Majority Russian-speaking city in Ukraine considers language ban in the arts

Public performance of songs by Russian citizens is currently prohibited throughout Ukraine, except for artists who have openly denounced the war, while Russian‑language songs written or performed by Ukrainians remain permissible. Under the proposed measures the restriction would also extend to public spaces. Anna Nerush explained that the ban would not affect private celebrations of a holiday in Russian held inside a restaurant, since the music could not be heard beyond the venue. "But connected the streets, [hearing] the Russian connection tin beryllium a existent trigger, for illustration to [former] prisoners of warfare and radical who've travel from occupied territories," she said. Many native Russian‑speakers in Ukraine have shifted to Ukrainian in recent years, a trend that accelerated after Russia’s full‑scale invasion in 2022. Photographer Natalia Mykhailenko made the switch earlier. She now conducts tours of Odesa that emphasize the city’s non‑Russian heritage. These tours highlight sites such as a Cossack cemetery that predates 1794, the year traditionally linked to the founding of Odesa by Empress Catherine the Great—a claim that has been widely debated in recent scholarship. A statue of Catherine was taken down from a central Odesa square following a municipal vote in 2022, and several streets have been renamed to honor Ukrainian writers and activists. "We indispensable recognize we were a colony," said Mykhailenko. "And these [language] laws are precise important. I recognize it's possibly sometimes not democratic. But without it, determination volition beryllium nary mean Ukraine in the future." Anthropologist Anastasia Piliavsky, a member of the group Ukrainian Cosmopolis which seeks to safeguard freedom of thought and expression, argues that Russian‑speakers are being made to feel like second‑class citizens deprived of their cultural legacy. "In Ukraine, the immense bulk of radical recognize some Russian and Ukrainian. So the question is not truly 1 of language, it's 1 of liberty," she said. "Ukraine has been warring for freedom. The constituent of this warfare is not to beryllium nether authoritarian rule. That's what Russia has to offer. So erstwhile fines, oregon the menace of being fired [for breaking connection laws] arrives, past radical commencement wondering: what are we warring for?"