In just two minutes, the Ukrainian cellist Denys Karachevtsev sets down his answer to the destruction of Kharkov by the Russian army. In the middle of a crossroads in that city, between the remains of bombed-out houses, he performs the prelude to Bach’s Cello suite no 5 in C minor† He plays it soberly. As a lamentation, and at the same time as a sign of life: we are still here, and no one can diminish the beauty. Those who listen to this small concert are asked to confirm that life and that beauty by donating for humanitarian aid.
In the speech with which Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky thanked Europe country by country for or inciting support, he directly admonished his colleague Viktor Orbán of Hungary to side with Ukraine and at least see what the Russians are doing. He leaves out political arguments, he comes up with a more powerful medicine: he refers to an art project in Budapest that commemorates the slaughter of the Jews in the Second World War through dozens of pairs of copper-plated shoes and shoes, lined up along the bank of the Danube. “Please Viktor, go to the quay, look at those shoes” – understand through art what mass murder means.
In the meantime, the Ukrainian State Secretary for Culture has had works of art brought to safety and have statues packed in protective material, in an effort to preserve cultural heritage. She begs anyone in the know not to reveal which works are involved or where they are, for she fears they will become targets of Russian troops. That fear is justified. Art and culture are an important target for aggressors. For centuries, hostile tyrants have had the overriding importance of art and culture in their minds, which is why they destroy, forbid, rob them. And that’s about more than gold, it’s about good. Thoughts, feelings. Execute a poet and you undermine the soul of a nation, including those who will never read a poem. Art and culture form the memory of a country, the backbone of an identity, the reservoir of the country’s individuality, record of development.
The power of art works both ways. In the Amsterdam Concertgebouw I dive into a concert by the pianist Vital Stahievich. He is a Russian and has been in the Netherlands for a long time. Because of the war, he may never be able to go back. Yes, Ukrainians have nothing left to go back to, that’s more terrible. But how does it help to eliminate one misery against another? Still, a Russian concert like that doesn’t happen just like that. Stahievich comes out from behind the grand piano and talks in a soft voice about Sergei Rachmaninov. How much he loved Ukraine, his role in the musical life of Kiev. And then he plays Rachmaninoff’s well-known prelude in C-sharp minor† heavenly. Beauty is stronger than a tyrant.