectors of military burials, memorial cemeteries, construction of monuments, memorial signs. It also provides for the study of the monument, its care, the educational process, the practice of honoring and informing.
Commemoration is a process of remembering through the actualization of events, images and personalities of the past in the context of modern views and needs, a complex of social practices that demonstrate the attitude of contemporaries to the past. In a narrow sense – the act of conveying what a group wants to express about itself for the purpose of identification and to show belonging to this group.
Main photo: Andriy Shugan / Facebook
Read also: I want to forgive it! Or how to immortalize history in murals and monuments and not harm people
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