By Florian J. Haamann, Fürstenfeldbruck
One can only imagine how important this evening is. For the two actresses on stage and the team behind them. As a sign of solidarity and cohesion. Above all, however, for the many people from Ukraine who are sitting in the audience at the sold-out event forum, who fled their homeland months ago from the merciless violence that has been sweeping Ukraine for exactly a year. Who have since been separated from their culture, their homes, their familiar surroundings. And who can finally experience a performance in their language again. The story of the blessed Edigna, important for the identity of her country and a connection to Fürstenfeldbruck, played, among others, by Irma Vitovska, a Ukrainian film actress who can definitely be called a star in her homeland.
Accordingly, some visitors react emotionally when she enters the stage. And it gets correspondingly more emotional when she comes back on stage at the end of the evening and intones the Ukrainian anthem in the yellow and blue illuminated hall, the audience joins in and several Ukrainian flags are waved.
At the end of the evening, actresses Irma Vitovska (right) and Anastasia Blazhchuk sing the Ukrainian anthem.
(Photo: Johannes Simon)
On the anniversary of Russia’s attack on Ukraine, the city of Fürstenfeldbruck and the Edigna association organized this special benefit evening “Edigna 23” and brought Fedir Balandin’s Edigna drama, created in Kiev in 2018, to Fürstenfeldbruck with the original cast and in Ukrainian. The proceeds will support the association “Brucker helfen der Ukraine” and the city’s “Citizens in Need” fund.
For German-speaking visitors, there are translated summaries of the individual scenes. The performance itself is a fast-paced and effective mixture of drama and visually stunning video show. The action is accompanied by sequences drawn in comic style on a large screen above the stage. Edigna’s deceased grandfather Jaroslav appears there again and again and speaks to her in visions.
Edigna is played on stage by Anastasia Blazhchuk, clad in armor and always grappling with her fate. As the daughter of the French king and his wife Anne of Kiev, she is supposed to take on the role of the wife and mother who was forced into marriage. But she wants more.
Edigna (Anastasia Blazhchuk) does not want to accept her fate as a king’s daughter and dreams of being a fighter.
(Photo: Johannes Simon)
Arriving in Puch, Edina realizes that her decision to leave Paris and her family is final.
(Photo: Johannes Simon)
So one night, after another vision, she decides to flee the palace in Paris. She joins a group of people moving eastwards and ends up in Puch. There she sticks her sword into the ground and from it the Edigna lime tree grows, in which she lives from now on, from where she supports the people in the area with her knowledge and acts as a healer. In all its power and with the spiritual touch, the piece definitely achieves its effect.
Vitali Klitschko and the German ambassador responded with video messages
The evening will be opened from the gallery of the town hall by a wind ensemble with the European anthem. It’s the first of many times the audience has all stood up and applauded that night. “You are not alone, we are at your side. You are part of our European community,” says Birgitte Klemenz, third mayor of Fürstenfeldbruck and co-organizer of the event, in her speech.
In a video message, Vitali Klitschko, Mayor of Kiev and one of the patrons of the event, addressed a few words to his fellow Ukrainians and then thanked the audience in German for supporting his country. The second patron, Anke Feldhusen, the German ambassador in Kiev, has also prepared a video message. She emphasizes that Fürstenfeldbruck is an example of how help and solidarity can also work at the local level. In his speech as second chairman of the Edigna Association, Andreas Lohde transformed the traditional Jewish wish “Next year in Jerusalem” into “Next year in Kiev”. “I’m calling out to us so that the war may end. And we can all meet in Kiev next year.”
After the performance, the visitors light candles in the monastery church.
(Photo: Johannes Simon)
The visitors then express this hope with a symbolic gesture in the monastery church. Together they move from the event forum to the nearby church. There, before the old age, they light small candles from a candle of peace, which they put in a large bowl. Here it gets emotional again when Irma Vitovska intones Ukrainian hymns from the 15th and 16th centuries, while the many people, Germans and Ukrainians, light their candles together. And so the evening ends as it began: as an important sign, not only for those who took part in it.