Ukraine must systematically expand its culture westward and shift its message, Ukrainian director says
Ukraine needs a strategy for systematically supporting cultural projects abroad in order to compete with Russia. At the same time, Ukrainian cultural diplomacy in the West should shift its messaging from “resilience” to “freedom as responsibility”.
Iconic Ukrainian director Vlad Troitsky, founder of GogolFest and the independent theater DAKH, said this speaking to an Ukrinform correspondent during the Ukrainian Season events in France.
“Most presentations of Ukraine abroad are event-based. That is, a specific event, exhibition, concert, or film screening is organized. But that’s only a moment, and afterward no one works on cultivating the results. If you compare it to agriculture, you sow the seeds, but no one tends them,” he explained.
Troitsky noted that this is why Ukraine loses in competition with Russia, which has a well-developed strategy for sustaining the results of its cultural efforts over time.
“We cannot just leave what we’ve sown. We need to analyze, get feedback, and think about how to develop it further. That’s why we’re launching a strategy called Coultivation. We want to start with our GogolFest ecosystem – to nurture, add fertilizer, understand who will harvest it, and what will grow. It’s a completely different approach,” he said.
According to Troitsky, a strategy of “systematic and conscious expansion” of Ukrainian culture in the West must include a shift in messaging.
“This means conveying not only the message of ‘resilience,’ but also that we currently have a true understanding of freedom – particularly as responsibility. We should not be a victim, because no one loves misfortune. And we should not be a mere outpost, because then they’ll just give us some money and tell us to hold on. We must be united as a country that understands freedom. That is exactly what we can offer to Europe’s fatigued democracies,” he explained.
Troitsky also reminded that GogolFest will return to Kyiv in September, during which he plans to organize a “grand gathering of Ukrainians to neutralize the divide between those in Ukraine and those abroad.”
As previously reported by Ukrinform, in late June 2025, Vlad Troitsky launched a large-scale movement in Ukraine called AntIDote, aimed at using art to inoculate society against manipulation and disinformation, teach a culture of dialogue, and unite artificially divided groups of Ukrainians around a contemporary Ukrainian myth.
Photo by: Lidiya Taran, Ukrinform