Beet this: Ukraine wins fight for soup

BOWLFUL OF PRIDE | Ukrainians prize their borscht, or beetroot soup, and consider it their national dish, but it’s now a touchy topic as it is also widely enjoyed in Russia. (Agence France-Presse)

PARIS, France — The United Nations cultural agency on Friday inscribed the culture surrounding beetroot soup known as borscht in Ukraine on its list of endangered cultural heritage, a recognition sought urgently by Kyiv after its invasion by neighboring Russia.

Ukraine prizes borscht, a nourishing soup with beetroot as its base, as a national dish even though it is also widely enjoyed in Russia, other ex-Soviet countries, and Poland.

The Ukrainian culture of borscht cooking “was today inscribed on Unesco’s list of intangible cultural heritage in need of urgent safeguarding,” by a Unesco committee, it said.

The decision was approved after a fast-track process prompted by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and the “negative impact on this tradition” caused by the war, the agency said.

“People are unable not only to cook or grow local vegetables for borsht, but also to come together” to eat it, “which undermines the social and cultural well-being of communities,” it said.

Kyiv hailed the move as a much-needed victory on the cultural front after four months of Russian bombardments.

In this file photo taken on Nov. 26, 2020, Olena Shcherban, Ukrainian ethnologist and historian, who studies borscht and has 365 of its unique recipes from all over Ukraine in her private collection, wearing Ukraine’s traditional clothes and headdress cooks borscht in clay, pots in the wood stove in the village of Opishnya in Poltava region on November 26, 2020. (Agence France-Presse)

‘Real threat’

For the first time in history, the nomination jumped the queue and was considered in an expedited fashion given “the military aggression against Ukraine in real-time and the real threat to the cultural object,” Deputy Foreign Minister Emine Dzeppar said on Twitter, adding: “Ukrainian Borsht derussified!” Ievgen Klopotenko, a well-known Ukrainian cook, said the Unesco decision underscored a wider recognition of Ukraine’s gastronomical heritage.

“We had hundreds of pages of proof that borscht cooking culture is actually Ukrainian, and the whole engine of Russian propaganda was against us,” he said on Facebook.

“Victory in the borscht war is ours,” Ukraine’s Culture Minister Oleksandr Tkachenko said on Telegram, adding that Ukraine “will win both in the war of borscht and in this war.”

Adding a landmark site or traditional activity to the Unesco list aims to mobilize attention to ensure it is preserved against risks that would jeopardize its existence.

The committee said the war had “threatened the viability” of Ukraine’s borscht culture in Ukraine.

“Whether as part of a wedding meal, the focus of food-related competitions or as a driver of tourism, borscht is considered part of the fabric of Ukrainian society, cultural heritage, identity and tradition,” it noted.

Xenophobia

Moscow slammed the decision as expected, with Foreign Ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova accusing Kyiv of trying to appropriate the soup for “one people … one nationality … This is xenophobia,” she said.

Zakharova later said on Telegram: “To give the world a culinary example of ‘modern Kyiv nationalism,’ I will cite a fact: hummus and pilaf are recognized as national dishes of several nations.”

“Borscht has no nationality! Just like bread, potatoes, cabbage—Is it national? What nationality can it have!” a 60-year-pensioner in Moscow who gave her name as Tatyana told Agence France-Presse (AFP).

But Alexey Gorbunov, a 49-year-old decorator in Moscow, was more sympathetic.

“Certainly, it is part of both Russian and Ukrainian legacies, but I think it’s an explicit symbol of Ukraine which I directly associate with Ukraine, especially the one with ‘pampushka’ (savory buns) and garlic,” he said.

Unesco insisted that Ukrainian borscht was a version of a dish popular elsewhere.

Nonetheless, “Ukrainian borscht — the national version of borscht consumed in several countries of the region—is an integral part of Ukrainian family and community life.”

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