Nuit Debout: Soros and "Revolution"

“His first published novel, The Penguin, was a success bestseller, and with it, Andrey Kurkov imposed his style, a blend of realism with absurd humor painted in a transition of a post-Soviet society. He told the story of a journalist hired to write early obituaries of people who later disappeared mysteriously, always accompanied on his travels by a penguin recovered at the zoo in Kiev.

Since Kurkov’s work was translated into 36 languages, he became the Russian- speaking writer best known abroad today. In the “Last President´s love” he portrayed an image of Ukrainian politics and the corruption, with some foreboding, heralding the Orange Revolution… In his latest book translated into French, the outfielder Ochakov, staged a young Ukrainian who, through a suit militiaman, is transported as soon as approved by the year 1957, in the small town on the bank of Black Sea, to Ochakov, a coastal town near Crimea… an interview with a writer who participated in the Maidan demonstrations and retains, despite their concerns, a profound optimism about the evolution of his country”.

(…)

“At the beginning of the Russian occupation of Crimea, you said: “Today, healthy in body and mind, I solemnly declare that I do not need that anyone protect me and I demand the immediate withdrawal of Russian forces from the territory of Ukraine “… Have you still friends from Russia?”

I must admit that the last four months, no one of Russian media has asked me any interview, and it seems strange! (Laughter) But you know, I’m not the only one who thinks this, in Kiev, 80% of the population speaks Russian, and 35-40% are originally Russians who think the same like me … In Dnepropetrovsk and Kharkov, the same is true: in fact, the pro-Russians, who have always considered the Ukrainian language and Ukrainian identity as something of second class, are only a minority. In Russia, I have a couple of friends: I received much support from writers like Vladimir Sorokin, Boris Akunin, Lyudmila Ulitskaya, Tetiana Shcherbina and others … But on my Facebook page, I have also received many insults, anonymous pages actually. I had already experienced this in 2004, after participating on the Orange Revolution, a woman of Putin´s administration said that I had become a Ukrainian nationalist of Russian language …!”

But most surprising of all is the sympathy which Mediapart welcomes the struggle of Vasyl Cherepanyn: he wants to convince to the Spanish activists that they must support to EuroMaidan militants, despite the fact that they want to join to the European Union and among them there are many Nazis.

Cherepanyn, also teaches at the University of Kiev-Mohyla. He says: “We had a parliament that was not a real parliament. We had a righteousness that was not true justice. It was all pretense and artifice. The idea of Europe was used to demand democracy. It is a certain idea of Europe that we defend, which goes far beyond what are some of the European institutions.

 A native of western Ukraine, Cherepanyn also runs a cultural center, which he describes as “a platform that brings together since 2008, artists, academics and activists” which was very involved, like many other structures, on the “EuroMaidan” since November. He acknowledges often feel at odds with the discussions that took place in Madrid, in the techniques of resistance to austerity, and the role of culture against the crisis: “Activists here only speak about neoliberalism and financial capitalism. But the enemy can be different: Here one also wants to talk about neo-feudalism or savage capitalism… “.