Many people in Ukraine and Europe had started looking at Russia with hope again in December 2011 as Russians went to the actions of civic protest in Bolotnaya Square and Sakharov Avenue. However, after a few weeks it has become clear that social and political processes in today’s Russia encourage in-depth analysis of challenges and threats rather than political chances.
The leader of the liberal-democratic opposition in the USSR and Russia, thinker and scholar, D. of Sc. in History Yuri Afanasiev visited Kyiv on January 19. He was probably the only one to publicly warn the participants of Russian Spring events, who, in his opinion, were repeating the mistake of the early 1990s’ Russian democrats. Afanasiev asserts the latter did not understand how deep really should have been the transformation of Russian society on its way towards democracy. This mistake was one of the main reasons for their defeat and resulting return of Russia to the imperial syndrome and totalitarianism.
Thanks to the director of the Skovoroda Institute of Philosophy, Professor Myroslav Popovych and the dean of the Information Security Faculty of the Kyiv Polytechnic Institute, Professor, D. of Sc. in Technology Yevhen Machusky, The Day was able to invite Afanasiev to a discussion that turned into an intellectual event, the roundtable “Post-Soviet Space: 20 Years Later. Where Are We Going?” Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary Ambassador of Ukraine and a famous political commentator Yurii Shcherbak, Myroslav Popovych, and cultural commentator and scholar, Professor of La Sapienza University in Rome Oxana Pachlovska joined Afanasiev to speak about current threats and opportunities for Ukraine and Russia. The roundtable was moderated by The Day’s editor-in-chief Larysa Ivshyna. She said when announcing the participants that Afanasiev and Shcherbak were the “TV people” for her, because she had closely watched the developments in the USSR in the late 1980s and early 1990s. At the same time, the two men are historical figures for The Day’s younger journalists. Therefore, the scale of the individuals and the quality of the opinions they expressed during the roundtable were unprecedented. Unfortunately, now it is not possible to hold such a discussion at the Ukrainian and Russian TV alike, and the participants are not the “TV people” for the younger generation.
It was very telling also that Shcherbak and Afanasiev met at the roundtable after having not seen each other for over 20 years. Let us recall that both were members of the Interregional Deputies Group in the late 1980s and early 1990s, united in the fight for democratic transformation of the Soviet Union, at least until the national question arose. Shcherbak remarked, slightly changing the words of Jozef Pilsudski’s famous observation that “we all rode on the train of freedom and democracy, but got off it at the Nation station.” By the way, he said, Afanasiev was the only member of the group to send a congratulatory telegram to Ukraine after the declaration of independence on August 24, 1991. The audience broke into applause on hearing about this fact.
“The intellectual world celebrates the 200th anniversary of Alexander Herzen’s birth this year, him being one of the few Russian thinkers who understood Russia as well as the Ukrainian question,” said the moderator. To some extent, we can consider Afanasiev the successor of Herzen, although his progressive views have too few followers in contemporary Russia. Characteristically, politicians are totally absent among these few, opposition and pro-government ones alike, the latter even more so. The roundtable “Post-Soviet Space: 20 Years Later. Where Are We Going?” belonged, naturally, to the intellectual tradition of Chaadayev, Herzen, and Sakharov. If someone was looking for constructive dialogue between Ukraine and Russia, it happened there.
This is particularly important in the wake of Vladimir Putin’s latest programmatic articles. Russian prime minister wrote in his article “Russia: The National Question” for Nezavisimaya Gazeta: “Russia developed over centuries as a multinational state, in which different ethnic groups have had to mingle, interact and connect with each other. The development of vast land areas throughout Russia’s history has been a joint affair between many different peoples. Suffice it to say that ethnic Ukrainians live in an area stretching from the Carpathian Mountains to Kamchatka.” The core and the fastener of this multinational state, according to Putin, was, is, and must be, of course, the Russian culture!
“Russia does not know Ukrainian history and mostly does not want to know it, because real Ukrainian history is a big problem for the current Russian identity,” Ivshyna said and added: “We shall formulate the agenda so that everybody can finally understand that Russia’s and Ukraine’s problems are different and, like plague and cholera, should be treated in different barracks. I really liked Shcherbak’s reply to these words: ‘As an epidemiologist, I support it.’
We intentionally included into the roundtable’s agenda the question: what ideas can intellectual circles of Ukraine and Russia build adequate relations between the two countries on, in the time of escalation of the struggle for identity? This caused the talk about the dynamics of the post-Soviet space’s development to turn into a conversation about the history, culture, civilization choice, finally, about what Afanasiev called ‘the foundation of foundations.’
A man with a deep understanding of Russia, Afanasiev is sure that the only way to Russia’s deep transformation lies through changing the society’s thinking and ‘reshaping’ of its fundamental matrix. The scale of the task facing the Russian intellectuals hints at the scale of work that needs to be done in Ukraine on its path to returning the national history to itself and the world, as well as reconstruction of statehood.”
Summing up the four-hour conversation, Ivshyna noted that we are not yet ready to give definitive answers to most of the agenda’s questions, of course, but the process of thinking is the all-important, more so than the answers themselves.
The roundtable’s participants’ opinions will be published in The Day shortly.
