Warfare of Art & Law Podcast
Warfare of Art and Law Podcast sparks conversation about the intriguing – and sometimes infuriating – stories that arise in the worlds of art and law with artist and attorney Stephanie Drawdy.
Warfare of Art & Law Podcast
Anthropologist and Author Dr. Giovanni Ercolani on Artists in Ukraine Who Are Preserving the Spirit of Maidan
To learn more, please have a look at Dr. Ercolani's book, The Maidan Museum: Preserving the Spirit of Maidan.
Show Notes:
1:00 Ercolani’s background
3:50 Ercolani’s focus of Ukraine
6:40 research and writing The Maidan Museum: Preserving the Spirit of Maidan
11:40 new Maidan language created that includes symbols
14:45 portraits by Marina Sochenko
16:50 Yulia Ovcharenko
17:45 Tatyana Cheprasova
18:20 Cheprasova’s use of Caravaggio
19:00 Oleksandr Ivanovych Melnyk’s “I Can See Your Deeds”
19:45 Melnyk’s “I Can See Your Deeds”
20:25 French anthropologist Marc Augé - ‘anthropology of encounter’
21:15 Marina Sochenko’s art as documentation
21:55 Artistic Hundreds group
22:15 Artist Ivan Semesyuk with Artistic Hundreds
26:15 Kandinsky quote that artists are receivers and beneficiaries
28:15 Maidan art and a new world order
33:45 NATO
36:45 Maidan revolution and the current war
41:00 memory of identify and identity war
42:05 author Andrey Kurkov’s move to Ukraine to have the identity of Ukrainians
43:25 significant of preserving art and cultural heritage in times of conflict
47:00 his legacy
49:50 his definition of justice
51:15 the constitution of Melfi by Emperor Frederick II
53:15 link between Russian-Ukraine War and Maidan Revolution
58:45 next projects focused on conflict in society
1:00:30 anthropological identity work tied to art and cultural heritage
1:02:30 artist seen as enemy
Please share your comments and/or questions at stephanie@warfareofartandlaw.com
Music by Toulme.
To hear more episodes, please visit Warfare of Art and Law podcast's website.
To leave questions or comments about this or other episodes of the podcast and/or for information about joining the 2ND Saturday discussion on art, culture and justice, please message me at stephanie@warfareofartandlaw.com.
Thanks so much for listening!
© Stephanie Drawdy [2025]
When you talk about warfare and art, basically you're talking about identity.
Speaker 2:Welcome to Warfare of Art and Law, the podcast that focuses on how justice does or doesn't play out when art and law overlap. Hi everyone, it's Stephanie, and that was Dr Giovanni Ercolani, author of the book entitled the Maiden Museum Preserving the Spirit of Maiden Art, identity and the Revolution of Dignity. In the following conversation, dr Ercolani shares how he came to focus on the issues in Ukraine, his expansive research process for this book, and he gives examples of some of the artists he interviewed as part of that process, who employed a myriad of symbols to form the cultural resistance that is still currently underway. Dr Giovanni Ercolani, thank you so much for being on the podcast.
Speaker 1:Well, thank you to you for inviting me.
Speaker 2:Would you give a bit of your background?
Speaker 1:Well, I have basically a various experience. Academically I studied my first degree is in political science and I wrote the thesis on the history of the church, basically most specifically on the g-suite in Peru when they arrived in the 16th century there. After I studied Oriental languages, I studied Turkish language for four years and I studied Oriental art, oriental architecture, and after that I moved to a master degree in political governance at St John's University in New York. After I did a master in social anthropology in Spain art production and management in Spain, again master I got a PhD from the Nottingham Trent University, uk, on this very interesting international relation and security studies. And after I got another PhD from the Mussel University on social anthropology. And. But basically this is, let's say, academically. I talk about my academic background.
Speaker 1:Professionally I come from the Middle East area. I worked for the Italian Ministry of Defense and I worked for NETO. I was stationed in Turkey between 1992 and 1996, and it basically is there where I start developing a different concept or approach to security, because we got this what was going on in Bosnia, the dissolution of Yugoslavia, and the NETO for the first time was involved in a different kind of conflict, basically ethnic conflict At the same time, after that, I was a lecturer on global terrorism and peacekeeping and cultural resolution in Turkey, in Istanbul, and since then, and basically I'm working on this idea of societal security. Basically what you are doing with your program, with your interest dealing with warfare and art, you're touching a specific factor or sector of security which is called the social, and I'm very much interested in this idea of identity and myth, ritual symbolism in a conflict area, because all of them they have a repercussion on the population and other psychology of the population.
Speaker 2:And how was it that you came to hone in on Ukraine and its conflict?
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's because you know, I'm in Italy and during the Cold War, basically we got a border, so we were very close to what was called the enemy and Ukraine represents the last former Soviet country which, basically, is fighting for its own identity. And they had different demonstrations, a kind of revolution after 1991. But after this, my then revolution was completely different, totally different, even if the way it erupted there was these strong feelings, basically, that these people want to go in the direction of Europe. And it was happened in November 2013, when the president of Ukraine didn't sign the agreement with the European Union for commercial agreement, basically for them was a big trauma. They didn't want to go back to this social Soviet mentality and basically it was a track. Me. I said okay, here we have a former Soviet country where the Soviet communism tried to build up its own almost Soviet equals, every power position constructed on Frankish 10, I call it, and they want to be independent and now it is going on to its mind on. It was very strange revolution and the art was involved, because basically was involved, identity was involved and art participated strongly, as my book is this one okay, is demonstrated, try to demonstrate in the construction of a symbolic environment for the construction of the Ukrainian identity, of the new Ukraine identity.
Speaker 1:So I was basically, when I teach for one, present my book. I I say this I was curious, I'm very curious. I went there. Of course I had the studies before. I studied before Russia, soviet Union, all these countries can't have been traveling around the Balkans. So I went there to investigate and basically to understand the meaning of my dad. I was not happy with the boss. I was reading on a newspaper, on watching the TV, and said I want to go there and basically was curiosity which pushed me to go there.
Speaker 2:Which has culminated in the book you've just referenced the Maidan Museum, preserving the spirit of Maidan. Yes, Tell me about the research and the process of preparing to write the book.
Speaker 1:Interesting question. The idea was to go there to deconstruct what my dad is and to put my dad and to put my dad inside a frame. So I went there with his idea. So let's see what's my dad Basically, I use a kind of Wittgenstein approach.
Speaker 1:It's okay, there is a word Maidan let me see the meaning and the use and. But I had to go there to Kiev to interview people, to meet them and to share time with them, and I understood that my dad was not just the emblem of revolution or a place or something more, because I was touching basically a myth, a social myth, an anthropological place, a trauma, and to this what attached? The rituals and around this Maidan, 130 people were killed. So it was, even if an emotional field. So Maidan is a concept, more than a concept. When we talk about the art of Medan, basically it's the art of a concept, the concept of Medan. So I went there and I started my work in 2016 and I went to Kiev several times and I interviewed people. I wanted to meet some people in a different cultural organization quite famous in Kiev, in Zolazia. This organization, basically they organized a show of contemporary art, of artists, and have connections basically all around the world and when I went there a couple of times, I was lucky because one of the people I interviewed she direct me and she put them in contact with the director of the Medan Museum. Basically, still now now there is a war the Medan Museum is still a working process. There's only a place with the kind of information place in the center of Medan Square, two floors. So I went there and basically, slowly, slowly, I started to understand what was Medan At this time in 2016 was a project.
Speaker 1:I went there again, I interviewed other people. The Medan Museum put them in contact with some artists and after that I started to interview them and basically to spend time with them. And when I collect all this material, I came back to my place and I started writing and put them in context. So, basically, adjust all the data I was receiving, because we're talking about a qualitative data inside some academic frameworks. I said, okay, this is matching in this concept, this is in Gadotentes and that comes to like a mosaic inside a big frame.
Speaker 1:But if I had to say a very short words about what these artists were doing, basically they were producing an antagonistic collective imaginary. Basically, the Ukrainian state was producing a kind of idea of what is the Ukrainian man, what is the Ukrainian art and everything. This is the collective, official, collective imaginary, like a discourse, a narrative, the official one. The artists were producing an antagonistic social imaginary, basically a new language, or if this language was old, it's in a new environment produced by the Medan revolution. So the meaning was new and after. But importantly, we have to underline the fact that this Medan revolution was a post-colonial revolution. Still now there is still I'm talking about now because I just read the last edition of the Mod Diplomatic, the Spanish one, and there are four pages dedicated to Ukraine Still now, the ghost I'm quoting what I read on the magazine is this ghost of this Soviet, old Soviet mentality going on in Ukraine right now. And these artists, basically all of them, they were fighting against this mentality. We are fed up with this post-old, post-soviet mentality. Basically.
Speaker 2:And the new language that they're creating. Would you say that the symbols they employed were part of that language, or how would you describe that?
Speaker 1:Definitely definitely, because when I met the artists, first of all, the artists were not just virtual art, they were not painters. I got a musician, I got a photographer, I got a playwriter painters, all of them. Basically they were creating their own language, but all of them they lived in Medan. All of them they experienced Medan. This is important. They went there. Unfortunately, some of them, they lost some friends there because 130 people were killed. So even if to carry on the interview was very hard tough it was emotionally. So I had my translator. She was doing a fantastic job, but sometimes you have to stop doing the interview because the informant, I don't know, start crying or something like that. But basically all these artists, they created their own language, led to Medan. Basically, all of them was, they were looking, they were not creating basically nothing new, they were searching. It was like using Foucault, a kind of archaeology. This was like a kind of archaeology of the construction of the Medan concept, a language in which they were basically looking at the memories and give it a new meaning, basically looking for archetype. So the tri-zub the tri-zub with the symbol of Urana got a new meaning. We got the image of the Cossack, we got a new meaning. We got the image of Taras Chavenko with the national poet. We got a new meaning.
Speaker 1:One of the artists made an interesting performance. He showed up in Medan Square during the demonstration with the Malevich Black Square, and this was just to give a new meaning not only to this discourse produced by Malevich Beck during the Soviet Union, but even if to show through his performance that Medan was the Holy Corner of New Ukraine, another thing that I try to explain in my book when we are talking about this object of art. There were no objects of art at the beginning. So, even if in my studies I try to explain very clearly that the art of the Medan, the one that is now preserved in the Museum of Medan, is a two kind of art. One is art by intention and destination. For example, I remember there were a couple of artists that are producing canvas typical canvas. People that go to any fine art faculty are able to do. One artist, for example, produces more documents. The best issue was doing portrait to people fighting or to the people killed. Still now her name is Marina. She's involved to do portrait of the people killed in this war.
Speaker 1:But after there are objects that became objects of art by a profession and metamorphosis. So, even if the Medan revolution can be seen like a process of aestheticization, but they became objects of art, they acquired what they said not only in aura, but they were relics of something new. People were killed there. They were relics of revolution. This is the reason when they are now in the Medan Museum, they embody really the revolution of Medan. It's not like a normal painting. That's someone, no, no, no, all of them. They point to the death of these people and to the Medan revolution and the spirit of Medan. Of course. Can you understand? Can you follow me?
Speaker 2:Yes, yes, and the artist you were just talking about who did the portraits? Marina Sochenko.
Speaker 1:Yes, it's Marina Sochenko. Perfect.
Speaker 2:One of her paintings that you include in your book, I believe, references or includes a shield with the white dove and a black fighting a black crow, and I was curious about that. Was that imagery that had been used before, or did she? Would you describe that and the use of shields?
Speaker 1:Okay, yes, this shield they okay. This image was not used before. Specific this one, okay, but the shield they were used by the protestors to protect themselves from the police. So, basically, the one involved with the shield was more Julia Ovasarenko, a young artist, and she said to me that these people were going there to have their shield transformed, but even to bring them luck, to be lucky. It's like amulet, something Okay. And so she was using like the image from religious background and everything just to protect them. It was like an amulet, okay, something you know you protect yourself physically. It's like this image that's maybe you remember during, I don't know, you had the Medusa on your shield. Basically, it was a little bit something like that. And after, for example, there is another artist.
Speaker 1:Tatiana Sheparvotka is very interesting because she participates to all Medana and through her experience you can understand how the Medana revolution changed with time. So when she was involved in the revolution at the beginning, she noticed that it's very interesting. She said, oh, everything is ugly, we really need to do something beautiful. And she started painting this amulet and everything, basically reproducing Caravaggio. After, basically after the end of February 2014, the Medana square changed, the people was different and she got problem with some kind of racism because she painted the reproduction of the very tryptical like Jesus crying for some people from these Nazi groups. It's too Jewish. So we got a different experience from different artists, but all of them is very interesting, all of them. They participate.
Speaker 1:For example, this another artist is I'm sorry I have to read because sometimes I forget the name, the director don't see it Alexander Ivanovich Melnik. Alexander, we met several times. He's an artist. He made the exhibition before. He's very much involved in a kind of a new version of religious painting. She picked up all this stereotype image of Orthodox Church bus in a different perspective. So he showed up with these canvas, basically, which reproduced the eyes of, let's say, jesus Christ, but he didn't want to say anything specifically and in front was written I can see your deeds, because it was basically facing the Berkut, the police, and behind these canvas it was written I love you all. Directly to the protestors, what I must say is that some snipers shoot twice to the panel and even if Alexander was injured. But apart from this side, there is a more human side that is not in my book, but the human side, because there I'm just talking about the interview what they told me Very just, a couple of times I mentioned where they interviewed two places and this was basically the, for me, the most important things, because in anthropology, if we use Marc Gauchet, the French anthropologist unfortunately passed away this year he said this has been a kind of anthropology of encounter, where you meet the other.
Speaker 1:So remember, alexander invited me to meet Marina, so we went in the Alps, kyrtos, kiev, in one of these old Soviet buildings, and to me as an historian it was very interesting because these buildings were the reproduction of the concept of the Soviet house. So every family had the force called Mitrus, the toilet was in corridor, you would share it with other people, and even in the kitchen. So basically, we were in this old Soviet building and Marina had all these paintings all around her. It was like I don't know, a cathedral of all these icons, icons, icons. And during Madonna she was at the Madonna Square. She made more than 200 portraits of people, and now she continues to do the same and to paint people killed in the war. And when I talk about Marina, I talk that she's producing document, basically Because we in social science we call it document more than art. This is how I see art.
Speaker 2:Going back to using these images and putting them on rough materials that either have been used or are being used in the fight. Was it a group artistic hundreds that was doing that as well? Would you describe that group and your interaction with them?
Speaker 1:Yeah, well, this was a group of artists it was like a gentuglia, okay, artists. I was lucky because I met Ivan with basically the SEMU-Sekri was involved with this group of artists and Ivan really character reposition, a polymath basically, and even if what I wrote in my book, I'm just quoting Ivan. He said I consider Madonna a big art project. We were the creator of Madonna. I consider Madonna the moment of truth, the biggest art project in which I participate in my life and basically all these artists were part of this group to create something new, something new to shape, and Ivan participated with this group of music kind of thing. But interesting, when you go to the Madame Museum, they preserve some handmade embroidery work made by him and some are very I don't know, I don't want to translate, okay, but they do some reference to putting in a kind of offending him in a particular way. And basically all these artists were present there. They wanted to do their support. And this is the beauty of this revolution to create something new. And I said I'm quoting, I like to quote something here I want to say to you. And there is a spirituality in this moment of creation. So this Madonna revolution opened what I say, the big pundra box of the identity problem. So everybody was participated in this way.
Speaker 1:So, even if, what can this kid the painter say? He said there is some spirituality in this process of creation. There you see a new, a new baby coming out, even if, for example, at this image of, we are experiencing the birth of a new child. The new Ukraine is the topic of one of the movie made by Yuri Grusinov. You receive some prizes for his kind of commentary.
Speaker 1:Babylon 13 was composed by seven short movie, silence, and and there is one in which there is a new baby coming out and this represents the new crisis was happening. There is a process of creation, god okay, I don't want to enter in anything religious, but through a very secular approach to some religious believing was creating Adam and dirties artists. With this spirituality, they were creating the home of Adam and a participant. My dad represented the moment of a catarys, a wreath of passage, and as a zombie Sovieticus or sobok is I invented this category of the zombie Sovieticus and as a zombie Sovieticus or just body without a soul. These people, they arrived to my down. They participate in this demonstration. They were fighting and everything, and they received a new soul and people may down the change completely of them and are participating with that. We need image. We need image so we can say this even if my dad was like a bigger cathedral where you got all these I go referring to you into your soul, that's a magic, is clear, this is clear.
Speaker 2:Yes, yes, and you, you make a reference to a Kandinsky quote in this concept. I believe that goes along with this that the that, more than creators, these artists were receivers and beneficiaries. That's very interesting, would you allow?
Speaker 1:them. They were like sponge what I can say sponge able to understand what was going on, to elaborate them, to digest and say we have to create something different. And this was this. This spirituality of this process creates something different. So they were not artists that were living on a different planet and, I don't know, on a different time. They were witness of their historical period and all of them they experienced basically this also a mentality and where with people, and they are was dedicated to people, but not something to put inside a museum. Now it's in the museum, but there was for everybody, and for example, I say that in the book that when they created this antagonistic social imaginary, this was the revolutionary point of their creativity, something antagonistic to the future one or, if you want to use another scientific argument, they were producing a revolutionary paradigm of reference and of interpretation. So I'm referring to Kuhn, basically, that this art can be seen like a paradigm, a new paradigm of interpretation.
Speaker 2:And and the crash, yes, how do you see all of the symbols and these creations? How do you see them as part of helping to transform and shift to a new world order?
Speaker 1:Okay, this idea of a new world order, I don't know, has been, first of all, it depends on order for who? Always be a little bit critical about this definition of order. Order it depends, it's like a theory, it's always for somebody and it depends on where you stay. Maybe if you live in London, you live in Rome or you live in Washington DC, there is it can be my order, but if you live in in in Kiev before the war, how you can talk about what order? If we live in some African country, which order an order for who? And when I read something like that, that's new world order.
Speaker 1:Basically, always I make reference to the, to the Bible, to the Genesis, because it's like the new world order. It's like to put order in a chaos. At the beginning it was cows, but this has been like. I've been going there for 1000 times. Those years the human being has been always trying to to put order. I don't understand what kind of order, because even if we're talking about, the order during the Cold War was an order just for some part of the world population, not for everybody. Now, with this shift of power financial power, patent power, creativity power and everything we are seeing the bricks coming out. So what does it mean for the big country order? We should ask them. We got an order, yeah, got an order.
Speaker 1:So we want to be in a structure where you want to maintain an order, but we are experienced something new order, even if, when you look at the academic environment, until now the monopoly of the creation of idea has been in, what I said, nato countries. I'm talking about Europe, united States. You want to go to a good university. You pretend to go in a NATO country university, but now I remember going to China some years ago to give some lecture. I saw how China invested in education. So let's see what will happen in a couple of years. Now, even if in the curricula of new student you have some students spending sometimes in London, sometimes in Shanghai, sometimes in Beijing. So what is the order for who? And I think we have a cosmopolitan elite. So cosmopolitan elite that belongs to a different world. Can you understand me?
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, I mean I guess I and I appreciate you questioning this whole concept, because even just the term world order I've read that in relation to the revolution of dignity and how it relates to it I was questioning how that term would even be defined and it is so individual.
Speaker 1:I told you, I told you before, okay. Okay, we are talking about the revolution, a security problem, and you were ordered a new order. Let's say all of them, but they have the basic one emotion. When we talk about security and I, publicly, I co-edited the first book in the world or anthropology and secret studies, when we talk about security, the term come from Latin and it's meaning is without anxiety. So we are talking about a situation of anxiety of the human being.
Speaker 1:When you talk about identity, we talk about anxiety about identity, and this is the reason I created the concept of the human being as animal identitarium. He lives constantly with this anxiety to be who he is, who I am always. This is in every culture. You have this problem who I am. Try to give an answer and after you have this order, this order that means is order to what To cure it's like a medicine anxiety. This way, everything is in order. When God arrived okay, let's say he used this metaphor put things in order, you can move without anxiety. When there is this order, there is more anxiety. So the revolution of Maidan tried to reconstruct a new order, basically for the people in power in Ukraine.
Speaker 1:There was order for them, for the elite, there was no order for the other people. So, even if the revolution of dignity was carrying on this idea of anxiety and of security, so order produced security, security produced order. Now it is your order or the new world disorder. The idea is what, how you define more than security, insecurity, who provides security? And after that is it's not justice. We are moving to a society of risk.
Speaker 1:So I've been doing research and writing papers on Neto. Neto he went, he lived at the same identity process problem on society after the explosion, soviet Union. Basically, security was Neto and insecurity was the Soviet enemy, the Homo Sovieticus. The moment the enemy disappeared, you start to elaborate your own problem of identity because you were created to face this enemy. So the discourse of Neto had been developed, this idea of moving from this concept to the idea of the risk of.
Speaker 1:So we had after the Bosnia war, we had the Neto soldiers being involved in peacekeeping operation, in crisis management operation Before the Ukrainian, partial Ukrainian war. Neto was always talking about crisis management operation. I participated to Neto semi courses and I was even involved in teaching in intercultural courses to Semic, bisi, personal. And now we have the new, if you read. The new strategic concept of Neto is talking about risk, risk, risk, but not only risk risk and to study the society. Because when the Neto soldiers were involved in this new context, because Neto was a defensive organization, they were waiting for the enemy to arrive.
Speaker 1:Now we have the Neto soldiers going in the territory of the other where there's been a war, so that there are emotions and basically you need to know the local culture because basically it's a minefield for the soldiers. So even if you understand to put order in this order, it's very complicated and after West the monopoly to create order, neto has the monopoly. Who gave them the monopoly? You can see at UNESCO who defined the order, who defined security and who defined security. So it became very personal about your position, where you stay, your comfort zone. Did I answer your question?
Speaker 2:Oh sure, and it's such a big question that there could be so many. There could be so much more to be said on just that. I wonder for the impact of the current war, the ongoing war in Ukraine, how you see the research that you've done and your book as how the art and the identity issue, how the art evolved during the years where the Revolution of Dignity was going on, and then now, with the war, do you see that there's a thread?
Speaker 1:Oh, yes, there is a line, a dramatic line. I can tell you and I'll explain you why. Because, okay, the Madame Museum continues to organize meetings and to promote the message of Madame. But it's very interesting because you are dealing with warfare. Target of this war became the cultural heritage of Ukraine. So the memory at the moment, I destroy your memory, I can manipulate your present and your future.
Speaker 1:And now the Madame Museum is involved in protecting the cultural heritage of Ukraine. This is an interesting evolution and I talked to the director a couple of weeks ago. He went to the United States to do some research. He's involved with ICROM and with UNESCO about this idea. This is basically what they are doing. They are preserving, the try to protect the churches, museums, libraries, buildings which testimony the presence and the memory of Ukraine, the identity, all these cultural heritage, marks of identity. We need us, okay, and they are part of the identity, place and space of these Ukrainian people. They need them and this is the evolution of this art of Madame and the Madame Museum and the message of what we represent. I think that's now with the world. I think that the art of Ukraine and the art of Madame is more important than before Because there is an enemy, there is what destroys this dignity and this message and the memory. You understand me.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and you were mentioning before that there are other researchers coming behind you to build on this topic. Did you want to speak to that?
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's interesting because on Monday I participated to a forum organized by the Madame Museum for 10 years of the Madame Revolution and at night I received an email so I don't want to give details for these people, okay, not for me and I was being contacted by someone interested from the very high level, academic level, and they said, oh, we have some professors involved in history research and I was shocked and so interesting. Basically it's following what I'm doing, so I'm happy. I'm happy that someone, one, is continuing my job. Maybe he's using I'm sure he's using my book, because if this university contacted me, they had my book and I'm sure that this professor read my book and I'm very happy. It's like in the run to give him my testimony, to pass to him, like, for example, now is your turn, I did it, now is your turn I start something. Okay, this is for you, I'm very happy.
Speaker 1:And then more people are talking about this art of Madame Because more people are aware, more people talk about Kutra. It is interesting because I talked about some years ago very few people just in some area, like myself and other people dealing with peacekeeping operation, post-conflict the solution. We were aware of this important Kutra heritage because we started reading more. When it was the Bosnian War, it was these churches and this mosque destroyed, hammam destroyed, and they said, oh my god, this became like target of war. So they are important. Now is a topic in which more people are doing investigation and the case of this Ukrainian war is one of these cases. We are in front of identity war. It is not just to conquer territory, it is an identity war and to destroy the memory of kind of population, the memory of identity.
Speaker 2:I wonder if you have thoughts on for someone who perhaps doesn't even understand, or hadn't really understood, the ramifications of identity as an issue in this war. Are there any resources that you would point them to further their understanding?
Speaker 1:The simple one is I can tell you, please, someone wants to understand. Look at Andrei Kulkov. Andrei Kulkov is the best, the most famous Ukrainian writer. Read what happened to him, just his human evolution. He used to write in Russian, in Russian language, and during the Madan, he decided to move to Ukraine. He switched from one identity to another one because, basically, the injured people, the victims, were the Ukrainians. So he said I want to have the identity of these injured people, the oppressed people. And this happened to Andrei Kulkov. If you read, you can do research on internet, and even if to some of the people I interviewed in Kiev, in a moment they were able to speak Russian and Ukraine in a moment, they decided to define more clearly their identity through the language. I am Ukrainian, I speak Ukraine. The answer to you.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and I wonder if your understanding of the importance of art in times of, and the importance of cultural heritage in times of war has your understanding of its importance, evolved, or how would you describe the significance of art and cultural heritage and preserving it during times of conflict?
Speaker 1:Listen, I can't from Rome, so you can imagine an importance, even if I was a simple church in a conflict in Rome. I'm not talking about just what we represent for the religious approach, but the heart which is present inside the church in Rome. This is part of our cultural culture. It must be protected. So you say you destroy something, it's basically part of my DNA. It's not just you're destroying a canvas or a statue. I say, excuse me, this is part of my DNA. Just when people talk about the Western civilization and I said I point to them to a line, basically I say go to Rome, you walk from the Coliseum to Piazza del Popolo In these two kilometers, basically you have the evolution of the Western culture, western philosophy, everything Western art. So this is very important. Can you imagine all this area being destroyed in the world? We are going to lose our roots, basically. So look, for example I don't want to talk just about the monome or the colon, but for example, look at the importance of one book of Quran. If you buy, this is a cultural heritage. You represent the culture. You just burn the Quran, you have a revolution in some countries, or you do something blasphemy against the cross. It's happening the same. So all these cultural heritage, they carry emotion and in all these countries there is a psychological process called the regression process. Psychological regression process, basically.
Speaker 1:A big expert was Wamek Blolkan, a professor, expert on psychiatric, medical doctor, psychiatric on conflict resolution, and he said that when, for example, we live in a peace time, our relationship with the power is normal. But even if the relationship with this cultural heritage is normal, the moment we live in a conflict and we are attacked, the rational change, this cultural heritage the church is one is more important is part of me and the political leader used this cultural heritage to reinforce his own position and the relationship between the individual and the power change. It became blind trust, but part of the power discourse. He always referring to this cultural heritage because these are marks of identity. You're actually the identity of an individual. You understand me? Yeah, it's like your passport.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:Your ID card yeah.
Speaker 2:The work that you're doing with this focus and highlighting the importance of these issues. How do you see the? I use the word legacy and that's loaded word for many people, but I am curious like we are all creating a legacy with whatever we're doing. How do you see the legacy that you're building?
Speaker 1:I want to give voice to these people. This is what I want to do. This is my legacy. It's like this is what I live through my professional life and through my studies. Always the conflict has been seen from a upside down position, where the actor was always the state. It's the typical international racial approach. After the impetus of the Soviet Union, the Bolshevik conflict, I said we have to concentrate on people but to listen to them. We have to listen to them and in my book I use an expression, I use a clinical gaze. Like you go to a medical doctor. This is Foucault. You go there and you listen to the people. But my job as anthropologist is to pass my experience to someone else and say this is what's going on. I don't want to construct a law. So I said this is my experience.
Speaker 1:I met these people, they lived this situation. They went to Madame, they produced. This is the message. Basically, they are people without importance, but with their art they produce impact, Because all the things they are doing are participating in the construction of the identity of Ukrainian people. So basically, my legacy is to carry. I'm just a man, I'm an anthropologist who want to show to the people what they say. It's like the message. I just carry a message.
Speaker 1:Of course, I frame academically this is part of the academic job, but the core, the center of everything is to pass the message. Listen to them. I just want to point the finger. Please, Everybody talk about Madame, Everybody talk about the art of Madame. I want to listen to Marina, listen to Eva, listen to Igor, listen to Ekaterina, and then this is the reason the book is in English. I'm very happy because it's distributed by the Columbia University Press. So these people, basically all these people, they enter in the house of this researcher, professor, and with part of the band, I introduce these people. Listen to them. That's what this is my job.
Speaker 2:And then, building on that, I wonder if there is a approach to, or definition of justice that has evolved for you. Well, listen.
Speaker 1:Well, you invited me, let's go to have a work together with Socrates. Let's go to have a work. Okay, I would be very happy to work with you on Socrates and talk about the concept of justice. My idea is very simple one just to give everyone what is the serve. There is so much concept or ethical virtue. We'll be able to do this idea for edges, edges, but again, justice. And because we are talking about art and image, I go back to the image of justicia for the woman, the godness, justicia, where you have this lady, okay, blindfolded, she carry his word and a balance. So again, we go to an image of something of art.
Speaker 1:But I remember when I was studying middle-aged history at the Roman University, we spent two years and the second year we were translating the constitution of Melfi by the emperor Frederick II. And Frederick II produced this constitution in the south of Italy and in the city of Melfi he constructed the door of justicia. And to refer to this justicia was always referring because, of course, frederick II was fighting against the power of the pope, was always referring to the justicia of the Roman Empire, the law of the Roman Empire, but always was like a philosophical reference. We can talk about something philosophical which is we can talk about. After all this year, after Socrates, we have a just world. No, even if, when we look at the country which defined itself as democracy, there is justice in this country, I don't know. I can see around. Even if in San Nato country there is justice, I don't know. Try to imagine another country less developed.
Speaker 2:It's a fraught idea. Well, is there anything else that you would like to share that I have not asked you?
Speaker 1:No, stephanie, I'm happy because you gave me, to me, to the people of the Madame Museum, the artists, basically to talk. They've been talking today through me, you've been listening and no, no, I'm very happy, I'm just I can say to you thank you to you, but not just on my name, even on the name of the oldest people that the Madame Museum and all the artists, I thank to them that I'm here. It's thank to them. So it's no I'm talking about. There is a link between the Madame Revolution and the war of Russia, Ukraine, that dealing with an identity problem. Okay, even if you look at the area which have been occupied by the Russian soldier, basically these are area where local population speak Russian. So again, we have this identity attached to Russia. Okay, the other side is about Ukrainian language. Now, just looking here, some things that might be a bit missing. Ah, yes, this is a very important.
Speaker 1:I remember before I said we have to practice Madame Revolution inside the postcolonial discourse and this is very interesting because I've been reading some nothing to do with Madame, but other author, the writer, basically in Naipolo, nobel Prize, is classified in the postcolonial literature and there, reading in Naipolo and his experience and everything, I come to an idea that the spirit of Madame and now I'm reading embodies the capacity to aspire and to breathe for something different and better, of the liberated of Madame. The air in Ukraine was still polluted in this post-soviet communist abitus, social practices. So to aspire is not just to aspire, something different for you. But when you look at the etymology it's come from lattice is to breathe. So these postcolonial people, they said they want to breathe a different area, different, something where I can be myself, I can construct myself. And this basic, this spirit of Madame the force, was to aspire or something different. And still now I've been reading some update about the situation in Ukraine. Unfortunately, the air is again polluted. That means that's where you can't dream, you can't envisage a future for you, or you can dream a future. If you can dream a future, what do you become? So this is something dramatic for Ukraine and I was, and after I was.
Speaker 1:In my presentation, the one I will send to you, I'm quoting a Bosnian writer who basically experienced the, the siège of Sarajevo, and he said only the ability to see the future allows men to stay alive. Can you see the future when you stay now in Ukraine? Were you able to see a future 10 years ago when you were in Ukraine. You know I remember this, typical in the English and American academic environment people, when you meet them, they say, oh, are you seeing yourself in 10 years time?
Speaker 1:Not typically in Italy Ask are you seeing yourself in 10 years time? So we don't ask. So, are you see yourself? You were really able to answer this question in Ukraine 10 years ago no, and now are you see yourself in Kiev in 10 years time? So I'm talking about this period as this force okay, to give breath, to help people to breathe. What's happened? It was a point that's basically I want to underline through this discussion with you. This is basically the to aspire and this is the reason I define in my book that the artist. They're acting as a shaman so they help people to breathe.
Speaker 2:And to the need for that impact while the Maidan process was in play in those years. And still those artists and their work are doing that today for the current generations.
Speaker 1:Yes, yes, yeah. But it's not just this one. There is something more, because this Maidan spirit, basically, if free people from fear, so now the people in Ukraine are reclaiming the rights against the government. This was not the case 10 years ago. People were afraid, so basically, this Maidan spirit impoverished them. They provide them a new consciousness, say, hey, man, I'm here, I'm fighting for my rights, something that 10 years ago you got all these zombies of the edibles walking around completely empty, completely empty, just accepting everything. Now people are not accepting the zone.
Speaker 2:Well, thank you so much. This has been such a stimulating conversation, and thank you for your book and all the work that you're doing to have created it, so I look forward to whatever your next projects might be. I don't know if there's anything that you want to share.
Speaker 1:I want to continue to work on this idea, my concept of animal identitarium, but always in a situation of basically conflict in society, because when we talk about situation of peace, you can't detect some behavior from human beings, so everybody's carry on is on representation. This is like government, the representation of ourself in our daily life. But when something happened, an event, people act in a different way and they start protecting what is important for them. And I want to see in some area now I don't know, maybe some project in the Balkans is it is coming out to work always with this idea of identity, identity inside the cities, because now 85% of the population is going to live in cities. So I'm not anthropologist who is going to fly in Africa, australia, new Zealand or looking for now already our city are full up of this others. So I'm more interested in the construction of identity inside the city. Some say those are conflicting areas, in areas where there can be problem.
Speaker 2:And would you say that, to do that work on identity with that always? Do you see that as always being tied with art and cultural heritage?
Speaker 1:Always, always. I can't escape this. I'm anthropologist, so I'm swimming in this culture. So I say that, excuse me, I said I'm an anthropologist, I'm looking for symbols. Okay, ritual, always this one, culture, identities, everything's connected and I can construct a myth without any image, even now, before you're talking about Eustizia, okay, it can be a myth, but I was pointing to the image of the goodness, the Roman one, of course. For example, when I co-edited my first book on anthropology secret studies, I presented my idea at the conference I think it was more than 10 years ago at the British Museum in London and there was this World Conference of Anthropology and I organized the panel, the first panel about anthropology secret studies, and for the first time I showed to the audience some part of a Bosnian movie. And people are shocked because people say Bosnian movie, I don't know anything about the Bosnian movie. I said, well, I went there to do research and I come up with this Bosnian movie and people are shocked. So there are some parts of this play where people are investigating. So for me, this cultural approach is always present.
Speaker 1:I've been 30 years of experience in Turkey and I saw how the culture changed, the image changed, the rituals changed, yeah, so I can't escape. I'm sorry I can't. Art is part of that and in some countries the artist is considered a terrorist. The enemy yeah, the other night here I went to see a movie from this very famous Iranian movie director. Now he's in prison. So just because you produce a different reality, you became an enemy. Pasolini was killed in Italy. He was a kind of enemy. So if you look around through this lens of art, cultural identity, you see that the artist became an enemy for some political power.
Speaker 1:It shows the power of art, Of course of course, of course, because art creates something and the power elite that I'm interested in this must be like that. Look, for example, you remember the big revolution of the impressionists? Something very simple. By the moment they start painting objects with different colors, you say what is this? So, basically, we're producing emotions. Or look, for example, I don't know, go back to Caravaggio.
Speaker 1:There are some ideas about, developed by Gombrich in his book, about something simple in a statue, art was someone who always was the crazy guy in the group doing something different. So, basically, this is the reason I like this artistic approach, because the artist was providing to me a different perspective to see a reality. I said, okay, let's try this perspective, let's see the other one. Oh, why not? This is very interesting, oh, my god.
Speaker 1:And anytime I prepare myself for my fieldwork, always I approach my territory, my place, the region, a country, always I prepare my background, historical background and everything, but always it's a true culture and art, always the literature, the symbols, the music, even if what is called the popular culture, popular art, because basically, at the end of the day, the majority of people, they eat popular culture. They eat as more, but the popular culture is for the people that make an impact. I always approach my fieldwork through these readings, movies, the serial, even if they serial. People say, oh, why you watch these two series? I said no because they gave me some message and a lot of people. They educate the population, they transmit value, they transmit taboo, yeah. So obviously for me it's passing through a culture to arrive to the other and art is part. Art is part, yeah.
Speaker 2:And remember injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.