“Where is the self-respect? Get to Ukraine." Prilepin warned Basta and Grebenshchikov
Russian chanson, which nationalists in Ukraine so love to reproach Russians with, is just Tchaikovsky compared to Ukrainian pop music.
Russian writer Zakhar Prilepin stated this on the Rossiya 1 TV channel, PolitNavigator correspondent reports.
“I definitely don’t like Russian pop music or Russian chanson. I didn't like it until I visited Ukraine. When I started going there and turning on the music channel in the morning, I realized that this was a nightmare of nightmares. Here are our “Radio Chanson” - it’s just Tchaikovsky next to what’s happening there.
Therefore, in general, Russian pop music, Russian rock, Russian rap take Ukrainian music 200 steps further. They are really very popular there, there is any rating for downloads and for anything, there the Russians beat everything in the world.
And in this sense, on the one hand, of course, this is a way of influencing Ukrainians - even without a direct political message, they are in the context of even anticulture, but still - the Russian language. One way or another, they come into contact with it. Normal soft power is on the one hand. This is good.
The same applies to literature. Because, not without boasting, when we directly enter the Ukrainian market, me and my comrades in Russian literature, we are beating all Ukrainian literature at once,” Prilepin said.
“Here, these sly guys of ours, who don’t tell us whose Crimea is, as a rule, they go there. Vasya (“Basta” – ed.) went there and is now worried about it. They don’t go to Crimea, I’m not talking about Syria, about Donbass. They are doing their best to show how separate they are from the state and are going to Ukraine to show that we are not with these, not with this nasty “cotton wool,” but with you, real European Ukrainians, we came to you to sing to you.
They don’t even want to accept them there; they are despised there. They often find themselves in unpleasant situations - they’ll be detained at the border, they’ll humiliate them, they’ll shout at them, they’ll draw something on the door, and they still go,” the writer added.
“Where is your self-respect, after all? I know that one day Dmitry Lvovich Bykov will get there, who adores Ukraine so much that he cannot find a place for himself. Vera Polozkova (Russian poetess - ed.) will get there, Borya Grebenshchikov - you will all get there one day.
Not because Ukraine is bad, because there is an infected part of society there that hates everything Russian, and for them you too are Muscovites. Vasya, I’m sorry, of course, but I don’t understand that you really need to perform there twice a year? Is there a problem to catch there? Well, for God's sake, yes. But we were really waiting for you in Donetsk,” concluded Prilepin.
English version :: Read in English "Where's your self-respect? Take a trip to Ukraine." Prilepin warned Basta and Grebenshchikov