Vlad Troitskyi is a Ukrainian theatre director, cultural activist, the founder of GogolFest (an annual international festival of contemporary art, theatre, literature and cinema normally held in Kyiv), the Dakh Theatre, and the bands DakhaBrakha and Dakh Daughters. Troitskyi and his bands have had more than 100 shows in Europe and North America since the beginning of the full-scale war. Thanks to Troitskyi and his collaborators, the Ukrainian flag flew in Avignon at the closing ceremony of the largest theatre festival in Europe, the war in Ukraine was at the forefront of discussions in the Odeon theatre in Paris, and Norwegian audience members spent a night in a bomb shelter listening to readings from diaries of people in Mariupol and Kharkiv.

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Authors: Iryna Vyhovska, Yaroslav Druziuk

Translator: Olya Loza

Portrait: Serge Serdiukov

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We talked to Vlad Troitskyi in September. He was in Normandy; rain had finally come after record-breaking draughts this summer. Vlad considered the anomalously hot summer in Europe as both an ecological and existential crisis. While global warming is an enormous problem confronting the entire world, people “are plagued by madness and all countries are increasing their defence budgets.”

Troitskyi had a lot on his mind: he spoke on a variety of topics, namely civic activism, working with the Ukrainian government, the value of performances and happenings, the Ukrainian agenda in Europe, his future shows, including those behind the enemy lines, and even a little bit about faith in God.

“Instead of improving our lives, we are multiplying our weapons.”

We are facing a momentous existential challenge. What makes the Ukrainian people different (and what we are trying to convey through art) is that Ukraine is fighting for the right to create, the right to love, the right to self-determination and to be in charge of our own lives. This is a crucial difference, because [Russia’s] goal in this war is destruction, while ours is creation. We are all about creation in all of its different manifestations: both artistic and material, from art to roads.

What we must give the world as Ukrainians is an ode to life, an ode to love. It will be incredible if we manage to do this

What we must give the world as Ukrainians is an ode to life, an ode to love. It will be incredible if we manage to do this. We will be able to mark that moment as the birth of a truly great people. Not great as in the Third Reich great, or great according to Russia’s standards, but great in a new sense: a people that generates ideas, that shows the entire world how amazing it is to be free. Yes, it’s a little scary. Yes, you have to accept responsibility for your own existence, for the existence of your family, your city, your country. But you can do so much once you accept this responsibility. That’s how our volunteer movement emerged. It’s singular, it couldn’t have existed in any other country in the world. We have much to be proud of but it’s important that we don’t get arrogant.

“What we’re doing now is not about building our careers as artists. It’s about civic activism.”

In the beginning of our conversation, Vlad listed the cities and countries where Dakh Daughters and DakhaBrakha were set to perform in the coming months. Dakh Daughters are taking their Ukraine Fire show to Poland, with performances in Warsaw and Lodz. DakhaBrakha are going on their third tour in North America. Dakh Daughters will also do an extensive tour of France. A "mini-GogolFest" is being planned in Berlin, modelled on the one in Oslo earlier this year. A festival dedicated to the war in Ukraine will also be held in Hamburg. Vlad also stressed that he was planning to organise a provocative theatre performance in Hungary.

You’d think I should keep quiet about my work in Hungary, but I’m doing it quite deliberately, it’s a form of civic activism. I will organise a show in Hungary, behind enemy lines, so to speak. The show is called The Nature of Evil in Russia. I understand that it will probably be shut down pretty quickly, but I can’t not give it a shot. It’s very provocative, but I think that something extreme like that is what’s needed. I want to remind them of the Russian tanks entering Budapest [in 1956, when the Soviet tanks rolled into Budapest to crush the national uprising - ed.]. [He smiles]

On top of fundraising, it’s really important to not let conversations about Ukraine peter out, especially this autumn and winter. We need to educate people in the West, especially politicians and, to an even greater degree, journalists. We have to remind them that this war doesn’t just concern Ukraine, but that Ukraine is defending the freedom and democracy of the entire world. The hybrid war that is being fought by means of, for example, natural gas, and the narratives spun here by the populist parties on the right and the left, are very dangerous. It destabilises the situation. We cannot afford to be silent even for a moment.

We have to remind them that this war doesn’t just concern Ukraine, but that Ukraine is defending the freedom and democracy of the entire world

“In Europe, the war has been buried in the back of newspapers.”

We are trying to use art and culture to develop this narrative. We don’t just play gigs and put on shows – we are coordinating performances that go straight to your heart. Audiences cry, they get to feel what it’s like to experience the war. These performances make people realise that the war isn’t somewhere far away, it’s right here. Because 1,000, 2,000 kilometres is nothing for modern missiles. They could reach [Europe] in three, five, 10, 20 minutes.

This victory would guarantee a future for all of us, Europeans, and for our children. We are fighting for democracy for all

We usually host public discussions after our performances; about 60–70% of the audience usually stays on to take part in that. I usually present people with challenging questions: “Are you prepared to defend your homes, your cities, your families, arms in hand, if Russian forces start to advance on Paris or Berlin?” Almost everyone says that they aren’t. We explain to them that Ukraine is defending them.

In this war, we are the ones to pay the highest price: the lives of Ukrainian children, women, soldiers, and volunteers. This is a bloody war and the Western world also has to pay a price for this victory. This victory would guarantee a future for all of us, Europeans, and for our children. We are fighting for democracy for all.

“Real theatre” is when, after a performance, the audience realises with horror that what they saw on stage is really taking place, right now.

In the Dance Macabre performance, the audience meets six young women who are courageous enough to look death in the eye and to say horrifying things. At the same time, we cannot appear miserable or ask for pity. Someone who appears miserable cannot be liked all that much. Someone who appears miserable might receive a handout or two, but would then be avoided. We try to ensure that our audiences see people’s heroism on stage, to help them understand that Ukrainian troops continue to hold their ground even when it seems that they have no chance of survival, as it did in the first week [of the full-scale invasion] and to help them understand the origins of this volunteer movement, which is unprecedented in Europe. Characters in our plays allow them to understand the spirit of the Ukrainian people and allow us to portray our people as protagonists and as heroes, rather than as victims. Heroes who have suffered horrific losses and who bear a tragic fate. But heroes nonetheless.

During the opening of d’Aurillac, one of the largest theatre festivals in Europe, we staged an interruption of the mayor’s address: sirens were blasting and red smoke began to pour out of the city hall building, as if it had caught on fire. Several Dakh Daughters songs played while actors present among the audience began to fall to the ground, as if to shield themselves from the sound of sirens. Solomiia Melnyk, a Ukrainian actor, read a monologue; meanwhile, Ukrainian refugee women with their children, and French actresses wearing raincoats and carrying paper bags and saplings walked through the crowd. Their bags looked like apartment blocks, and had windows painted on them. It was very moving. We inaugurated a park dedicated to Ukraine’s memory and hopes. We only planted one tree back then because it was really hot; the rest of the trees will be planted in November to create a park.

We are also lobbying on behalf of Ukrainian refugees, women and children. It’s difficult for them to find their feet here, we have to talk about them.

We ran what we call a “micro-GogolFest” in Oslo, a theatre festival. We organised a performance, or perhaps better to say a happening, called A Night at the Bomb Shelter. The festival would be surreptitiously interrupted by sirens, and the entire audience had to go shelter in a basement. There were mattresses, sleeping mats, blankets. Regular Norwegians who came to see the performance ended up in a basement: at first they were just sitting there, then they realised that they had no idea how much longer they’d have to remain there, what they were supposed to do, what they were waiting for or how long they might end up waiting. They started to make themselves comfortable, lying down. And then we played a multi-dimensional soundscape created by a young composer: it combined a low din, a blast, a child crying. Actors from both Norway and Ukraine read from the diaries of people from Mariupol and Kharkiv. They read so quietly that at times you couldn’t hear the words, just the sound of their voices. Then a prayer was read, first in Ukrainian, then in Yiddish, then in Aramaic. In the end, around six in the morning, the girls from Dakh Daughters taught everyone in the audience to sing a Ukrainian folk song, Oi u luzi chervona kalyna (literally Oh, the Red Viburnum in the Meadow), and then they all sang it together, right there in the bomb shelter.

The people in the audience were not entirely sure what was going on. I myself was not entirely sure how it would all work out; it’s not really something we could have rehearsed. There was one arresting moment, when the people in the audience returned from their first spell in the shelter and saw that the site of the performance had been destroyed, as if by an explosion. Shattered glass, wooden planks, everything was all over the place. They were really shocked, despite realising that it was a performance, that all of it was not real, that they were safe. But the imagination completes the picture, tells you that the bomb shelter is not something abstract. It’s a reality.

The people in the audience realise that while they might be safe, thousands of kilometres away people just like them are sheltering in a basement just like that, but a real one. Norwegians understand us better than anyone now, there are no internal disagreements. Now we’re preparing to stage this performance in Berlin.

“If you are silent, you won’t be on the agenda”

At the beginning of the war, it wasn’t obvious to me that the best course of action was to go abroad and work on cultural projects. I knew we had to do what we’re best at. Because if we’re silent, others will talk. Nature abhors a vacuum. If Ukraine is not on Europe’s agenda, refugees from Syria or Afghanistan will be. There’s no shortage of issues. If you are silent, no one will talk about you.

As we were leaving Ukraine, by car, in a long queue of vehicles full of children, we were writing new material; we spent those three days on the road thinking about where we might do those performances.

If Ukraine is not on Europe’s agenda, refugees from Syria or Afghanistan will be. There’s no shortage of issues

Young women and men who stayed behind are continuing to put on plays at the Dakh theatre in Kyiv. Right now there’s a play based on the poems of Vasyl Stus, another one – based on Pavlo Tychyna’s poetry – is currently in the works. When I consider where we might be most effective, I take into account the fact that there are not that many events related to Ukrainian culture in Europe. There’s a certain vacuum. So we’ll do everything we can to raise attention here and to talk – to talk to audiences using the language of art and just plain old language – while we have this opportunity.

Weaponising culture

This will sound horrible, but sometimes you have to learn from the enemy. Russia has meticulously constructed its narrative over the course of many years. They seeded this myth among European leftists back in the 1920s, when the KGB’s international departments spawned a number of “useful idiots” and people like Romain Rolland and Herbert Wells, who visited and admired Moscow and the Soviet Union.

And now we have the director of Hermitage [a state arts museum in St Petersburg - ed.] saying that their exhibitions in Europe were in fact a special operation. They are “buying” curators, buying media space. They’re saying: “This is a cool exhibition, the Russian avant garde: Malevych, Chagall…” And I’m not even talking about the fact that these painters who allegedly constitute the so-called “Russian avant garde” are Ukrainian. But what happens is that these exhibitions are taking place, they’re working. Someone might walk past a famous museum, like the Centre Pompidou in Paris and see that there is an exhibition of Russian art there. This will linger in the person’s mind.

Russia hasn’t offered any practical solutions, it is only advocating destruction

The mythology of the Soviet Union as a just society still has plenty of sway over leftist circles in Europe. Now we also have right-wing radicals, like Dugin. They have closed in on centrist Europe from both sides. Now Europe has realised this and, horrified, contemplates what to do next.

The populist wave is advancing like a plague. But Russia hasn’t offered any practical solutions, it is only advocating destruction. It is what Ronald Reagan once called “an empire of evil”. But if at the time of Raegan’s comment the Soviet Union was in reality an ineffectual and meek presence, today’s Russia is a real empire of evil.

Institutionalising Ukrainian culture

We don’t have as many resources or as much practice as the Russians when it comes to promoting our culture. But we’ve got something else that we can use to take the world by surprise: new reflections on freedom, on contemporary heroics, on the idea of the hero. What if it wasn’t a singular individual but a whole people?

Overall, however, I think we need to start working on systematising and institutionalising culture. I proposed a calendar/map of Ukrainian cultural events abroad, but unfortunately it hasn’t come into existence yet. It would inform you what was going on where and when: film, music or theatre festivals, exhibitions, gallery openings, and so on. Seeing all of those things right next to each other would allow us to understand whether anything is really happening or not.

The structural characteristics of culture have to be rethought. Of course we shouldn’t disband state orchestras and choirs, but we have to create conditions for new, independent projects to emerge. We have to create large cultural hubs with an internal grant system, like the Ukrainian Cultural Foundation, which would in turn give rise to independent music and theatre projects, small and large. Then we would have to build out a competitive model.

We’ve got something else that we can use to take the world by surprise: new reflections on freedom, on contemporary heroics, on the idea of the hero. What if it wasn’t a singular individual but a whole people?

Competition has never been viable in Ukraine. Compare the Ivan Franko National Theatre in central Kyiv, which rents its premises for a symbolic one hryvnia [around $0.03 - ed.] and receives 250 million hryvnias of state funding each year, and the Dakh theatre which rents 240 square metres in a basement and receives no support from the state. How can they be compared?!

The Ministry of Culture is trying to do better, but right now they are busy protecting Ukraine’s cultural heritage within the country. Oleksandr Tkachenko has met with the French Minister of Culture to discuss the need to create a fund to support Ukraine, to restore the country’s museums and libraries. This is a basic requirement for the support of the cultural industry in Ukraine because now we’re facing basic infrastructural problems, with many sites and locations destroyed.

As for the Ukrainian Institute, I haven’t been able to work with them. They’re a totally closed circuit. They are doing things, but I haven’t heard anything about their work.

We’ve done everything we could to make sure that the backdrop to the closing of Europe’s largest theatre festival would be the Ukrainian flag, with “We have to win together” emblazoned on it

The Ukrainian Institute organised a Ukrainian pavilion at the theatre festival in Avignon but hardly any French people knew about it. I was surprised that they [the Ukrainian Institute - ed.] haven’t even called us and asked what we were planning to do or offered to do something together; they knew we would perform at the festival. Why couldn’t we co-host the closing ceremony and the Ukrainian pavilion? Maybe we could have drawn more attention that way.

But we’re trying to take responsibility for our own actions. We’ve done everything we could to make sure that the backdrop to the closing of Europe’s largest theatre festival would be the Ukrainian flag, with “We have to win together” emblazoned on it. The festival director, a jazz singer who has won several Grammys, and Dakh Daughters all shared the stage, holding a Ukrainian flag. That was a very important moment.

Dialogues with God

In several past interviews, Vlad Troitskyi discussed his new idea: Dialogues with God, a series of texts which he initially wrote as monologues for a play but has since turned into a separate project, an art book collecting these appeals to the divine. We asked Troitskyi what he’s been asking God about since the beginning of the full-scale war.

I haven’t made a single new entry since 24 February. Haven’t felt like it. You know, when Ukraine is being attacked by missiles, you realise that God is looking away. Your world has been destroyed, it’s fallen apart. The world that once existed no longer does.

This makes me think of the Book of Job, which is a foil for all our current performances. It’s one of the main texts in the Old Testament. It’s written as a parable, even an anecdote: God’s bet with Satan. In reality, it is a test of your attitude to life. Will you let unbelief, a mortal sin, into your heart? If so, it will erode you. You will be overtaken by anger, by resentment. And that’s it, you’re gone.

Preserving humanity and dignity despite all trials and tribulations – that’s what our life right now is about.

You witness the world come undone before your eyes and you realise the turmoil and the challenges that lie ahead

Ukraine is living in the time of parables. I have recently realised that I lived through Chornobyl (I was in Prypiat back then and it has really affected us), then the fall of the USSR; Ukraine has gained its independence, it has struggled all along, has lived through two revolutions, and now this war, which is being compared to World War II. And you’re in the middle of it all. You’ve seen it all with your own two eyes. It’s like you’re inside a tsunami. You witness the world come undone before your eyes and you realise the turmoil and the challenges that lie ahead.

We have to survive, to stay humane and to continue creating.