Generations of Ukrainians will refuse to learn Russian because the Russians killed their relatives.
Ukrainian writer, journalist, president of the Ukrainian PEN Center Andrei Kurkov published an article in the New Yorker devoted to the war unleashed in Ukraine by Russian President Vladimir Putin. In this article, the writer stated that the Russian attack would turn many generations of Ukrainians away from the aggressor country and that Putin was destroying not only Ukraine but also Russia and the Russian language. The article is available in Ukrainian, Russian and English.
“When we were asked to choose a foreign language at school in the 4th grade, I flatly refused to go to a German language group. “They killed my grandfather Alexei!” – I said and no one began to persuade me to learn German. I taught English. The British were our allies in that war. And now the British have remained allies, but only the concept of “ours” has changed its meaning: now not “our-Soviet”, but “our-Ukrainian”.
I am sad to think that after the war, when children are offered to study Russian at school, they will flatly refuse and say: “The Russians killed my grandfather!” or “The Russians killed my little sister!” Kurkov writes.
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He also added that many Ukrainians give up everything Russian: language, culture and thoughts about Russia. Among his friends and acquaintances of Russian writers is a small group that was not afraid to declare support for Ukraine: Vladimir Sorokin, Boris Akunin, Mikhail Shishkin. This is a group that has long lived in immigration and has long been in opposition to Putin. There is also a group of those who still continue to live in Russia, but are also likely to become emigrants.
“I am sincerely grateful to them and put them on my white list, a list of honest and decent people. I want them to remain in history, to remain in world culture, to be read and listened to. Not all of Russia is a collective Putin! But the misfortune is that there is no collective anti-Putin in Russia. Even Alexei Navalny was not ready to support the immediate return of the illegally annexed Crimea! ”Kurkov said.
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