Rostyslav Prokopyuk: Psychotherapist, Artist and Ukraine’s Voice in Czechia

Psychotherapist, artist, poet and founder of the Ukrainian Institute in Prague — Rostyslav Prokopyuk has lived in the Czech capital for 34 years. Czech media write about him, his name appears in European encyclopaedias, and his exhibitions are held at Bratislava Castle. In Ukraine, his story is only beginning to be discovered.

Journalist Tamara Kutsai spoke with Rostyslav Prokopyuk at his Prague office — surrounded by paintings, books and boxes of medicines for a military hospital — for the media outlet CultHub.

How Prague Became Home

Prokopyuk came to the Czech Republic in the early 1990s through radio. While working at a regional radio station in Ivano-Frankivsk, he hosted psychological sessions before the programme “Songs on Request”. Czechs heard him and invited him over. At first he returned every three months — this continued for four or five years. Then he stayed. Permanently.

“Everyone who considers themselves Ukrainian should represent Ukraine — through their behaviour, their attitude towards Czechs and towards Ukraine,” says Prokopyuk. In his view, every Ukrainian abroad — whether known or not — is the face of their country.

The Book of Records and the “Return to Reality” Method

In his first years in the Czech Republic, Prokopyuk worked as a psychological consultant. He later developed his own method for overcoming smoking addiction — “return to reality”. The essence: the patient is brought back to the moment of their first cigarette, the unpleasant sensations are fixed, and the habit is “rewritten” at the subconscious level.

“Everything must happen here and now. When pain comes — it’s a moment. And it must pass in a moment,” Prokopyuk explains. The method works from the first session under one condition: the patient must genuinely want to change. Thousands of successful cases earned him an entry in the Czech Book of Records.

“After 1945, All Ukrainian Institutions in Prague Disappeared”

One of the key themes of the conversation is Ukraine’s place in Czech cultural space. Prokopyuk recalls that Prague had a strong Ukrainian tradition — the Free Ukrainian University was based here (now in Munich), and the 100th anniversary of the Museum of Ukraine’s National Liberation Struggle was marked here. But after World War II, all Ukrainian institutions ceased to exist.

“It is only in 2024 that I am reopening this, even though the state should have taken care of it,” says the founder of the Ukrainian Institute in Prague. His dream is to have a dedicated space for more than 20 Ukrainian organisations that currently have none — open to both Czechs and Ukrainians.

Art as a Mission

Alongside his psychotherapy practice, Prokopyuk is an active artist. The exhibition “Energy of Good” at Bratislava Castle featured 60 works and welcomed 20–30 visitors daily over a month. Proceeds from his exhibitions go to support the Armed Forces of Ukraine, and he sends medicines to a Kyiv military hospital.

Recently, his creative evening “Coffee Is Drunk by the Living” took place in Lviv — about war, loss and those who are still alive. “For those who are alive — to live. And those who are no longer — to remember,” is how Prokopyuk sums up the message of the show.

Post-Trauma: “This Will Be a Tragedy of the Human Soul”

Prokopyuk warns that the hardest times are still ahead: thousands with post-traumatic syndrome, amputees, families of the missing. “Society is not ready to support or help, and the state is not ready. This will be a greater tragedy than collecting for weapons,” he says, insisting on the need for a state programme of psychological rehabilitation.

Source: CultHub. Interview by Tamara Kutsai.