Vitaly Korotych:

He is a well-known publicist, author of several books, former editor-in-chief of Ranok, Vsesvit, and Ogoniok magazines, President of the Ukrainian Writers Union, people’s deputy, professor, the holder of numerous awards, medals, prizes, distinctions, etc..

As far as medals in general, and Lenin medals in particular, Vitaly Korotych handled them in a harsh way. Not his own medals, but the Ogoniok ones. In one of his first interviews as editor-in-chief of Ogoniok, Korotych, with a self-assured smile on his face, said on the central TV channel, “We have decided to take the Lenin medals off the cover of the magazine and replace them with women’s legs. They are much more pleasant to look at. And the medals will be placed on the back cover.”

It was this historical statement that gave a start to the tabloid press in the Soviet Union. The red Ogoniok yellowed a lot back then, although it did not really become yellow journalism. Ogoniok was the first to carry unnerving narratives on Soviet beggars and truthful stories on American mercenaries.

Of all the numerous editorial corridors (both in Kyiv and Moscow), Vitaly Korotych especially liked to walk “the corridors of power,” where he very quickly became “their man.” However, as soon as “the temperature would drop to the freezing point” (be it the Chornobyl accident or the putsch), he has been able to retreat to “warmer” spots. For the last seven years, the United States was such a spot for him.

For some unclear reason (perhaps, it turned “cold” or he simply got bored there), Korotych all of a sudden returned to his hearth and home. Now for already a month he has been chairing the editorial council of the scandalous Bulvar (Boulevard). Korotych has managed to involve a motley company of “wedding generals” (editorial staff members) in active editorial activity. All the faces are well known to us: Aleksandr Rozenbaum, Anatoly Kashpirovsky, Leonid Kravchuk, Roman Viktiuk, Sofiya Rotaru, Valery Leontiev, Mykola Mozhovy. Another two artistic figures, Yevgeny Yevtushenko and Iosif Kobzon, are slated to join the editorial staff soon.

Today Korotych gives the impression of a person tired of political games and battles, in which he has taken part basically all his life. It looks like “the great schemer” is no longer interested in political squabbles and has finally decided to focus, not without pleasure, mostly on “women’s legs.”

Q.: Having explored the world, you accepted an invitation to run a tabloid. You must also have had other options available to you. Why did you decide to come back to Ukraine and take your place at Bulvar’s helm?

A.: I consider Ukraine my home, and, essentially, I have never really left here. In fact, I have spent most of my life in Ukraine. I left Kyiv because I changed jobs: first for Moscow, and later for the States. In Russia, I was offered a number of areas where I could work, but most of them in one way or another were connected with politics. Bulvar is good for me because I do not need anything from it. I am not interested in making a political career with it, and I cannot make money on it, especially considering how much money I was earning in the States.

Russia’s entire information market has already been parceled out. I could go under Boris Berezovsky’s roof since at present Ogoniok is financed by his money. But in that case, I would have to accept the rules of the master, which would mean that certain personas and subjects would be taboo. No less solid a figure in this business is also Gusinsky of Mostbank.

In Ukraine, virtually all the mass media are also politically dependent. For many years, Ukraine used to be on a more provincial level, although lately it has been able to create an information space of its own. There are several countries, like the US, Great Britain, France, and Russia, that have wrapped the world in a web of their media representative offices. Ukraine will still have to look at the world through foreign eyes for a long time to come. But this is not the greatest problem. By inviting specialists with working experience abroad, you can create highly professional publications.

Q.: Should we take it to mean that you are sick of politics?

A.: I have been very closely involved in it and know how dirty it is. When I got a chance to choose, I decided to move away from it. I would like to be what I really am. I think we should start with reforming ourselves rather than humanity as a whole; we should learn to be responsible for our actions. What we have now is not an economic but a moral disaster. My dog has better morals than many people now do: it will never bite me. Our moral standards have been obliterated so much that I want to concentrate on one specific project. I will try to do something with Bulvar, and if it does not work out, I’ll quit.

Q.: In the 1970s, you hosted “Dokumentalny Ekran” (Documentary Screen) on Ukrainian Television, which aimed at “exposing the ulcers of capitalist society.” You were “their man” in the corridors of power, Shcherbytsky designated you his “trusted person” in many elections. You were part of that system.

A.: I have lived a long life, and I am not going to deny anything I did. In the TV show, I tried to figure out what was happening to us and to the world. And if I criticized films full of violence, I have the same views on that subject today. I did not disparage myself with any denunciations. I think this part of my destiny and biography will always be there, even though I have really changed over the years.

Regrettably, large newspapers, like The New York Times (a full-cycle business from writing to printing to distribution), are losing their positions worldwide. The tabloid press is picking up circulation quickly, thereby influencing readers the most.

By reforming Bulvar, I would like to make it a modern publication and to write, somewhat playfully, about people’s most immediate concerns. I must confess that I have been thinking of merging Bulvar and Fakty into one conglomerate, but at this point it does not look very realistic.

Q.: What is your forecast of further developments in Ukraine?

A.: I cannot give advice, but I think that many things are interrelated. There has been no disaster, but people will be worse-off. One thing I can say for sure is that there will be no famine. Ukraine has opted for independence, and only now it is starting to realize what that really entails.

We are in the habit of mixing up three concepts: the country, the motherland, and the state. The motherland is an eternal category, a complex of geographical, cultural, and other things. The country is nothing more than a result of a geopolitical division of the world. The state is a political system established at a certain point in time. It is important to maintain a good relationship with your motherland, and the state is just an additional mechanism superimposed on it. We should force the state to share. In Ukraine and Russia, people should realize that the state is first and foremost the people who have been hired by us to make our life more comfortable. If they do not meet our expectations, then we should kick them out and hire new ones. Our worship of the state and our degree of dependence on it is total nonsense.

The most important in the motherland are the people, and the state is only an appendage. At election time, it is very important to keep in mind that it is not we who are dependent on Verkhovna Rada or the government, but vice versa. I learned this in the West. For many years, we were told that the state and the motherland are the same thing. The slogan “For our Soviet Motherland” is incorrect since a motherland cannot be Soviet or anti-Soviet.

Ukraine will make it, not all at once, but gradually.

Q.: As someone “from there,” do you think the blown-up Clinton-Lewinski sex scandal exposes the weak points of American democracy?

A.: I think those problems are of concern to Hillary Clinton and nobody else. We have a slightly incorrect understanding of American society. It is rigid on the one hand and puritan on the other. It is a very regimented country. American women are so obsessed with feminism that, whenever I signed a contract, I was obligated never to touch a woman I would be talking to, never to make extensive eye contact with any specific female student in my classes, never to shut the door to my office if there is a woman in it, and so on.

Our people do not have a good understanding of what happened between Bill Clinton and Monica Lewinski. Our women view many things in a totally different way. All this noise around Clinton is only American political relations and American Puritanism. On the other hand, it also shows the status of an American woman — to offend her is like to death. Once I was silly enough to make a joke while watching their emancipated ways, “If I had always been surrounded by American women, I would be a homosexual by now.” For two months, I had to keep explaining that my joke was misinterpreted.

In the United States, law is sometimes above common sense. Their government employs lots of women. Women head governments even in Muslim countries, and we do not even dream about it yet.

Q.: What ideas — democratic, republican, or liberal — are closer to you?

A.: I am all for common sense. The terms like socialism and capitalism have been given up worldwide There is more socialism in Sweden and in the United States than there used to be in the Soviet Union. The needy are given enough food and water. The October Revolution ideals are remarkable in and of themselves, but they have been accomplished in other countries. There is a good formula: everyone should share. The United States treats its poor as if they were racketeers, by simply throwing money to them every now and then so that they keep quiet and do not come up with their own Lenin and Stalin. It is much cheaper than combating revolution all the time.

Why have our people been emigrating there? Not for freedom and democracy, but for a guaranteed living minimum, something we could never provide them.

Q.: With your experience you could have become a consultant on general political issues, but you decided to narrow your area. Why?

A.: Probably, age makes one a different person. I notice that I have started to add, “It seems to me, we should do it this or that way.” With the years, I have become much less bossy and patronizing and much more self-ironic.