Farewell to a Free Spirit (with 8/17/18 update and Addendum)

Oksana Shachko (January 31, 1987- July 23, 2018)

"... I was deeply inside the religious world and very concentrated on my craft. It started to take off for me. At ten years old I had already started painting in churches and exhibiting my art. I was deeply inside all these institutional bodies, and because of it, I started believing in God. I always went to Church to pray. When I was twelve years old I decided to go live in the church, to paint icons and spend my life praying. I wanted to stop living a normal life and become a monk.

... (but) I started to think that I didn’t want to overwhelm my parents with stress, so I decided to stay. At that moment, I started to think about the meaning of believing. It was a big paradox for me. My parents are religious, they believe in God, they go the Church… But they refuse that I become a monk. I didn’t understand. I continued living with my parents and started searching for an answer to my questions. I continued painting icons but started engaging in more conversations with the people surrounding me. I wanted to know why they came and prayed in front of these icons. I also starting becoming critical of the Church. When I was fourteen, I found a group of young people from fifteen to twenty years old who organized philosophical clubs out of school... They were very critical of religion. I found them very interesting. I started to come more and more and read their books. I discussed religion with them and continued to say, “God exists,” wanting to prove it to them. One year passed, two years passed, and I became a total atheist...

Oxana and Sasha Shevchenko,
Kiev, 2013

... At this time, I met with Anna Hustol and Sasha Shevchenko with whom I created Femen. I never thought about feminism before. In Ukraine, feminism is never talked about. We had a lot of meetings with professors, the University director, the mayor, and some businessmen to gather money for the students. When I went to see those people, I was accompanied by a guy and they only listened to him. That was not normal. When I was seventeen, I started to get very angry about this with the other girls. That’s when we decided to create a girl movement, to prove to everybody that we are able to create, to do things, and to work."

- Excerpt from: A Meeting with Oksana Shachko,  a November, 2017 interview with Armelle Leturcq for Crash magazine from which the photograph of Oxana (inset left) was taken. The icon in the background - featuring the Virgin Mary wearing a burqa while breast-feeding the infant Christ - is her own work; a detail of which is shown later in this post. Inset right is a detail of a photograph found here.

"During the five years she was in Femen, Shachko was arrested dozens of times, interrogated, allegedly abused by police and spent almost a year in jail. She was also one of the members who was allegedly kidnapped in Belarus in 2011 after protesting the Belarusian president Alexander Lukashenko during a topless rally. Shachko and other members said they were forced to strip naked in the woods, were beaten, had oil poured on them and were threatened to be set on fire." 

- From Oxana's Huffington Post obituary.

***

Oksana Shachko (or Oxana, as she preferred) was an almost fragile young woman... slightly built and diminutive, but, at the same time, striking enough to have been a model, and fierce enough to have been a prize-fighter. She showed great skill as an artist at a very early age, and was groomed as a painter of religious icons: a highly traditional and stylized genre of image-making that left little room for personal expression. As a prepubescent girl, she was spiritual to such a degree that she came very close to entering a monastery.

However, by the latter half of her teens all this would change. She would question the validity of religion and turn to atheism. She would question her position as the subordinate female of the species and turn to feminism. She would question her own convictions in relation to the apathy she found in her native Ukraine and turn to activism. Ultimately, in 2008, she would help organize a small band of Ukrainian feminists. They called themselves "FEMEN" and set in motion a series of outrageous, theatrical demonstrations in response to the political, patriarchal and demoralizing injustices to women they observed in both Western and Middle Eastern societies. Inset right below: Oxana at work.

Unfortunately, FEMEN was not an entirely successful experiment. The women were often berated, humiliated, beaten and imprisoned. And, although they gained enough notoriety to make headlines worldwide - consistently photographed by male members of the press - they failed to make a favorable impression on a number of their fellow feminists who - with a few exceptions - managed to miss the point.

And, it got worse. In a 2016 interview, Oxana reflected: "After our protest against the elections in Russia, I was detained for two weeks. In the police department, I was blamed for everything and deported. From then on, I was denied entry to Russia, for life. We were arrested after every action in Ukraine but never were deported of course, because we were the citizens of the country. Yet our activism became physically impossible. In the end, we were accused of preparing a terrorist attack against Putin and the Patriarch Cyrill. They planted weapons, bombs, and also the portraits of these two beauties. Within one day... we managed to escape from Ukraine."

In 2013, Shachko, now exiled in Paris, temporarily joined the FEMEN branch in France, before returning to her first mission: painting. Beginning at the very place she left off, she began utilizing what she knew best - iconography - only, this time, with a twist. By transforming those archaic, patriarchal visions of the Divine into feminine archetypes, she inadvertently created contemplative spaces welcoming women; particularly women who felt alienated by (and absented from) the metaphysical, cosmic sphere invented by men... ruled by men and, predominately designed for men. She called her paintings "counter-religious" and held her first exhibit, Iconoclast, in 2016. In Oxana's words:

"As FEMEN, we fight against the patriarchy, the sex industry, against the cruel rules of fashion which treat models like objects, against dictatorships and all the religions. In every single religion, woman has taken second place, with all the decisions made by men. In my icons, I replace men, I put women in the center and fight against this ideology."

Inset left (above) is another of her paintings - and one of my favorites - a parody on an Old Testament Trinity icon. In Oxana's version, the figures are unmistakably women... wearing wreaths of flowers, sharing cigarettes and bottles of wine or beer. It's as if we came upon three good-time goddesses conversing in a garden. What can they be saying?

There is a certain genius to Oxana's artwork. And, through her new imagery she quietly (but effectively) realized her feminist revolutionary goals without having to suffer the physical abuse from a hostile public, the long arm of the Law, and/or the various goon squads. What's more, it seems she was attempting to redefine her own spirituality. Inset right, and inset left (below), are two more of her "counter-religious" offerings, but, the images seem to evoke a new, budding awareness of the Divine feminine and feminine empowerment.

And, yet, tragically, if her best was yet to come - and I think it was - we will not see it.

Two weeks ago, on the 23rd of July, in Paris, her body was found hanging in a closet in her apartment... like an old coat or some other article of cast-off clothing. Allegedly, there was a suicide note. But, as of this writing, while everyone assumes she took her own life - including her friends - it seems the French police have, yet, to call it one way or another...

... which makes me wonder.

We have this quote from a 032c interview:

"Many people ask if I feel at home in Paris. I say it is only possible to feel at home at your mother’s home, so for me, it is more important to feel myself free. In Paris I feel pretty good."

Feeling free was important to Oxana, as it is to many (if not all) of us. But, it goes without saying that she missed her family - and especially her mother - who remained in the Ukraine. "I say it is only possible to feel at home at your mother’s home..." is a profound statement, especially on a personal level.

So, it's like this: if her alleged suicide note did not contain a farewell to her mother or send love to her family, or, at the very least, mention them in some way, then, common sense tells me it's unlikely she wrote it. And, if she didn't, someone else did. In which case, let's hope justice is truly served. *

Rest in peace, Oxana... at least, for a while. Then, please, come back. As they say: a woman's work is never done.


* As of this update (16th of August) I've seen nothing nor heard anything to modify the original news story, so, I'm assuming suicide was the final verdict. If this is the case, I'm both sorry for her loss and saddened Oxana found no other alternative. My condolences to her friends, comrades, and family.

She seemed like an intelligent person, however, and, while I realize this is a "dangerous idea" (and I mean no offense), perhaps, we should honor such choices and consider that, in terms of her own journey, she knew best.

________________________________________

Regarding a post I promised back in February of this year - Qualifying Feminism: Empowerment and the Arts (Part II) - well, apart from being (obviously) delayed (!), there were two sections of that post devoted to FEMEN, whose message, I feel, often gets (literally) lost in translation.

The first section dealt with the performance art aspect of FEMEN; especially what is known as street theatre and, specifically, what is referred to as guerrilla theatre. I will reserve that material for the full Empowerment post.

The second section dealt with FEMEN's frequent counter-religious performances, which, as you might've guessed, I sympathize with... unlike FEMEN's critics. But then, it's unlikely that the majority of the detractors - particularly those in America - have the vaguest notion what "religion" actually entails in Russia and the Ukraine. Nor are they aware of the threats posed by the toxic mix of Vladimir Putin and the hierarchy of the Russian Orthodox church. (Alas, America is not the only country in the world with a dangerous tyrant in power supported by religious fundamentalists.) But, as it so happens, growing up as an Orthodox Christian, I do have some first-hand experience regarding the first half of this equation, and, in memory of Oxana, I would like to post it here.

However, it won't happen immediately, and just in case my plans (once again) go awry, I want to, at least, post this poem fragment for her. I only wish she was still alive to see it. It was written by a woman named Janet Adler, who, as a young woman, had a long and very strange mystical experience - involving a series of both harrowing and sublime visions - during which she almost lost both her health and her life. She defined it as an initiation - shamanic in nature - and kept a journal of her visions, mostly in poetic form. Following this section is one of them. I like to think of it as prophetic.

Inset right above is Shachko's Madonna (mentioned at the beginning of the post), while inset left is an icon which belonged to my family. Note the mournful expression in the eyes of both maternal figures, and compare them to the Black Madonna of Częstochowa below (inset right), a more strangely solemn interpretation. Note that her hand in this icon is poised over an opening in her gown.

The Black Madonna is a mysterious figure of which there are numerous examples in Europe. There are those who feel she is the cryptic embodiment of the goddesses Isis or Inanna (see the last entry in this post). Judith Shaw writes (via this article):

"Once Christianity took hold in Europe, churches were built on top of sacred pagan sites. But old ways die hard; many of these dark skinned goddesses were incorporated into the newly built Christian churches.  Today there are more than 500 known Black Madonna statues and paintings throughout the world, the majority in France."

She goes on to say:

"Whatever the source of her darkness, there was a mini- renaissance during the 12th century which included a resurgence of devotion to the Divine Feminine. Humanity could not and would not live without their mother. Chartres, with its wealth of Sacred Feminine imagery and its school, cultivated with Platonic spirituality, was one of the most popular pilgrimage sites of that time."

Below is one of two Black Madonnas found in Chartres Cathedral. Unfortunately, during restoration this one was, shall we say, white-washed (which, allegedly, was her original state). See Dennis Aubrey's page. The other - an older, wooden statue - can be found here.

***

"Sand is the ground.

Out of the sand

emerging up

and toward me

I see three great fossils, men

clearly the patriarchy

of the synagogue

the church

the ashram.

These men look

exactly alike, crumbling

full of holes

fragile, indeed

fossils. Bearded

and with thin voices

they speak to me

but I cannot understand

their words. I see them

reaching slowly

a hand toward

my mouth.

They intend to silence

my voice. My words

my embodied experience

challenge, interrupt

confuse the order

of ancestral

theological structures.

Seeing these men and thus embodying them reduces their power instantly.

It no longer matters what name I use.

I am free."

- Janet Adler, from her 1995 memoir, Arching Backwards.

________________________________________

Future-Fossils Fight Back

Men who love men... Russian Orthodox Patriarch Kirill
and his new best friend.

"Thus, according to this view, the state lends the Church political and financial support, while the Church acts as the spiritual pillar of society. The Orthodox hierarchy, for its part, helps legitimize the state and plays a stabilizing role during domestic or external crises. Except for a few stigmatized minorities, most ordinary Russians welcome this symbiotic relationship.

The problem with this idyllic picture is that it is far from true. In fact, there are serious tensions between church, state and society in Russia. These have the potential to grow into a full-fledged conflict that could shake the whole country."

- Excerpt from an article found here. Inset right is one of many Russian Orthodox Patriarchs found here.

"In their song “Punk Prayer”, anti-Putin feminist group Pussy Riot criticizes the use of Russian Orthodox to deify the political regime... Members of the group famously received two years jail time after illegally performing the song in a Moscow Cathedral in 2012. Though the protest itself was radical, the argument calling the Russian Orthodox Church a politicized shell of its former self is a common thread among Russian opposition and Western commentators. It’s an easy one to make when the Moscow Patriarch - head of Russian Orthodox - Kirill lauds Putin’s leadership as “a God’s miracle”, decries the West as a doomed, materialist civilization and goes on television to urge Russian citizens not to worry about falling oil prices or the devalued ruble. All this from an institution that has received billions of dollars’ worth of restituted property from the government after it was appropriated by the Bolsheviks, and oversees a business empire complete with Orthodox banks, shopping malls and bottled holy water."

- Excerpt from an article found here.

"VATICAN CITY (Reuters) - A topless activist from the feminist group Femen tried to snatch the statue of the baby Jesus from the Nativity scene in St. Peter's Square on Monday but was stopped by police as she grabbed it.
A Reuters photographer said the woman jumped over guard rails and rushed onto the larger-than-life Nativity scene shouting "God is woman". She had the same slogan painted on her bare back.
A Vatican gendarme stopped her from taking the statue and she was detained. The incident happened about two hours before Pope Francis delivered his Christmas message to some 50,000 people in the square.
The group's website identified her as Alisa Vinogradova and called her a "sextremist". It says the goal of the group, which was founded in Ukraine, is "complete victory over patriarchy".

- From December, 2017... the image of Alisa Vinogradova in action was grabbed from this video.

***

Regarding my first-hand experience with the Russian Orthodox Church, well, in truth, it didn't last very long. I couldn't have been more than 12 years old when I had my first epiphany. This magic moment (which I will forever be grateful for) occurred during Sunday school when the instructor asked the class a somewhat unusual question: "Is there anyone here who does not believe in heaven or hell?" So, I'm thinking to myself, "Huh? Back up... Is this a trick question?" Meanwhile, one brave girl raised her hand. I was speechless. I don't remember the instructor's response to this courageous girl, but, at that point it didn't matter. Because, for most of my 12 years I thought Heaven and Hell were undisputed facts - this is what I was told, how I was indoctrinated - but, suddenly (and irrevocably), I was made aware that they were merely beliefs... and, moreover, they did not have to be mine.

Shortly thereafter, I stopped going to church. And, following suit, so did my younger brother. This horrified my mother, but, happily, we had the support of my father. He wasn't much of a believer either. Actually, I've noticed that most men who loathe their biological (and tyrannical) fathers tend to avoid patriarchal religions. And, nothing says Patriarchy like the ROC, the heavy metal branch of Christianity, which is at once dark, oppressive, and death-affirming.

Remember the "fossils" in Janet Adler's vision? Well, the church my parents went to - actually, I should say my mother went to - had rows and rows of ancient Christians painted directly on its walls... disciples, saints, etc. The eerie thing was, the majority of them looked similar to the image inset right... thin men with receding hairlines and long beards. A multitude of them! While there must've been at least one or two females amongst this posse - and, of course, Mary (the only grace to be found) - it is these spindly-legged, bearded fossils, with their dark gaze following me around which, as a young girl, made my blood run cold. To this day, they haunt the deep recesses of my memory.

But, my experience pales in comparison with those in Russia or the Ukraine, where the Church has increasingly (and mysteriously) gained influence. The Orthodox Patriarchs and Primates, once persecuted under Communism, have made an impressive comeback. Now, it goes without saying that we have enough problems in the States with Christian Fundamentalists - whom no marginally intelligent soul takes seriously (although, perhaps, we should!) - but, the holy "Men in Black" (below) are a special case. The Russian Orthodox faith is so steeped in tradition that the Dark Ages seem fairly contemporary in comparison.

The Men in Black.

To save time, and simultaneously inform you, I am going to list a group of headlines I found when I first did my homework for this section (which was months ago). The main characters in this ongoing drama are Vladimir Putin and Patriarch Kirill - the "beauties" Oxana was falsely accused of plotting against.

• Russian Orthodox Patriarch denounces 'dangerous feminism' - "The Russian Orthodox Patriarch has cautioned against the dangers of feminism, denouncing "propaganda" that encourages women to take roles beyond housekeeping and rearing children."
• Russian Patriarch: LGBT agenda poses ‘significant threat for the existence of the human race’ - "The Christian leader said Western same-sex 'marriage' laws and transgender "anti-discrimination" laws are unprecedented and unnatural.  'What’s happening in the Western countries is that, for the first time in human history, legislation is at odds with the moral nature of human beings,' he said."
• Patriarch Kirill against gay marriage and the dictatorship of free will: "Signs of the Apocalypse" -  "Kirill reaffirmed his approval of the law 'against gay propaganda', recently signed by President Vladimir Putin. The new law, criticized by human rights defenders, punishes any act of 'propaganda of non-traditional sexual relations in front of minors', with fines and terms of imprisonment... However, the Patriarch has admitted that laws alone are not enough. 'We know that any law, even the most perfect, can not eradicate crime, corruption, evil, lies. These can be eradicated only by the person who freely chooses good,' he concluded." (The article later states: In Russia, homosexuality was considered a crime until 1993, and as a mental illness until 1999. Homophobia is widespread and recently there has been an increase in cases of murder and homophobic violence throughout the country.)
• How the Russian Orthodox Church answers Putin's prayers in Ukraine - "With questions lingering over Moscow’s role in the turmoil in east Ukraine that has killed more than 3,500 people, European diplomats say the ROC was used to strike a deal and conceal Moscow’s influence with the rebels.The ROC, which claims jurisdiction in most of the former Soviet world, used its leverage beyond Russia’s borders merely to mediate, it said. '(The church) was asked to take part. Why shouldn’t it help?' Metropolitan Merkury, Kirill’s contact man for the OSCE release, told Reuters."
• Shaving your beard makes you gay, says Russian religious leader backed by Putin - "Kornily said men who had beards were less likely to be 'corrupted' and engage in same-sex relationships. 'God set down certain rules. The Lord created everyone with a beard,' he said. 'No man can resist his creator.'

Had enough? I have! And, if you can't fathom what the problem might be by now - and why feminist groups like FEMEN and Pussy Riot refuse to swallow this poison - well, you shouldn't be anywhere near this particular place in cyberspace. And, on that note, I think I'll just bow out. But, just one more thing, and then I have a little quiz question for you.

The "one more thing" is a little parody on the Orthodox Primates... because, let's face it, there really must be a play on the word "primate."

Josaphat  by Sergey Dyomin.

Oops! What's this? Well, as you can see, Oxana was not the only artist creating "counter-religious" paintings. And, really, you've gotta love this one. It's by Latvian artist, Sergey Dyomin, and you can read more about him here.

As for my quiz question, well, don't worry, it's rather short. And. it goes like this: Can you identify the person who made the following five statements?*

• "Anyone who dares to lay hands on the highest image of the Lord commits sacrilege against the benevolent creator of this miracle and contributes to the expulsion from paradise."
• "The folkish-minded man, in particular, has the sacred duty, each in his own denomination, of making people stop just talking superficially of God's will, and actually fulfill God's will, and not let God's word be desecrated. For God's will gave men their form, their essence and their abilities. Anyone who destroys His work is declaring war on the Lord's creation, the divine will."
• "We were convinced that the people needs and requires this faith. We have therefore undertaken the fight against the atheistic movement, and that not merely with a few theoretical declarations: we have stamped it out."
• "In this hour I would ask of the Lord God only this: that, as in the past, so in the years to come He would give His blessing to our work and our action, to our judgement and our resolution, that He will safeguard us from all false pride and from all cowardly servility, that He may grant us to find the straight path which His Providence has ordained..."
• "But he who dares to use the word "God" for such devilish activity blasphemes against Providence and, according to our belief, he cannot end except in destruction."

Give up? Don't feel bad, I wouldn't have guessed either (see footnote). But, if ever I needed to prove a point - that point being the need for an absolute separation of church and state - then I believe I've accomplished my mission.

As for the "future-fossils" fighting back... well, they can fight back all they want. But - in view of the Patriarchy as the dominant order - in a world where children are shooting children (when they're not shooting themselves)... where innocent people are being slaughtered by bombs to fulfill Abrahamic religious propaganda... where men and women are dying because they will not prostrate themselves before tyrants... where deluded people start believing their political leaders are "sent by God"... then, the sounds you hear are the rattles of an organism in its death throes. In other words, those "end times" they love to warn us about may be their own.

* Answer: Adolf Hitler. The quotes were found here. As it was, most historians believe Hitler was anti-Christian, using religion as a "pragmatic political move." Sound familiar?