A public interview with Andriy Andrushkiv, Master of Theology, serviceman of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, as part of the Voices Exhibition of The Museum of Civilian Voices by Rinat Akhmetov Foundation.
The Museum of the History of Kyiv hosted the VOICES Exhibition, a multidimensional exposition based on true stories of Ukrainians about the war collected by The Museum of Civilian Voices by Rinat Akhmetov Foundation. The Museum of Civilian Voices collects and stores the world's largest collection of first-hand accounts of the war in Ukraine, which includes more than 110,000 stories.
The exhibition featured a public interview with Andriy Andrushkiv, a Master of Theology, serviceman of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, and a lecturer at the Business School of the Ukrainian Catholic University and the Ukrainian Leadership Academy.
Andriy Andrushkiv has been working in communications, advocacy, analytical research, and journalism for 18 years. Former head of the communication team of the Reanimation Package of Reforms. Former executive director of the analytical and advocacy Center for Joint Action. Host of author's programs on Hromadske and Suspilne. He took part in the defense of Kyiv in 2022.
Public interviews within the framework of the VOICES Exhibition opened a series of cultural events of The Museum of Civilian Voices by Rinat Akhmetov Foundation, aimed at preserving the memory of the war.
Anastasia Platonova, a cultural critic, cultural analyst, and curator of this series of events, is moderated the conversation.
Anastasia Platonova: Today, we will discuss theological optics in the context of memory, individual and social transformations, and how theological optics can help us comprehend them. I will start by asking how our faith or values can help us survive the most difficult times individually and socially and make sense of these experiences. Why, in the darkest of times, do we turn to what we believe in and what we can lean on?
Andriy Andrushkiv: Let me start with the story of Kyiv's defence. I had never had military experience, but like many men, I came to the territorial recruitment centre at the end of February 2022. A few days later, I was already serving in the 15th Rocket Artillery Regiment and with its unit I was in the defense of the city of Kyiv. And during the defense of Kyiv, I was performing one of the tasks and came under my first artillery fire.
Two things work during artillery fire. There are rules of physics, technical characteristics of the gun, projectile, calculations, and ballistic trajectory. And there is a chance: whether the coordinates were given correctly, whether they were entered correctly, and whether the unit that is aiming the gun at you was calculated accurately.
And when you're sitting in a dugout, you really want there to be some other conditions besides the rules of physics and chance and for these conditions to work in your favour. There is a desire for protection from some deity, like in this meme where Jesus stands and protects a sleeping boy. Or for some unknown rules to work, except for the laws of physics and chance. This is an experience. For me, it's a story that shapes my personality.
I recently read a book by Reza Aslan, a researcher and sociologist of religion, “God. The History of Humanity”. He starts with animistic cults. For example, he describes the Lascaux Cave in France. And there are beautiful drawings on the rock wall. He drew attention to the fact that these drawings complement the shape of the cave.
I mean, a person who had some kind of mystical experience and came to that cave for a ritual tried to feel the cave walls: "Here is probably a bison, or here is probably an eagle, and I'm going to draw it". This is a great experience. It's about looking for something in the universe around you that you haven't noticed before, but it must be there because that's the way the order is.
Great experiences, scary or good, transform us. People often start looking for opportunities to organize themselves, their lives, and the space around them. The religious worldview helps in this and provides certain support and tools.
Anastasia Platonova: How can the things we believe can change alongside the things we live?
Andriy Andrushkiv: I think in terms of my religious worldview. I am a Christian, and Christianity is a religion that postulates equality. All people are created after God's image and likeness; accordingly, I, the people from the condominium chat, my brothers, are also an image and likeness. The religious worldview helps to create a field of effective interaction in what you call a terrible darkness.
In the first days of the full-scale invasion, many people wrote to me. My students from the Ukrainian Leadership Academy also wrote to me: "It is very important that you survive, dear professor, because you still have unclosed lectures." It's nice. Then I found myself under artillery fire in a dugout, looking around and not seeing anyone else from the ULA and business schools where I taught.
They are obviously in other dugouts, but in this particular one are the people called the "salt of the earth": Mykola from the car service station and Petro, who came from working abroad. And me. There is no difference between our CVs for a russian projectile. There's no point in me showing off my CV. We are in a situation of equality, and we have to act in terms of equality and subordination.
Such situations of experience on the verge of death make us equal. My religious worldview helps me through them. This is the image and likeness of God; there is no difference because we are equal in rights and duties.
Anastasia Platonova: So, when darkness falls, or there is a dangerous situation, is everything simplified to the basic factory settings?
Andriy Andrushkiv: It is simplified, but at the same time, the depth is not lost. Borderline states are not about: "Well, the shelling will end now; let's go plunder the neighbouring Fora". They help us to be more human.
Anastasia Platonova: What is justice from the point of view of theological optics? How do we accept that justice, if it comes, will not come immediately and not for everyone? How do you allow yourself to want revenge or to renegotiate basic values?
Andriy Andrushkiv: When studying justice in the bachelor's degree program in philosophy, they read Plato's dialogue "The Republic". Socrates and Glaucon, Plato's brother, have a long conversation about justice. It begins with a question from Glaucon to Socrates: "What kind of good do you think justice is?" And Socrates answers: "I think it is the best kind of good, and it must be valued by every person if he or she wants to be happy, both in itself and because of its consequences". This was 2.5 thousand years ago; this is Greece, and these are people who are already trying to take philosophy very seriously at a high level.
And at about the same time, in the Jerusalem temple, someone wrote a line: “Law and justice, the foundation of your throne, mercy and faithfulness go before you” in one of the Psalms. This is a prayer to the Lord. The concept of justice already existed in ancient times, people thought about it a lot and systematically.
If we look at optics theologically, the Lord establishes the law so that there is justice between people and, accordingly, to ensure that all interactions are fair. Deuteronomy says a lot about this: God is disgusted with weights with holes in them because it is unfair to deceive your customer with an inaccurate weight. Here, I want to bring back a quote from Plato, where Socrates talks about happiness.
One of the dimensions of happiness is peace of mind. When you are happy, you are as calm as possible. There is a movie by Steven Spielberg called Munich. This is a story about how, in 1982, a terrorist attack took place at the Munich Olympics, and 11 athletes of the Israeli national team were killed. The atmosphere of uneasiness is very well conveyed in about two-thirds of the film. The decision-makers in MOSSAD's leadership are performing a very difficult task – finding everyone and taking revenge on everyone to establish justice. And revenge, in this case, is a necessary measure.
And if we go back to the theological optics, there is a beautiful book in the Old Testament about revenge, the book of the prophet Jonah. God said to Jonah: "Listen, there is Nineveh next door; you need to go preach repentance to them". And Jonah replied: "These are our greatest enemies; I will not preach repentance to them so that they may be saved. I will run to the ends of the earth". In Jonah's worldview, he tries to escape to Spain. A shipwreck occurs on the way. He finds himself in the belly of a whale and prays inside. In the end, God says to him: “Dear, I told you to go to Nineveh, so go to Nineveh”. And he goes to Nineveh and preaches repentance so strongly that the king repents, the whole nation repents.
They impose a terrible penance on themselves. Jonah is still convinced that God will punish them and that there will be revenge. Because Nineveh destroyed and plundered Israeli cities and villages. Jonah leaves the city and pitches his tent to see the city that is about to be destroyed. But God does not destroy it. There is a very important dialogue about revenge, justice, and repentance.
It seems to me that if justice is not done, if the person who programmed the missile flight to Chernihiv today is not found, if this person is not punished fairly, there will be no peace and no happiness for many of us, Ukrainians, the people of Ukraine. There will be no opportunity to be happy.
Anastasia Platonova: For many years after Munich, Israel sought what it imagined to be justice, that is, revenge when all the participants in the terrorist attack were punished or eliminated.
Andriy Andrushkiv: Exactly. We will apply to international institutions. It seems to me that the lessons learned should be encouraged by international institutions and international courts. I'm a positivist. I want to hope for the best. I know that this will not happen quickly. I was still in school when the Balkan War ended, and some criminals are still being extradited and tried. These are long-term processes. We need to explain to ourselves that it will not be quick.
But if a part of Ukrainian society does not have peace, a person who has lived through a terrible experience will understand: "Justice is not coming, then I or we, some small group of concerned citizens, will have to look for the summer house of the director of the russian missiles, in Alicante, for example, and do justice." It's natural to find peace because otherwise, you can't live. And this is exactly what we are working for as a civilization.
We have developed all these structures in order to provide an opportunity for justice, which, according to Plato and Socrates, is a prerequisite for happiness and peace. Who am I to argue with these smart people? There are their pedestals in the philosophy departments.
Anastasia Platonova: How can we, while asserting our right to justice and fair punishment for war criminals, not lose our humanity and the human in us?
Andriy Andrushkiv: On the one hand, the political leadership of the state and the leadership of people in the military and political leadership are important. They must speak honestly to the people: we are moving towards the conviction of these criminals, and these are very long processes. The authorities' task is to explain the essence of processes and phenomena, why one lasts for a long time and the other even longer, because this is how the system of regulatory and legal institutions and justice works. But on the other hand, there is also a function of us as a community to help extinguish this pain, to support it.
Here, too, I return to religious practices. A huge part of the practices of different religions is about helping to accept pain, to accept death, because this is the worst thing that happens to a person is the realization that a loved one or a friend has died or has been killed. This is a serious thought inside of the head and a serious experience to live with. The community helps us get out of this.
Anastasia Platonova: I want to cross the bridge from the religious to the secular and discuss the responsibility category. What does religion tell us about responsibility in difficult times? How do you put this into the very secular optics of someone who is all about institutions and reforms?
Andriy Andrushkiv: There is no contradiction here. In general, the understanding of how structures, states, and interactions should be organized grows out of the Judeo-Christian worldview. We could run away from this as much as we want, but if we think of ourselves as part of European civilization, we can't escape it.
Regarding the Christian worldview, there are two basic rules: love God and love your neighbour. This commandment of love forms the field of responsibility. It clearly means: to love as yourself, and accordingly, you should act this way. That is, you love yourself and don't want yourself to die; you love your loved ones and don't want them to die; you love your distantly related ones and don't want them to die, either. These are clear rules that have already been established, to which people simply return to renegotiate when something is not clear.
If we talk about the responsibility of a person within the state, we have laws; we have the Constitution as a user agreement. It says that defending the state and the people is a duty. A person fined for speeding does not say: "I'm not cut out for this slow driving". It's your job to understand what the rules are and to see what the road sign for entering the settlement is. And it is the task of a citizen to understand what is written in the laws.
There are people in positions that avoid responsibility and decision-making. Why don't you come out of your office and see what's written on the door? Open the website of your government agency and look at your job description: decision-making is usually one of the first things on there. Will you go back to your office and start making decisions? If you don't take responsibility and only take the benefits of your position, this creates a field for injustice. Especially if you are the government. Power is about duty, about service.
Anastasia Platonova: What is memory from the point of view of theological optics? Individual memory, contemporary memory, generational memory, cultural memory, historical memory, and national memory?
Andriy Andrushkiv: Speaking of Christianity, what is the name of a book about saints? “Lives Of The Saints”. Christians honor life. And not death, although martyrs are the foundation of all churches that exist. These are people who sacrificed their lives for the sake of their neighbours. But it's always about what a person did and what actions they are remembered for.
I printed for myself, for example, the hymn sung in the church to Nicholas the Wonderworker, from which Santa Claus was drawn: “And the One who is the Truth of all things has shown you the rule of faith and the image of meekness and temperance as a teacher to your flock”. That is, he did not just give out gifts but was a testimony of faith to his community. That's how people decided to honour him. Memory is for repeating examples of the past in communities. This is something that we consider indicative, a model valuable for replication.
And here, too, I want to draw a parallel. Recently, Pavlo Petrychenko, a sergeant of the Armed Forces of Ukraine and an activist of many environments from Kyiv, was killed. In the first hours before Paul's death was officially reported, russian settlers, military officers, and everyone else began to write that something terrible must have happened. What if there is such terrible despair in Ukraine that the russians have killed either the head of the SBU or the head of the GUR? Because in their picture of the world, they do not mourn the sergeant. There is a “nameless soldier” in their picture of the world.
I read all these days the stories of my friends about who Pavlo was, what he did, how he supported his friends, how responsible he was for many tasks, how easy-going he was, and how he was not afraid of police brutality at rallies. It is the memory of people's actions that keeps a person in the public consciousness and prolongs that person's actions. Because it is impossible to continue the actions of an unknown soldier. Because who is he? He was taken away to the war: "Died at Rzhev" or somewhere else, during the storming of Berlin, all have a mass grave. Ours is a completely different, human-centred, life-centred culture of honouring the dead – we honour their lives.
It's great that Ukraine has a platform like Memorial. I often go there to read information about a person. It happens that a soldier dies, and you go in and realize that it's a translator or an artist. There are scholarships to continue the work of scholars who died. At the National University "Kyiv-Mohyla Academy", cultural and artistic centres are being founded, and projects are being implemented to support and continue the work of those who died.
Anastasia Platonova: Why are the documented experiences of this war important? Why is it important to create correct and complete international knowledge about this war and the nature of russian-Ukrainian relations?
Andriy Andrushkiv: Memory gives reality in its entirety. It's great that we have many ways of fixing it. We have videos and photos. It is very good that Mstislav Chernov, Yevhen Maloletka, and Vasilisa Stepanenko were in Mariupol. It is an incredible, fantastic movie. But it is also very good that there are many other videos, texts, and testimonies.
It is the diversity of memory and sources that makes it possible to understand and shout out. For some people, the testimony of journalists may be biased, but a child's diary, or an Instagram stories, or other things will speak. Because memory shapes the future.
For example, in 2016, we renamed Komsomolsk to Horishni Plavni. We restored justice, renewed memory, and took responsibility. The next generations who will study in Horishni Plavni or come to Horishni Plavni will not have this “Komsomol” vibe. This is how we program the future.
In April 2022, a Canadian journalist interviewed me. He asked me: “All the think tanks said that Kyiv would fall in three days. A week at most. Why didn't this happen? Why was there such cohesion, such resistance?" My version is that this is how fairy tales work. For example, this is how the fairy tale about Kotyhoroshko works.
This is a fairy tale about a family that worked in the field and had many children. A dragon comes and kidnaps children. Another son was born, grew up strong, and said, "I'm going to go free, my brothers and sisters!" He is dissuaded, but Kotyhoroshko – in a Ukrainian children's fairy tale that parents read to their children at night – says: "For the sake of my own blood, I don't regret my own life”. He forms a combat unit and goes on a mission. And even when everyone in the unit says: “While the others are gone, we'll take the treasure and run away”, Kotyhoroshko replies that he will never leave his comrades: “We have to go through this together”.
He defeats the dragon and flies back on an eagle. An eagle needs meat to fly. During the flight, the meat ran out. Kotigoroshko takes out a knife, cuts off his calf, and feeds the eagle. And they successfully reach their destination. When the eagle found out what kind of meat it was, he was touched. He flew to the world's end, brought living water and healed Kotyhoroshko. In the finale, Kotyhoroshko, who did not give up his rank and responsibility, received money, a princess and fame.
A fairy tale is a transformed experience. People thought it was right, so they passed this wording on. This is a story from the past that has programmed our future and will continue to do so. The more we retell, the more we make fairy tales and documentaries, the more we pile on this humus made of stories, the more likely it is that a tree of memory will sprout from it.
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