People From Kyiv

"It is important to know that our countries' policy of supporting Ukrainian sovereignty and territorial integrity, promoting Ukrainian prosperity, strengthening a free and democratic Ukraine as a counter to Russian aggression has been a consistent, bipartisan foreign policy objective and strategy across various administrations, both Democratic and Republican, and that President Zelensky's election in April 2019 created an unprecedented opportunity to realize our strategic objectives."

"In the spring of 2019, I became aware of two disruptive actors... Ukraine's then-prosecutor , and former Mayor Rudolph Giuliani, the President's personal attorney, promoting false narratives that undermined the United States' Ukraine policy. The NSC and its interagency partners, including the State Department, grew increasingly concerned about the impact that such information was having on our country's ability to achieve our national security objectives."

"On July 10, 2019, , then Ukraine's National Security Advisor, visited Washington, D.C., for a meeting with National Security Advisor Bolton. ...Ambassadors Volker and Sondland and Secretary Rick Perry also attended the meeting. I attended with Dr. Hill. ...Ambassador Bolton cut the meeting short when Ambassador Sondland started to speak about the requirement that Ukraine deliver specific investigations in order to secure the meeting with President Trump. Following this meeting, there was a short debriefing, during which Ambassador Sondland emphasized the importance of Ukraine delivering the investigations into the 2016 elections, the Bidens, and Burisma. I stated to Ambassador Sondland that this was inappropriate, and had nothing to do with national security. Dr. Hill also asserted these comments were improper. Following the meeting, Dr. Hill and I agreed to report the incident to NSC's lead counsel, Mr. ."

"On July 21st, 2019, President Zelensky won a parliamentary election in another landslide victory. The NSC proposed that President Trump call President Zelensky to congratulate him. On July 25th, 2019, the call occurred. I listened in on the call in the Situation Room with White House colleagues. I was concerned by the call. What I heard was inappropriate, and I reported my concerns to Mr. Eisenberg. It is improper for the President of the United States to demand a foreign government investigate a U.S. citizen and a political opponent. I was also clear that if Ukraine pursued an investigation—it was also clear that if Ukraine pursued an investigation into the 2016 elections, the Bidens and Burisma, it would be interpreted as a partisan play. This would undoubtedly result in Ukraine losing bipartisan support, undermining U.S. national security, and advancing Russia's strategic objectives in the region."

"[W]hen I reported my concerns on July 10th relating to Ambassador Sondland, and then July 25th relating to the President, I did so out of a sense of duty. I privately reported my concerns in official channels to the proper authority in the chain of command. My intent was to raise these concerns because they had significant national security implications for our country. I never thought that I would be sitting here testifying in front of this committee and the American public about my actions. When I reported my concerns, my only thought was to act properly and to carry out my duty."

"Following each of my reports to Mr. Eisenberg, I immediately returned to work to advance the President's and our country's foreign policy objectives. I focused on what I have done throughout my military career, promoting America's national security interests."

"I want to... recognize the courage of my colleagues who have appeared and are scheduled to appear before this committee. ...[T]he character attacks on these distinguished and honorable public servants is reprehensible. It is natural to disagree and engage in spirited debate, and this has been the custom of our country since the time of our Founding Fathers, but we are better than personal attacks."

"The uniform I wear... is that of a United States Army... The members of our all-volunteer force are made up of... people from all ethnicities, regions, socioeconomic backgrounds, who come together under a common oath to protect and defend the Constitution of the United States of America. We do not serve any political party; we serve the Nation."

"As a young man, I decided I wanted to spend my life serving this Nation that gave my family refuge from authoritarian oppression. For the last 20 years, it has been an honor to represent and protect this great country."

"When my father was 47 years old, he left behind his entire life and the only home he had ever known to start over in the United States so his three sons could have better and safer lives. His courageous decision inspired a deep sense of gratitude in my brothers and myself, and instilled in us a sense of duty and service. All three of us have served, or are currently serving in the military."

"[M]y simple act of appearing here today, just like the courage of my colleagues who have also truthfully testified before this committee, would not be tolerated in many places around the world. In Russia, my act of expressing concern to the chain of command in an official and private channel would have severe personal and professional repercussions, and offering public testimony involving the President would surely cost me my life. I am grateful to my father—for my father's brave act of hope 40 years ago and for the privilege of being an American citizen and public servant, where I can live free, free of fear for mine and my family's safety."

"We are not a country where a group of lieutenant colonels can get together and dictate what the policy of the United States is..."

"Lieutenant Colonel Alexander Vindman, who testified in the impeachment hearings, was sacked from his post on the National Security Council, in what presidential aides made very clear was revenge. For good measure, so was his twin brother, a lawyer at the NSC and a fellow Army officer. Gordon Sondland, the U.S. ambassador to the European Union, was asked to resign, and when he refused, he was fired Friday night. , who had been tapped to be Pentagon comptroller but clashed with the White House over freezing military aid to Ukraine, will have her nomination withdrawn, according to the New York Post."

"He did exactly what we teach them to do from cradle to grave... He went and told his boss what he just heard."

"I obviously wasn't happy with the job he did... First of all he reported a false call... what was said on the call was totally appropriate."

"I had the fortune to meet Jacob Marschak. He took me in his hands. There were other good people there, but he was very instrumental in giving me a style. [...] I would say the combination of theory, that is, modeling, with testing of empirical facts. The objective was to develop models that could be tested. Marschak also emphasized the importance of mathematics and econometrics, something that was quite unusual at that time. He was a wonderful teacher. He taught me macroeconomics. We discussed Keynes and Schumpeter. So he helped me to develop both in terms of tools and of ideas. Marschak invited me to a very distinguished seminar, attended by prominent economists such as Oskar Lange, Tjalling Koopmans, and Abraham Wald. Abba Lerner would come now and then."

"... ongoing accusations of deeply offensive language by Ukrainian media outlets"

"Valentina Lisitsa in conversation with Melanie Spanswick (Nov 4, 2012) on Youtube 80,802 views"

"I’m nothing but a conduit. The music goes though my ears, my fingers... Composer is a god. Composer creates music. We’re performers. We’re just passing it on."

"If the question [about if there were only one composer in the world I could play] is purely ‘original’ works, no transcriptions, then Beethoven."

"Memorising notes as one memorises a speech in foreign language is bound to lead to memory lapses. YouTube is an invaluable tool; you can get to study your repertory with the best pianists of all times. Use it. If you are learning a piece, don’t hesitate to put your headphones on and just play along with your favourite recording. No matter how many times you hear the playing you will not grasp all the finer points if not directly measuring your inner hearing of music with the an interpretation you like."

"It’s only when you stop trying to find faults and start doing something constructive that you will survive … It’s just good for you as a human not to dwell on your disasters."

"Would-be musicians are starving themselves emotionally and intellectually just to be perfect."

"We have rejected reason because we have found another reason that could be called trans-rational, which has its own law, construction, and sense.. .This reason has found a way-Cubism-of expressing the object."

"There is movement and movement. There are movements of small tension and movements of great tension and there is also a movement which our eyes cannot catch although it can be felt. In art this state is called dynamic movement. This special movement was discovered by the futurists as a new and hitherto unknown phenomenon in art, a phenomenon which some Futurists were delighted to reflect."

"Dynamism is also the forming formula for Futurists works; i.e. dynamism is the additional element that transforms the perception of one state of phenomena to another, for example, from a static to a dynamic perception."

"..[to gather] under a new banner.. ..[that the poets of yesterday's Futurism ] change the means of battle with thought, content, and logic.. ..advance Alogism after Futurism."

"The rectangular picture-plane indicates the starting point of Suprematism; a new realism of color conceived as non-objective creation. The forms of Suprematist art live like all the living forms of nature. This is a new plastic realism, plastic precisely because the realism of hills, sky, and water is missing. Every real form is a world. And any plastic surface is more alive than a (drawn or painted) face from which stares a pair of eyes and a smile. [1914]"

"From the beginning of the [Sovjet] Revolution I was a member of the Committee for Art.. .Later I worked at 'Izo Narkomprosa'. From 1919 I taught at the Higher Artists' Workshops in Vitebsk [the 'Vitebsk Higher Institute of Art', where El Lissitsky and Kazimir Malevich were invited to teach art by the director then Marc Chagall ] (our students Suetin, Judin and others)."

"The Suprematists want, where possible, to give 'feelings' absolute supremacy. Even objects such as tables, chairs and beds are, according to Malevich, 'not objects but the form of plastic perceptions'.. .'The experience of sitting, standing or walking are, in the first place plastic experiences'."

"Typical for the difference between both art movements [Russian Suprematism & Constructivism (art) ] is that Malevich wrote a book entitled 'Gegenstandlose Welt' [World without objects / things]. Whilst El Lissitsky specifically mentioned Gegenstand (object!) in the magazine he published with w:Ilya Ehrenburg."

"Painting.. ..turned to the design of purely abstract volumetric forms.. .Since the leading exponent of the color theory was a painter (Malevich), he failed to recognize the objective reality of the world [in architecture!]. Because he always looked at it only through his own eyes, he remained trapped in a world devoid of real objects. The broader implications of this had to be developed by us, the architects."

"At present there is an extremely exaggerated formation of groups [students on the 'School of Art' in Vitebsk, founded by Chagall around 'trend'; there are 1. young people following Malevich and 2. young people following me. We both belong to the left-wing artistic movement, although we have different ideas about ends and means."

"This is the model we await from Kasimir Malevich. AFTER THE OLD TESTAMENT THERE CAME THE NEW AFTER THE NEW THE COMMUNIST AND AFTER THE COMMUNIST THERE FOLLOWS FINALLY THE TESTAMENT OF SUPREMATISM."

"For us [the young artists in Vitebsk, 1920] Suprematism did not signify the recognition of an absolute form which was part of an already completed universal system, on the contrary; here stood revealed for the first time in all its purity the clear sign and plan for a definite new world never before experienced - a world which issues forth from our inner being and which is only now in the first stages of its formation, for this reason the square [Malevich's] Black and Red Square ] of suprematism became a beacon."

"Long live Unovis - the path to a Suprematist future - and long live Kazimir Malevich, the true guide along this path!"

"[This] is not a chance little episode that occurred on the Field of Mars; it is one of the acts of self-affirmation the source of which has as its name the abomination of desolation. It [Malevich' Suprematist paintings] asserts itself through arrogance, haughtiness, and by trampling over all that is dear and tender; it will lead only to death."

"Without a doubt, this [Malevich' painting Black Square ] is the 'icon' which the [Russian] Futurists propose as a replacement for the Madonnas and shameless Venuses [besstyzhie venery]; it is that 'dominion' [gospodstvo] of forms over nature.. ..[in Malevich's system, at the base of which lies a] horrific means of mechanical 'renewal' [mekhanicheskoe 'vosstanovlenie'] with its machinishness."

"Painting has turned back from the non-objective way to the object, and the development of painting has returned to the figurative part of the way that had led to the destruction of the object. But on the way back, painting came across a new object that the proletarian revolution had brought to the fore and which had to be given form, which means that it had to be raised to the level of a work of art.. .I am utterly convinced that if you keep to the way of Constructivism, where you are now firmly stuck, which raises not one artistic issue except for pure utilitarianism and in theater simple agitation, which may be one hundred percent consistent ideologically but is completely castrated as regards artistic problems, and forfeits half its value.. .If you go on as you are.. ..then Stanislavski will emerge as the winner in the theater and the old forms will survive. And as to architecture, if the architects do not produce artistic architecture, the Greco-Roman style of Zyeltovski will prevail, together with the Repin style in painting.."

"The principal element of Suprematism in painting, as in architecture, is its liberation from all social or materialist tendencies. Through Suprematism art comes into its pure and unpolluted form. It has acknowledged the decisive fact of the nonobjective character of sensibility. It is no longer concerned with illusion."

"I too was filled with a sort of shyness and fear, as I was called to leave 'the world of will and idea' in which I had lived and created, and in whose reality I had believed. But the happy liberating touch of non-objectivity drew me out into the 'desert' where only feeling is real.. ..and so feeling became the content of my life. It was no 'empty square' I had exhibited but the feeling of non-objectivity. I perceived that the 'thing' and the 'idea' were taken to be equivalents of feeling, and understood the lie of the world of will and idea. Is the milk bottle the symbol of milk? Suprematism is the rediscovery of that pure art which in the course of time, and by an accretion of 'things', had been lost to sight."

"I have not invented anything, only the night I have sensed, and in it the new which I called Suprematism."

"Tatlin does not transcend the confines of Cubism."

"The representation of an object, in itself (the objectivity as the aim of the representation), is something that has nothing to do with art, although the use of representation in a work of art does not rule out the possibility of its being of a high artistic order. For the Suprematist, therefore, the proper means is the one that provides the fullest expression of pure feeling and ignores the habitually accepted object. The object in itself is meaningless to him; and the ideas of the conscious mind are worthless. Feeling is the decisive factor.. ..and thus art arrives at non-objective representation – at Suprematism."

"White was for Malevich the color of infinity, and signified a realm of higher feeling.. ..an utopian world of pure form, attainable only through nonobjective art. Indeed, he named his theory of art Suprematism to signify 'the supremacy of pure feeling or perception in the pictorial arts'; and pure perception demanded that a picture's forms 'have nothing in common with nature.' Malevich imagined Suprematism as a universal language that would free viewers from the material world."

"In political terms, a question remains: what did it mean that Malevich turned again to depictions of peasant life at precisely the time of the forced collectivization of agriculture and the 'liquidation of the kulaks as a class', as Stalinist rhetoric chillingly has it? Whatever the answer to this question, a recently published letter of April 8, 1932, from Malevich to Vsevolod Meierhold makes clear that for him the return to figuration was not a break with the Revolution but a way of safeguarding it and preventing the return [in painting art] of Classicism and Naturalism."

"Malevich, with his strikingly developed social instinct, once again attempted to outdo everyone upon his release from jail (after having been arrested in Kiev in 1930). In an ordinary composition of colored stripes he included a row of galloping cavalrymen. You want a 'Soviet' picture - here, take it! Many artists, incidentally, made similar gestures during these years when the "Soviet theme: painting" was affirmed as the basis of Soviet art. Malevich did not gain much by such a strategy and he resorted to it extremely rarely. It didn't help at all. One of his students still has a letter to Malevich (it arrived one day after his death) notifying him that his request for a pension had been turned down."

"In one of his letters from Vitebsk to David Shterenberg in Moscow - a letter written in 1921, when the organization of the Erste russische Kunstausstellung (First Russian Art Exhibition, Berlin, 1922) was only beginning to be discussed - Malevich took pains to emphasize that he was an ideological worker in art. And that the Berlin exhibition would be of interest to him only if his "icons" - the Black Square, Chernyi krug (Black Circle), and Chernyi krest (Black Cross) - were exhibited. And exhibited only, moreover, under the rubric 'Suprematizm Rossiia'. 1913 (Suprematism: Russia, 1913). Nineteen thirteen?. ..Malevich, who was a genius at hypnosis, convinced not only everyone else but even himself that he had inaugurated Suprematism in 1913 - and not in any other year. His account of his own career is full of datings of works according not to the year in which they were produced but the year in which they were conceived."

"By Suprematism, I mean the supremacy of pure feeling in the pictorial arts. From the Suprematist point of view, the appearances of natural objects are in themselves meaningless; the essential thing is feeling – in itself and completely independent of the context in which it has been evoked. Academic naturalism, the naturalism of the impressionists, of Cézannism, of Cubism, etc., are all so to speak nothing but dialectic methods, which in themselves in no way determine the true value of the work of art."

"The world as a sense, independent of the image, of the idea - this is the essence of the content of art. [My] square is not an image, just as a switch or socket are not the current. - Malevich"