Four administrative-offense reports were drawn up at the Odesa theater Masks for violations of language legislation. This was reported by the office of the language ombudsman and by the theater’s director, Boris Barsky.
According to the office of the “language ombudsman,” three complaints were received from different people about violations of the requirements of the law on the state language. Following an inspection that lasted more than 2.5 hours, four reports were drawn up, and some of the violations found were corrected directly during the inspection.
One of the reports was drawn up because a theater employee served a visitor in Russian—a video recording of the conversation was attached to the complaint. The theater’s director described the situation differently. According to Barsky, visitors deliberately provoke the employee, and she suffered as a result.
“She is an elderly woman, and she had a stroke right at work. People come and deliberately provoke her. It is hard for her. But we will have a conversation with her—we will talk to her. I will not allow myself to fire her, because for her the theater is life. And if she loses it tomorrow, she will not live long. We will not take that sin upon ourselves,” Barsky told Odeska Zhizn.
The inspection also recorded other “violations.” The theater was selling five book titles in Russian while having no publications in the state language—four of them were written by Barsky himself. Three signs in Russian were also found, and on the theater’s social media pages—Russian-language messages, hashtags and posts with audio accompaniment. This violation was recorded for a second time within a year, but during the inspection the posts and hashtags were translated.
Barsky said the theater had replaced the sign and intended to add Ukrainian-language books to its selection.
“We sell five of our own books. Four were written by me—A Game of Classics, Isms, Black Kitties, the children’s book Pretend—as well as a book by Sasha Postalenko. Well then, we will buy Ukrainian books at a store—after all, 50% must be in Ukrainian. We will put them next to the others—they will be sold,” he noted.
The theater’s director emphasized that the institution is not a state enterprise, and therefore its performances may be held in Russian within the law.
“According to the Constitution, we, as a national minority, have this right. We are not a state enterprise. But we have a running caption line that translates everything. Therefore, there can be no complaints about the performances. All the other remarks from the language ombudsman have already been corrected at the theater,” Barsky explained.
In March, following monitoring measures, the theater was already fined 17,000 hryvnias.
Ukraine Excludes Russian From Protection Under the European Charter
“Ukraine’s War on the Russian Language Is a Mistake”
"By Removing Babel, You Remove the City’s Soul"
Kyiv Strips Odesa of Its Mayor, Language, and Memory