Taras Liutyi: ‘Freedom is something you continuously have to fight for’

What is freedom? What good does it hold?
It seems to be golden, some people have told.
But no, it’s not golden, to freedom compared
The gold is a swamp, too full of despair.
I long to be cautious and not to be fooled
Into losing freedom, if only I could.
I wish for the Glory to always be near
You, Father to Freedom, Bohdan the Hero!

— Hryhorii Skovoroda, “De Libertate,” 1757
(translated by Oleksandr Ladurenko)

The starting question is quite obvious. What is freedom? What good does it hold?

First of all, let’s start with perhaps the most popular concept of freedom, first outlined by Isaiah Berlin. It is still relevant today — for example, Timothy Snyder builds on this concept in his new book “On Freedom.” It has two components: negative and positive freedom; in other words, there is “freedom from” and “freedom to.”

Negative freedom is when you, as a person, as an agent, try to get rid of everything that hinders you, that prevents you from being yourself. But what do you do when your freedom constricts the freedom of others? This kind of freedom seems inadequate. Therefore, positive freedom is what you need freedom to.

By contrast, Russian culture does not know what to do with freedom, because Russians are afraid of it. Erich Fromm once described this as an escape from freedom — that is, from responsibility. For freedom is never mere arbitrariness.

Arbitrariness means doing whatever you want. Freedom, on the other hand, is about understanding the limits of your actions and setting those limits yourself.

Any act of comprehension must involve setting boundaries. What are my limits? What can I do, and what can’t I do? This is how an intelligent person thinks. So, I made myself free from something, but what for? 

In his new book, Snyder mentions the Russo-Ukrainian War. He writes that we must understand what we are fighting for. Let us recall one of the slogans on Maidan — “f*ck off.” But it turns out that in order to have freedom, it’s not enough to just get them to f*ck off, because freedom is about what we do once we’ve achieved it. It’s not enough to just make yourself free. You have to understand why you are free.

This is the most important and most difficult freedom: freedom with responsibility. So, freedom means constant movement and struggle — above all, for yourself and your agency. To have agency means to bear responsibility.

And there’s the second half of Skovoroda’s quote: “What good does it hold?” What is all this for? Why is it good to have freedom?

I have already started talking about freedom in existential terms. So, freedom is a sign of rational action, since we use our minds to set our own limits. But at the same time, another aspect comes into play here — the aspect of ethics, which forces us to ask: what do I have to do, and what will be the consequences of my freedom?

The good that comes from freedom is obviously not only pragmatic or utilitarian. It is unum bonum — the common good and benefitting the community in which you live. The issue of freedom can only be addressed within a group, within a shared life. We are not isolated individuals because we live in a society, and it is important to understand the scale of that.

This brings me to my next question. You have already quoted Isaiah Berlin, and lately, after the release of Snyder’s book, I often come across references to Berlin’s interpretation. What exactly can the Ukrainian context, Ukrainian experience, and Ukrainian understanding of freedom add to these Western ideas about freedom, which we have just discussed? 

Let’s go back to the not-too-distant past — to 2022. Remember how they told us that we wouldn’t last a week? Yet, we proved them all wrong. Despite all the “hopeless hope,” we realized that we had to rely on ourselves. From private statements and open-source data, we know that not all citizens of Western countries are willing to defend themselves or their country.

Ukrainians understand that we live on the frontier, the edge where two civilizations meet. And we want this edge to run along our eastern border, moving northward to the Baltic Sea, bypassing Belarus. I think we have made this wish quite clear. In other words, Ukrainians as a historical people (even if this Hegelian term is politically incorrect in many cases) have once again proven their agency and left their mark in history on the world stage.

Various intellectuals from around the world — the aforementioned Snyder, Anne Applebaum, and many others — come to Ukraine to write about freedom. Or they come here to feel something new or to connect with a world that only exists here in order to write about freedom. What do they find here that they cannot find in their own world?

For example, Applebaum writes that these lands have always been a territory of human uncertainty. Here, free people were consistently thrown into versions of the Gulag, the Soviet concentration camps. Snyder uses his own metaphor — “the bloodlands,” a territory soaked in blood which keeps on flowing, pooling in the earth. 

It is a territory of hardship, an area where blood has not had time to coagulate for at least the past 300 years, ever since the proclamation of the Russian Empire. I always say that this was when Russia’s war against Ukraine truly began.

Given that, the mass killings in Baturyn are not so different from today’s bombardments of residential high-rises.

I think Western intellectuals come here to experience what it’s like to actually live here. When you engage in field research, you can touch, hear and smell everything around you in real time.

Certain features of freedom, or some of its expressions, that may now be less clearly defined or even forgotten in the Western world are felt more acutely in Ukraine’s reality, within its historical baggage and context. One such understanding is that freedom is not constant and can disappear. I believe this comes as a surprise to many Western democracies: diamonds are not forever, and freedom may not be either.

Real life shows that all guarantees require constant effort. Even when guarantees exist, one must still be prepared for the world to change suddenly and for those guarantees to evaporate.

Similarly, freedom is not some reward that you can carry with you until the end of your life. Freedom is something you continuously have to fight for.

Nietzsche introduced the concept of self-transcendence — the idea that a person cannot reach a certain level and simply stop; the work of transforming oneself must be relentless. There is no universal measure of freedom that can be achieved once and for all.

How does the interpretation of freedom change over time? As a philosopher, you may use any chronological framework you like.

On the one hand, we cling to certain theories and believe we are using a kind of universal template that supposedly allows us to measure freedom. However, there are also cultural factors and peculiarities; ultimately, language exists as a way of materializing our consciousness and thinking.

For example, in Russian, they say lisheniye svobody, which means “imprisonment.” In Ukrainian, we don’t say pozbavlennia svobody — we say pozbavlennnia voli. This means that the apparent synonyms svoboda and volia have different meanings. Many other languages have similar (in)consistencies, like the words freedom and liberty in English, which also differ in meaning.

This raises the question: how is volia different from svoboda? Are these concepts interchangeable? Volia means opening a cage and letting the bird fly free. Let us recall Shevchenko’s words: uzhe ne panskyi, a na voli — “owned by no one, he is free.” Slavery [or serfdom in this context — Ed.] is associated with restrictions on movement in space. Similarly, when a person is arrested, their movement in space is restricted. But could Stus be deprived of his freedom? Or the Ukrainian dissidents imprisoned in Soviet camps? No, they could be deprived of their freedom of movement — volia, but not their inner freedom — svoboda. 

Are you saying freedom is an internal category?

Actually, yes! Freedom is the inner core that is also tied to the category of dignity. Freedom is the space in which your spirit grows. It is the expanse in which personality is born. 

To me, svoboda is more like freedom to do? Something, and volia is freedom from something, if we return to the concept of the positive and negative dimensions of freedom.

What does freedom mean for Ukraine? I immediately think of our revolutions, our experiences of resistance. This may include not only our three Maidans, but also the legacy of our predecessors from the Soviet and pre-Soviet era. Let’s discuss this Ukrainian space of freedom. 

I think that in the pre-modern times, in Ukraine — that is, on the territory that is now Ukraine — freedom was understood mainly as volia. Shevchenko’s words come to mind again: “… arise, sundering your chains…” That is, freedom was perceived as an attempt to throw off the shackles, to free oneself, to get rid of external obstacles.

But Shevchenko does not limit himself to volia alone. He thinks of a renewed earth where “in our land, by faith retrieved, no foemen shall be brought to birth, mothers and sons shall show their worth, and love shall reign throughout the earth.” That is, he refers to the image or archetype of the mother as a symbol of eternity, constant care, and the son as an infant, or new life. Why? This is where Shevchenko’s genius lies. He defines freedom not only as liberation, but also as the making of a new life on an earth renewed. All this implies a search for an answer to the question: Why do we need new life and a renewed earth?

With the restoration of independence, we have not stopped breaking free from our chains, and our revolutions serve as milestones in defining the purpose of our freedom.

Take the Revolution on Granite: it marked the final phase of the Soviet empire’s collapse. Here, you can already sense a turning point — the transition from volia to svoboda. Then came the Orange Revolution. It seemed as if we had already broken away, but something was still impeding our progress. What was it? To some extent, we impeded our own progress by allowing an oligarchic system to develop, and we must remember the mistakes we made. One of them was: refusing to accept responsibility. That is why the Orange Revolution had a carnival-like quality. In other words, we were in a transitional state: trying to shed the old features of freedom, but not yet having acquired new ones. Finally, the Revolution of Dignity became the moment when we realized we were the ones who held the power, and that there was power in our choice. We had just begun to think of ourselves as a civil society when they attempted to deny us this, telling us to sit quietly and keep our opinions to ourselves. That was an attempt to encroach upon our agency and, therefore, deprive us of our dignity.

Putting yourself first is a pure act of freedom and a manifestation of dignity. This is the fundamental nature, or the form, of our freedom — this is how we interpret it. Having gone through all three stages, we have moved from a desire for freedom to the ability to define it independently — by putting ourselves first.

It turned out that the Russians were not expecting this. We allowed ourselves something they were too afraid to even contemplate. They could not fathom that we were capable of it, and so they imagined some kind of Western influence rather than admit that we have agency. For them, we are a dangerous example: if such things are possible here, their imperial whims would crumble to dust, and no authoritarian regime would be able to subjugate freedom-loving peoples.

Now I would like to discuss two more things. Perhaps it makes sense to ponder the experience of Ukrainian dissidents, particularly the Sixtiers. They are often referred to as people who worked toward a freedom they themselves did not live to see, which was neither promised nor guaranteed.

This means, to use Jungian terminology, that Ukrainian culture is imbued with archetypes that include dignity and freedom.

We can see that the archetype of freedom does not disappear, despite the “Executed Renaissances” of different eras.

Even after the totalitarian regime wipes out intellectuals, culture still makes it possible to revive the seeds they’ve sown. 

Perhaps the Soviets were wrong not to ban Shevchenko. I’m being ironic, but if the Kobzar had been banned, it would have been easier for them to wipe out the archetype of freedom. 

Instead, they opted to interpret him as a revolutionary democrat, a fighter against the tsarist regime. They banned some poems and phrases, thinking that would be enough. By now, they must have realized that they should have eradicated him completely. 

At present, Russia is seeking to destroy everything material and immaterial in Ukraine with its war. The attack on the Skovoroda Museum is one example. But it is very difficult for the Russians to destroy immaterial, spiritual symbolism, and that simply infuriates them.

Therefore, when we speak of the dissidents, it becomes clear that even in their dire conditions and under the threat of imprisonment, their generation understood that words carried irrefutable power. Let us recall the memorable symbolic act: “If you’re against tyranny, stand up!” This was a performative act — meaning it had to be public, not something done in the privacy of one’s kitchen. One person stands, then another, and another, the strength of their spirit pulling them to their feet. [This refers to the protest during the premiere of “Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors” on September 4, 1965, at the Ukraina Cinema in Kyiv, led by Ivan Dziuba, Vasyl Stus and Viacheslav Chornovil. The Soviet authorities responded swiftly: participants were blacklisted, lost their livelihoods, and were eventually subjected to long-term imprisonment or exile. This event is considered a pivotal moment in the birth of the “Sixtiers” dissident movement — Ed.]

When you mentioned performative acts, I recalled another manifestation of this distinctly Ukrainian understanding of freedom — the 1990s, the dawn of independence. At the time, culture was highly carnivalesque, full of self-irony and postmodern experiments, as in the case of Bu-Ba-Bu. This was prevalent not only in literature, but also in theater and festival life more broadly. That time had a very special vibe. Why did obtaining freedom manifest itself in such a way?

Most likely, those were the general manifestations of postmodern culture, in which the traditional concept of meaning has been exhausted and needed to be reinvented… Incidentally, this relates to the problem of freedom, because the new artistic practices of performances and “happenings” proved that you create your own life, and that life is art. You create your meanings here and now.

We could also talk about who in Ukraine thinks about freedom. And I don’t necessarily mean the names of philosophers, but a broader circle of names or communities.

You know, we talk about this often in my circles, and the people that come to my mind are the poets who are now in the ranks of the Defense Forces. Yaryna Chornohuz, Artur Dron, Ihor Mitrov, and many others who serve and write poetry. In my opinion, they are the ones who feel freedom most intensely as they face the greatest existential challenges. The way they use words is not just an aesthetic or artistic act — it is raw existentialism.

One of our popular protest slogans comes to mind: “Rebel, love, don’t give up your rights.” And I thought about rebellion. Is Ukraine a rebellious nation? Are we rebels? 

Rebellion is something more Russian. As they say, “senseless and merciless.” They rebel out of desperation, without knowing why they’re doing it or how to end it. Because rebellions cannot be ended, they can only be stopped. It’s this Dostoevskian thing that immediately turns into total carnage.

But we do not rebel; we protest and engage in meaningful resistance. The word “resistance” is native to our vocabulary. Resistance, resilience, the ability to remain strong when pressure is applied, and to bend only to spring back up. These traits prevent us from disappearing, encourage us to defend ourselves and enable us to comprehend resistance. Consider our “cardboard protests” near Bankova: the slogans written on the signs were predominantly attempts to capture the moment, and messages that the protesters wanted to convey. 

Of course, there are flaws in the ways we resist, but we are slowly learning to acknowledge them. For example, we have a strong distrust of authority, despite our efforts to represent and elect that authority… Indeed, we have a fondness of “Black Councils,” like the ones in Cossack times, because we cannot stand to be ruled by a single authority for a long period of time. Perhaps that flaw has, at times, caused us to lose our statehood. But thanks to the archetypes we mentioned earlier, our ideas and symbols, like freedom and dignity, remain alive, allowing us to focus on what’s most important. Like a phoenix rising from the ashes.

What are the signs of a useful protest, the signs of freedom that can be used for something good? Where are the boundaries of useful resistance, useful protest, useful pursuit of freedom? 

Trying to feel out these boundaries is itself a kind of art. Sometimes you watch an artist and, at first, what they do appears chaotic; then, suddenly, clear contours, outlines and features emerge, and then a miracle occurs. In this sense, protesting is an art.

The art of protest lies in first establishing the system of values within which you operate. At times, you may find it necessary to narrow those boundaries or shift them in one direction or another. In any case, protest requires constant reflection on scale, on boundaries, and on the precise placement of your red lines.

Translated from the Ukrainian by Liubov Kukharenko