Taras Voznyak

Today Ukraine has just undergone the epic Revolution of Dignity and five years of war in the Donbas; the country is dead tired and finally got through the no less epic farce of its presidential elections. Therefore I am writing this text not “given that” but “despite” — Contra spem spero.

For five years we were all wallowing about without coming to any conclusions about that momentous period that we all experienced together.

Without burying our dead with dignity.

Without honoring our heroes with dignity.

Without erecting a memorial around which we could build up our future Ukrainian people.

Earlier we did not do everything we should have, either, and so received a “plundered grave.”

Still, we gathered around a little book – Kobzar^[1].

Looking back at the last decade, I have to say that by not doing right and drawing ourselves into disgrace, we now must gather our people together, piece by piece.

A lot has been written about these five years of heroes. Different things.

However, the most compelling that I know—and I say this without sentimentality or cheap pathos—is the published series of watercolors and drawings by Vlada Ralko Kyiv Diary. I think nothing more powerful will ever be written or compiled about this epoch of heroes—wounds, despite everything, close up, and pain dulls. And so, it won’t be…

Of course Kyiv Diary is much too complex to become as popular as Kobzar, which over 200 years was transformed into lubok^[2]. It’s harder to polish and drape with embroidered towels than the holy book of the Ukrainian people.

This is a different book. Kyiv Diary is not only Vlada Ralko’s own opera omnia—as an artist, thinker, eye-wit-ness^[3]—but also the credo of the witnesses of that time.

Moreover Ralko does not only eye-wit-ness, or reflect and set down what was, she also tells us something in the language she knows—the language of images. Kyiv Diary begins with her words as a preface. Essential words.

Yet when I write “tells us something” I rather have in mind the groaning, wailing, roaring, howling of the human body, which is her, and each one of us. That howling of mangled flesh, gouged out eyes, a lacerated vagina, quartered corpses—many have tried to transmit this to us, and so, make it visible. Ralko is not the first. Just like the tragedy, which is being addressed—the Revolution of Dignity—is not the first. With varied results. But the most honest attempts were made by Francisco José de Goya y Lucientes (1746-1828) in The Disasters of War (Los desastres de la guerra, 1810), Pablo Ruiz y Picasso (1881-1973) in Guernica (1937), and Francis Bacon (1909-1992).

I

For starters: What is Kyiv Diary about?… About the events in Ukraine in 2013–2014. About the Revolution of Dignity, about the Great Resistance, about Russian aggression, about ducklingswims^[4], about holidayseason, about summerasusual, about refugees, about candy, about kateryna, about mamay, about abunnyroamsacabbagepatchcarryingadollinawhiteshawl… About events, let’s drop the pathos, but epic nevertheless, and not only for Ukraine… And in that sense the first thing that looked at me from the unsettling pages of Kyiv Diary was the eyes of Homer, eyes wrenched from their sockets and extended toward me—look!… just look!… look… don’t run away from the fact you are an eye-wit-ness… pry out your eyes and look… turn to stone before the face of the Gorgon… or endure this gaze eye-to-eye…

The entire graphic cycle begins with plugging in the brain (2-3—from here onward, I will give the page numbers of the illustrations in the published Kyiv Diary). Which is no less relevant today…

Kyiv Diary lays out three areas as its basis:

Reality—present^[5] (at-the-essential or at-being)—which, clawing, catches our eye;

Witness, of what-is-becoming-present (what-is-at-being), who turns to stone with eyes wide open;

The act of seeing, the act of experiencing reality, which, clawing, catches our eye, as a witness—the act of becoming present (at-becoming).

What is paramount here?

The reality of the horrors of revolution and war? An attempt to show Los desastres de la guerra? Yes and no. This book is deeper and more multifaceted.

Witness? An attempt to testify about Los desastres de la guerra? Yes and no. This book is deeper and more multifaceted.

Perhaps it is about the very act of seeing, turning to stone with eyes wide open? About horror and inexorability. About the impossibility of averting this eye-to-eye gaze? When any attempt to shut your eyes is frustrated by your hands, which don’t just pry open your eyelids, but yank out your eyeballs, soyouseeeverything… About the inevitability of the horrific. About the ineluctability of mutual presence (at-being or at-the-essence). The horrific, whether you want it or not, is becoming present before you—it is burrowing nearby, and in you yourself… A witness cannot close his/her eyes or not be-in-the-presence of the essential (what is). The essential, no matter how horrific (and ultimately that is exactly what it is), does not exist without one who is present (at-being), i.e., the witness. Horrific reality feeds on the witness and exists thanks to her/him. Horrific reality devours its witness like Saturn devours his children in Goya’s Saturno devorando a un hijo (1819-1823). Horrific reality (and really even the banality of everyday life, I reiterate—in its fulfillment, in its fullness—is horrifying) does not become-itself-without-witness. Just as the witness does not exist without the horrific present (at-being or at-the-essence)… In Ralko’s work this two-way interconnection materializes in the metaphor of the eye.

The eye is turned toward horrific reality: the witness “looks” and sees. But horrific reality is also “looking” at the witness and “seeing” him/her. Ralko looks into the eyes of the Gorgon. And the Gorgon looks into the eyes of Ralko.

Or—the plucked out eyeballs can turn toward Ralko, and toward the Gorgon. In this sense, this Eye becomes all-seeing—it is no longer dependent on Ralko or the Gorgon. The eye becomes a punishment. An uncut umbilical cord joining the abyss, from which Ralko, and all of us, emerged, with the horrors of reality, which we are becoming, and into which we are plunging and taking root. And in this sense “all-seeing-ness” calls to mind something that is hardly visualized in Kyiv Diary, yet emanates from every page—relentless becoming present (at-becoming), an attribute of which is “all-seeing-ness.” I will not elaborate on this theme—qui aspicit videt.

Vlada Ralko’s personal flag, depicted on one page of the series (113), is a banner the color of blood mixed with milk upon which appear eyes and a mouth: I see and I speak—this is her manifesto.

However, the Eye is just one instrument for “seeing,” “feeling” the horror that unfurls before the eye-wit-ness. The eye-wit-ness is a person, a woman, made of bones and flesh. And so she feels with everything she has—to say her body, in which she is em-bodied, is to say little, because it’s her breasts, and mouth, and womb, and vagina, and cultivated brain. Precisely through them she is-in-the-presence-of this horrifying reality. Aided by these receptors both the real Vlada Ralko and the artist Vlada Ralko probe the existing-beyond-her reality. Her guides, which send messages to and from the eye-wit-ness, are light (sent, received, cutting, surrounding…), and sound (sent, received, piercing, lulling…), and inhale/exhale (halitus, inspiratione spiritus, sent, received…), and touch, and hit, and spit, and blood… But also words, which take flight in speech, which move from discursiveness, considering the pain, into inarticulateness and howling—from the discourse of Shevchenko to the stream of consciousness of James Augustine Aloysius Joyce’s (1882-1941) Finnegans Wake (1939)… Hence abunnyroamsacabbagepatchcarryingadollinawhiteshawl…

This remaining-in-the-presence-of-the-essential, of reality, in Kyiv Diary is not ambivalent. It is not passive contemplation. After all, for a person-who-is-in-presence, ambivalence is really just not possible. For her/him remaining-in-the-presence-of-the-essential means prevailing over this reality, whatever it may be—prevailing over the juxta-posed, prevailing over the current. A person-who-is-in-presence juxta-poses herself, positions himself. Thus Kyiv Diary is a comprehensive juxta-position or positioning of the witness apropos the juxta-posed, horrific reality in the most trenchant form that I know of in contemporary Ukrainian art.

But did Vlada Ralko have any other way out at that place and time? Could she have evaded this? I’m not talking about political orientation but about Vlada Ralko’s integrity as a witness, as an eye-wit-ness. I think no. Imagine another Vlada Ralko, one with opposite political views, but who would have been just as keenly honest as an artist and witness—she, too, would have had no choice but to become an eye-wit-ness. A Pythia with wide open eyes, through which not she, but the one called “all-seeing” looks at the horrific… Of course, we mortals all assume that we are the ones “looking” at the world. Yet actually, and this is more probable, “the one who sees all” is looking through us… Again, I will not go deeper—qui aspicit videt.

In short—a witness has no other function besides juxta-position, op-position, taking a position (standing) in a certain place and time, and remaining standing. And it is this standing, juxta-position, that positions us, eye-wit-nesses. Vlada Ralko’s standing positioned her as such—as Vlada Ralko, artist, woman, witness, eye-wit-ness. Standing and juxtaposition position each one of us as ourselves. To put it more simply—maintaining one’s own aloneness creates each one of us, or gives us to ourselves.

The pages of Kyiv Diary leave no doubt that Vlada Ralko is a witness, and not just a person, but a woman in particular. She probes the world with everything she’s got as a woman, with no exception. Yet for an artist of such candor, this, of course, is not enough. Which she proclaims, without any frills, on the first, tone-setting title page of Kyiv Diary: yes, she is a woman, of flesh and blood, with breasts, but also three penises—instruments she will use to not only explore the horrific but also resist it (29). And in this sense, again sentimentality aside, one has the full right to say that here Vlada is following in the footsteps of Lesya^[6], and today she is “perhaps the sole man in all of contemporary united Ukraine” (Ivan Franko^[7])… Of course, her name—Vlada^[8] —is also helpful here, as one’s position is reinforced in the form of power.

Therefore the main motive in Kyiv Diary is less about setting down the tragedies of those days and months of 2013–2014, than positioning oneself, the self-constitution of Vlada Ralko in the face of horrific reality raping her country and each one of us. Kyiv Diary is all juxta-position and self-positioning. And here Vlada Ralko drastically departs from traditional laments (κομμός) in the Ukrainian tradition—as if we cannot take anything from Homer’s epic. Ralko overcomes romantic pathos and re-sists in a metaphysical sorrow cleansed of sentimental junk. A sorrow rooted in bottomless horror. At the same time she literally resists by juxta-posing herself with the columns of Berkut^[9] (30–134), and then separatists and Russian occupiers in Crimea (134–184) and in the Donbas steppes (187–384)—for horrific things are not just metaphysical, but also concrete.

II

As an artist, Ralko cannot avoid being concrete. She visualizes the re-sistance—both her own personal re-sistance and the re-sistance of those beside her in those tragic years of 2013–2014. In her images, eyes, ears, mouths, vaginas, penises, breasts, wombs, brains, bodies scream and howl. Her lights, bloods, milks, sounds slice our eyes like razors.

Of course, as a person of culture, Vlada Ralko cannot reduce everything to metaphysical prediscursive origins, although she comes closer to them than most—as discussed in the first part of this text.

But at the same time she also invokes cultural paradigms that reveal the metaphoric essence of the tragedy. And thus Ralko returns again and again to cultural archetypes and images, both Ukrainian—undoubtedly making her hyper-Ukrainian and almost untranslatable, hermetic for people of other cultural traditions—and global.

Using my own subjective judgment I will take a statistical sample of the images or archetypes that Vlada Ralko consciously or unconsciously invokes in Kyiv Diary. Of course it’s difficult to take each page of this large and hermetic graphic series and isolate this or that image or archetype, unless it is obvious. Perhaps the author herself was not fully aware of what was speaking through her. Nonetheless, in general terms, even this subjective sample will still delineate the range and frequency of conscious or unconscious references by the artist to this or that image or archetype. And, consequently, it will delineate the sense of what Vlada Ralko—again, consciously or unconsciously—wanted to say and did say with her diary. Or, what was uttered through the woman and artist Vlada Ralko.

The Ukrainian cultural archetypes unquestionably include:

woman in a wreath, or more precisely, womaninawreath—just like that—neither woman nor wreath. Of course, this is Taras Shevchenko’s Kateryna, an image of Ukraine—persecuted and disgraced, womaninawreath, kateryna, who nurses pigs at her breast (283, 285, 293). But also a warrior—and this is something completely new for Ukraine. The womaninawreath appears on the following pages: (69, 74, 115, 117, 119, 128, 154, pit 171,176, 177, 183, 192, 200, 203, 207, 210, 239, 240, 246, 249, 250, 251, 256, 260, 262, 263, 265, 267, crimeaisagamingzone 273, 285, 317, 321, 326, 340, 360, 364) —36 references;

It is closely related to Pokrova (Intercession)—a traditional Ukrainian archetype, the Mother of God as the protectress of the Ukrainian Cossacks, who with her robes, veil (omophorion, ὠμοφόριον) covers, protects the Cossacks and all Ukraine. In Ralko, pokrova is a mother with a riven womb from whence she has birthed, in which she is sheltering or burying her sons-defenders (156, 158, 183, 239, 323, 364). But also that splits before her “wicked son,” as she chastises him for betrayal and shows him whence he entered the world that he is betraying—that’s the story that comes to mind. Or maybe it’s the “righteous son” who is returning to the womb of mother-Ukraine… (motherlandmother 149, back 169, pit 171, pokrova 183, 248, 358, 377) —13 references;

ragdoll—the original mother of mortals, mortals who consider themselves Ukrainians, associated with rituals for fertility and continuing the family line, and with the ancestor cult (36, 62, 84, 89, ragdollvenus 111, santalucia 181, 260, 243, stranger 260, 273) —10 references;

ladymamay is an idealized image of the Cossack^[10] and a kind of spiritual symbol of Ukraine. But in Ralko he most often appears in the form of a female Cossack—Vlada Ralko herself—a woman-warrior? (58, 64, 70, 71, 72, 86, 95, 115, 119, 120, 124, 125, 126, 127, 128) —15  references;

woman-suicide bomber, shahidi—this is a further development of the archetype of woman-warrior (43, 45, 47, action 48, 49, 69, 67, 74, 76, 110, 117, 209, 250, 263, 265, 328, 370) —17 references;

judith, woman-suicide bomber—the last three archetypes all refer to one thing—payback, the struggle of the weak against prevailing strength—it’s the woman-warrior again (74, 75, kateryna 76, 77, 119, 297) – 6 references;

man mamay (125, 126, 127, 320)—as we see in Vlada Ralko’s series, the Cossack Mamay appears as a man rather rarely; obviously, in Kyiv Diary, Vlada Ralko is settling her personal accounts with her opponent; she is waging a personal war, and so the predominance of the woman-warrior image is completely natural—it’s about the artist herself—Vlada Ralko —4 references;

Shevchenko’s grave in Kaniv—no longer topped with Taras standing with head inclined, heavy with thoughts, but with an ax wedged into it (335, 374, 382). This archetype is closely related to another—the empty pedestal of the Lenin monument on Khreshchatyk [in Kyiv], where also, according to the good Ukrainian tradition, an ax is wedged into it—waiting (387) and a stairway to the future that does not yet exist (385) —5 references;

ax (lullaby 308, 335, 355, 370, 374, 382, 387)—again Shevchenko: “But if you’d wake

this sickly freedom, all the folk must in their hands sledge-hammers take and axes sharp—and then all go that sleeping freedom to awake”… —7 references;

swaddling clothes, it’s actually a shroud, victim, remembrance day, stump (human) (january 30, freezing 35, 100, 101, 102, 106, 110, 122, 129, ducklingswims 133, 158, 213, 220, 222, 228, 235, babycosmonaut 242, remembranceday 262, summerasusual 299, maynothingailyoueithertheheadorthebody 305, 311, candy 318, 323, 329, iwillhangthecribuponafirtreeandgowanderinukraine 332, theresaprettynewhouse 334, 336, 339, 345, 349, 369, 373, 378, 381, 384) —34 references;

doubtingthomas—who appears as a woman, who doesn’t believe in the reality of what happened on Maidan and has to stick her whole hand into the wound of a Maidan protester, while it was enough for the apostle Thomas to stick his finger in the wound of Christ (296) —1 reference;

bear as an image of Russia the aggressor, raping Ukraine—womaninawreath, kateryna, pokrova (177, 192, 197, 198, 199, 200, 203, 204, 207, 208, 210, 212, 223, carnival 226, olderbrother 227, 229, 240, 250, 251, 350, 356, 360) —22 references;

double-headed eagle as another image of Russia that attacked Ukraine (ganymede 166, birdsfuneral 167, 174, thelittleprince 175, russiaukraineisenthralledbyyou 176, 179, 180, 182, 184, 240, 340, birdie 346, 356) —13 references;

And present-day memes like:

minskagreements, which are shown as signing a contract with death (356);

cynical politicians in the likeness of wolves (344);

no less cynical journalists and agitators, misrepresenting the tragedy (162, 264, 337, 344, 354) —5 references;

itsnotawar (362);

holidayseason (135);

dontscarethechildrenletthechildrenplay—child victims of the war (363, 375).

In the global category one can include allusions to:

ganymede (Γανυμήδης)—the abducted child, the stolen child, abducted Crimea, an allusion to the well-known painting by Rembrandt Harmenszoon van Rijn (1606/1607-1669) The Abduction of Ganymede (De ontvoering van Ganymede, 1635) (136, 139, ganymede 166, 174) —4 references;

thedeathofmarat—an allusion to the well-known painting The Death of Marat (La Mort de Marat, 1793) by Jacques-Louis David (1748–1825). It is an allusion to the murder of the leader of the revolution, but the male body of Marat has been changed to a female one (185, oil 189, 190, 191) —4 references;

lohengrin—the image of a knight, floating in a boat drawn by swans, who appears at the moment when a girl or widow, abandoned and persecuted by everyone (Kateryna, Ukraine) is in mortal danger. The knight saves the girl from her enemies and marries her. This is also an allusion to the eponymous opera by Wilhelm Richard Wagner (1813-1883) and to Wolfram von Eschenbach (approx. 1170–1220), one of the greatest epic poets of medieval German, and his poem Parzival (222). But in Ralko’s array of images this image of Lohengrin is inseparable from the image of a knight of the Heavenly Hundred killed on Maidan (108, 133, 183, 222, ducklingswims 289) —5 references;

venusandmars—this is an allusion to the equivocal attitude of many Ukrainians—before the war and even, as it turns out, after five years of war—toward the relations between Ukraine and Russia, which in Ralko is formulated in the meme russiaukraineisenthralledbyyou (346).

But there are also symbolic visual lines that determine the sense of the entire series Kyiv Diary:

woman’s eyes (30, 33, 34, 38, 41, 48, 49, 50, 54, 55, 56, 61, 63, 64, 65, 66, 67, 69, 85, 90, 91, 92, 107, 110, privateflag 113, 114, 115, 116, blacksquare 123, 128, 130, 139, 154, 158, 200, 207, 210, 211, 226, 239, 243, 245, 250, imreadingkant 274, 276, 283, 293, 294, 295, 299, 305, 314, 315, 317, 326, 337, 369, 370, 375) —59 references;

vagina, delta, delta-shaped grenade explosions, spots of light, cuts, gaps (30, 34, 38, 41, 58, 111, motherlandmother 149, 150, 153, 154, 155, 157, 202, 208, 245, 263, 313, 328, 364, 369, 370) —21 references;

woman’s mouth, lips (30, 34, 38, 41, 50, 54, 55, 61, 85, 91, 92, 107, 110, privateflag 113, 116, 130, 154, 157, 185, 191, 200, 207, 208, 209, 210, 213, 226, 232, 239, 243, 245, 251, 273, 283, 293, 294, 295, 299, 305, 306, 314, 315, 317, 326, 337, 369, 370, 375) —48 references;

woman’s body—the naked body as an instrument of battle according to the principle of juxtaposition (29, 30, 34, 38, 48, 50, 55, 58, 61, 62, 64, 67, 70, kateryna 76, 77, 82, 84, 85, 110, 111, katerynadoll 116, 117, 119, kateryna 124, mamay 128, 134, 135, 146, motherlandmother 149, 154, 156, 158, 164, 169, 171, 176, 177, 181, 183, 185, 186, 187, 188, oil 189, 191, russiaukraineisenthralledbyyou 192, 196, 197, 198, 200, 202, 203, 204, 207, 208, 209, 214, 218, ???????? 226, 237, 239, 243, 244, 245, 246, 248, 249, 250, 251, 256, 259, stranger 260, remembranceday 262, 263, 265, girlanddeath 266, 267, angelsshotdown 269, crimeaisagamingzone 273, 283, 284, 285, 286, 293, 294, 295, 296, 297, 298, 299, 304, summerasusual 307, 309, 310, summerasusual 313, sleepjesussleepfoldyourarms 314, 315, 316, 317, 323, 324, 321, 325, candy 326, 328, 338, 340, 358, 360, 363, 364, 365, 370, 375, 377, 380, 384) —117 references;

wreath, funeral wreath, eggs on remembrance day (69, 80, 84, 92, 110, 117, 154, 176, 177, 179, 180, 183, 203, 239, 243, 246, 250, 251, 256, 260, 262, 265, 267, 270, 280, 289, 292, 317, 321, 326, 340, 360) —32 references;

explosions, molotov cocktails, flowers that are actually explosions (37, 51, 52, 57, 58, 59, 60, 61, 62, 63, 64, 65, 70, 71, 73, 78, apineburned 79, 82, 83, 93, 94, 95, 104, 119, 151, 198, 202, 209, 219, 230, 234, cosmonauticsday 241, 278, 279, 281, 283, 295, 297, summerasusual  304, 313, 345, 380) —42 references;

heart, usually ripped out (48, 53, 86, 194, 224, 239, 250, 251, 267, imreadingkant 274, imreadingkant 276, 369) —13 references;

breast (34, 70, 116, back 169, 191, 283, 285, 293) —8 references;

brain—the brain that is “disconnected,” missing, that needs to be “connected” for most of Ukraine’s citizens, yet it’s nebulous, ground meat, people are simply diving into nothingness—black earth, a trash can, the Black Sea, anything—to just “disconnect” (connection 2-3, 155, 157, 186, 187, 188, imreadingkant 274, imreadingkant 276, 285, summerasusual  325, connection 331, 338, 368, 370) —15 references;

penis—for the most part this is a secondary image (action 29, 109, 131, 161, 163, 173, 190, 223, 287) —9 references;

man’s body—the naked body as an instrument of battle according to the principle of juxtaposition is rare. As a rule, the Maidan protesters are depicted in full gear, which is not strange. However this excludes their masculinity, turning them into abstract figures (action 39, action 40, 60, 63, 87, 94, 108, 126, 127, achildandacannon 131, 138, 145, 153, 155, 157, 160, 163, cannon 173, russiaukraineisenthralledbyyou 178, oil 190, pastoral 195, 220, 223, olderbrother 227, 257, target 272, st.michael 282, 300, 322, 331, 332, 342, 343, 346, 349, 372) —36 references;

independenceday (306, 342, 343, 357, 369) —5 references.

III

Based on this research, we have presented Vlada Ralko’s graphic series Kyiv Diary, employing the instruments of a certain imagometry.

Though it is worth mentioning again that the following analysis, with its semblance to scientific work, is based on the author’s selection of images or archetypes according to his subjective rubric, as well as the no less subjective location of each of these images or archetypes on each particular page of the series he is trying to analyze.

Kyiv Diary contains 358 graphic plates. So this is a large art object. And to a certain extent this corrects for the subjectivity of the sample and makes the analysis more objective.

And so, among the nominally “feminine” images (which are—womaninawreath - 36, pokrova - 13, ragdoll - 10, ladymamay - 15, woman-suicide bomber - 17, judith - 6, woman’s eyes - 59, vagina - 21, woman’s lips - 48, woman’s body - 117, wreath - 42, breast - 8) there are 392!

And the number of nominally “masculine” images (man mamay - 4, lohengrin - 5, penis - 9, man’s body - 36) is 56…

The difference is striking. Of course, one could argue about the grounds for this detailed inventory of specifically “feminine” images and archetypes. However, even casually flipping through Vlada Ralko’s Kyiv Diary, you would have no doubt that this is the personal war of a woman, Vlada Ralko, visualized in this monumental series of drawings and watercolors. And therefore in Kyiv Diary she is not only an eye-wit-ness, as mentioned above, but also a woman engaged in her own personal war.

Therefore, looking at the namby-pamby artistic landscape of Ukraine today, we must assert—with full right and considerable sadness—that Vlada Ralko is “perhaps the sole man in all of contemporary united Ukraine”…

Ralko, Vlada. Kyiv Diary. Kaniv: Red Black Gallery, 2016. 400 pp.

ISBN 978-617-7110-82-7