This morning, after a long drone attack on Kyiv [Kiev, en ukrainien] During the night, I started my day at the conversation club with my students. This is an hour and a half of French practice in small groups at the language school where I teach. The establishment is called Language Music and was opened by my friend Olga Shurova in the center of Kyiv, in a building from the beginning of the 20th century.e century with very thick walls – a safety criterion, from now on.
At the start of the course, we exchange a few short jokes about drones, Russians [Sasha a choisi de ne pas mettre de majuscule au mot russe] which ruin our lives, sleepless nights during the bombings. A kind of ritual of jokes at breakfast, as if they had become an essential airlock before starting a day.
Since the first days of the Great War, I have become convinced that humor embodies a constituent element of the Ukrainian spirit and culture. Funny stories, images on Instagram, videos on YouTube… punctuate the conflict to the rhythm of its horrors. Each destruction, each attack has its joke. Sometimes I discover a meme [texte, image ou photo détourné sur Internet] on social networks before being informed of the event to which it refers. So much so that in newspapers you can read, depending on the subject, selections of the best popular jokes.
Laughter despite everything
M The magazine of the World chose laughter as a common thread for its end-of-year issue. In thirteen episodes, find these portraits, reports or investigations on the power of humor.
Episode 1 : Mohammed Amer, once upon a time there was a Palestinian in America
Episode 2: Blanche Gardin, the comedians after her
Episode 3: Waly Dia, fine blade of political sleight of hand
Episode 4: Grandpamini, the art of the satirical cover
Episode 5: Bassem Youssef, a scathing irony on the Israel-Hamas conflict
Episode 6: In Israel, comedians answer the call
Episode 7: Chinese comedians don’t mess around with censorship
Episode 8: In Quebec, inclusive humor can be learned
Episode 9: You asked for Pierre The Police, don’t quit
Episode 10: “I was explaining to them that when I met you, you were the biggest petomane in France”
Episode 11: Humor would no longer be what it was or the myth of “it was better before”
Episode 12: In Ukraine, laughter as a bulletproof vest
Episode 13: Joke to alert, the new mode of action of environmental activists
The famous phrase of one of our soldiers, Roman Gribov, on Serpents’ Island [dans la mer Noire] during the attack of February 24, 2022 (“Russian warship, fuck you”) has become one of our great humorous references. It has been used everywhere: in numerous memes, on billboards, in the lyrics of Ukrainian songs. I remember the summer advertising campaign of the Ministry of Emergency Situations, which is responsible for civil protection. In the image, a ship on fire and this sentence: “Be careful while swimming, you are not a Russian warship. »
After a horrific air attack on the small town of Borodyanka, near Kyiv, in April 2022, another symbol entered our daily lives. In this case an image: that of a building completely gutted by bombing, miraculously leaving a kitchen cabinet with a decorative rooster placed on it intact. From now on, Ukrainians wish each other “to be like this kitchen cabinet door which attaches and survives despite everything”.
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