Editor’s Note: This Kyiv Post feature introduces readers to interesting expatriates who have chosen to make Ukraine their home. We welcome readers’ suggestions about expats to profile. Please send ideas to [email protected].
Jaroslaw Godun
Nationality: Polish
Age: 36
Position: Director at the Polish Institute in Ukraine
Length of time in Ukraine: 17 months.
Tips for succeeding in Ukraine: First, you have to be a professional in your own field. The rest is a question of wise compromises. Whether your compromise was wise can be seen only in the future, however. Second, you have to understand Ukraine and what is going on in politics and in social life. One of the top priorities to meet this goal is to study the language.
While Poland and Ukraine are looking forward to a special year in the life of two nations, Jaroslaw Godun, director of the Polish Institute in Kyiv, gives some hints on the cultural program that awaits those who will visit Ukraine in June during the Euro 2012 soccer tournament co-hosted by the neighboring countries.
Godun believes that Euro 2012 is not only a top sport event, but also a good opportunity for the nations to share their cultural heritage and to be better understood. “Euro 2012 is our joint event, which will define how we would be perceived in the next years,” he says.
Godun came to Kyiv in 2010 after serving as a director of the Polish Institute in Bucharest and working in the Polish Embassy in Romania. One of his first challenges upon his arrival was to gain the respect of his colleagues after Jerzy Onuch, his long-serving predecessor, was transferred to New York.
Internationally there are 21 Polish Institutes, which are cultural centers subordinated to the Polish Ministry of Foreign Affairs. There are 19 in Europe and two centers in Tel Aviv and New York. In 2012, this list will be filled out with three more institutes – in Tokyo, New Delhi and Beijing.
Polish street theater Biuro Podrozy performs in Kyiv on Sept. 3. (UNIAN)
Just like the British Council, Germany’s Goethe Institute and the French Institute, the Polish Institute in Kyiv organizes cultural events.
In 2011, it hosted a special program dedicated to the Polish presidency of the Council of the European Union. Last year, the Polish Institute in Kyiv held more than 120 events, including a screening of Jerzy Hoffman’s “Battle of Warsaw 1920,” the first Polish 3D movie and restored the 1918 black-and-white silent movie “Mania. The Story of A Cigarette Worker,” starring Pola Negri, as well as many others.
“2011 was a very busy year, but it was only a warm-up [to Euro 2012],” says Godun, who also serves as first counselor at the Polish Embassy in Kyiv.
A full list of events in 2012 has not been announced yet, but Godun says the Poetry in Metro project may continue, where poems by modern Polish authors are displayed in the Kyiv subway. One variation is to add verses by Ukrainian poets, translate them into English and paste them in the carriages of Kyiv and Kharkiv subway.
Another event could be the famous Polish street theater Biuro Podrozy, founded in 1988. Last year, this theater brought to Kyiv its newest performance, Planet Lem, which was welcomed by Kyivans.
According to Godun, Kyiv’s Golden Gate will be turned into a concert spot where classical, jazz and electronic music will be played by Polish and Ukrainian musicians.
Apart from this, the Taras Shevchenko Ukrainian National Opera House in Kyiv will stage the Polish opera King Roger by Karol Szymanowski. It will be a joint project by Polish and Ukrainian musicians.
Godun says Poland will always be a friend of Ukraine, despite recent political disputes. “Poland always was … I don’t want to say ‘an advocate,’ because advocates want money. But it always was a good friend of Ukraine.”
During his first year in Ukraine, Godun learned Ukrainian, as did his five-year-old daughter who started speaking the language in nursery school. Their example will be most likely followed by Godun’s son, who was born in Kyiv at the end of 2011.
Kyiv Post staff writer Oksana Faryna can be reached at [email protected].
