An empty museum in Kharkiv. On the piano v. left: Alexandra Lesnikova (artist who died in 2008), Inna Melnitskaya (poet who died in 2020) and Tschitschibabin (died in 1994)
Photo: Bernhard Clasen
“My apologies,” Vera Bulgakova, director of the Boris Chichibabin Museum in the Ukrainian metropolis of Kharkiv, greets me. “Unfortunately, I didn’t manage to wipe the dust before your visit.” You can tell that the museum hasn’t seen any visitors for a long time. No, she adds that she is not related to the famous writer Mikhail Bulgakov. She is still proud of this name.
It has become quiet in the museum on the second floor of the “Municipal Center for Cultural Initiatives” on Skypnyka Street in the city center. Since the Russian attack on Ukraine in February 2022, events have no longer been allowed to take place in the museum, which was once a cultural center of Kharkiv, allegedly for security reasons. It’s just surprising that other cultural centers in the same city are still allowed to invite people to concerts, exhibitions and readings.
Boris Tschitschibabin (1923–1994) was the greatest of all Kharkiv poets, one could read in the “Neue Zürcher Zeitung” for example; he is undoubtedly one of the great poets of the second half of the 20th century. But the writer, who lived in Kharkiv all his life, is now pushed into the background. Because he wrote in Russian, the Ukrainian authorities, who continue to finance his museum and tolerate a street named after him in Kharkiv, no longer want to have anything to do with him. The writer, who was friends with well-known dissidents and writers such as Yevgeny Yevtushenko and Bulat Okudschava, had already had difficulties with the authorities in the Soviet Union. He was in the camp for five years under Stalin, and many of his works fell victim to censorship.
Anyone who wants to go through the main entrance of the “Municipal Center for Cultural Initiatives” to the Chichibabin Museum on the second floor will see a wall covered in dents, traces of Russian air raids. White sandbags protrude from the partially boarded windows. Before the war, the German honorary consul had lived across the street. A plaque indicated that Boris Chichibabin worked in this building. It still exists, but is covered by a black cloth because it is in Russian. Russian-language signs are not prohibited in Ukraine. But according to Ukrainian language law, anyone who has such a sign hanging is obliged to install another sign of the same size and quality next to it. Only: the Chichibabin Museum does not have the necessary money for this.
Since the Russian air strikes on Kharkiv, Russian has been perceived as the language of the aggressor. At the beginning of April, the Ukrainian Institute of National Remembrance, which reports to the government and plays a key role in shaping the state’s remembrance policy, declared the writer Mikhail Bulgakov (1891–1940) a “Ukraine hater.” According to the institute, Bulgakov, who was hardly able to publish under Stalin, hated Ukrainians and their culture, despite his years in Kiev. It is said that the writer, whose main work “The Master and Margarita” is a satire on Soviet bureaucracy and was only allowed to appear in 1966, is very close to the ideologists of Putinism. Bulgakov represented positions of Russian imperialism and wanted to deny the Ukrainian nation its right to its own path, separate from Russia.
No Ukrainian protagonist comes off well in his works. Rather, Ukrainians are parodied in his works, the Ukrainian language is mocked, in short: Bulgakov is a denier of the Ukrainian nation. Thus, in accordance with the law prohibiting the use of symbols of Russian imperial policy, further use of Mikhail Bulgakov’s name in the designation of geographical objects and legal entities should be prohibited. Monuments and symbols in public spaces in his honor can also be classified as Russian propaganda.
“That’s absurd,” Liliya Karas-Chichibabin, the widow of the writer Boris Chichibabin, tells me. “Bulgakov has always been and will always be an important part of the city of Kiev, which he loves so much.” At some point, she hopes, the decision will be reversed.
“Everything they write in their report is fictitious, just nonsense,” criticizes Anatoly Konchakowski, the founder of the Kiev Bulgakov Museum, in the online newspaper “strana.ua”, which is criticized by both the Ukrainian and Russian sides , the Institute. It is not true that Bulgakov was a Ukraninophobic “imperialist”; there is no evidence of this in his letters and diaries.
A year ago, the Kiev city council banned the public playing of Russian music. The Ukrainian parliament has submitted a draft law that wants to change over 330 place names that have some connection to Russia. If this law is passed, there will no longer be place and street names such as Novomoskovsk, Pushkino, Maxim Gorky or Pervomaisk in Ukraine.
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