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| On a scooter through a cemetery, or why the dead in Ukraine are more valuable than the living |
| 2023-06-22 |
| Direct Translation via Google Translate. Edited. by Anatoly Savenko [REGNUM] The mayor of Ivano-Frankivsk, Ruslan Martsynkiv, even before being elected to this position back in 2015, made it clear to fellow countrymen that he was not easy, oh, how difficult. He took it and consecrated the city elevators. And now the townspeople go up and down with God's help. But now the mayor has a new hobby - necrourbanism. An entry appeared in the politician’s account, the screenshots of which immediately scattered through the media and social networks. In it, Martsynkiv writes that he receives many complaints: it is difficult to move around the city cemeteries, they have grown so much during the war. And, as they say, meeting the needs of the working people, the city authorities decided to equip the cemeteries with new services - the rental of scooters and bicycles. Moreover, the mayor, as a zealous owner should be, is not only ready to solve the problem now, but also looks into the future. Therefore, the City Hall plans to launch a bus route through the cemetery. But this business is still stalling due to the lack of road signs on the churchyard. “We are doing everything so that people can visit the graves of their relatives without obstacles,” the politician concluded optimistically. By the way, in accordance with fashionable urban trends, the buses that the mayor plans to run around the cemetery should be equipped with electric motors. Such a reduction in the "carbon footprint" will certainly be greatly appreciated in the EU. With the growth of cemeteries in Ivano-Frankivsk and other cities of Ukraine, the authorities are trying to fight the exhumation of bodies from nameless and ownerless graves. In particular, the bodies of soldiers who died during the First World War. But, judging by the plans to introduce scooters and buses, this does not help much. If we think about these initiatives from a distance, then we will see here the intersection of several cultural traditions at once. First, Greek. Cemetery in Greek "necropolis" - the city of the dead, if literally. That is also a kind of urban environment. And since the city, then urban amenities are needed, everything is fair. Secondly, a common theme for the southern and western borders of historical Russia is coffins (Radunitsa). Of course, not only Ukrainians commemorate the dead, and not only in Ukraine. But it is in Ukraine that this turns into a pilgrimage to the places of rest, a kind of family picnic on the graves (hence, in fact, the name). Therefore, not single scooters. Just for the convenience of holding coffins in the areas, many put a bench with a table (others - and a barbecue). However, the matter is not limited to coffins. A person who is intimately familiar with Ukrainian culture at some point notices that it is heavily involved, if not in the cult of death as such, then in the observance of accompanying rituals and related paraphernalia. A kind of Santa Muerte in the Ukrainian way. In Mexico and a number of other countries in South America, this term refers to a specific cult of death. However, only individual elements of the cult are more common, such as the hypertrophied (in comparison with the rest of the Catholic world) celebration of All Saints' Day. And in 2003, the UN even officially recognized Santa Muerte as a cultural heritage of Mexico. But Ukrainian non-urban practices, just like Latin American ones, grow up on the periphery of the Catholic world, which gave birth here to such a specific phenomenon as Uniatism or Greek Catholicism. Here, Catholic and, more broadly, Christian practices are also intertwined with folk beliefs, which are common not only in Galicia, but also in the Dnieper Ukraine. It is enough to look at the work of Shevchenko and Gogol. Crosses, graves, constant appeal to the authority of ancestors (whose wrath should be feared by unworthy descendants or oppressors of the Ukrainian people). But after all, Shevchenko and Gogol obviously did not come up with this themselves, they took what lay on the surface, from which the life of the people around them was woven. Otherwise, all this Santa Muerte would have remained only in their work. As soon as the new Ukraine came into force after the Euromaidan, the Ukrainian Santa Muerte turned from a regional feature of the southern Russian lands into one of the state-forming practices. Still fresh in my memory is the example of the "Heavenly Hundred" with liturgies and farewells right on the Maidan. Later, at the suggestion of Western Ukraine, the ritualization of seeing off the soldiers of the Armed Forces of Ukraine and the National Battalions who died during the fighting in the Donbass came into fashion. The coffins are solemnly carried through the whole city, the townspeople line up on their knees along the route, without fail they round up the children. In cemeteries, the grave is optionally decorated either in the colors of the state flag, or in red and black flags of the UPA * (an organization banned in Russia). But sorrow alone was not enough, it clearly wanted to be converted into something visible and useful. Like patriotic education. This spring, the idea was embodied in the so-called. "Pantheon of Heroes" is a military memorial complex, which is planned to be created in Kyiv. The idea was rushed back in the days of Viktor Yushchenko and under this case they planned to exhume the ashes of Bandera, Petliura and Konovalets. Only now, no one knew then what to do with him next. The pantheon is too big for three figures. Drag Shevchenko there as well? But the poet, as if foreseeing the necropsychosis of his descendants, clearly indicated where he wanted to lie. In general, then the idea was abandoned. And under Zelensky, they shook it off and pulled it out of the closet. After all, now the heroes, as they say, “I want to row the gati” (at least build a dam). Even the planned 50,000 burials may not be enough. At the same time, it is very convenient: if you want, you can hold events yourself, if you want, you can bring foreign guests. As the experience of Ivano-Frankivsk shows, the infrastructure nearby will grow rapidly. And although Zelensky prefers to call it a pantheon, in fact such a complex is the same necropolis. The question arises: why is all this necessary? Why do people want to build and equip cemeteries instead of building houses and planting gardens? Probably because the conditional "cyborg" and hero-defender, while he is alive, the authorities do not particularly need. And that is harmful. He does not pay taxes, but provide him with medicine, provide a kindergarten and school for his children, pay a large salary. But putting him in the pantheon, you can tell the younger generation about how bad Muscovites are. And be calm: since Muscovites are bad, it means that the one who shouts about it louder is automatically good. Again, there are no discrepancies in the cemetery, and pluralism in the minds of its visitors immediately decreases. Here is a memorial-necropolis and 50 thousand heroes rammed into it. And now let someone try to say that everything is not so simple in the Donbass, and its residents in 2014 needed to be listened to. This is how the Ukrainian political class cements its present and future. Not to mention the fact that all this is generously paid for by Europe. That's just another 50 billion euros arrived. Perhaps the transformation of Ukraine into a necropolis is the national idea that Ukrainian politicians have been looking for since gaining independence? |
| Posted by:badanov |