Russificazione del Donbas: impatto sulla letteratura e sulla narrazione locale – esempio della scrittrice e storica Olena Styazhkina

SCRITTRICE E STORICA OLENA STYAZHKINA

Relatore

Prof.sa Grusha Iaryna Anatoliivna Tesi di Laurea di

Roncoroni Simone

Matr. 964669

Anno Accademico 2022/2023

Indice

Appendice 1

Introduzione 7

Capitolo 1 – La russificazione del Donbas 9

1.1 Donbas: un’identità complessa 11

1.2 La russificazione e il suo impatto sulla cultura 15

Capitolo 2 – Olena Styazhkina: I’m a Ukrainian 24

Capitolo 3 – Смерть лева Сесіла мала сенс 29

Conclusioni 35

Bibliografia e sitografia 37

Dichiarazioni 39

Ringraziamenti 40

Appendice

Intervista alla scrittrice ucraina Olena Styazhkina

1. May you tell me something about yourself?

My name is Olena Styazhkina. I was born and raised in Donetsk.

In March 2014 Russians came into Donetsk and Luhansk—or rather they drove

in from Russian oblasts just across the border—dressed up as “protesters.” In

April, the Russians were no longer cautious or circumspect; they came in as

armed special forces. In August, before the battle of Ilovaisk, Russians came in

openly, as regular soldiers.

The catastrophe of occupation unfolded gradually, hour by hour, day by day.

That’s probably why at first, we couldn’t believe it, then we couldn’t stop it. For

the entire world, this part of the Russians’ war against Ukraine was invisible,

hidden behind the smoke screen of a crudely cobbled-together “suffering people

of Donbas.”

We were also invisible: all of us who woke up one fine morning as Ukrainians.

We—I—do have things to blame ourselves for. Being unaware doesn’t mean you

don’t care; it means you’ve been stupid. In our case, fatally so. Before 2014 my

answer to the question “who am I and what do I do” wasn’t overly clear: a histo-

rian, a writer, a mother, a university faculty member, a grateful reader of good

books, a friend, a wife, a daughter. I ranked all these things in different order

depending on the circumstances. The hierarchy didn’t matter.

These days I still switch around the order of my self-definitions, except for the

one that’s permanently in first place now: I’m a Ukrainian. And that matters be-

cause it determines everything else.

2. How did you decide to pursue your writing career?

1

I did not. Really, I did not decide to pursue my writing career ever. And now I

am not sure that I am a writer. And when I read something like “Styazhkina, a

writer”, I am embarrassed and sometimes I even feel “imposter syndrome”.

I have been writing since my school age. I like it. I love it. I like to think and to

play with my thought. I have never been sure that someone could be interested

in my thoughts that is why I have preferred (and prefer) to talk to myself. But

vain is an engine for many acts and events. Once I wanted to see my texts in a

book. I have a lot of published books now. There are both fiction and non-fiction.

If you see me as a writer, I am happy.

3. Speaking about what happened in 2014 after the Majdan revolution, how

did this impact on Your way of thinking, of acting? What about Your work

as a writer?

Immediately after the victory of the Revolution of Dignity, Russian aggression

against Ukraine began. Europe preferred not to see it and consider it an "internal

conflict". I am and was a witness of aggression, invasion and occupation. For me,

the war began in 2014. And since then, I have been writing about the war. About

heroes, about people under occupation, about the fact that the world is silent and

does not see about loneliness in war, about the choice to be Ukrainian, about the

fact that "great Russian culture" is a fake and theft.

It so happened that my scientific texts were also about the war. Actually, about

the Second World War. "The stigma of the occupation: Soviet women in the self-

view of the 1940s" is an important work for me. In this book, I analyze the

experiences of the occupations and the consequences that people faced after the

expulsion of the Nazis. One of my heroines left a diary in which she wrote about

herself as a partisan. The second was convicted as an accomplice of the fascists.

2

But in reality she was someone like Schindler. She worked at the factory and

recruited workers among prisoners of war and thereby saved their lives….

All these years I lived as a volunteer. Once a month I went to the East, to the front

or to the front-line cities. These were literary festivals, lectures, meetings,

conferences, exhibitions, just the delivery of something necessary for the soldiers.

Every time I came somewhere to the East, I counted the distance that separates

me from my native Donetsk. When I came to Mariinka, Donetsk was even visible.

But until Donetsk is liberated, I will not be able to get to it.

4. How much, in your opinion, the Russification of the Donbas has influ-

enced and continues to influence not only economic and political, but also

cultural and social relations?

The process of colonization lasted more than three centuries - from the middle of

the 17th century.

Gradually, step by step, the Russian Empire limited the political rights of

Ukrainians, their legal and social rights, banned city self-government, destroyed

Zaporizhzhya Sich, and then, already in the 19th century, banned the Ukrainian

language.

The Bolsheviks, it would seem, acted under the slogans of internationalism.

However, these slogans were fake. In fact, at the end of the 1920s, arrests of the

Ukrainian creative intelligentsia began, and at the end of the 1930s, they were

physically destroyed by mass shootings. The Holodomor physically destroyed a

significant number of the Ukrainian peasantry. Residents from the Russian

regions of the USSR were relocated to their places. The largest number of the

Russian population was brought to Donetsk region and Luhansk region in Soviet

times. What is happening now in the occupied territories is the continuation of

the policy of colonialism and genocidal war. Ukrainian schools are prohibited,

3

the Ukrainian language is prohibited, the Ukrainian press is not published,

wearing Ukrainian symbols (and even colors) is a criminal offense. Books by

Ukrainian authors - past centuries and modern ones - were removed from the

libraries. My books have been removed as well. I think that's recognition. The

books were seized and destroyed.

But if even now, in the ninth year of the war, the occupiers continue to fight so

hard against everything Ukrainian, it means that Russification is not so

successful.

5. I know you wrote a book called Смерть лева Сесіла мала сенс. Can you

briefly explain what it is about?

A book about four families that became one family.

About this one family that became a country, a homeland.

A book about how and why people make the choices that allow them to become

human. And about why some choose not to be.

About what we are ready to defend, what we are ready to fight for, what we can

die for.

About love, which sometimes doesn't look like love, but it definitely is.

About the history of Ukraine from the late 1980s to 2021, which became the per-

sonal history of each of my heroes.

About betrayal - big and small, about unforgiveness, about the possibility of post-

poning a decision.

About heroes who become visible. About old people who can do much more than

they think.

About ghosts, among which there are disputes about the language of communi-

cation. 4

I wanted to tell you that Ukrainians are, above all, a political nation. To realize

yourself as a Ukrainian is, first of all, to realize yourself as free, responsible,

honest, to realize yourself as a good person.

6. Still talking about the book, I was struck by its writing since it took place

in two languages, in Russian and in Ukrainian. Can you explain to me

what prompted you to make this decision?

There was an idea to show the transition. To show that the Ukrainian language

is the language of love, security, and freedom.

For me, the reviews in which my readers said that they did not notice how Rus-

sian disappeared, how organically and naturally Ukrainian appeared, were im-

portant to me.

In this sense, this linguistic duality is not even about transition, but about return-

ing home.

I understand that for a foreign reader, for whom Russian and Ukrainian are com-

pletely different languages, such a reading causes difficulty. But for a Russified

country, where Ukrainian has always been invisible but always present, this re-

turn is symbolic and normal.

7. Turning to the last question, from 2014 to 2022, what do you think has

changed in Ukraine, culturally speaking, and what do you think will hap-

pen to Ukrainian culture from now on?

The conversation about what our culture is and will be in connection with the

war and after the Victory is long and not simple.

In the first days after February 24, it seemed to me that I would never write any-

thing again. Simply because it doesn't make sense. Simply because words are

worthless. Simply because I was speechless.

5

But already in the first days poetry appeared. Not mine. But many novelists sud-

denly began to write poems. Beautiful poems are like pain that just goes through

the body and leaves the throat. Powerful, healing beautiful poetry.

Or - as if suddenly - new children's literature appeared. It is also healing, because

writers talk to children about war, trying to teach children not to be afraid, to

teach them to talk about grief, to teach them to be strong.

Literature is testimony... Maybe not yet literature, but just testimony, but books

are very important and powerful.

New words, old words with new meanings gave birth to "dictionaries" - artistic

texts where war acquires its own terms, our Ukrainian terms and meanings.

Words live and will live. Words, images, films, exhibitions - all this turned out to

be alive and necessary.

Everything will continue like this, because everything will be Ukraine.

6

Introduzione

Il fulcro principale di questo mio studio è l’analisi della situazione culturale

nell’area del Donbas a seguito di un processo pianificato di russificazione che ha

avuto il suo inizio già tre secoli fa ma che, nel 2014, ha avuto un ruolo significativo

anche per ciò che attualmente l’Ucraina sta affrontando.

Le ragioni che mi hanno indotto alla stesura di questo elaborato finale possono

essere riassunte in due motivazioni principali: da studente sia di lingua russa sia,

in parte, di lingua ucraina ho voluto visionare attentamente i legami ostili che

Russia e Ucraina hanno instaurato e che, tutt’oggi, continuano a influenzare i loro

rapporti, congiuntamente alle cause che hanno portato l’incrinarsi di questi ul-

timi.

L’obiettivo principale è quello di fornire un’analisi del Donbas dal punto di vista

non solo cultu