Courage of Ukrainians allowed the world to be brave - culture and political scientist Taras Voznyak

Mr. Voznyak, we have known each other for a long time. And I would start with the fact that in the 90s and at the beginning of the noughties, you were more political, you discussed politics, and then you disappeared and, apparently, now you discuss art. Why?

We often try to separate politics and art saying these are two different things. In fact, they regard the same thing. The results of our current war, or rather not ours, the Russian war against Ukraine, were caused by our own shortcomings in the field of culture. Oh, so you say that it is not important what language to speak? Okay. Now we are knocking on your door. You do not need an independent religious institution? Okay.

This is our reality. If we neglect the cultural context, then war comes to us. I never separated culture and politics. But there is a well-known maxim that when the guns are roaring, the muses are silent. This is not entirely true. But we need to change the discourse, to talk to people differently.

Then the first question, Mr. Voznyak, is about you, and the second is about the gallery where we are. We all now discuss "blackout" so much. How does it affect and does it affect the paintings at all? Does it affect the preservation when there is no light, maybe no heating? Do you have special relations with the state, does the state give you and your analogues in Kyiv, Odesa, or somewhere else the opportunity to maintain all these collections: to have the conditions that these collections need?

For some reason, we think that February 24 marked the start of the war. In fact, it has been going on for 8 years already. We know that now is the 9th year of the war. And certain documents that regulate what you call the temperature regime, humidity regime, preparation for evacuation, or preparation to move things from the exposition somewhere to the storerooms, have already existed and have been working out since 2014. Very often reporters ask "Where are those HIMARS? Show me near which village: Vasylivka or Andriivka? I will show it on TV." The same applies to the art world, where these things, like money in the bank, prefer silence. Where they are, what they are, and where they move. Sometimes I can say certain things after the fact. To speak, as Zaluzhnyi says, when the operation has already taken place near Kharkiv or somewhere near Kherson. He speaks once an operation is over. And now with great pleasure, I can say that the main body of the most valuable things that were in our Lviv National Art Gallery is already abroad and they will stay there for about a year. They have already been moved. When they were still here, it was unnecessary to speak about their location.

Now about the journal with two dots (Journal "Ї" is an independent Ukrainian cultural studies journal published in Lviv under Taras Voznyak's editorship - ed.). It is an intellectual journal, or at least strives to be: there is history, culture, sociology to a certain extent and much more. Reading it, you perceive the world. Besides, there are a lot of global or European accents in the journal. What did you realize from reading it for the last 30 years? What have you understood about Ukraine, Europe, about the world? As our late friend, unfortunately, Oleksandr Kryvenko used to say "What have you discovered?"

By the way, Kryvenko was one of the founding fathers of this magazine, because the magazine was originally published as a self-publishing house and was published in Vilnius, and it was imported from there. The former Lithuanian ambassador Petras Vaitiekūnas had a device that was unheard of in Lviv, even in Kyiv. And that device was called a photocopier. The journal was produced on this photocopier. It was necessary to go to Vilnius to produce it.

The main conclusion is that you need to think constantly. Here we have a journal published in 2014 to the centenary of the First World War. Thinking about everything, the First World War, the Second World War, the Cold War, and now the Third World War is beginning. Back in 2014, I saw the history of the 20th century as an endless war. The war of discontent of the young. 2013 was the year of discontent among young nations. The German nation is being created, the redistribution of the world, the empire, the whole of Africa, Asia is not divided. The First World War. After that, Germany is oppressed, driven into the Weimar Republic, which causes discontent, and resentment. As a result, the spring goes in the other direction. The Second World War. The Soviet Union squeezed the free nations in the European Union. The Cold War. After the collapse of the Soviet Union, Russia is again dissatisfied just as Germany was in the 1930s.

And so we got the Russian-Ukrainian war. And not only the Russian-Ukrainian war but also the Russian-Georgian war and so on. This war is dragging on with consequences. This spring is compressed and uncompressed for more than a hundred years. In fact, the war that is now taking place in Ukraine is a natural result of the First World War. Not by analogy, but simply as one plus one, a logical consequence. Unfortunately. Because we cannot arrange the world in a way it would function.

Mr. Voznyak, you believe that these are national problems. And not social? I ask so since you started talking about the First World War, its transition to the Second and so on. Recently I was reading the names of the 20th century tyrants and I thought they are all "common people", that is, the aristocracy stepped away and gave way to “hitlers”, “mussolinis”, “lenins”, and “stalins”.

Virtually, they are no one. These people undermined the system. I am not a monarchist, of course, because now are different times. But the tradition of monarchy was a certain element that stabilized the historical development. Grandfather, father, son and so on. And the world order depended on this "skewer". And then came those "common people", but, in fact, they were parvenu, people from nowhere. This was described by Ortega y Gasset. He said back in the 1930s in his book The Revolt of the Masses that there used to be a particularistic society where everything was regulated. And then the people came. For example, earlier the Minister of the Interior of the Austrian Empire, Count Stadion, would speak, and then the people started to dominate the conversation. The people roared in 1917 in Russia. The people roared in 1933 in Germany. The people roared in Iran in 1979. And the results were the same. That is, I am not against the voice of the people, but against the voice of the crowd, against ochlos. Probably we need to look for some antidote. The voice of the American people, but not really the people, is not Washington or Franklin, but Trump. In Lviv, we have the expression "voice of the ill-breds". The voice of American ill-breds is Trump, and something must be done about it. This is populism.

I agree that this is a consequence of the First World War, and the First World War was a consequence of the Balkan wars. The Balkans are the Austro-Hungarian Empire. The world establishment began to feel some tremors. Maybe not 9 points on the Richter scale, but 2 or 3. But I always give a very simple example: if you live in Paris and are in the establishment, you earn EUR 7,000-10,000. For example, a journalist, not a TV journalist, in Paris earns EUR 2,500-3,000; it is very difficult to live on this money. And there is an abyss: one is doing well, and those who have EUR 2,000-3,000 are struggling, Paris is expensive. And the world began to knock upwards. Trumps, Brexiteers, Magyars appear. For some reason, it seems to me that China is getting rich in this, which is also beginning to show itself somehow. And it seems that this discontent is what Putin is trying to use. We just happened to be on his way. Poland, Finland could have been in our place.

Poland and Finland were in our shoes. We just replaced them now. First, Poland, then Finland, and now us. It is absolutely right to say that we are under the feet of Russian imperialism.

He also felt this fluctuation. "Oh, time to revive Russia.” In fact, the beginning of the Russian Empire in its full shape was the conquest of Ukraine. It gave Russia muscles. There was a backbone and on that backbone sat a Russian, no one paid attention to him. That was all. And in Ukraine were people, such abundance. The road to Europe. A common border.

The most important thing is the imperial idea. When the Moscow principality or the Moscow kingdom turned into the Russian Empire. 1721. The idea itself. And Feofan Prokopovych and other our people brought this idea. For some reason, they still had illusions. As a result, they brought the idea and after that, it began to develop. Thanks first to Ukrainians, but later also to Germans, and Dutch, who combined what was already a mature Russian Empire at the end of the 19th century. They brought it together. And bread, working people, all this of course. In St. Petersburg itself, almost 30% were of Ukrainian origin, from “Little Russia”.

Well, 40,000 Cossacks actually built St. Petersburg.

Not only Cossacks built it. But also those who were in livery. Teachers in seminaries, doctors, lawyers. All of them.

Are Russians people or not people? If we follow your ideological path, about 20, 15 years ago, Les Podervyansky and I were talking about this. And we came to the conclusion that they are not people. I treated it as a joke. And now, when I see that a mother tearlessly sends her child to the front, to kill and is proud of it. "I am proud". The instinct of self-preservation does not work at all, the instinct of procreation does not work. The primitive instincts of man, homo sapiens. I have a theory that Russians have returned to homo erectus. They, like us, walk straight, but a certain number of absolutely inherent, immanent human traits are simply absent.

There is really a human race in the biological sense of the word. Whether people from Papua New Guinea, Ukraine, or Nicaragua, belong to the same species, there are cultural paradigms in which we exist. For decent people from Papua New Guinea - one paradigm, for Ukrainians - another, and for people in Nicaragua, probably the third. In addition to all this, the cultural paradigm implies certain values. In particular, do not kill. For a person from Papua New Guinea, there is no maxim "do not kill". Or maxims that come from Moses "Do not steal", "Do not kill", and "Do not covet". They do not live in those paradigms. Okay, let's accept the fact that the Russians were also given 10 commandments and they may have complied with them, but on the other hand, sometimes some nations, even those living in this paradigm, fall into mass psychosis, or there are such mental epidemics. For example, Germany in the 1930s. The country of Goethe. The country of super philosophers. Hegel and Dante. And suddenly educated people who knew how to write, these are not some illiterate people, absolutely not, fall into mass psychosis. This is a mental epidemic. Just like the Covid epidemic, there are mental deviations that take over entire nations, Russians in this case.

If there was a brilliant psychologist here and we asked, he would prove to us that this is also a norm. Such a distorted, temporary, but norm of behavior. That is, it can befall a nation.

Absolutely any nation. Moreover, when it comes to the word "norm", Pilate asked Jesus Christ "What is the truth, the norm?" That is, this question contained the answer that there was no truth as such for Pilate, but for Christ there was. For a Roman, what are the 10 Commandments? What is the commandment "Thou shalt not kill" for a Roman soldier?

Mr. Voznyak, will humanity get out of this? It has always managed to do so thanks to Europe. It seems that Europeans were invented by God as people who are constantly challenged and meet these challenges. They always figure out how to get out of the situation. No matter how many difficult situations there were, Europeans always came out. Now the sick man of the world is Russia. Do you think they will find a cure to make Russia healthy, to somehow revive it?

No, if they do not find a cure, they will die. Like the Ottoman Empire. They did not find a cure and it died.

But they found Kemal Ataturk, the father of the Turks. That is, they found it from within themselves and this is an important point in today's discussion. What can it be? Kemal Ataturk realized: something is wrong here. We will save the small, but for this,  we must lose the big. Does this mean that these are internal forces? Someone in the Kremlin, whom we may not know, should start some reforms, realizing that the destiny of Russia is disintegration. 

No, it is really necessary to repeat what Mustafa Kemal did. The father of Turks is not a Turk, his mother is Macedonian, and his father is basically a Jew from Thessaloniki. He performed the feat of Munchausen. He pulled Turkey out of the swamp by this bone. That is, Russians must become a people. Russians have not become a people yet. A people like the Turks, a political nation. And to get rid of excess, which does not allow them to develop. That unfortunate Chechnya, which has been tortured for decades. Why does Russia need it at all? It is not necessary. Or South Ossetia. Without South Ossetia, will some grandmother, who sells brooms somewhere on the Volga, simply die or what. She does not sleep at night. Why does she need it? There are idiocies that sometimes should be abandoned. At one time Poles went through this. Many nations did. When Prince Jerzy Giedroyc said that Vilnius and the part around Vilnius is Lithuania, and Lviv and Galicia and Volyn are Ukraine, it was a shock for some Polish people who had some sentiments toward such Poland, at least interwar Poland. But as a result, Poland found itself, and Poland became a united nation.

But then it is a kind of regularity. That is, no matter what in Russia there will be some movement that will rely on the idea of a person who will say "We either survive alone with the world as Russians or we all drown.”

They must invent their “Russianness”. To create, to combine it. Just as after the war the newest Polish people were combined, when a lot of people left here, from Volyn, from Galicia, people left because of Stalin's decisions, undoubtedly bloody and unfair, but as a result, a people were combined, which became successful. Note how successful Poland is now. Imagine if there were 7 million more Ukrainians, Belarusians and Lithuanians. It would be difficult for that Poland.

When you said "reinvent yourself", it is very hard to implement. Why? My colleagues, I found an Erzya in the Ukrainian army just last week. And he absolutely seriously says "It starts there: students, schoolchildren go to clubs to learn the language, to revive.” These are still individuals, it is not a mass. But if we take Erzya, then it will be difficult to find Russians. Because if Erzya says "No, we are not Russians. We are Erzyas". So where is Russia then?

This is not our problem really. They have to do it themselves. They have to find themselves and agree with themselves. By the way, the same applies to today's Ukraine. The situation of this war: 90,000 people went to the United States. Refugees and others are mostly those people who have always dreamed of becoming Americans. They passively or unconsciously participated in the creation of the Ukrainian world and the Ukrainian political project, and the Ukrainian political nation of today. But some of them came to Ukraine and began to participate in the creation of the modern Ukrainian nation. Some went to Russia. Not all were deported. Some of them left because they have such a heart, they want to be in Russia. There are no questions. Let go of what is not yours. What is yours - it will return. Some went to Germany, some to Poland, some somewhere else. Many will stay. A lot of people. On the one hand, it is a tragedy, because it seems to be forced. On the other hand, someone will stay in the Czech Republic or somewhere in Croatia at the call of their heart. Let them go. Others will come here. Maybe from Uzbekistan, maybe from Afghanistan.

From Russia, by the way.

And from Russia. People never stop their creations. Take the French now. There are about 7 million people of Arab origin in France. Some left, and some came. Or in the Netherlands. Every nation is a living organism that is endlessly created. If these people are not able to preserve their identity, despite the fact that new blood comes, someone leaves, then it disappears, it dissolves simply. And there are healthy ones, like Americans. So much other blood comes to America, masses of it, but America remains America.

But Mr. Voznyak, now there is also such a discussion. Maybe explicit, maybe a secret one. There are people who say, like you, by the way, just now, to forget about Russia. In fact, there is such a slogan. I hear it all the time.

No, not in the sense of forgetting. We will not be able to control it.

Actually, I spoke to a social psychologist. He said, "Until we let go of Russia, our grief feeds Russia".

Exactly.

And when suddenly we stop talking about it and remembering it, think that there is no such phenomenon in the world as Russia, there is no such history, language, then Russia will die because it is fed by the negative energy of ours today and of Poland yesterday. So, others say that we must not forget. They are near, they will always spoil the mood. That is the slogan "Away from Moscow", is it possible? Can the nation or the intellectual part of the Ukrainian nation forget about Russia? 

There are two approaches here. Next to us is Hungary. Name 2 Hungarian poets. We are not soul mates. We have not grown culturally as a symbiosis, as twins. So people separate, either as friends or spouses. We can let go.

On the one hand, we parted, but still, some threads remain.

No, no. One will still know. We know that there is Hungary, that there is the United States, but we do not have a heart-to-heart, one artery with them. So it is with Russia. We just need to let go. Give them freedom in the emotional sense. I understand that there are, undoubtedly, generations who still treasure Onegin and so on.

Let's return to Ukraine. Great times give great politicians. This is about Zelenskyy. If there had not been a great time, a great test, a great war, then Zelenskyy would not have been in the form in which we see him - the leader of the nation, the leader of the world. I would say, despite the different attitudes towards him, he is now the leader of the democratic world.

Of course, he is. Every person is a hostage. Especially a person in such a high position. Not even in a public office, but at the forefront of the historical process. Suddenly you see that there is an abyss here and there, and you did not even want it. I think he did not really want to, but it happened.

When it all started, my wife told me that she knew someone from Zelenskyy's household acquaintances, and they said "No, he will not back down". When everyone was convinced that he would run away. I will not name names. But 90% of Ukrainian politicians would run away because they are in the paradigm of normal actions.

I think 103% would have run away. In general, the courage of Ukrainians is not only Zelenskyy, of course. Zelenskyy is a consequence. Zelenskyy is a hostage of the situation, this is all clear. But the courage of the Ukrainian army, the Ukrainian society, the society that we have, unlike Russia, or the Ukrainian people, to put it in a pompous way. Our courage allowed Macron, Scholz and others to be brave. We allowed them. We gave them a chance to be brave. If Ukraine had failed like Afghanistan, they would have been the same cowards and would have been sitting there under Putin's broom.

Putin was counting on that. I, for example, do not know how you will react to this theory, I absolutely imagine Putin as a child of pre-fertile age. He is 14-15 years old.

You could see it when he came out with that glass. Such a boyish kid. Like, literally a kid.

Yes, but I just imagined that the reason for the war was very emotional, very imaginary. He was whispered to and he saw himself as Napoleon. I'm not exaggerating here. Summer, sun, Lavra, baths, Khreshchatyk, me, troops. And who will dare say anything? What Biden can do when the case is already over. I think he not only dreamed, he saw it. Absolutely convinced that it is 50% of the deed done, then there would be intelligence, international relations, relations with America, China, India, Europe.

There was some ideological basis. He read Ilyin there. But, when a professor reads Ilyin, and when a bum reads Ilyin, the bum reads in his own interpretation. Each text can be read differently.

In any case. He read with dotted lines.

Yes. At that age, he wouldn't read anymore. To read a big book at that age, being president? A little finger swiping a page, that's all, I got it. That's it. A book like that is understandable. That's one reason. But the second thing that really drove him is that Putin has absolutely nothing to do with Ukraine. His life biography includes Germany, St. Petersburg, back and forth. He has never been to Ukraine. He does not realize the trap of the situation in Ukraine for Russians. He does not understand. And so for them, of course, it is a complete surprise, a disaster with this Ukrainian army, which was supposed to steal everything, as theirs did, and immediately sell all the mortars to their vans for some money, for moonshine and lard. They were counting on that.

But, we are depicting intellectuals here, so I will suspect Ukrainians. For example, I will start suspecting myself. I was also convinced that Ukraine would have been captured in 3 days.

I was not convinced.

My daughter, who lived with me in the same house, was sure that it was the other way around. She said, "Dad, we will fight back and win". And I said, "But now a Russian tank will appear here on the corner". I was so struck by this. I was afraid. I understood. Later I was told that I was on some kind of extermination list. But, afraid, I was sitting in Kyiv, and I was convinced that they would come. Maybe in Galicia, the mood is different. I just do not know.

No, I think that the situation on the 24th was very serious. In the previous days, the greatest expectation was that Putin is a rational person, and he turned out to be an irrational person. That is, no arguments. Why were these Russian generals, even from the General Staff, opposed to this adventure in Ukraine? Because they thought rationally. And such type of people as Hitler or Putin, despite their alleged calculation, have some kind of switch, and they act irrationally. In this case, Putin made an irrational step and lost. Sometimes it can be done. Napoleon said, "The main thing is to engage in battle". And after that, we will see. But it was Napoleon. Putin does not compare.

Is there a danger, because we are shedding blood, sweat, and tears. And more are ahead. Will the Ukrainian nation, the Ukrainian people overcome it? Because I can imagine the conceit in the victory over Russia. 

But no. Conceit is called national pride. It is normal. And it is needed as a foundation. But there is another danger, the danger of arrogance. After this ruin, where the whole cities, huge agglomerations, not only Mariupol, but also Sievierodonetsk and the rest, were bulldozed, and now they will bring a huge pie and the division of this pie will begin. It can disavow all our huge victory. And then "So you all rushed to this pie as if you had not eaten". And the fight for it already begins.

It is not even, but about envy. Why is my street not being restored, and yours is being restored? That's how I imagine it.

Yes, it happens. The frog is our national symbol instead of the Trident too. The green frog (“the frog strangles” - Ukrainian idiom that describes feelings of envy, avarice or greed  - ed.).

That is, there are two questions here: on the one hand, it is conceit or national pride, and on the other hand, it should be explained. Ukraine can become a substitute for Russia. Russia, Turgenev, Chekhov, Tchaikovsky. Ukraine can take its place. And many people are talking about it today. Even Russians. In the first place, all the cultural money in Europe will be for themselves, as always. In the second place, for Europe. In third place will be Europe for Ukrainians. And according to the residual principle, Europe will be for Russians. That is, you will have to be either some kind of genius or anti-Putin to come and get something.

I think that the situation will change a little bit here because there is a big mystery to which we do not know the answer to a large extent. Why do Ukrainians resist, why we are somehow different? I do not know the answer. We did not know on the 24th how many days Ukraine would hold. And it held because we are somehow different. And if we are different, then what are we? This question will be asked from the Pentagon to the Louvre and so on. What are these Ukrainians?

And to understand what it is without our literature, which needs to be translated, without studying our mentality. It is not only because they love Ukrainian culture. No, they need to understand what suddenly appeared here, grew like a volcano, exploded out of nowhere. And this will stimulate their interest in our cultural institutions. That is, to our achievements as such. No matter how insecure we are on this topic.

I always ask the question "Do Ukrainians have the resource to paint a picture of the Ukrainian world for the West?" And you say "No, they will be interested in the first place. Not us". Do I understand correctly that a German, a Pole, or an Englishman will ask "What do they have there?" My daughter is studying at the university in Berlin, and she says that it is a huge problem that nobody knows Ukraine academically. Three people per Germany understand something. And they do not understand that we are the way we are because we had the 19th,18th, 17th, 16th, 15th centuries, and they were different from Russia’s. They have been studying the Holodomor since 1917. Great. There are 2 dissertations. Ukrainian revival - there are 3 dissertations. Participation in World War II, Ukrainian Insurgent Army - there are 7 dissertations. That's all. And there is one more dissertation on 1991, the year Ukraine earned its independence. There is nothing else. And no one writes a fair, honest history about Russia either.

Yes. And that is why Germany is losing its position. Degradation from Brant, Köhl to Merkel. The European Union used to grow, Germany, like an engine in a Mercedes, and now Germany "shrinks". In several aspects. Because the umbilical cord with Russia was cut off: there is no oil, no gas. The circulatory system does not work that way anymore. And secondly, the dominance in Europe, as such, of Germany, is reduced. Meanwhile, the Anglo-Saxon world is swelling, developing. And also because to some extent, it understands more about what is happening in Ukraine. Now in Europe, in addition to the great geopolitics, there is a backbone of the states. That is Great Britain, France, Germany, Poland, Ukraine. These are the countries, the European backbone that holds all the others. With great respect to Hungary or Croatia, but they are, so to speak, auxiliary to the side of this spine. With all this, there is no doubt that the biggest, if we are entering such a military era, powers that exist in Europe are the British army and the Ukrainian army. There is also the Turkish army, but this is different. So, what is the Bundeswehr?

It is nothing.

The main question is whether a toothbrush should be square or slightly oval. Are these serious things or the issues they solve?

But we have to accept it and we will not re-educate Germans. They are so frightened after the First and Second World Wars.

We do not have to re-educate them. Germans are already beginning to understand that if they continue like this, in the style of a toothbrush, then Germany will be reduced to the third in its role in the world. Just as Russia should be let go, so should Germany. We do not have to worry that Germany is unsuccessful and does not understand Ukraine. We have to do our own thing. As Tychyna wrote "All masters to one pit.”

Look, we are still stuck between Russia and Ukraine. At least I'm stuck.

I'm not. Obviously, I've read the literature: Mandelstam and other things. But I feel how it is getting more distant and just goes away. It just goes away.

Well, yes. But it is moving away not only because they are doing everything to make it move away from us.

It is Putin who is doing it.

Putin. But now, after the story with the Rain channel this month, I already see that Russia, not only Putin but also anti-Putinists are doing everything to make sure that we have nothing to hold on to.

Absolutely right.

Just before the beginning of our conversation, I was sitting at home, and Yulia Latinina, such a liberal, libertarian even said "You can't say ghouls about all the people". And the Ukrainian asks "And what is your option?" "Well, I would prefer to call Russia the enemy on the battlefield".

"The enemy" is a worthy person.

And he says "Let me invite you to Kharkiv. I even have an apartment in Kharkiv. You will stay in Kharkiv for 7 days, 3 days, as long as you want." She asks "Did it withstand?" "Yes, it's fine, only there are no windows, but it stands. Under sirens, under bombs. And then tell me: ghouls or not ghouls. Or just the enemy.” That is, they do not understand other people at all. This is a beautiful word "empathy", which is now pushed everywhere. Nobody understands that they are just killing children. Where I work now, at Espreso TV, there is a kindergarten downstairs. I sometimes look out the window: such small children are running around. How is it? Who can what this? What are they guilty of? I just look at the sky and think, suddenly a missile will fall right now.

Well, this is just the result of the fact that the Russian army cannot cope with the Ukrainian army and they started an all-out war. This is an absolute banality of course. But coming back to the people and coming back to the individual, there is much confusion here: the people undoubtedly commit crimes as a community, but as individuals, Thomas Mann in German times. He is undoubtedly a decent person. And he should be treated as such. And the German people were guilty of the Holocaust, of all that, undoubtedly. And besides, Thomas Mann, as a decent man, took on that guilt, although he was in exile, he opposed Hitlerism, Nazism all the time, fought and so on. However, he said, "If I am German, I am guilty". And in that sense, Latinina should say "If it happens in Russia that children are killed in Kharkiv, then I am guilty.”

But Thomas Mann... We love him, the British love him, the Americans love him, even the French and the Dutch love him, but until the mid-60s he was the enemy of the German people. The Germans threw eggs at him because the Germans by the end of the 70s had great doubts that Hitler was bad.

No, well, of course, there were still judges, some heads of housing offices, some clerks who still believed in Hitler. Policemen. All of them. And as a result, all the German people who somehow dipped their fingers in the Holocaust, although they pretended that they were not involved, still were alive/ And only those children or grandchildren who have no blood on their hands can say "Well, we are really not responsible."

And I just sit and think: how long will it take with Russia? Two generations at least, no?

At least. Moses said long ago: "40 years". That's two generations.