International experience shows that actual economic progress can be found in both newly established and veteran independent nation-states. None of the rich colonizing counties has allowed a single colony (i.e., dependent country) to show economic growth. Finland offers a graphic example. It turned into a top-standard socialist country only after it parted company with the Russian Empire and rid itself of the communist party. The same goes for Karelia.
What about Ukraine with its rich natural resources? While under the Rurik dynasty, as Kyivan Rus’, it was conquered by poor Lithuania, later by Poland, still later by Russia, the USSR, and now we have a pro-Russian economy. During all these periods the predominant idea has boiled down to annexations and denationalization in Ukraine.
Here the emphasis should be placed on facts of which most Ukrainians remain unaware, while pro-Russian historians and politicians are careful to conceal them during political shows, or appear to be outraged when faced with hard facts and vehemently deny them, offering their own falsified versions.
Try to challenge any of the Russian or Ukrainian Communist Parteigenossen, among them Zatulin, Markov, Symonenko, Hrach, Kolesnikov, Kornilov, Yefremov, Chechetov, Vitrenko, Buzyna with anything having to do with denationalization or annexations in Ukraine. They will shout you down as a nationalist and/or fascist, although they know enough to realize that Muscovy’s “Third Rome” ideology was started in the 16th century and that the Kremlin rulers launched a consistent policy aimed at the annihilation of the Ukrainian language and culture; that Muscovy started appropriating Ukraine, working hand in glove with Poland.
Polish authorities openly oppressed the Ukrainian people, Orthodoxy, and enforced Catholicism, as evidenced by the Treaties of Lublin (1569) and Brest (1596).
Zaporozhian Cossacks, Ukrainian Orthodox brotherhoods and the nobility opposed this Polish arbitrary rule. It was thus the Ukrainian Peresopnytsia Gospels appeared in print in Volyn (1556-61), followed by Ivan Fedorov [Fedorovych’s] Psalter (1570), and the Ostroh Bible, published in Ukrainian by Prince Kostiantyn. Polemic and fiction literary works appeared in print in Ukrainian. Such acts were aimed at the preservation of Orthodoxy, Ukrainian language, and Ukrainian nation.
In the course of Polish-Ukrainian religious and national liberation struggle, Ukrainians in Western Ukraine stood their ground, preserved their Ukrainian identity, although some of them became Greek or Roman Catholics. Today these supporters of Ukrainian culture, particularly activists in Halychyna, are detested by Moscow-minded historians in Ukraine. In fact, MP Chechetov said he would bury Halychyna Ukrainians in molten asphalt.
Polonization was stopped in Ukraine, so that now divine services in Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox churches are conducted in Ukrainian.
The picture in the temples under the Moscow Patriarchate and its Patriarch Kirill is dramatically different. The man adheres to Catherine II’s decree (of 1785), to the effect that all divine services in the temples of the Russian Empire be conducted in Russian.
As for Ukraine’s denationalization by Russia during tsarist imperialism and communist internationalism, compared to the Polish Kingdom of Rzeczpospolita, their actions differ the way a cool autumn differs from a severe winter. Whereas the Poles openly oppressed Ukrainians and kept them as serfs, the Russians threw them behind bars, exiled them to Siberia, or forced them to build railroads where most of them died. Whereas the Poles allowed Registered Cossacks to serve in their army and rewarded them with money and real estate, Muscovy forced men to serve for 25 years in the army, without any rights except the right to die for their Fatherland and Tsar.
When in power, the communists sent Ukrainian patriots to Gulag camps, shot and destroyed them through the Holodomor, while exporting grain confiscated from the starving Ukrainian peasantry.
Comrades Chechetov, Kolisnychenko, Symonenko, Vitrenko echo each other, saying this happened a long time ago and is no longer important.
It is also true, however, that a people that doesn’t know its history has no future. Therefore, it is necessary to know Russia’s and pro-Russian crimes against the Ukrainian people (without inciting animosity between the two countries).
It is necessary to know that their denationalizing policy was accompanied by propaganda slogans about brotherly Slavic people, about Ukraine being Russia’s brother and the both of them having common history. Therefore, this history should have on record all the ukases aimed against the Ukrainian language, culture, and religion.
How about the Holly Synod of the Russian Orthodox Church [in Moscow] instructing the Metropolitan of Kyiv in 1626 to impound all religious publications in Old Ukrainian? In 1748, Kyiv-Mohyla Academy and all schools of Ukraine were ordered to use Russian as the language of instruction; in 1759, all Ukrainian ABCs were ordered impounded in the Ukrainian schools; in 1769, the Synod ordered all of them confiscated (under Polish rule such publications were allowed, but severely persecuted under Kremlin rule).
The following denationalizing trends aimed against the Ukrainian people must be placed on record in Ukrainian and Russian history:
• Alex of Russia’s order to punish the publishers of Ukrainian books with death (1667);
• Catherine II’s secret letter of instruction to Prince Rumyantsev, Governor General of Ukraine, concerning Russification of the populace, “so they stop looking for foreign alliances (1764)”;
• Decree by Russia’s Minister of Education Shishkov (1824), reading that “any word in Little Russian must be banned because it threatens Russia’s integrity as a state;
• Russia’s Interior Minister Peter Valuyev’s circular (1863), to the effect that no textbooks, literary works can be published in Ukrainian because this language “has never existed and shall never exist”;
• His 1870 successor Tolstoy’s directive read that “all people who represent other ethnic groups must be Russified…”
Under the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, this denationalizing policy was scrupulously pursued, with 120,000 Ukrainians — mostly intellectuals and religious figures — arrested, shot, or thrown behind Gulag barbed wire. All Ukrainian language schools, colleges, universities, and publishing houses were closed in 1930-37 — in the Kuban region, Siberia, Far East, and other regions of the RSFSR. In 1933, a plenary meeting of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union [CC CPSU] passed a resolution that spelled the destruction of more than 3,000 Ukrainian books and dictionaries. In 1951, 800 Kharkiv University students were arrested by the NKVD; 33 were shot because they had refused to take exams in Russian. In 1983, CC CPSU passed a resolution entitled “On 16 Percent Pay Rise for Russian Language and Literature Teachers in Ukraine,” followed by the resolution “On Russian as the Only Official Language of the Soviet Union” in 1989.
There are over 180 ukases and decrees issued by tsarist and Soviet Russian authorities, all geared to ban, destroy the Ukrainian language, culture, and religion. This was a constant undeclared war against the Ukrainian people. Hatred of Ukraine explains the Kremlin-architected Holodomor, terror, deportation, and other repressive measures.
[Moscow] directives were aimed against the Ukrainian language, culture, literature, creative intelligentsia, and religion. In 1654, after Hetman Bohdan Khmelnytsky signed the Treaty of Pereiaslav with Muscovy, the latter forbade the Ukrainian in the street to wear brightly colored clothes and morocco boots, so as not have a bad influence on the Russian plebs. In 1922-34, the Soviets condemned the bandura, kobza, and lyre as “bourgeois nationalistic instruments.”
In 1718, Muscovites burned down the archives and library at the Kyiv Caves Monastery, destroying a stock gathered over 700 years. In 1743, old Ukrainian religious books were gathered from all Ukrainian temples and burned. In 1934, a team of Ukrainian scholars working on a Soviet Ukrainian Encyclopedia was arrested, all their materials destroyed, and the publishing house closed. Ukraine’s filmmaking industry has been paralyzed since 2000, with Ukrainian libraries and museums closing; we have mostly Russian-language periodicals on our newsstands, and everyone in the creative field has been ordered to abide by the officially established format.
The Ukrainian eparchies have sustained Moscow’s negative attitude. In 1914, the Synod ruled that only “firmly determined and energetic Russians” could be ordained bishops in Ukraine. In 1926-32, Moscow destroyed 63 bishops and over 19,000 parish priests of the Ukrainian Orthodox and Autocephalous Churches. Similar practices were applied in subsequent years.
As a result of tsarist and Soviet Russia’s chauvinistic, Ukrainophobic policy, disguised by communist internationalist slogans, Ukraine’s population decreased by almost four times.
People who spoke Ukrainian were liquidated (denationalized) not by the French, Germans, Americans, fascists, but by courts of law in Russia. Unlike the Polish Rzeczpospolita, they were dealt with under the slogans of Ukrainian and Russian fraternity, common Slavic roots, religion, history, etc. Sadly, this was enough to dull Ukrainians’ vigilance.
After Ukraine proclaimed its national independence, the triumphant denationalization march slowed somewhat. A law on the Ukrainian language was enacted, but it failed to have full effect, simply because there was a strong anti-Ukrainian environment formed over hundreds of years. The reasons behind this environment remain strong.
Among them is the presence of a Russian-speaking populace, people who are acting on various official levels, brainwashed to act against the Ukrainian letter and spirit after four centuries of Russification. Where can young people use Ukrainian while attending Russian discotheques, watching Russian television channels? Where can government officials practice Ukrainian, a language they never learned or used in the south and east of Ukraine — ditto officials currently holding ministerial posts in Kyiv? Even a strong-willed Ukrainian-speaking individual would be hard put to work as a member of a Russian-speaking team, let alone Russian-speaking superiors. The Ukrainian language is being phased out, slowly but surely.
The Moscow Patriarchate in Kyiv is a traditional tool of denationalization, what with the divine services being celebrated in Church Slavonic, with all those Russian-speaking parish priests and bishops, who keep acting as once ordered by Catherine II. How can the Ukrainian in the street avoid using Russian, considering that most Christmas services are conducted in Russian? Such services have helped Ukrainian to become extinct in Slobozhanshchyna. Our mother tongue is vanishing in the central and western-central regions of Ukraine.
The Moscow Patriarchate is growing stronger with Moscow Patriarch Kirill visiting Ukraine more often than the vast expanses of Russia’s north and Siberia.
Given this influence, Orthodox adherents in the west of Ukraine find themselves switching to Russian, being unaware that by worshipping Moscow Patriarch Kirill they are being denationalized; they know not what they are doing because they don’t know the reasons behind the “friendly ties” between Ukraine and Russia; they don’t seem to realize what Kirill is doing, although his sermons make it plain that he wants Ukraine to reunite with Russia. What this would mean for Ukraine can’t be found in Russian chronicles, CPSU textbooks or statements made by Comrades Lytvyn, Tabachnyk, Tolochko, but in past and contemporary archival sources, including studies by contemporary Ukrainian scholars.
The third important reason behind denationalization in Ukraine is the destructive attitude adopted by its current political elite, all those people in power who are selling Ukrainian property left and right because of petty squabbles or because they want to have offshore six-digit accounts.
Denationalization has become an apparent threat to Ukraine’s national security because of the totalitarian stand adopted by the Party of Regions, as evidenced by the Tax Code bill passed by the Verkhovna Rada, even without going through the motions of debating it in parliament. The key political figures obviously don’t give a hoot about public opinion. Today they hate the proletariat. Tomorrow they will hate the Ukrainian language and will enact a law making Russian another official language. They would do this not to have two official languages, but to have a reason for phasing out Ukrainian.
In other words, denationalization has not been stopped in Ukraine. Conversely, the threat is gaining in scope. This is something every Ukrainian in the street should be informed about. Just like our various political parties should rely on the love-thy-neighbor principle, so they can uphold the Ukrainian spirit and combat denationalization. If they do so, casting aside the differences between their leaders and doctrines, the Ukrainophobes will not want to keep torturing Ukrainians; there will be no second slap in the face. However, trusting Patriarch Kirill, this great patriot of Russia, such unity would require all who love Ukraine to protect Ukraine’s interests. Without Ukrainians there will be no self-sufficient, identically integrated Ukraine.
Another big threat to Ukraine’s national, cultural, and territorial integrity is the possibility of reinstating it as a part of Russia, whatever the terms and conditions (as part of CIS or an economic-political alliance). Should Ukraine fall under Russia’s influence again, this country will never be independent. It would be finally denationalized, as was the case with the Kuban Cossacks and ethnic Ukrainians in Russia (it is true that the Kazakhs, Tajiks, and other CIS member republics are not threatened by denationalization). The danger of denationalization comes not from NATO, the EU, the US, but from Russia as the carrier of great power chauvinism and Ukrainophobia.
The threat of denationalization also comes from people who don’t care about the language they use, even when offering up prayers, so long as this language can help them build a small fortune. This attitude has caused Ukraine to rank with the most underdeveloped countries.
If you are opposed to denationalization, this doesn’t mean a hostile attitude to Russia. Ukraine has friendly relations with France and Germany, although our ancestors fought these countries. We learn French and German, so why not learn Ukrainian while living in Ukraine? Does this mean that the Russian-speaking Ukrainians don’t respect their Fatherland?
Fellow Ukrainians, don’t let them denationalize you!
