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D. K. : Are you with family?

Y. I. : Yes, with my sister's son, my older sister is at war, she is a doctor.

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Are you in touch? 

Yes, sometimes, so far all is good.

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First thing when I look at your drawings is anger and even hatred. I wanted to ask about that.

It is not hatred. It is an anger towards the regime, not towards particular people.

Perhaps in a similar way Jewish people would be angry at the Third Reich. It is not personal anger.

 

Tell me about the 24th of February, what did you think when you woke up?

Recently I suggested to one Lviv gallery that I prepare a work on bombing: Lviv during bombing, during the Second World War. I was working on that. So on February 24th, I thought it was like a historical repetition, like a matrix.

The same methods. Everything, the attack on Kyiv, the bombing, it was the same.

 

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The whole world is impressed by the Ukrainian people and your strength and courage. But it is heartbreaking. What are the moods in Lviv?

The Ukrainian people have a great fighting spirit. In our culture we have had to fight for a long time with imperialist interests, including the Russian occupation. Ukraine has its own identity, and we do not want to give our land to others. Ukrainians will stop tanks with their bare hands. This is our culture.

There has been no fighting in Lviv so far. But many people pass by, from other parts of Ukraine to Poland. We are very grateful to Poland for accepting our people. There is a great fighting spirit in Ukraine. Ready to fight for this land to the end.

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I looked at the picture with a man going at three Russian soldiers with a spiked baseball bat. Can you translate what he says?

'Fuck of home, to hell'...

I am also astounded how Ukrainian people can go unarmed to Russian soldiers and say 'Go home, you have nothing to do here.'

Because Russian propaganda says that Ukrainians are opressed by Nazis and Ukrainians want to be liberated. But Ukrainians are a free nation. We've had a good life, we did not need liberation.

 

You have two types of work - feltpen cartoons and watercolors that have a more painful feel, looking as though they were painted with blood. What is behind those two types of work?

I use the comic style as a caricature, humor or critique, this is related to real events. I also have a series that I have been working on for the last three years - 'Bloody System' - those are the watercolors. 

But for humor I use cartoon.

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One of the latest drawings from 7th of March, it depicts characters from Southpark?

Yesterday or the day before they did a series called 'Back to Cold War' and I made a variation on that. Everyone thinks that Ukraine is so small, but look, it is already the 12th day Ukraine is defending the whole Europe from Putin, this is fantastic.

 

So, you have been working on a war-related project for the last 3 years. There was a war in Donbass in eastern Ukraine. Did you expect the war to spread so far into Ukraine?

Nobody expected this.
What I painted for three years is not about the war, it's more about the expectations of this suffering. We all thought it would continue in the East. Nobody expected it to come to Kyiv. For Ukraine, Donbas and Crimea are our land. But Russia wants them to be theirs. No one would accept someone just taking your land.

No one thought that Russia would go to war in Syria and then to Ukraine.

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Do you think it will finish soon?

I thought that at the start, in an optimistic way, it will stop fast, but really I think it will be like the war in Chechnya or Vietnam. The way they act we can see that their target is an absolute destruction of our Ukrainian identity and our nation.

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So you are preparing to fight for a long time?

We are in Lviv, yes. Many anti-tank barriers are being built in Odessa and extensive defense training is underway. Odessa is a strategic city. Odessa is defending its land. They will not give up their land, they will defend it to the last. And this is typical for all cities of Ukraine.

 

It's really inspiring. Is this something that unites you as a nation?

I'm wondering about it, there is a film by Alexander Dovzhenko called "Earth". This film is about the fact that the Soviet authorities took away the land of Ukrainian peasants. This created a great depression. Because for ethnic Ukrainians, the land is part of their own identity physically, not culturally. Taking land from them is like taking their hand or foot.

 

In Poland the song 'Sokoly' is very big, 'He says goodbye tenderly to his girl, even more tenderly to Ukraine'. In Polish culture those lands, Ukraine and Lithuania have a big romantic meaning, almost like a heart of slavic culture. 

Surprisingly, I have not heard about it before, but it's nice to hear.

 

Tell me, how has everyday life changed, do people still go to work?

Some people still go to work, but many things no longer work. For example, there are still deliveries, grocery stores, doctors, pharmacists, there are many people who are volunteers. Besides, there is no work at all. For example, I am an artist and I would like to make an exhibition, sell something and help the army, but there is no way.

 

From the very beginning, I was immersed in information about the war, radio, newspapers, social networks. Your work is taken from the news. Do you take specific photos or draw from memory / visualization?

There are works where I illustrate the news, there are also works where I offer solutions, for example, for the Russians to make a revolution in their country. They do not do it because of their culture, Dostoevsky and other Russian classics have created a culture in which ordinary people can do absolutely nothing. They have no responsibility for what is happening, nor do they have control over themselves. They cannot be held personally responsible for the war.

I ask Russians on the Internet why you are at war? They say 'we can't influence anything, we can't do anything'. But for us it is a fantasy, because we've had Yanukovych, and we went out and did something with him.

There is that reflex in Russian culture (and Dostoevsky has an idea of ​​the "little man") a type of man who knows absolutely nothing, has no influence. Putin does everything - I'm just a little man.

 

What do you think ... I have a Russian friend, and she told me before the war that once, 10-15 years ago, they hoped that everything would change within Russia, but slowly, more people were arrested, and the fear began to return.

Yes, there is such a thing, but when Euromaidan was in Ukraine, 100 people gave their lives for freedom. They were not afraid of prisons or arrests. Ukrainians have a saying "Freedom or death". This is the Ukrainian phrase of the detachments of the anarchist Nestor Makhno. Our nation, we give our lives for our freedom. Russians are different.

For them, life is more important than social processes, more important than freedom of speech, more important than freedom of creativity. They accept everything as martyrs, everything that happens to them. They are the martyrs of their people.

 

In the West, it sounds really abstract - to be able to give your life for freedom. The biggest fear, perhaps, is poverty, though this is just my first thought. So "Freedom or Death" sounds far removed. It is interesting to see the idea that there are values ​​that are more important than life or preservation of life/way of life.

We are not afraid of poverty, we have already experienced it. Freedom is more important even in conditions of material poverty. I think this is the spirit of freedom, perhaps from the Cossack tradition. It is the spirit of your land, even if it is seized by imperial power, it is still your own ethnic identity. Ukraine has been a state with its own land only for the past 30 years. But culturally this land has always been Ukraine.

 

This is quite unusual. Seneca actually spoke about how one can always have freedom, even if one becomes a slave, one can commit suicide and be free in their own decission. This is also an idea of ​​freedom as more valuable than life, the inner freedom. I've been thinking a lot about values ​​lately. Even before it happened, I thought that if your life is driven by values, one sometimes must go towards pain, poverty or failure, but it has a meaning. If it is only a pursuit of success or happiness, it leads to life spent on silly things, faffing around.

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What are your plans?

I have plans for when we will expel them, after the war. It will be good, I talked to Janusz Baldyga, and maybe I will come to Poland to study sculpture. I could also publish a book with my work about war.

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Do you also work as a performer?

Yes, I studied with Janusz Baldyga, here in Lviv, on his program. I also have my own independent work. 

 

Thanks for talking to me.

Thanks. Long live Ukraine!

Long live Ukraine!

 

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