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Defending identity and subjectivity is crucial to ensuring the survival of both the people and the state, Ukraine’s Minister of Culture and Strategic Communications, Mykola Tochytsky, said.
He expressed this view in his article entitled “Culture and communication are the key to Ukrainian subjectivity: How to win the semantic war.”
This was reported by Ukrinform.
“Only those who can defend their identity in the harsh conditions of the attention economy will have the right to survive. This is why the ability to name phenomena and objects, to use one’s language to generate meanings, and to harness the progress of culture to declare one’s existence is not only a sign of subjectivity but also a guarantee of the survival of both the people and the state,” the minister said.
In his opinion, Russia’s war against Ukraine, beginning in February 2014, bears the character of punishment from the empire for the Ukrainian people’s choice of freedom and their own subjectivity.
“The existence of a Ukrainian identity challenges the very notion of the empire, revealing it as a simulacrum. Sooner or later, if the Kremlin is forced to acknowledge Ukraine’s existence, it may find itself confronting the same issue with regions such as Tatarstan, Chechnya, or Siberia — entities that, according to Russia’s constitution, have the right to be equal parts of the federation and not to sacrifice their identity for the sake of the empire,” Tochytskyi said.
He added that this simple idea should be accepted and realized in Western European capitals, since the main task of Russian tanks and missiles is not to conquer land or resources, but to erase identity.
“Identity can threaten the artificial imperial existence and the crumbling imperial simulacrum of the Kremlin, which is propped up by nuclear weapons and ‘Oreshniks,’ hiding behind the works of Dostoevsky and Tolstoy,” the minister added.
In his article, Tochytskyi recalled the reopening of Notre-Dame de Paris after a devastating fire and extensive restoration on December 7, which was not only a cultural milestone but also a global political event. It emerged as a symbol of commitment to preserving shared heritage and the triumph of culture over tragedy. In his opinion, the revival of the majestic cathedral can be seen as a metaphor that “Europe will finally ‘wake up’ and confront the existent
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