Guest of the episode: Petro Maha — Ukrainian People’s Artist, poet, and television host.
Transcript of conversations
Nik Lysytskiy: Hello, I’m Nik Lysytskiy, and this is “Archetype of the Nation” — a cultural project that explores the foundations of Ukrainian national identity: who we were, who we have become, what we have, and what we can be. We search for answers in folklore and through conversations with prominent representatives of our nation.
Today, our guest is People’s Artist of Ukraine, poet, and television host Petro Maha. Good afternoon, Mr. Petro.
Petro Maha: Good afternoon.
Nik Lysytskiy: Each episode of our project is dedicated to a certain value that defines the Ukrainian nation — one of the elements of our identity. Today, I’d like to invite you to talk about a value we call self-expression.
While preparing for this episode, we looked into how self-expression is represented in Ukrainian folklore. Here’s what we found: for centuries, Ukrainians have been searching for and finding ways to express themselves. In traditional songs and prose, they expressed not only the individual but also the collective — memory, pain, joy, and hope — transforming even traumatic experiences into symbols, melodies, and images.
To be unique, not part of the system, is a natural desire of a Ukrainian — someone with creativity and a drive for individuality. Mr. Petro, do you agree with this statement? And what does self-expression mean to you personally?
Petro Maha: You’ve touched on a very complex topic. On the surface, it may seem simple — we have beautiful songs, we sing about mountains, about happiness, and 90% of our songs begin with “oh.” But that “oh” can mean many things — “oh!” or “oh, there!” In fact, self-expression isn’t only about songs.
It shows up in so many other things — in woodcarving, in architecture, in the way a home was arranged. You know, once a British traveler wrote that he would rather eat off the floor in a Ukrainian peasant’s hut than from the table of a Russian nobleman. Because the Ukrainian hut had to be whitewashed, well-kept, surrounded by hollyhocks and a tidy fence with a walkway. It had to be a personal space. A Ukrainian was a homeowner — with his own livestock, farm, and order — and even herding was done collectively. Isn’t that a form of self-expression?
When people gathered and decided: today you’ll herd, tomorrow I will, the day after, someone else — isn’t that self-expression too?
And painted clay jugs — each one unique — isn’t that self-expression? I have something rare at home — I bought it for almost nothing — a jug called a “smoky” one. Smoky jugs are black earthenware vessels made in kilns that held the smoke inside.
There was a place in a village in the Chernihiv region that people thought was cursed because a house had burned down there once. No one wanted to buy that land. Finally, someone did, decided to build, and when they dismantled the old foundation, they found a kiln — it had been a potter’s house. Inside were 130 jugs that had been waiting there for almost 200 years until someone finally brought them out.
People didn’t understand their value — this jug, with a lid that rings when you tap it, had been sitting in that kiln for two centuries, waiting to be discovered. And where else in the world can you find something like that?
I’m not even mentioning the fact that they say we have the richest song heritage in existence.
What scares me is that we’re forgetting all of this. Today, one of the main forms of self-expression is the Internet — where anyone can pour out their negativity, frustration, or anger. And I’m one of those completely abnormal people who, if I see that someone has written a good book, I have to call them, or write to them, or meet and tell them.
I’m genuinely happy when I see someone create something good — if someone writes a great song, I’ll be there to support it. But there are also those who only produce, forgive me, garbage. Just crap.
And I want to remind them where this comes from, and what kind of energy they’re spreading. You know that saying — “If only your family knew before… you’re an idiot”? Well, now, thanks to the Internet, everyone knows what’s going on in your head.
And the war has made it even worse. For many, national self-expression today, unfortunately, comes down to four letters — “shit.” That’s a terrible problem. The reasons can be many — language, religion, even the question of defending your homeland or not.
How can someone choose not to defend their own homeland? Even that is a form of self-expression. But within that, a lot of opportunism has appeared — what I call “Bayraktarism.”
I remember when the Maidan happened and the Heavenly Hundred were killed. I was terrified when, at the next song festival, the first ten songs were all about tragedy — “The Heavenly Hundred, you were killed, you were buried…” and so on. It turned into fierce speculation on pain and grief.
If you say to someone now, “The duck is floating” — the line from that old folk song — they’ll shiver, because they remember the first fallen being carried out to that melody. But when it started to be played everywhere, I began to feel fear in my own body — the same fear I feel when I hear “Glory to Ukraine.”
I don’t want that phrase — sacred to me — to become an empty slogan, like “Glory to the Communist Party.”
Because the phrase “Glory to Ukraine,” which has become part of our self-expression, is a great one — it has echoed not only in Ukraine but around the world. Yet when some pop singer finishes a performance, shouts “Glory to Ukraine,” and people look at each other thinking, “Why? What for? Where were you before?” — it loses its meaning.
I believe that when soldiers who defend us say it, or their families, or at a memorial event — that’s when it’s appropriate. But otherwise, just as you don’t throw God’s name around carelessly, you shouldn’t throw this phrase around either.
So, returning to the idea of unique Ukrainian things — I think all we really need to do is highlight them and show them to the world. They’re self-sufficient.
When you hear an authentic song — like “Oh, the girl went to fetch water” — sung by elderly women in a village ensemble, most of them over eighty, you can hear the tears in your eyes. It’s something real, alive.
But when young girls come out in short, “stylized” skirts, thinking it’s modern, mixing things that don’t belong together and turning it all into vulgarity — I realize we’re not moving forward in many ways. It all begins with school. And even earlier — with the family.
And who is the family? The people who instill in a child what they themselves know. But if they don’t know anything — then what can they pass on?
So tell me — which is older: the yin-yang symbol in China, or the Trypillian culture?
Nik Lysytskiy: Well, as far as I know, the Trypillian culture…
Petro Maha: And what about the yin-yang symbol we see on every other stone?
Nik Lysytskiy: And not just yin-yang.
Petro Maha: Exactly. And why do I emphasize this? Because the clever Chinese declared that their yin-yang symbol is around two thousand years old — yet it was actually found on stones from the Trypillian culture.
I wish Viktor Andriiovych Yushchenko were here — he’s an expert, a real enthusiast. I once saw him buying Trypillian pottery shards. He told me, “I paid a ridiculous amount for them.” I asked, “What is it?” and he said, “I bought some shards for 300 dollars.”
I asked, “Why?” And he said, “I don’t know if they’re all from one vessel, but the sellers swear they are.” When he had free time at work, he would piece them together. Eventually, he reconstructed this huge jug — with yin-yang symbols on both sides, just a little stretched. It’s about three and a half thousand years old. The Chinese, meanwhile, bring in tens of millions of tourists and make fortunes from such finds.
And here, when people discover the foundations of Trypillian houses, they quietly destroy them — plow over them, break them with tractors because they need to sow the fields. It terrifies me. We have such a deep culture, such heritage, and yet Ukraine remains misunderstood.
People have often said: embroidery from the Ivano-Frankivsk (formerly Stanislav) region looks completely different from that in Chernihiv or Poltava — you could tell them apart instantly. But have you ever wondered why the same musical instruments or similar designs appear in completely different parts of the world?
For instance, those crossbody bags — the ones you throw over your shoulder while riding horses — they exist among the Hutsuls and the Ecuadorians, the Chileans, the Peruvians. Mountain people and mountain people. Their embroideries are strikingly similar, their ornaments almost identical.
Both cultures have gerdans (beaded necklaces). Both have the drymba (Jew’s harp). The northern peoples — the Hutsuls — have it, too. Both have the pan flute: in Latin America it’s called the zampoña, elsewhere the pan flute, in Moldova it’s common, and the Romanians are considered the best players. They call it “God’s providence.”
And now, because of the war, Ukraine has suddenly become a global trend. But when we win, I want us to remove that bloody element — the pain, the suffering, the demographic tragedy that awaits us — and instead bring forth a great flowering, a chorus of what we might call Ukrainian self-expression. That’s what I believe in.
Nik Lysytskiy: And, of course, subscribe to our channels and pages so you don’t miss anything interesting — all the links are in the description. Today, we’ll actually talk about the Internet and the difference between self-expression and the market.
But first, I’d like to touch on something more personal — to understand, through the example of one creative person, how a boy from a small Transcarpathian village became a People’s Artist of Ukraine, a theater director, a general producer, a well-known poet and songwriter. How did that journey begin? You once mentioned that you first stepped on stage at the age of five.
Petro Maha: Yes — and I didn’t just step on stage, I fell right off it.
Nik Lysytskiy: Do you remember what you felt in that moment?
Petro Maha: I do. I went out there filled with defiance. I grew up in a completely anti-Soviet family.
My grandfather was a very wealthy man. He had spent 17 years working in America before returning to Ukraine, buying land, and becoming a farmer. But when the Soviet regime came in 1944, everything changed. He was sent away — first to Vyazma, then to Magadan, then to Vologda, which was a closed prison. His last place of imprisonment was a town called Buy.
I don’t even remember which region that was. It was a political prison camp. And he returned home only after Stalin’s death.
At home, anything that had to do with Moscow or with winter holidays was taken very harshly by my grandmother. She had raised four sons on her own. I remember there was some Soviet holiday — the so-called “Day of the Unification of Ukraine and Russia.” When it came on the radio, my grandmother would always say, “Turn off that garbage.”
So I knew that song was bad. And then, one day at the village club, they started performing it — a full choir singing it from the stage. I climbed up on stage, to everyone’s laughter, tugged at the accordion player’s sleeve, and said, “Wait, this is a bad song!” She looked at me and asked, “And which one is good then?”
So I started singing a parody of the Slovak anthem — with words that went something like, “I forced the communists to die, the Slovaks will come to life.” Meaning, we swear that all communists will die, and Slovaks will rise again. For that, we could have been in serious trouble.
Nik Lysytskiy: At five years old?
Petro Maha: Yes. My father, pale as a wall, ran onto the stage, grabbed me under the arm, and carried me down. I was still singing something on the way, out of protest, while everyone was laughing. But they all knew there were a couple of informers in the village — so at home, they wanted to give me a little “lesson.”
Back then, “psychologists” came in the form of what we called the car hose, the power cable, or the skipping rope — very “therapeutic” tools. But my grandmother defended me, saying I’d sung a very nice song.
Nik Lysytskiy: Your self-expression was appreciated.
Petro Maha: Yes — though it had to be “corrected.” And if I didn’t sit properly at the table, I had to hold on tight.
At the next concert, they gave me a poem to recite about the Chilean junta. I still remember some lines: “Juan and Vicente… Then the children of Mireya and Pablo Sarmiento… The policemen broke into their house at night. And father said, ‘Get ready, we’re going.’ Every day and every night in prison they beat him, but they couldn’t break Sarmiento’s will.”
Can you imagine — sending a five-year-old child, who has no idea what’s green and what’s red, to perform that? But somehow, that’s how I was “rehabilitated.” And as my mother says, once I pushed myself onto the stage, no one’s been able to push me off it since.
Nik Lysytskiy: And when did you write your first poem?
Petro Maha: Oh, I was probably eight or nine. It was a poem in Russian — about an icebreaker. I saw some TV program and wrote it afterward. It’s one of those “God, how embarrassing” moments.
Nik Lysytskiy: Was it your own idea?
Petro Maha: Yes, I wanted to do everything — to draw, play football, box, play basketball, join the agit-brigade. By the time I joined the agit-theater, I was about fourteen.
The head of the jury back then was old Mikhalkov — the one who rewrote the Soviet anthem. He was already quite elderly, a tall, imposing man. He handed us our diplomas in Lviv — they had to feed him and give him water, he was that frail. He looked at me and said, “Young man, are you going to do this seriously?” I said, “Yes, I want to be a detective.” What a fool I was. But those words — “are you going to do it?” — stuck in my head.
From that moment, I started thinking seriously about theater. But to be honest, we didn’t have much of a Ukrainian identity there. I studied in a Russian school in Chop. People can say what they want, but yes — they stifled us there.
The school was Russian, the teachers were good, but the purpose was to make us like the children of KGB officers, border guards, and railway troops stationed in Chop. That was the environment.
So my Transcarpathian identity really existed only on two holidays — Christmas and Easter.
Nik Lysytskiy: The two main ones.
Petro Maha: Exactly. At Easter, there was no church in the village. People would gather in someone’s yard, bring a priest. I remember the cold, the darkness, the prayers, candles glowing over the baskets, cold water splashed on your face — and the words, “Christ is risen!” And you’re happy.
And Christmas — that was all about caroling. Our Transcarpathian carols were very different from what I later heard in central Ukraine. In the center, it was “Christ is born, God is incarnate, angels sing, kings are greeted” — all on one note. But in the Transcarpathian version, “Christ is born, God is incarnate, angels sing, kings are greeted” — it was broader, fuller, deeper.
I later spoke with some musicians about it, and they said, yes, there are regional variations — and they’re fascinating. Take, for example, Andrii Khlyvniuk, who introduced the whole world to the song “Oh, the Red Viburnum in the Meadow.
It’s wonderful — the world sang kalyna (viburnum) — but to the wrong melody. In its classical version, the one written by composers, the melody is much richer, more colorful. Khlyvniuk made it more forceful, almost fatalistic — and that’s not a bad thing, because he brought it to the world’s attention.
We need to do the same with our ancient identity — make it engaging for children. When you tell kids that the yin-yang symbol appeared in Trypillian culture long before China — they go, “Wow!” When you tell them that Taras Hryhorovych Shevchenko’s paintings are now studied in the Flemish school of art alongside Rembrandt’s — again, “Wow!”
And Taras Hryhorovych — despite his tragic fate as a serf — wore a watch bracelet, had his own quirks, passions, and women.
Nik Lysytskiy: A rock star?
Petro Maha: Exactly — literally a rock star. And why not? Why shouldn’t we see him that way?
You see, someone once decided for us how to erase our self-identity — to portray us only through misery and suffering. The endless poverty of serfdom, Haritya’s mother dying of tuberculosis, wandering the village begging so she doesn’t starve. Everything dark, everything hopeless.
But read the works of European scholars who studied Ukraine — many of them compared us to the Netherlands. The mentality is similar: the need for beauty, cleanliness, order. Every yard should be tidy, with flowers, the walls whitewashed, the home spotless.
I once visited a house in Vorokhta, in the Hutsul region — it felt like someone had poured sunlight around it. Everything fresh, embroidered, white, perfectly clean — not a speck of dust, as if no one dared disturb the space. Where does this come from in our people?
Ukrainians absorb other cultures just as we absorbed foreign words when our language was forming. But still, we remain distinct.
My grandfather, for instance, spoke English. He had formed as a person in America. And when he was arrested for “anti-Soviet propaganda,” let me tell you why — it shocked me recently when I read an article about it.
He was imprisoned for singing a chastivka (a short humorous folk verse). In Russian. But he didn’t even know Russian! He once asked my grandmother what the word “pusyarus” meant. She said, “There’s no such word.” He said, “How can that be? The Muscovites sing, ‘Pusyarus, noble!’” That was the extent of his Russian.
So, he sang a chastivka — and they gave him ten years for it.
And just the other night, I read an article about Korney Chukovsky. Since childhood, we were read his, let’s say, slightly delirious poems. The system didn’t like him much — especially Nadezhda Konstantinovna Krupskaya. She once called a special meeting to declare that a mosquito cannot marry a fly because they’re different species! The fact that this mosquito flew, swung a saber, and chopped off a spider’s head didn’t bother her at all.
But Chukovsky sometimes wrote truly bold things. After World War II ended, he wrote a very harsh poem about widows — about how there were no men left, how women had no one to live with or have children with, and what would become of the future.
And the final lines went like this:
“There are many girls, many girls,
And the girls have nowhere to go.”
“If the horses rest, we’ll plow like girls.” That’s the verse my grandfather sang as a chastivka (folk ditty). The original poem had been published in Pravda, but after his performance, it was declared anti-Soviet propaganda because someone denounced him.
Today, you could just go online, hire a lawyer fresh out of law school, and they’d tear that accusation apart in two seconds. But back then, there was no way to fight it — once they decided you, me, or even our cameraman were “enemies of the people,” that was it.
Forgive me for jumping between topics, but our national self-identity was deeply scarred by the Holodomor, by arrests, and yet — paradoxically — it also broadened the range of our creative expression. How many songs were written about the famine? How many about the road to Siberia?
Nik Lysytskiy: And that, too, was a form of self-expression?
Petro Maha: Absolutely. For example, the song that Sviatoslav Vakarchuk performed so beautifully — “Oceans of Glory” from Halytskyi Krai — my grandmother used to sing it to me. It was about people leaving.
My grandfather told me that to get to New York, all the ships heading there would sail the same route as the Titanic. He had to take a sea shuttle from Antwerp. That didn’t surprise me, because his brother had sailed on the Carpathia — the ship that rescued people from the Titanic — and my grandfather sailed on the Lapland.
All the documents are still preserved. You can look them up — it says there: “Ilia Maha.” Two passengers — one 51 years old, one 19. The 19-year-old was my grandfather. It even says which class he sailed in from Antwerp.
And when I think about how they traveled from the tiny village of Rakovo, in the Perechyn district of Zakarpattia, all the way to Antwerp — it gives me goosebumps. How much we don’t know about ourselves, about our own history, about what they went through and how they preserved it.
Only now are we starting to rediscover such stories — like when, during a Soviet Union vs. GDR match in Canada, a Ukrainian man, who passed away just a week ago, ran onto the field with a Ukrainian flag and danced the hopak. What a blow that was to both the GDR and the USSR!
And how many hockey players came out of Ukrainian leagues? It’s incredible. For example, Mike Krushelnyski — a star of the Toronto Maple Leafs — even had a clause in his contract saying he wouldn’t train on Sundays, because he took his children to Ukrainian Sunday school. And sadly, even that tradition is fading now.
There’s still so much in the diaspora — but the children there often no longer speak Ukrainian.
Nik Lysytskiy: Actually, that reminds me of the hopak at the stadium. And we began with the idea that self-expression isn’t just about songs or dances — it’s much broader. Which brings up an interesting question: what is self-expression? Is it art? Is it a profession? A way to say something? A way to be heard? What is it really?
Petro Maha: For me, it’s the richness of a person’s inner world. If a child in front of me is crying, I can pick up three stones and start juggling. Or grab a twig, spin it, balance it — do something playful. Because I know how to juggle, and I understand a bit about performance.
If I need to keep a group of people together, I can do it for days — by singing, telling stories, or weaving in bits of theater, literature, anything that keeps them engaged. I’ll find what sparks their interest.
Nik Lysytskiy: Did you learn that somewhere, or does it just come naturally?
Petro Maha: You know, if a person doesn’t open themselves to the world, they’ll always struggle. Of course, people have different personalities, different temperaments — but I’ve always had something to share.
Sometimes I’ll just sit down and draw — that’s one form of self-expression. Or I’ll sing — I know many songs, and that’s another way. My grandmother, may she rest in peace, used to tell me Transcarpathian fairy tales with her hands — full of gestures and emotion — and she never once repeated herself.
Wow! Thank God someone recorded all of this. There were quite a few — just imagine: Wooden Miracle, Tales of Verkhovyna, Kymak, Child, Tales of One Village. I don’t even remember them all. That’s actually a list of Transcarpathian folk tales recorded in just one village — Horynchevo.
Thank God there was someone there who cared enough to preserve it. Because what if there hadn’t been?
Nik Lysytskiy: There used to be one in every village, right? Almost every village had its own storyteller.
Petro Maha: Yes, some kind of storyteller. In my village, there was a woman who kept the history of the whole community. Or take a simple woodcarver — someone who just spends his life cutting wood. Every movement he makes fascinates me, because in that moment, he’s not only expressing himself — he’s carrying behind him an entire layer of everything he’s absorbed.
Self-expression is a small concentration of something vast that fills a person. Faina Georgiivna Ranevskaya once said that people are very different among us: some have fairy tales, theater, and songs inside them — and others have only worms.
A person can express themselves through one little pattern scratched on a cup — and you look at it and think, “Wow.” And yet all this pop junk that’s appeared lately — it’s built on imitation. You go to a souvenir market somewhere, even at Niagara Falls, and every trinket has a “Made in China” label. Everything’s mass-produced.
And it’s reached us too. Embroidered shirts are machine-stitched in China and sold here. Wooden spoons and carvings are cut out by automated machines. It’s not life anymore, you know? That’s why we have to protect every real craftsman we still have.
There used to be folklore expeditions — people went to villages, recorded on tape recorders with terrible sound quality, but still captured songs that might have otherwise vanished.
Nik Lysytskiy: They’re still recording today, too.
Petro Maha: They are, but people are leaving us. You know, in the past, what did grandmothers do in the evenings? They sat on benches and sang. And they weren’t all from the same village — there would be five old women from one place, and another who had married in from somewhere else. She’d share the songs her mother taught her — and so it went, passed on and on.
And now? They sit and watch Mexican, Brazilian, Turkish, or — God forbid — South Korean dramas. And then they spend the evening discussing whether Esterci will ever find the child she forgot twelve episodes ago because of memory loss. That’s what it’s come to.
The space around us is being filled with this TikTok-style format. And I’m afraid it’s making the world flat and uninteresting. Our children have started to look fiercely alike — whether American, German, Chinese, Russian, or Indonesian — they’re all living in the same virtual reality.
In that world, if you want a Rolex, it gives you twenty to choose from. You want a Rolls-Royce — and through virtual reality, you’re already “driving” it. For a few minutes, you feel something. But then reality hits, and you realize it’s all hollow.
For me, it’s like when I first imagined Alaska — and then saw it on TV. It was completely different.
Nik Lysytskiy: I’d like to remind our viewers that today, in the “Archetype of the Nation” studio, we’re talking about self-expression and creativity with Petro Maha.
You’ve actually touched on a topic I planned to bring up later — but since we’re already there, let’s talk about it. I mean the traditions and ways of self-expression that once existed when every village had its own storyteller — a person who told tales that were never repeated, because the beauty of folklore lies in the fact that everyone adds something of their own.
The same goes for songs. On one hand, we now have unlimited content online. But perhaps that’s exactly why there are no more storytellers or song-makers among the younger generation — because all the tales and songs already exist online; you can just listen or read them.
On the other hand, new forms of self-expression are emerging — blogs, reels, memes, and so on. Is this evolution or degradation?
Petro Maha: It’s degradation.
And I’ll tell you why I think so. It completely kills people’s ability for critical thinking. As someone with, let’s say, an IQ slightly higher than that of a canary, I’m not interested in watching people who think exactly like me.
I prefer to listen to three or four different opinions and then try to find the truth somewhere in between. But look what’s happening now — everyone suddenly thinks they’re an expert. The worst are the so-called “office plankton.”
May God forgive me for singling out that group, but these are people who once wanted to achieve something, yet didn’t. And now they sit and criticize everything — calling others idiots, fools, morons — claiming they would do it all better themselves.
Tell me honestly — do you write comments online? I don’t. I have neither the time nor the desire. And when I read some of those conspiracy theories, wild assumptions, and endless nonsense, it honestly frightens me.
Nik Lysytskiy: Let’s try to shift our conversation to something more positive. Because it might sound like we’re saying everything used to be better — traditional, proper — and now technology has ruined it. But maybe what’s really happening is that technology affects us so deeply that it’s no longer about self-expression, but about a need to be heard.
Petro Maha: You can look at it from many angles. Take Anton Pavlovych Chekhov’s The Cherry Orchard. There are the old women who refuse to cut down the trees because they bloom beautifully, and then Lopakhin arrives — he wants to cut down the orchard because a railway is going to pass through. So who’s right?
The old ones who want to preserve the garden, even though it no longer bears fruit — or the man who wants to build the railway and move forward? If you look at it that way, you’d say, of course, Lopakhin’s right — he’s the man of progress. But what if he’s just a profiteer, wanting to make a quick ruble, while for the others, that orchard is their whole life?
You see, everything depends on perspective.
And how could I, for example, reject the achievements of civilization? Right now, I’m speaking into an American microphone — or maybe a Chinese one. Designed by Americans, made in China. I arrived here in a Japanese car. I use an American phone — again, made in China.
If I wanted to see the entire world, I wouldn’t have enough lifetime to do it. So, of course, you can’t just dismiss it all. But at the same time, we must preserve what is truly ours.
What scares me most isn’t urbanization — it’s globalization. Because part of globalization is depopularization, denationalization. There are things people identify with very deeply.
Take the Latvian flag, for example. Do you know what that shade of red is called? It’s “Latvian red.” It’s not exactly red, and not brown either — it’s something unique, distinct.
Or think of embroidery — have you heard of the “Bulgarian cross-stitch”? Why is it called that? Because that’s how the Bulgarians embroidered — with their own technique.
In Ukraine, people have always named things with meaning. We’ve enriched the world in countless ways. I once watched Dmytro Komarov’s show, where he visited the Amish in America. Do you know what they call a chesnyk (garlic press)? A chesnyk! Not havlik, as in German, but chesnyk. Because Ukrainian immigrants taught them to use it — and the name stuck.
The Hungarians, who were once nomadic tribes, borrowed almost all the names of agricultural tools from Ukrainians. They had no native words for “shovel” or “pitchfork” — those came from us.
All of this was built over centuries. It’s a whole wealth of culture and knowledge — and that, too, is self-expression.
Listen, any ceremony in Ukraine — whatever you take — is unlike any other. And even across regions, they differ completely. In Transcarpathia, for example, at funerals, there used to be mummers — people dressed up in costumes who walked around making others laugh, to help ease the pain of death. Have you ever heard of that? And in Transcarpathia, they would take the deceased to the cemetery on a sleigh — even in summer.
Nik Lysytskiy: Not only in Transcarpathia, by the way. Yes.
Petro Maha: Exactly. That’s why I’m all for preserving everything unique in every corner of Ukraine — every Hutsul word, every Lemko word, every Boyko word. Of course, we must all know the Ukrainian language and be united as one nation. But at the same time — allow me to give an example I’ve used before — take the American national tennis team of that era: Pete Sampras was Greek, Jim Courier was Belgian, Michael Chang was Chinese, and Ivan Lendl was Czech. Yet they were all part of the American team.
Nik Lysytskiy: Because they gather the best. Of course.
Petro Maha: Exactly — “I am American.” That’s what unites them. And then someone like Andy Warhol comes along — people, listen! Ukrainians should be proud not only of being recognized by others, but of those whose roots come from here. For example, the house of Tusin Hoga in Sadagura, near Chernivtsi — that’s where Hava Nagila was written. Calvin Klein — born to Jewish parents from Bukovyna.
And look at others: Dustin Hoffman, David Duchovny —
Nik Lysytskiy: Sylvester Stallone, I think.
Petro Maha: Yes, Sylvester Stallone, Leonardo DiCaprio, Steven Spielberg, Mila Kunis, Milla Jovovich, Volodymyr Palahniuk (that’s Jack Palance), Sean Penn — all with Ukrainian roots.
To me, the greatest value of Andy Warhol isn’t just that he was the father of pop art — but that, in his later years, he returned to his Rusyn roots. He died within the Greek Catholic community and was buried in a Greek Catholic cemetery. He spent his final years atoning for his sins — and he had plenty, of course.
That’s why I say there’s something wrong with this so-called “progress,” when people now spend 9 or 10 hours a day in front of a screen. Imagine if they devoted even half that time to learning something meaningful. They’d know who Andy Warhol was.
You know, I had a funny experience recently. I teach at the Institute of Film and Television. During exams, there was a guest — Mr. Budko, the general producer of the Tony Awards. At one point, he said, “That was great — he even reminded me a bit of Charles Aznavour.” And I looked at the students — blank faces. Nothing.
I said, “Come on, guys.” Some of them were studying sports journalism — they live and breathe football. So I tried to connect it. I said, “Sasha, tell me, who comes to mind among French footballers of Armenian origin?” He replied, “Alain Boghossian, Youri Djorkaeff.” “Good,” I said. “And who is Charles Aznavour?” Silence.
They didn’t know. I explained, “Charles Aznavour is the greatest chansonnier — the most famous Armenian artist of all time.” And then I added, “Nowadays they say Kim Kardashian surpassed him — but let’s not discuss how she surpassed him.”
And then I thought, I could tell them that Aznavour was Edith Piaf’s husband — but I realized I’d first have to explain who Edith Piaf was. And again — the same blank faces.
Do you see? That’s what worries me most about our people right now.
And they’re becoming Americans in that same sense — the way Americans often believe that history began only when Comrade Columbus arrived on their shores. As if before that, nothing in the world existed at all. You see what I mean?
And here, in our country, people have started to believe that nothing existed before independence.
Nik Lysytskiy: Are these people mostly those born after independence?
Petro Maha: Exactly. And maybe they’re just not interested. I’m not upset that they can’t name the fifteen Soviet republics — that’s not the point. But when I see fools online asking whether Alaska is a country or a republic, or claiming that its capital is Venice — well, that’s just… wonderful.
Still, a lot has been lost. Of course, humanity has created incredible things like Wikipedia — at least you can go and look things up there. I just hope that after watching our conversation, someone will go on Wikipedia and check who that “annoying guy in glasses” is — meaning me.
Nik Lysytskiy: And be sure to leave a nice comment.
Petro Maha: Oh, yes. I’m already predicting it.
Nik Lysytskiy: And share their impressions — express their opinion about self-expression.
Petro Maha: Yes, exactly. You know what’s the paradox? The people who will truly like what we’re saying — they won’t write anything. They’ll just be quietly happy for us.
But those who have that built-in reflex to type — they’ll jump straight into the comments. They’ll go through all the channels, all the posts. And the sad truth is that people with real critical thinking are becoming fewer and fewer. That’s the problem.
I’m afraid we’re letting the worst parts of our current mentality seep into our national identity — things like envy, naïveté, gullibility. And now, with artificial intelligence, it’s getting truly frightening. They can completely change what you said.
We could be sitting here right now, and someone could generate a lecture from this video — on artificial insemination of house finches — and it would look real. The image on screen stops being proof of anything. Because everything can now be recreated, regenerated.
I don’t know how we’ll deal with that. But one thing will never change — what’s written in myths and fairy tales. Those truths stay the same.
And it’s not by accident that in our fairy tales, Ivan is clever and resourceful — while in Russian tales, Ivan is “the Fool.” That’s a huge difference. The Russian Ivan dreams of catching a magic pike that will grant him everything — a house, firewood, comfort — without lifting a finger.
But our Ukrainian Ivan works. He toils, he struggles, he builds. That’s our difference.
There’s even that old tale — “Play, Sopilka, Play.” It tells of two brothers, where one kills the other — over a wild boar, just because one succeeded in the hunt and the other didn’t.
That’s what I sometimes want to ask our people: why? Why did you do that? Why didn’t you show up when it mattered? Every nation has its dark sides, and in ours, there’s a tendency not to admit them.
The Germans, for example, found the strength to repent — to say, “Yes, we were wrong. We were cruel.” But we often keep insisting, “Well, yes, but we’re good.” A Ukrainian person doesn’t like to admit when they’re wrong. Really doesn’t.
Nik Lysytskiy: We’re exploring the fundamental values that define the Ukrainian people — and today, even though we’re talking about self-expression, we’ve touched on many others as well. But since we’re on this topic — you’ve mentioned that you teach at the University of Culture, and that you also mentor young actors at the Theater of Personality.
Petro Maha: Yes, I perform on the same stage with them — and it’s wonderful.
Nik Lysytskiy: So, if we talk about these young people — your students, those you work with directly — how do they express themselves? Do they actively seek self-expression? And if we compare you at their age to them today, what differences do you see?
Petro Maha: And you know, nothing has really changed. First, let me clarify — I don’t want to sound like some grumpy old man. There has always been a conflict between generations. I honestly believe that every new generation is, in many ways, better than the one before it.
There’s that famous line from the classics: “Our generation is the last on this planet; the next one is terrible — we’re all doomed.” Socrates said that. Thousands of years have passed, and yet people still say the same thing.
And then there’s Churchill’s quote: “If you were not a revolutionary in your youth, you have no heart; if you’re not a conservative in your old age, you have no brain.”
So when I look at today’s youth — the colorful hair, the piercings, the tattoos everywhere — I don’t judge them. But sometimes, I see that all this self-expression hides a kind of inner insecurity.
I remember once I almost got beaten up by some of the old Dynamo Kyiv players. I came to a dinner — Oleg Kuznetsov was there, Anatolii Demianenko, Mykhailichenko, real legends. I looked at them and said, “How did you guys even play football? You look like amateurs.”
They glared at me, ready to explode. I added, “You don’t even have tattoos! Real footballers nowadays are covered head to toe!” They laughed, but I meant it as a point — now the young generation of players, who keep losing to everyone, don’t have a free inch of skin left.
What I’m saying is — self-expression shouldn’t replace professionalism. Tattoos, piercings, fashion — fine. But whatever you do — be great at it. If you’re a brilliant coder, a strong vocalist, a talented cameraman, or even a good taxi driver — do it better than anyone else.
Our streets are dirty not because there’s no one to clean them, but because people don’t do their jobs professionally. If I were cleaning toilets, they’d be the cleanest toilets in the world. I can’t do things halfway. That’s what everyone needs — the desire to do your job well.
Nik Lysytskiy: How do you see the connection between self-expression, creativity, and freedom? In your youth, there were strict limitations — censorship, forbidden topics. Now, you can say or wear whatever you want.
Petro Maha: Makarevich has a great song about that — I don’t want to sound like a Muscovite, but it’s about how you finally break through, you’re free to move forward — but you stop, and you don’t know where to go next.
Because back then, when you were fighting the system, there was a goal. There were dissident poets, writers, who produced incredibly powerful work.
But look what happened after — as soon as the era of jokes about shortages and Soviet absurdity ended, Mikhail Zhvanetsky — our brilliant compatriot — said, “We might not have everything, we might lack a lot, but we had humor.” And when that ended, all the humor slid down to the lower parts of the body. Every level of culture became obsessed with vulgarity. It’s terrible.
Nik Lysytskiy: How did it happen that our folklore — which for centuries was created under oppression and always carried a spark of protest, of resistance — changed direction so drastically? During the Soviet period, we had authors and dissidents expressing their defiance through art. And yet, when freedom came, self-expression sometimes turned into self-deprecation.
Petro Maha: Because we were conditioned that way. For decades, people were taught to suppress themselves. Anyone who came from a small village — say, from Velyki Zaperedylivtsi — to Kyiv would immediately switch to speaking Russian. It became automatic.
It was ingrained in us. Take Iryna Bilyk, for example — she started singing in Ukrainian, then switched to Russian. I actually spoke with her about it once. She told me, “It’s awful. When I released a Ukrainian-language album, audiences started shrinking. Then I made a Russian one — and the stadiums were packed.”
Or take Vitya Pavlik — after his Ukrainian hits like “Green City Holiday,” he switched too. Why? Because that’s what the system rewarded. That’s what filled the concert halls.
And that’s the tragedy — that people were made to feel they couldn’t succeed while being truly themselves.
That’s exactly it — our inferiority complex. We still think that if we speak like the Muscovites, we sound cooler, smarter, more “civilized.”
Nik Lysytskiy: Do you think that’s changed much now?
Petro Maha: Not really. Horror! The kids today are listening to Russian rap full of profanity. Why? Because the forbidden fruit is always the sweetest.
My own daughter went through it. In school, she refused to speak Russian — and for that, they hated her. She tells me stories now that make my blood boil. If I had known then what was happening, I swear, even though she was just a child, I would’ve come and punched someone.
They forced her into Russian classes, into that environment, because everyone was listening to it. And now they’ve switched to these so-called “shamans,” “demons” — whatever new idols appear online. And it’s scary how easily they get to young people, especially teenagers, just by slipping into the things they like.
That’s why I think the biggest problem in this country still begins in kindergarten. Every year, it only gets worse. Until we put kindergarten teachers and schoolteachers on a pedestal, nothing good will change.
These are the sad thoughts I sometimes have. I dream of a country of intelligent people. A country where people don’t have to ask what an “archetype” is or where the word comes from. That’s when I’ll be happy.
Nik Lysytskiy: Watch all our episodes — and you’ll know exactly what an archetype is, and what each of the values we discuss truly means. I want to ask you about theater — specifically, the Theater of Personality. For you, is it a form of self-expression?
Petro Maha: It’s my lifelong love. Of course it’s a form of self-expression. You know, there are performances where we invite people simply to laugh — because laughter is medicine. And that’s important too.
But you’ve just asked me a really good question — I’ll try to answer it properly. We often say people need to smile, to forget their troubles for a while. But theater, for me, is deeper than that. It’s where we explore meaning.
Take Mykola Kulish’s play Myna Mazaylo. My character — Myna — is often portrayed as a fool who wants to change his Ukrainian surname to sound more Russian. But why does he want to do it? Because he’s stupid? No. It’s because he senses what’s coming — he knows that people like him will soon be starved, shot, erased.
He believes that by changing his name — to “Mazailov,” to “Mazaylin” — he might save himself and his family. He doesn’t do it out of vanity, but out of fear. And he loves his son so much that he wants him to survive, even if it means rejecting their roots.
So, I play a scoundrel who fights for the happiness of her children — a mother who rejects Ukrainian identity to protect her own blood. Almost no one stages Myna Mazaylo like that. Usually, it’s simple — “he’s an idiot,” “she’s hysterical.” But that’s not interesting. It’s too easy.
And then my daughter asked me one day — they call me “nany” at home, that’s what they say in Transcarpathia — “Nany, why do we even do all this? You spend money on it, you chase people to come, you print tickets, you beg them to show up. Why bother?”
And I thought about it. And I realized — when a person leaves the theater after a performance, they don’t want to punch anyone in the face for at least an hour or two. And that’s already something.
I believe that art should make people want to do something good, to be kind, to reflect — not to fight. For me, theater is a chance to make this world just a little better. And if I manage that, even in a small way, that’s my contribution to the archetype of our nation.
I live now in Khodosivka, near Kyiv — land that once belonged to the Kyiv-Pechersk Lavra. There are gardens, orchards, and sometimes we dig up ancient things from the soil — little clay figures, children’s toys.
I don’t think the craftsman who made them imagined that in a thousand years, someone would dig them up and say, “Wow, what a great artist.” No. He made them simply to bring joy to a child — his own, or someone else’s.
The same goes for the old crosses people wore — they didn’t wear them for beauty, but because they believed the soul lived in the Cross.
There’s so much we don’t know — and it’s incredible. If people truly became interested in archetypes, in origins, in meanings, I’d love to tell them even about the words we use every day. For example, where “for free” came from.
Everyone thinks it means “without payment.” But no — it comes from “free” as in “Friday.” On Friday evening, when Shabbat began, Jewish milkmen would leave jugs of milk under the counter, saying “for free,” meaning “for Friday.”
And that, again, tells something about us — about our shared history, about how deeply interconnected we all are.
And no one stole anything. Everyone came and took only their own jug — but that evening, they didn’t pay for it. Because everyone knew that the Jewish milkmen were in the synagogue at that moment, observing Shabbat, praying. They couldn’t be disturbed.
That’s where the word “for free” — or “freebie” — comes from. They would leave the milk out “for free,” meaning “for Friday.” But the next day, you had to come back and pay for that “freebie.”
Who knows that now? Hardly anyone. You see, these things are deep — they need to be studied, explained, told. And I assure you, if you tell children stories like that, they’ll be fascinated.
For example, in our Historical Museum, there’s a collection of bronze artifacts that were found on the Supii River. When they drained a canal there — it used to be a swamp — an ancient oak boat emerged from the mud. Inside it, they found a leather bag filled with bronze objects.
I won’t describe them all now — they can be seen once the war is over and the exhibits return — but they were made of bronze as thin as paper, unbelievably light. Dragon paws, griffin faces, intricate designs. People can’t believe this could have been crafted without modern technology.
Next to that bag lay the skeleton of a young man who had died in the boat — no signs of violence. Peaceful. And people just walk by these exhibits, barely looking. But when I tell them that this entire set weighs only a few dozen kilograms — and that the ancient Greeks would have given half their kingdom for such craftsmanship — their eyes light up. They ask, “Where can we see it?”
That’s what we need — to be able to talk about it, to tell these stories vividly. To say, “Guys, forget for a moment about America, England, or Spain — look at what we have!”
Look here — even our embroidery can be read like a text. You can tell from a pattern whether a woman was married, or single, or longing for love. Every stitch carries meaning.
That’s what I stand for — appreciating the real treasures we have, and passing them on to the generations that come after us.
Nik Lysytskiy: And now, it’s time for our traditional game with the guest — our folklore chest. And today, inside the folklore chest — we have songs. Here’s the task: I’ll read the first line of a folk verse, and you have to come up with the ending. Shall we play?
Petro Maha: Something unusual?
Nik Lysytskiy: You can be creative — you probably know the original endings, so make up your own. Here’s the first one: “Oh, someone’s horse is standing there, like a gray hryvnia.”
Petro Maha: The Ukrainian version was, “Zubamy klatsaye” — “It’s clattering its teeth.” I liked it, and I was still a little girl then. It’s a classic song — very beautiful.
Nik Lysytskiy: “The thorn blossoms, the thorn blossoms, and the blossom falls.”
Petro Maha: Oh, he who doesn’t know love, doesn’t know joy or sorrow. Or maybe: “The thorn blossoms, the thorn blossoms, and the blossom falls — autumn will come, let’s wait, together we’ll reap a good harvest.” Something like that.
Nik Lysytskiy: “You said we’d go pick periwinkles together on Monday.”
Petro Maha: “What the hell do I need periwinkle for?” I asked on Monday.
Nik Lysytskiy: “Galya carries water, the yoke bends.”
Petro Maha: Well, that’s definitely not happening in Donetsk!
Nik Lysytskiy: “Oh, in the grove by the Danube, there’s music playing.”
Petro Maha: And on stage, Mila sings that song to Job! By the way, that’s true — she always performs it at her concerts.
Nik Lysytskiy: That exact song?
Petro Maha: Yes, that exact one.
Nik Lysytskiy: Alright then, let’s move on to our Blitz round — seven quick questions, seven short (or maybe not-so-short) answers. What quality do you value most in people?
Petro Maha: Intelligence.
Nik Lysytskiy: And which quality do you think is the worst?
Petro Maha: Bombast.
Nik Lysytskiy: What inspires you?
Petro Maha: Right now — my grandson, Orest.
Nik Lysytskiy: What scares you?
Petro Maha: Uncertainty.
Nik Lysytskiy: What helped you get through the hardest moments in life?
Petro Maha: Stubbornness.
Nik Lysytskiy: And what’s the main goal or mission of your life?
Petro Maha: So that in a hundred years, people will say, “That guy was cool.”
Nik Lysytskiy: If you had to choose three words to describe Ukrainians, what would they be?
Petro Maha: The people who can.
Nik Lysytskiy: Thank you. And now, in our “Artifact” segment — a book by Petro Maha, Poems from the Trenches. You wrote this book in 2023, right?
Petro Maha: Yes. It started in 2022 — the first edition was finished within the first four months of the war. It was all written in a kind of wild shock. Later, when there were more poems, we decided to republish it. My friend, Dmytro Oliinyk, helped me — huge thanks to him. I had no trouble getting it reprinted. That’s how the book came to be.
Nik Lysytskiy: Is it documentary poetry about the war? How are these texts born? Because that’s also a form of self-expression — is it reflection, a way to cope with emotions, or a desire to make a statement?
Petro Maha: It’s everything I’ve mentioned today — stubbornness, resilience, expression. I had this dream that someone could open the book on any page and instantly remember what happened that day.
Let’s do an experiment. Name any page number.
Nik Lysytskiy: Twenty-seven.
Petro Maha: Twenty-seven? Let’s see… Page twenty-seven — this one’s an appeal to the Kuban Cossacks. It’s a unique poem because each line alternates between Ukrainian and Russian — that’s how people live there, half-and-half.
The language is mixed, the people are mixed — and that’s the tragedy. I won’t read it all, but it begins:
“Do you like it, Tsar?
Have your problems gone away?
Do you like it that way, Tsar?
You can’t build peace on blood.”
It’s about those Cossacks who committed atrocities — and for me, that was a shock, because most of them are of Ukrainian origin.
I have poems here about the shootings, about Macijevskyi, about everything — even one about the raccoon stolen from the Kherson Zoo that ended up in Yalta with Comrade Zubkov.
There are terrible things — Kramatorsk station, missile strikes in Odesa, Kharkiv, Sumy, the ships with grain sunk, the bombing of Ohmatdyt hospital. But there are also moments of light — like that girl who kept making coffee in a shattered café. Our people are like that — unbreakable.
I want the book to smell like courage and hope.
Nik Lysytskiy: I can’t help but ask — you also create theater projects that involve war veterans. What does art, and the opportunity for self-expression, give to those returning from the front?
Petro Maha: You know, it’s not easy. It’s about helping them return to life. On February 22, 2022, we gathered at my house to plan a play about ATO soldiers. We invited real heroes — the people whose stories the play would be based on.
One of them was the now-legendary commander of the Legion of Freedom, Petro Kozyk — I still have the phonograph he gifted me. Another was a soldier with the call sign “Canada” — a Ukrainian who had joined the fight through sheer will.
If someone had told us that in just two days, a full-scale invasion would begin, none of us would’ve believed it. So now it’s very, very hard.
Almost all our work with veterans comes down to one principle — they can attend all our shows and events for free. Because taking money from soldiers is wrong.
Nik Lysytskiy: Thank you.
Friends, today in the studio we had People’s Artist of Ukraine, poet, and TV host Petro Maha. Tell us in the comments what stood out most to you today.
Do you think self-expression is one of the key values inherent to the Ukrainian people? Share your reflections and discoveries after watching or listening to this episode.
A reminder — you can watch episodes of the “Archetype of the Nation” project on YouTube, listen to them on your favorite podcast platforms, and read them on the website magicworld.com.ua. There you’ll also find popular science essays by folklorist Maryna Demediuk and recordings of folklore works performed by well-known actors.
Thank you for your attention — and see you next time.
