My colleagues and I spend the air raid at 10.30 am on March 2nd in the basement of the old residence of the Bukovinian metropolitans for Ukraine and Dalmatia. A (true) masterpiece by Czech architect Josef Hlávka, the main attraction of Chernivtsi, now a university building and since 2011 a Unesco World Heritage Site. One of the questions that preoccupies us during the half hour before the all clear is whether the Russians would shell the residence. Now nobody doubts it. Not out of fear, in the old cellar walls you feel safer than probably anywhere else in this city. “One of the greatest cultural nations in the world” is showing its perfidiousness inimitable way of dealing with another political nation (which is denied a cultural and historical tradition anyway, so anything goes). And if the rationale that the war is merely a result of hurt feelings and a “lack of respect” for Russian leaders is to be taken seriously, there is one among Putin’s allies who definitely has such reasons, the residence complex in ruins to lay. That one is none other than Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov himself. In January 2013 he received an honorary doctorate from the National Yuriy Fedkovych University. As always in such cases, the award ceremony took place in the University’s Red Hall, within the walls of the old residence. There was a good reason for this: Russia supported Ukraine in the UNESCO nomination process, which lasted for several years. Russia’s representative on the Unesco Commission is said to have been very supportive, not least because he was in the city himself and knew the property to be nominated. On February 21, 2014, after the Maidan shootings, Lavrov was stripped of his title by the Academic Senate. When I google for the exact date of the meeting, I find out that we are not the only ones with this action since February 28, 2022: Another university, University of Tromsø – Norway’s Arctic University, did the same.
Oxana Matiychuk heads the Ukrainian-German cultural society in Tscherniwizi/Czernowit
Shortly after five o’clock in the morning I read about the greatest danger of this war
Just after five in the morning on March 5, I read the news. We are all now facing the greatest danger of this war, nuclear. The nuclear power plant attacked in Zaporizhia has nine nuclear units. Only a few still doubt the insanity of the commanders. Physically, as always in extreme situations, I react to the news with chills. But I have to pull myself together and start the day. Since yesterday evening we have four more people in our house, my colleague from Shhytomyr has come with his brother and his family. I have to be at the university by nine o’clock, the beautiful conference room of the thought roof center and the International Office now fulfills a different function at the university and is staffed 24/7.
As I tinker around in the kitchen, images from a video flash through my head, people in a Russian city being questioned about the war in Ukraine. The reactions are predictable. Russia has created an image of Ukraine that never existed and does not exist. The citizens of the Russian Federation actually believe in what they hear and read in the state-controlled media (images are secondary, we all know the limitless possibilities of editing them). Blessed is he who believes. Since yesterday, the few independent media in Russia have been blocked, no more access to Meduza, Echo of Moscow, Doschd. A thought suddenly occurs to me that frightens even me: The word was not only in the beginning. The word could also mean an end if it is the word of propaganda.
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