Actor Isaienko spoke out against total Ukrainianization: I want my child to read Chekhov in the original - in Russian

Famous Ukrainian actor Andriy Isayenko, a native of Zaporizhzhia, spoke Russian for most of his adult life and grew up in a Russified environment. However, after the birth of his daughter in 2017, he was determined to switch to his native language and raise his child in Ukrainian. Nevertheless, the star of the films Cyborgs, Shchedryk, and the TV series Dr. Baby Dust does not support the total abolition of Russian culture. He believes that this is simply impossible.

The actor admits that he would like his daughter to read Chekhov's works in the original in the future. Isayenko made these comments in an interview with Alina Dorotiuk for her YouTube channel of the same name.

"At first, I was for the abolition of Russian culture with both hands and feet. And then I just thought, for myself, that it would probably be nice if my child could read Chekhov or someone else in the original. There were personalities in Russian culture who still somehow influenced the world, world drama and culture. And even for myself, I realize that it's not bad that my child knows Russian. It's just another language she knows. I want her to know Ukrainian, English, and if she knows Russian, I won't mind. In the future, she will be able to read some works in the original. I'm not talking about Dostoevskyi, because there is an attempt to understand this 'Russian soul', although Dostoevskyi did not bring this 'Russian soul' to anything good," the actor expressed his opinion.

Isaienko is of the opinion that it will not be possible to completely abolish the culture of an entire country, but it should definitely be minimized - only 2-3 most important authors should be studied within the framework of world literature, but "not to raise them to the top." He agrees that at one time Ukrainian schoolchildren studied too much unnecessary Russian material, and now, according to the celebrity, the curriculum should leave a conditional 10% of all Russian that was there before.

"Dostoevskyi and Chekhov are studied in America, in England, but only a little bit... Anyway, this Russia existed, the Russian Empire existed. We can't be stupid enough to remove Kievan Rus from Wikipedia like they did. These are stupid actions. And such deletions do not bring anything good. We need to know what it was and what it was like. But, of course, we need to create and develop our own," the artist said.

At the same time, the actor is somewhat worried that there are still Russian-speaking children around his daughter. In particular, at Mariia's school.

He explained: "My wife has always been Ukrainian-speaking, so after the birth of our daughter, we made a joint decision to speak only Ukrainian at home, so now Maria,speaks only Ukrainian like we do... I hope that in a year or two, she will be 100% Ukrainian-speaking and then people will follow her. And I would like to show all the parents who speak Russian and say "what's the difference" to show a few videos of the privileges of the "Russian world" and have them watch it and still somehow switch."

Earlier, OBOZ.UA wrote that after Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine, most of our country's conscious media personalities switched to their native language. However, according to military musician Oleksandr Remez, not all stars do this sincerely - many speak Ukrainian only on camera, and in everyday life they switch back to Russian.

Only verified information is available on our Telegram channel OBOZ.UA and Viber. Do not fall for fakes!