A renaissance of the brutalised: How Soviet rule destroyed Ukraine's intellectual elite

By Iryna Sieidkhanova, a Ukrainian journalist and columnist for the weekly Demokracija.

At the start of Russia’s large-scale invasion of Ukraine, I spoke with a group of acquaintances—Slovenians—and tried to understand why Russian culture is so popular in Slovenia that open supporters of Putin and the Russian war against Ukraine—Zaharova and Netrebko—are so warmly welcomed here. Of course, I first heard one of the main tenets of Russian propaganda, which helps that country maintain and deepen its influence in the world, namely: “culture is outside of politics.”

First of all, this simply isn’t true. Putin himself, in his Valdai speech (October 24, 2014, Sochi), described culture, science, and education as tools of “soft power” for influencing international relations. Russian culture is thus always a kind of Trojan horse, from which the ballet emerges first, followed by tanks (a loose quote from the contemporary Ukrainian writer Oksana Zabuzhko).

Secondly, I would like to address another argument: “We know Russian culture, but what do you have? Ukraine has nothing to offer the world.”

That is exactly what we will discuss. I will deliberately focus on the events of the last hundred years, as I believe this time period is long enough for you to understand the scope and systematic nature of Russia’s policy (and that of all its predecessors). In reality, however, the Russians began actively erasing Ukrainians as a nation much earlier—as early as the beginning of the 18th century, during the reign of Peter I. That is precisely why this article will also be of interest to “experts” who assess Russian aggression against Ukraine solely on the basis of events after 2022. Looking only at 2014 or even 1991 is not enough.

The Suppression of the Ukrainian Language and Identity

Over the past hundred years, Russia in its various forms (the empire, the USSR, and the modern federation) has systematically acted against the Ukrainian people not only through military but also through cultural means. This is not a matter of isolated instances of repression; it is a consistent policy of destroying Ukrainian identity. When we speak of destruction, we mean the physical extermination of the intelligentsia, strict bans on the language (over 400 years, the Ukrainian language has faced 134 bans or restrictions; the 135th is taking place right now), the distortion of history, and the shameless appropriation of Ukrainian figures and their achievements.

In the 19th century, the Russian Empire began to view the Ukrainian language and culture as a serious threat. The concept of “Little Russia” emerged, which over time came to be used to emphasize the dependence of Ukrainians on Moscow. Very quickly, the name “Little Russia” transformed from a geographical term into an ideological tool, which was later also supported by Russian writers (Pushkin, Krylov).

Publications in Ukrainian—both literary and scientific-educational—were strictly limited, while at the same time they tried to convince us that we were not a separate nation with our own culture and traditions (which are, in fact, richer and older than those of Russia), but rather part of the “united Russian nation,” and our Ukrainian language was called an “underdeveloped dialect of Russian.”

The Ukrainian and Russian languages are not similar; they are not “almost the same language”!

Here I want to emphasize: the Ukrainian and Russian languages are not similar, despite the propaganda narratives. We, Ukrainians, understand Russian not because it is “almost the same language,” but because of imperial pressure and colonial influence. This is also confirmed by the fact that Russians do not understand Ukrainian.

I admire the fact that, despite all attempts to erase Ukrainian identity, our language and culture have survived and evolved—even though this required extraordinary courage. Given today’s Russian atrocities, which the whole world is watching, we can only imagine what they did at a time when crimes could not be easily documented.

The Ukrainian Cultural Revival After the 1917 Revolution and the Aborted Renaissance

After the 1917 Revolution, Ukraine experienced a brief but exceptionally powerful cultural renaissance. In the 1920s, a generation of writers, poets, playwrights, directors, and artists emerged who succeeded in integrating Ukrainian culture into European modernism. This generation revived century-old hopes that Ukrainian culture could exist fully and independently of Russian influence.

Of course, this situation did not suit the Soviet Union. In the 1930s, Stalin suppressed Ukrainization and launched mass repressions. The cream of the Ukrainian nation was accused of “bourgeois nationalism” and “counterrevolution.” A wave of arrests, torture, deportations to labor camps, and executions swept the country. The peak of Stalin’s terror against Ukrainians came in 1937, particularly in the fall, when hundreds of prisoners were shot in Sandarmokh, including nearly the entire Ukrainian intelligentsia of the time.

These events came to be known as the “Executed Renaissance.” It was the Ukrainian intelligentsia that had been striving for the Europeanization of Ukrainian culture and its independence from Russian influence. Essentially, the same thing is happening today: we Ukrainians are fighting for independence, freedom of choice, and the right to determine our own destiny and that of our country.

It is also alarming that Ukrainians themselves only began to realize the scale of these crimes after independence in 1991, and some of the information only became available 15–20 years ago. My generation only came to know names such as Valerian Pidmohilny, Mykola Kulish, Les Kurbas, Mykola Khvylovy, Mykhailo Drai-Hmara, and many others as adults. These were not marginal figures, but the intellectual elite of the Ukrainian nation, which was systematically and massively destroyed.

The exact number of victims of Stalin’s repressions against the Ukrainian intelligentsia remains unknown to this day, though some sources cite a figure of approximately 30,000.

Russian methods of destruction have never changed

After World War II, Soviet methods did not change—nor have they changed in modern Russia. In the 1960s–1980s, a new generation of Ukrainian intellectual dissidents faced persecution for their language, views, and the courage to demand the right to self-identification.

The poet Vasyl Stus died in the gulag. Many others were imprisoned, tortured, broken, and silenced. The goal was, as always, to systematically strip Ukrainians of their national consciousness.

Strategy of Cultural Appropriation

In parallel with physical repression, Russia employed a strategy of cultural appropriation. World-renowned Ukrainians were declared “Russian,” thereby erasing their origins and appropriating their intellectual heritage.

A telling example is the painter Kazimir Malevich, born in Kyiv, shaped by the Ukrainian cultural environment, and always conscious of his Ukrainian identity. He created numerous works with Ukrainian themes, including those related to the famine of 1932–1933, which is recognized as genocide against the Ukrainian people. Despite this, he is still often presented today as a “Russian avant-gardist.”

Mykola Gogol was born in the Poltava region. His work is rooted in Ukrainian culture and traditions, although he was forced to write in Russian—otherwise his works would not have been published.

Ilya Repin and Arkhip Kuindzhi also became “Russian painters,” despite their Ukrainian origins and the Ukrainian themes of their works. Serge Lifar—a native of Kyiv and a reformer of world ballet—is often presented as a “Russian dancer,” and his achievements form the basis of the myth of the “great Russian ballet.”

Russian narratives have also attempted to portray Andy Warhol, the son of immigrants from the Ukrainian Carpathians, as “one of their own.”

The same thing happened to scientists and engineers. Igor Sikorsky, born in Kyiv, a pioneer of global helicopter aviation, was considered a “Russian designer” for decades. Serhiy Korolev, a Ukrainian from Zhytomyr, a key figure in the Soviet space program and a victim of Stalinist repression, was likewise stripped of his Ukrainian identity. The same was true of Volodymyr Vernadsky (academic), Ivan Pul’uj (physicist, researcher of X-rays, and translator of the Bible into Ukrainian), and many others.

Many contemporary researchers emphasize that it was the Ukrainians who formed the cultural, technical, and scientific foundation of most Soviet achievements.

An Appropriated Melody

Even the song “Вставай, страна огромная”— “Arise, Great Land,” which the USSR used during the German-Soviet War (1941–1945) to boost morale and which Putinists around the world—including in Slovenia—still like to celebrate today as an ode to the “Russian world,” was stolen from Ukrainians with changes to the lyrics. Its prototype is the song “Повстань, народе мій” – “Rise Up, My People,” written in 1919 among the ranks of the rebels of the Ukrainian People’s Republic. Today, in the era of decolonization and “de-Russification,” we must urgently demand official recognition of this fact.

Even today, when the authorship of the song can be easily verified, the Russians simply translate our songs into Russian and publish them as their own.

Russia’s Destructive Invasion of Ukraine

The large-scale Russian war against Ukraine proves that the aggressor state’s long-standing policy has not changed. Just as before, Russia is attempting to destroy Ukrainians as a nation, erase our identity, and wipe out our ancient, rich culture.

In 2016, a Russian sniper killed the world-renowned opera singer Vasyl Slipak in the Donbas. In 2022, Artem Datsyshyn, a ballet dancer and soloist with the National Opera of Ukraine who enjoyed international acclaim, lost his life in Kyiv. The exceptional choreographer Oleksander Shapoval also fell on the front lines while defending his homeland.

In 2023, writer Viktorija Amelina, who documented Russian war crimes, died from injuries sustained during a Russian missile attack on Kramatorsk.

This year, one of the best contemporary Ukrainian writers, Andriy Lyubka—who has visited Slovenia on several occasions—also volunteered to join the front lines. From the bottom of its heart, all of Ukraine wishes for him to remain alive and unharmed.