Scandal broke last year when the writer Natalia Okolitenko, together with a group of adherents, ejected Vladimir Yavorivsky from the chairmanship of the Ukrainian Union of Writers. Taking power into her own hands, Okolitenko was supported by the Svyatoshinsk regional court in Kiev, which confirmed legality on her actions. Some 700 people went over to the "revolutionary" Okolitenko, with the result that the Union of Writers changed its direction. Once it was a department of propaganda for opposition parties: but now it has turned into a semi-official structure.

But in essence nothing has changed. Replacing the untalented people of the past has come new mediocrity. None of the members can make any decisions, as these are decided by the various political forces in the country.

The Ukrainian Union of Writers was founded in 1934. It was an instrument of the Communists in the suppression of free speech, in simplifying control over the literary process, and establishing a barracks-style hierarchy. At times it was headed by various Kremlin lackeys and Party demagogues. The last leader was Vladimir Yavorivsky, deputy in the Ukrainian parliament. The poet and dissident Vasil Stus, writing from a political camp, described him as "ungifted". In his work, Yavorivsky glorified Lenin, Bolshevik Commissars and the construction of socialism. Now he moves in socialist-nationalist opposition circles.

The extraordinary congress of writers was carried out outdoors. On the tribune were, apart from Yavorivsky and a group of Soviet writers, the leader of the Socialist Party Alexander Moroz, the leader of the Batkivshina political party Julia Timoshenko, and other critics of the government. For them the Union of Writers is an instrument in the struggle for power. Today there are no creative elements in the Union: just hundreds of writers and poets reduced to servants of various politicians and oligarchs.

The continuing politisation of the literary process has led to a decline in standards. So can be explained the publication in the Literary Ukraine newspaper of weak poetry by the leader of the Socialist Party, Alexander Moroz. Other authors of primitive rhymes were the Roman emperor Neron and the former leader of the KGB, Yuri Andropov. Now Alexander Moroz, described by the former political prisoner Stepan Hmara as a "potential Judas", has joined ranks with them in preserving the power of the current leadership.

The editor-in-chief of Literary Ukraine, Peter Perebiynis, in his editorial concerning the above-named poetry, called Moroz a "disgraced poet". Once-disgraced poets include George Byron, Mikhail Lermontov, and Josef Brodsky. Now the editor of Literary Ukraine has added to this illustrious list the boring socialist scribbling his banal lines. Peter Perebiynis writes about Moroz that he "sincerely wishes to support Literary Ukraine during these hard times. And not just with words."

If not just with words, than with what? Is the socialist really ready to feed money to Literary Ukraine, once described by the dissident Ivan Dzyuba as the "wall newspaper of the local police station"? The vainly artful Perebiynis tries to prove Moroz as being a "disgraced poet". In this the style of barracks socialism is repeated, where not only Brezhnev or Andropov could become a respected writer, but any politician or official at whose feet the editor-in-chief dances.

In today's Ukraine there are no writers of European standard. Talent, creative freedom and independence from literary organisations would be required to reach a European level. Writers such as Albert Camus, Ernest Hemingway, William Faulkner and Thomas Mann managed without such unions. However, the decrepit Soviet authors cannot do without them. They do not want to give up their trough, created by Stalin for tamed servants of art, for this trough contains property, funds, sanatoria, positions, privileges and other gratuitous blessings.