Do We Need Creative Unions in Ukraine?

Kiev. Ukraine. Ukraine Gate – February 09, 2021 – Society

For the most part, these structures are parasites: they do nothing to develop their members and the industry, but demand funding from the state.

Recently, the Ministry of Culture proposed to conduct an audit of creative unions in Ukraine. A proposal was made at a meeting of representatives of the same unions with members of the parliamentary Committee on Information and Humanitarian Policy. And she, if you believe the content of even a short information message, was quite alarming, and even scared the members.

What exactly can be audited in unions? First of all, they own real estate, which, according to rumors, can be sold under various schemes and the proceeds can be torn apart. By the way, the members of the union themselves, by the way, often said that they had little money and that they needed to be given land for free.

So, roughly speaking, Ukrainian creative unions are no longer valuable. Apart from requests to leave the land and buildings on that land on their balance, the leadership of creative unions mostly does not produce any other meanings. Although it should be the opposite: creative development, new creative projects, initiatives, and their implementation – in the first place.

Apart from requests to leave the land and buildings on that land on their balance, the leadership of creative unions mostly does not produce any other meanings.

The question of the actual efficiency of the work of creative unions, of which there are almost half a hundred in Ukraine, also remains open. Of course, at the first request, they are ready to show plans for their activities, attach photo reports, and even videos. But in response, we can show a report dated January 2021, prepared by an EU expert on the UN Development Program on parliamentary reform. The text of the report states that in the eyes of Ukrainian society, creative unions are not a positive phenomenon. Simply put, they are parasites. They don’t do anything, they stick to budget funds, they are morally obsolete.

Personally, I have never been attracted to the Writers’ Union as a probable member. It and everything that was done (more precisely – not done) in it, was not published, is not published, and is unlikely to appear as something alive, suitable for development. And the vast majority of members of creative unions are not young people at all. However, given the low efficiency of these organizations, the lack of prospects for implementation, and the mentioned obsolescence of unions, this is not surprising.

Today, young active Ukrainians have much more opportunities to realize themselves as creative units. Earlier, unions provided their members with a lot of benefits and privileges. Now, in order to become and sound like someone, you don’t have to join any union. In addition, very few active members are at least some kind of authority for young artists. And the unions themselves have a lasting image of the Soviet remnant: structures that require state funding, instead, do nothing for professional development.

Therefore, the prospect of the audit worries the union leadership because of the zero results of their creative activity. Such a conclusion could be a reason to reduce funding or stop it altogether. At the same time, creative unions will disappear. I think few of today’s active creative people will notice their disappearance.

This year, 24 million 684 thousand 200 hryvnias have been allocated in the budget of Ukraine for cultural and artistic events of national creative unions and the All-Ukrainian Society “Prosvita”.