Art Is A Weapon: RadPod’s Interview with Ukrainian Playwright Sasha Denisova
A badass interview with a badass playwright/author
The eclipse wasn’t the only celestial event that occurred this week. Seven years after my father died, my mom suddenly started cooking again this week. They’d been together since she was 15, and married when she was 22.
Upon his passing in 2017, she stopped cooking and lost her appetite. As part of the cosmic alignment in the Path of Socality, my mom got back in the kitchen. So far, she’s cooked her beef and carrots stew, her German spaghetti, tonight I had her heavenly schnitzel, and when I ask her for the recipes — failing further as a fallen vegan — she shrugs, and says she just kinda vibes it.
Eating these dishes from my childhood on a week when I’m still processing the play, My Mom and the Full-Scale Invasion, by Ukrainian playwright and author Sasha Denisova, feels like some kind of magic.
Denisova, who many of you had a chance to virtually meet at our Sunday Speakeasy, wrote this lush, beautiful play about her mom, a strong woman refusing to leave Kyiv during the full-scale invasion. The story is told through the history of war, and pickle jars thrown at drones. Her mom, Olga, was born into World War II, and she makes for an inspirational star of Denisova’s incredible play.
That food plays a key role has me feeling all the feels, like the time I asked the author of Gastronativism what is the food of fascism, and he said, “Hunger.” I learned from Timothy Snyder that all famines are political.
I am encouraging you to please watch the full interview that RadPod just released with Denisova, and a big thank you to those who contributed to help me pay for the translator Marina, who did a fantastic job.
I asked Denisova about the Executed Renaissance — Stalin’s purge of hundreds of Ukrainian playwrights, poets, writers, artists, activists, which I also learned about from Timothy Snyder.
And she said the most wonderful thing is happening in Ukraine: bookstores are thriving. During Putin’s war of annihilation, the Ukrainian people are reading voraciously, history, culture, works by their scholars and reporters.
“Putin knows that creative people are one of his main enemies. He cannot control independent journalists and free-minded artists. The artists are dangerous for Putin.”—Dmitrii Kovegin, Byline Supplement, Sunday’s report on people power
Her play The Hague, which we also discuss in our interview on RadPod, is the most clear-eyed view of this war yet. That it focuses on all war criminals finally facing justice for their crimes is a dream I’d like to see become a reality. That Putin is played by a woman is perfect, and that when Denisova staged the play in Bulgaria, it help inspire the country’s leaders to support Ukraine with military aid.
“Putin must be laughed at without mercy.”—Sasha Denisova, playwright
I hope you watch the interview, and please let me know your thoughts. I will post the interview I did with her specifically for the Bette community in coming days.
Today, the US Commander in Europe said that Russia is a ‘chronic threat’ to the world. Like I’ve been saying…
Why not have Ukrainian soldier and filmmaker Volodymyr Demchecko remind us about Russia’s impact on the world, in one of my favorite RadPod moments from the full-scale invasion.
Slava Ukraini.
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Thank you again for simply being here.
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More info about Bette Dangerous - This magazine is written by Heidi Siegmund Cuda, an Emmy-award winning investigative reporter/producer, author, and veteran music and nightlife columnist. She is the cohost of RADICALIZED Truth Survives, an investigative show about disinformation and is part of the Byline Media team. Thank you for your support of independent investigative journalism.
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Begin each day with a grateful heart.
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