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Source: El Punt Avui
02.03.2023
Jordi Bordes

PRESS TEXT

In English (translation):

ACTOR ALEKSEI YUDNIKOV PERFORMING A COMEDY ON ANNIVERSARY OF RUSSIAN INVASION

«Humour can catalyse disastrous episodes»

Aleksey Yudnikov completes his stay in Barcelona (which began in July) with the performance of «My mother and the total invasion» by the playwright Sasha Denisova next Saturday at CCCB. The author appeals to comedy and the memory of her mother. The actor was inspired by his mother, who currently lives in Kyiv and has not been able to see him for two years due to Covid and the subsequent Russian invasion. Yudnikov, born in Ukraine, of military parents and with a passport from the Soviet era (his registration is in Kyiv), left Moscow a year ago sensing that he would be refused an actor’s job. He really wants to go back (with four children growing up in Russia) but the whole family advises him to stay away. Thanks to the international support of Artists at Risk, he has found support among European institutions to continue his life as an actor. But a great unknown opens up after his stay in Barcelona (where he has lived and worked thanks to a residency at Fabra i Coats). He feels happy about his work, but this freedom contrasts with the anxiety of living far from loved ones and of understanding the Russian propaganda blockade and the suspicions of other Ukrainian exiles who distrust Russian-speaking culture. He wanted to do theatre workshops in Barcelona to socialise with his fellow citizens and they asked him to do the sessions in Ukrainian. He understands the distrust. We talk through the translator Miquel Cabal. Thanks to his precision in adapting the long answers of the actor as he got up and smoked in an intense conversation that lasted 40 minutes.

For a few days now, all the media have been doing news specials for the first anniversary of the war in Europe, just coming out of Covid. Will there be a return to the pre-war neighbourly relationship between Ukraine and Russia?

It’s very difficult to say. When we talk about the past, what political moment are we referring to? Is it very different to talk about the pre-Soviet era, from before that era? Or do we mean the last 20 years, for example? In these 20 years, the first 15, oppositional theatres in Russia were able to do their work, despite not receiving any public funding. Now, for about five years, they have been repressed by putting bureaucratic marks on the rooms, for example. In recent years, the anti-Western discourse in Moscow has slowed down. It commands the propaganda that the West wants to destroy Russia and also Russian culture. It is strongly believed that there is an attitude against Russia and its culture and that, therefore, it must be defended. The idea that Ukraine is part of a single country, of a shared tradition, is a song with a long history, dating back to the Soviet Union. I have a passport from the Soviet Union, registered in Kyiv. The fall of the Soviet Union caught me traveling to St. Petersburg. I had spent practically my whole life in Russia because I come from a military family. Right now, the tension between Russia and Ukraine shows that it is far from a certain normality.

Did you consider following the family tradition of a military career? What could have happened?

Yes, when I was very young. But I dismissed it. If I had chosen this destiny, now I would very possibly be in the Russian army, and I would have had to participate in the attack against my native land, against my city. I, like many of my generation within the Soviet Union, lived the life of Ukraine in Russia, from Vladivostok to Kyiv, in many different places. I did not undertake a military career, seeing that it was not my path and opted for culture. Despite all the fringe allegations that there have been, warnings that the power of Russia is some kind of monstrous entity, the bulk of the population refuses to accept this statement. Neither I nor anyone else, not even in the press, imagined that it had reached the current extreme. At the beginning of 2000, among the allegations of terrorism of Chechen origin, for example, many attacks should have been caused by the Russian government itself. It was repeatedly denounced by journalists and representatives of the arts and, as a result, they have suffered the repression of power. For example, the journalist Anna Politkóvskaia, who reported it at the time, was murdered. There are also other examples such as the Russian spy Aleksandr Litvinenko, who published two books denouncing state terrorism and was poisoned. We swallowed the toad of the Russian intervention in Georgia or the Russian annexation of Crimea; now we discover whom we are fighting. And it is not very clear at what point we will be able to return. Many of my colleagues at school, with whom I had always spoken in Russian, have now given it up because they see it as a hostile language. I also meet many Ukrainians in Barcelona to whom I have to explain that I am of Russian culture but born in Ukraine. There is mistrust of Russian supremacism because of how it has historically acted on Ukrainian culture and language.

Culture is the backbone of hope. In Sarajevo, Kamerni Teatar 55 remained open during the siege, despite the threat of snipers. Is there theatre today in Ukraine?

I don’t know for sure. I don’t have much contact with art professionals in Ukraine because my family is not connected to the world of theatre and neither are my former classmates. However, a few months ago there was a performance in Warsaw by the playwright Sasha Denisova [the same one who wrote and directed the play that is being performed at CCCB, also a resident of Barcelona Artists at Risk for a few months] with Ukrainian refugees. It was documentary theatre in which refugee actors and actresses acted in the capital of Poland and, after these functions, many of them returned to Ukraine with the desire to work in their own territory. I guess there must be live theatre in Ukraine.

Does it occur to you to return and breathe the soul of the stages in Kyiv?

I am faced with an ethical dilemma. I could go back to Ukraine to work, but since I’m of military age, I’d probably have to go to war. My family also tells me that they don’t want me to risk this situation and tell me that it might be more useful to act here to be able to make an international complaint about what is happening in the invaded territory. And that this will not only help the culture, but also the population in general.

Do you know if Ukrainian exiles will come to see the play on Saturday at CCCB?

I would like to, but I don’t know at this time. It also happens that it is a very sensitive subject, this type of artistic approach to the fact of war, for the Ukrainian population. In the show in Warsaw that I told you about before, for example, the audience was divided according to their political position. The Poles and part of the Ukrainians understood it very well, but there was a sector that raised a doubt: they did not understand the cynical nature of certain passages of the work. Humour has a catalytic effect to overcome disastrous episodes. But when people see their daily life interrupted, they continue to think that it still exists. Many of these characters in the play referred to the harvest and said: «We must go and pick the apples from the orchard.» And someone pretended that their whole estate had been bombed and that there was no longer any harvest or apple trees. This sought-after comic effect, not everyone understood it enough. And they scolded her: «What are you doing in Warsaw, or in Barcelona, joking about the war?» The Ukrainian-speaking community (I am a Russian-speaker), of Ukrainian culture and language, maintains a certain suspicion towards me and those who come from Russian culture because they see me as a representative of Russian culture and, after all, as an asset of a cultural orbit different from their own. This causes a tension that I would like to avoid, but I am convinced that it exists. I have offered myself to some associations of emigrants in Barcelona to do theatre courses and they have accepted, but on the condition that they always express themselves in Ukrainian.

How can it be done to guarantee tools so that culture is free above political rivalries? There is little ability to understand and empathise with others.

Right now, Russia is an ideal setting for a sociological experiment: you could show a black card and tell a group of citizens that it is green and they would see it as green.

And they would believe it.

Absolutely. Because they use culture as a space for propaganda. Above all, it affects the older generations of the country. They see the internet as a threat. Older generations do not trust the internet as a reliable source of information, which, for young people, it is. They understand it as a Western threat of inflow of values pernicious to the more traditional Russian culture rooted in the family… Classic right-wing values that are now being promoted in Russia. There has been a manipulation of the historical voices of Russian culture, from classical writers such as Pushkin or Dostoevsky and also contemporary singers and ballet musicians who, at the time, had been head-on against the repressive policies of the Soviet Union, such as Boris Grebenshchikov, singer of the Aquarium group, and Viktor Tsoi (1962-1990), singer of the Kinó group. It is now being said that Tsoi would be in favour of this intervention of Ukraine, for example. They take those who were the protest rock of the Soviet era, who defended the protest song against manipulation, against state control, and appropriate them as allies in the invasion. In reality, many musicians have left because of this repression and live in Western European countries. It is also true that there are musicians who have spoken out in favour of the invasion: some who opposed the power of the USSR are now in favour of the cultural manipulation of Putin’s Russia.

And the public?

The public is afraid. Those who do not have a more or less protected status are afraid to speak out because they will be imprisoned and convicted. Or banned. There are writers who have been banned from the public space and it is impossible for them to work for the Russian public. There are the cases, for example, of Anna Starobínets, Maria Stepànova or Victoria Lomasko, but also writers of the previous generation such as Liudmila Ulítskaia. They are writers who have spoken out against Putin’s power, they have been banned from libraries, bookshops and the public space. They no longer write for the Russian public because the public cannot read them: they have disappeared from the Russian cultural imagination.

At the beginning of the invasion, the European auditoriums canceled functions. As in the Olympic Games, in which there was no Russian team, properly speaking. Was it right?

If there is now a boycott, a cancellation of Russian culture, it must be fine-tuned so that the culture that lives in the orbit of Putin’s propaganda is boycotted. But the point is to highlight that there are other voices within Russia that have been largely silenced but that, despite everything, are trying to rise up against this dominant Russian policy today.

Playing mother, daughter, ex-husbands and Putin

It is a monologue but Aleksei Yudnikov plays many characters. It tells the story of Olga Ivanovna, the mother of the playwright Sasha Denisova, who has decided to stay in the Ukrainian capital despite the invasion. The story is loaded with irony and conversations between the mother and the chiefs of staff, her ex-husbands, and even Sasha herself. You can sense that the picture is a caricature of Putin and that it goes back decades. The actor was a regular at the Teatr.doc in Moscow, a stage critical of the Russian president and which has been closed. She left because she knew that being born in Kyiv put her one step closer to the abyss. Now, she understands that it will be more difficult to do theatre in Putin’s repressive Russia. Barcelona was registered as a welcoming city for Artists at Risk in 2018. For years, it has been a city of refuge for writers threatened through PEN International. Kyiv, by the way, is a guest city at Mercè in 2023.

In Catalan (original):

“L’humor pot catalitzar episodis funestos”

Aleksei Iúdnikov completa la seva trajectòria a Barcelona (que va iniciar al juliol) amb la representació de Ma mare i la invasió total, de la dramaturga Saixa Dennísova, dissabte vinent al CCCB. L’autora apel·la a la comèdia i al record de la seva mare. L’actor s’ha inspirat en la seva mare, que viu a Kíiv a hores d’ara i que fa dos anys que no ha pogut anar a veure a conseqüència de la covid i de la invasió russa posterior. Iúdnikov, nascut a Ucraïna, de pares militars i amb passaport de l’era soviètica (hi consta el seu empadronament a Kíiv), fa un any que va sortir de Moscou intuint que se li negaria la feina d’actor. Té moltes ganes de tornar (amb quatre fills creixent a Rússia) però tota la família li recomana que es quedi fora. Gràcies al suport internacional d’Artists at Risk, ha trobat suport entre les administracions europees per seguir la seva vida d’actor. Però s’obre una gran incògnita, després de la seva estada a Barcelona (on ha viscut i treballat gràcies a una residència a la Fabra i Coats). Se sent feliç de la seva feina, però aquesta llibertat contrasta amb l’angoixa de viure allunyat de les persones estimades i de comprendre el bloqueig propagandístic rus i les suspicàcies dels altres exiliats ucraïnesos que hi desconfien, en participar de la cultura russòfona. Ha volgut fer tallers de teatre a Barcelona per socialitzar amb els seus conciutadans i li han demanat que faci les sessions en ucraïnès. Entén la desconfiança. Conversem a través del traductor Miquel Cabal. Mai serà prou l’agraïment a la seva precisió, adaptant les llargues respostes de l’actor, mentre aquest s’aixecava i fumava en una conversa intensa de 40 minuts.

Des de fa uns dies tots els mitjans fan especials informatius pel primer any de guerra a Europa, just sortint de la covid.Tornarà a haver-hi la relació veïnal anterior a la guerra, entre Ucraïna i Rússia?

És molt complicat de dir. Quan parlem d’abans, a quin moment polític ens referim. És molt diferent parlar a l’abans de l’època soviètica, d’abans d’aquella època? O ens referim als darrers 20 anys, per exemple? En aquests 20 anys, els primers 15, els teatres d’oposició política de Rússia podien anar fent la seva feina, tot i no rebre-hi cap finançament públic. Ara, des de fa uns cinc anys se’ls reprimeix posant pegues burocràtiques a les sales, per exemple. Aquests darrers anys a Moscou s’ha anat abrandant el discurs antioccidental. Mana la propaganda que Occident vol destruir Rússia i també la cultura russa. Es considera fermament que hi ha una actitud contra Rússia i la seva cultura i que, per tant, s’ha de defensar. La idea que Ucraïna forma part d’un sol país, d’una tradició compartida, és una cantarella de molta trajectòria, que es remunta a la Unió Soviètica. Jo tinc passaport de la Unió Soviètica, empadronat a Kíiv. La caiguda de la Unió Soviètica em va enganxar viatjant cap a Sant Petersburg. Havia fet pràcticament tota la meva vida a Rússia perquè vinc d’una família de militars. Ara mateix, la tensió entre Rússia i Ucraïna demostra que s’està lluny d’una certa normalitat.

Es va plantejar seguir la tradició familiar de fer carrera militar? Què hauria pogut passar?

Sí, quan era molt jove. Però ho vaig descartar. Si hagués triat aquest destí ara molt possiblement estaria a l’exèrcit rus, i hauria hagut de participar en l’atac contra la meva terra natal, contra la meva ciutat. Jo, com molts de la meva generació, dins de la Unió Soviètica vaig viure la vida d’Ucraïna a Rússia, des de Vladivostok fins a Kíiv, a molts llocs diferents. No vaig emprendre la carrera militar en veure que no era el meu camí i vaig optar per la cultura. Malgrat totes les denúncies marginals que hi ha hagut advertint que el poder de Rússia és una mena d’entitat monstruosa, el gruix de la població renuncia a acceptar aquesta afirmació. Ni jo ni ningú, tampoc en l’àmbit de la premsa, ens imaginàvem que s’hagués arribat a l’extrem actual. A principis del 2000, d’entre les denúncies de terrorisme de procedència txetxena, per exemple, molts atemptats els deurien provocar des del poder rus mateix. Ho van denunciar periodistes i representants de l’àmbit de les arts repetidament i que, a conseqüència d’això, han patit la repressió del poder. Per exemple, la periodista Anna Politkóvskaia, que ho va denunciar al seu moment, va ser assassinada. També hi ha altres exemples com ara l’espia rus Aleksandr Litvinenko, que va publicar dos llibres denunciant el terrorisme d’estat i que va ser enverinat. Ens vam empassar el gripau de la intervenció russa a Geòrgia o de l’annexió russa de Crimea, ara es descobreix amb qui estem combatent. I no tenim gaire clar a quin punt podrem tornar. Molts dels meus col·legues de l’escola, amb qui sempre havia parlat en rus, ara hi han renunciat perquè la veuen com a llengua hostil. També em trobo a Barcelona amb molts ucraïnesos a qui els haig d’explicar que jo soc de cultura russa però nat a Ucraïna. Hi ha desconfiança del supremacisme rus per com ha actuat històricament sobre la cultura i llengua ucraïnesa.

La cultura és l’espina dorsal de l’esperança. A Sarajevo, es va mantenir obert el Kamerni Teatar 55 durant el setge, tot i l’amenaça dels franctiradors. Es fa teatre avui a Ucraïna?

No ho sé del cert. No tinc gaire contacte amb els professionals de l’art a Ucraïna perquè la meva família no està vinculada al món del teatre i els meus antics companys d’estudi tampoc. Tot i això, fa pocs mesos es va fer una representació a Varsòvia de la dramaturga Saixa Dennísova [la mateixa que ha escrit i dirigit l’obra que es representa al CCCB, també resident de Barcelona Artistes en Risc durant uns mesos] amb refugiats ucraïnesos. Era un teatre documental en què actuaven actrius i actors refugiats a la capital de Polònia i, després d’aquestes funcions, molts d’ells van tornar a Ucraïna amb la voluntat de fer feina al seu propi territori. Suposo que hi deu haver teatre viu a Ucraïna.

Se li acut tornar i insuflar ànima des dels escenaris a Kíiv?

Se’m planteja un dilema ètic. Podria tornar a Ucraïna a treballar però, com que estic en edat militar, probablement em tocaria fer la guerra. La meva família també em diu que no vol que m’arrisqui a aquesta situació i em diu que potser és més útil actuar aquí per poder fer denúncia internacional del que passa al territori envaït. I que això no només ajudarà la cultura, sinó també la població en general.

Sap si vindran exiliats ucraïnesos a veure l’obra, dissabte al CCCB?

M’agradaria però no ho sé, a hores d’ara. També passa que és un tema molt sensible, aquest tipus d’aproximacions artístiques al fet de la guerra, per a la població ucraïnesa. En l’espectacle de Varsòvia que et deia abans, per exemple, el públic es va dividir en funció de la seva posició política. Els polonesos i una part dels ucraïnesos ho van entendre molt bé, però hi va haver un sector que els plantejava un dubte: no entenien el caràcter cínic de determinats passatges de l’obra. L’humor té un efecte catalitzador per vèncer episodis funestos. Però la gent quan veu interrompuda la seva vida quotidiana continua pensant que aquesta segueix existint. Molts d’aquests personatges de l’obra es referien a la collita i deien: “Hem d’anar a collir les pomes de l’hort.” I algú els feia veure que els havien bombardejat la finca sencera i que ja no existia ni collita ni pomers. Aquest efecte còmic buscat, no tothom el va entendre prou. I l’increpaven: “Què fas a Varsòvia, o a Barcelona, fent broma de la guerra?” La comunitat ucraïnòfona (jo soc russòfon), de cultura i llengua ucraïnesa, manté una certa suspicàcia amb mi i amb els que venen de cultura russa perquè em veuen com a representant de la cultura russa i, al capdavall, com a actiu d’una òrbita cultural diferent de la seva. Això provoca una tensió que voldria evitar, però estic convençut que existeix. M’he ofert a algunes associacions d’emigrats a Barcelona per fer cursos de teatre i ho han acceptat, però amb la condició que s’expressin sempre en ucraïnès.

Com es pot fer per garantir eines perquè la cultura sigui lliure per sobre de rivalitats polítiques? Hi ha poca capacitat a entendre i empatitzar amb l’altre.

Ara mateix, Rússia és un escenari ideal per fer un experiment sociològic: es podria ensenyar una cartilla de color negre i dir a un grup de ciutadans que és de color verd i ells ho veurien verd.

I s’ho creurien.

Absolutament. Perquè fan servir la cultura com a espai per a la propaganda. Sobretot, afecta les generacions més grans del país. Veuen internet com una amenaça. Les generacions grans no se’n fien, d’internet, com una font fiable d’informació, cosa que, per als joves, sí que ho és. L’entenen com una amenaça occidental d’entrada de valors perniciosos per a la cultura russa més tradicional arrelada a la família… Valors clàssics de la dreta que ara s’estan promocionant a Rússia. Hi ha hagut una manipulació de les veus històriques de la cultura russa, des dels escriptors clàssics com Puixkin o Dostoievski i també cantants i músics de ballet contemporani que al seu moment s’havien oposat frontalment a les polítiques repressives de la Unió Soviètica, com ara Boris Grebenshchikov, cantant del grup Aquarium, i Viktor Tsoi (1962-1990), cantant del grup Kinó. Ara s’està dient que Tsoi estaria a favor d’aquesta intervenció d’Ucraïna, per exemple. Agafen els que van ser el rock contestatari de l’època soviètica, que defensaven la cançó protesta contra la manipulació, contra el control estatal, i se’ls apropien com a aliats a la invasió. En realitat, molts músics han marxat per aquesta repressió i viuen a països de l’Europa occidental. També és cert que hi ha músics que s’han pronunciat a favor de la invasió: alguns que s’oposaven al poder de l’URSS ara estan a favor de la manipulació cultural de la Rússia de Putin.

I la ciutadania?

El públic té por. Aquells que no tenen un status, més o menys protegit, tenen por de manifestar-se perquè els empresonen i els condemnen. O els veten. Hi ha escriptors que han estat vetats de l’espai públic i que els és impossible treballar per a la pobalcio russa. Hi ha els casos, per exemple, d’Anna Starobínets, Maria Stepànova o Victoria Lomasko, però també escriptors de la generació anterior com ara Liudmila Ulítskaia. Són escriptors que s’han pronunciat contra el Poder de Putin, se’ls ha vetat de les biblioteques, de les llibreries, de l’espai públic. Ja no escriuen pel públic rus perquè no els pot llegir: han desaparegut de l’imaginari cultural rus.

A l’inici de la invasió, els auditoris europeus van cancel·lar les funcions. Com en els Jocs Olímpics, en què no hi va haver una selecció russa, pròpiament. Era encertat?

Si ara es fa un boicot, un cancelling de la cultura russa, cal afinar-lo perquè es faci el boicot de la cultura que viu a l’òrbita de la propaganda de Putin. Però del que es tracta és de posar en relleu que hi ha altres veus dins de Rússia que han silenciat molt però que, malgrat tot, intenten alçar-se contra aquesta política dominant russa d’avui.

Fer de mare, de filla, d’exmarits i de Putin