History is marching forward with clear, sober, and unclouded eyes. Cleansing the public conscience is the only precondition of social progress, but it is of the utmost importance. While primitive, bare-faced lies affect people’s souls like a dangerous poison, its toxic effects dependent on the skill of its creators, social stereotypes are unacceptable, harmful, and dangerous primarily because they distort mutual perceptions among various social groups, and therefore act as a dirty, distorted, and opaque mirror. The most dangerous thing that can happen in such an atmosphere (and in a sense this is already happening) is mutual enmity, with everyone who disagrees or is different being perceived as an enemy by the other side.
Ukrainian history is replete with such infamous stereotypes. Consider the eastern Ukrainian myth: Halychyna, and by extension western Ukraine, is home to people who do not fit into the general historical process now underway in Ukraine; many generations of these people have been swayed by nationalists and national extremists (that this stereotype comes with the label of nationalism, which was repeatedly used in the past as a pretext for launching aggressive offensives against the underpinnings of Ukrainian statehood, nation, and culture, is a subject of a separate, lengthy discussion). Allegedly, those in the west have a fierce hatred for all things Russian, Orthodox, and generally Slavic. As for the economy, the west is living at the expense of the industrial east, which accounts for the lion’s share of Ukraine’s budgetary revenues. The western myth is that the east is populated by utterly Russified Ukrainians (practically moskals) who are completely devoid of a national identity and are therefore ready, even if unwittingly, to serve as a tool in Moscow’s imperial policies.
Obviously, it is not our task here to prove that all these malignant clichОs are not based on true historical facts. However, it should be recalled that many centuries ago Kyivan Rus’, the powerful state created by our ancestors, united all the Ukrainian lands: from the Principality of Halych in the west, the lands of Yaroslav Osmomysl and Prince Danylo, to the Azov steppes in the east. Even back then all Ukrainians shared a common political space. It was no accident that in his odes to gallant Rus’ warriors the author of the immortal Tale of Ihor’s Campaign mentioned the regiments of the powerful Prince Osmomysl. Recall that the celebrated Hetman Petro Sahaidachny, who led the Zaporozhian Cossacks to so many victories, was a native of Halychyna. We must never forget that one of the authors of Ukraine’s state anthem, the poet Pavlo Chubynsky, was a native of Naddniprianshchyna [Dnipro region] in central Ukraine, while Mykhailo Verbytsky, a native of Halychyna, composed the music for the anthem. Can there be a more graphic example of Ukraine’s historic unity? What about our geniuses Shevchenko, Franko, Lesia Ukrayinka, and Mykhailo Hrushevsky? Aren’t their lives and heritage irrefutable proof of the fact that Ukrainians once constituted a single nation and must remain so? After all, the deeds and actions of these great Ukrainians were not restricted only to Kyiv, Lviv, Poltava, or Chernivtsi. Finally, let us recall that Donetsk and Luhansk produced such outstanding Ukrainian patriots as Borys Hrinchenko, Volodymyr Sosiura, Vasyl Stus, Vyacheslav Chornovil, and our famous contemporary Ivan Dziuba, to name only a few.
Yet to learn where we stand in the exceptionally complex situation of antagonism between the two parts of Ukraine (in my opinion, this is an artificial rift created largely by external forces) we should bear in mind the following. According to Hegel’s laws of dialectics, opposites exist in unity, as well as in a state of conflictual interaction.
The relationship between Ukraine’s west and east would have been different had all our lands been part of a single state throughout the centuries. As we know, history turned out differently, with one part of our lands coming under the influence of Western European civilization with its respect for individual values, private property, religion, national freedoms, etc., while the other part came under the influence of a Eurasian civilization that was the complete opposite in many respects. Now we are facing an alternative: either a conflict between these two civilizations or painstaking efforts to synthesize them into a single whole, a sort of Ukrainian symphony that would unite all Ukrainians. Throughout the centuries Ukraine’s east and west took turns leading the national renaissance movement: in the seventeenth century Khmelnytsky’s regiments liberated Lviv, while Shevchenko’s nineteenth-century ideas became a source of inspiration for the “Ukrainian Piedmont,” which in turn created a powerful catalyst for the Ukrainian revolution of 1918-1920. These two halves will become the components of this symphony. This is the future for all of us.
QUESTION OF THE DAY
? WHAT KIND OF STEREOTYPES EXIST WITH RESPECT TO UKRAINE’S EAST AND WEST AND HOW DO WE BREAK THEM?
Valery SHEVCHUK, writer:
“In general, the problem of the relationship between the east and west, more specifically between left-bank and right-bank Ukraine, is very deep rooted. In 1667, contrary to Bohdan Khmelnytsky’s understanding with the Moscow tsar, Russia and Poland signed the Truce of Andrusovo, which divided Ukraine into two parts, with left-bank Ukraine remaining under Moscow rule and right-bank Ukraine going to Poland. In effect, this is where everything began. For some time these two Ukraines even waged wars that involved Russians, Poles, and Turks. As a result, all of right- bank Ukraine was razed to the ground, while Samoylovych ousted Hetman Petro Doroshenko. It so happened that Cossack autonomy, which included an independent court, financial system, and army continued to exist on the territory of left-bank Ukraine, except in Sloboda Ukraine (now Kharkiv oblast), which was under the Russian tsar.
“In a short while Ukraine was carved up again: after the defeat of Poland, part of Ukraine was handed over to the Austro-Hungarian Empire, where it remained until the liberation struggle of 1918-1921. In 1918 all Ukrainian lands were united in an Act of Union, which proved to be a major, albeit a short-lived, accomplishment. In the prewar years, the Ukrainian lands were again torn between Poland and Bolshevik Russia. These are the historical facts of our homeland, which was carved up by neighboring empires. Therefore, all talk of differences between eastern and western Ukraine is a camouflaged attempt to divide our single national organism once again.
“This can and must be stopped. Society must propagate the ideas of unity and not only that. Since Ukraine is a unitary state, there are solidly legitimate constitutional grounds for stemming these anti-Ukrainian trends.
“The Shistdesiatnyky [poets of the Sixties] coined the following slogan: ‘Only when Kyiv and Lviv are united will Ukraine be a full-fledged country!’ Now this slogan should be reworded as: ‘Only when Uzhhorod, Lviv, Kyiv, Kharkiv, Donetsk, and Simferopol feel they are a single political organism will Ukraine become a full-fledged democratic and European state!’”
Taras PETRYNENKO, singer:
“My personal view of the stereotypes about eastern and western Ukrainians is that there are no differences between them. Recall Ukraine’s history of the past several decades, when Russians were resettled in the east and Crimea en masse. In effect, they haven’t lived in this land long enough to become deeply rooted and recognize it as their second homeland. Therefore, in my view, people are living, working, and raising children, but in their hearts they feel a stronger bond with Russia. I don’t mean to insult anybody. I’m just stating the facts.
“Today this situation is acutely felt. I would like to thank Ukrainians who live in the western regions. They have centuries-long roots there and treat Ukraine as their homeland and can’t afford to lose it under any circumstances. Understanding history, they have adopted a tolerant attitude toward their compatriots and are urging everyone to seek understanding. I would like to use this opportunity to appeal to the residents of Donbas, Luhansk oblast, and the Crimea at last to recognize Ukraine as their second homeland, accept it wholeheartedly, and acknowledge that Russia does not always advocate the interests of our country, because it has interests of its own. It seems to me that the time is coming when it is becoming obvious to everyone, or at least to an overwhelming majority, where the truth lies and where there are deliberate distortions or provocations aimed at political manipulations.
“I’ve been abroad countless times and have seen how ethnic Ukrainians in the USA or Canada behave. During holiday celebrations they always raise the American and Ukrainian flag and sing two anthems. These people love both their historic homeland and their country of residence. I think we must do everything in Ukraine to make Russians, Poles, Greeks, Tatars, Hungarians, Jews, and other ethnic groups feel comfortable, but at the same time not allow them to make us adapt to them. This will be the subject of interethnic accord. Ukrainians must finally become a political nation.”
Valentyna SOBOL, professor of Warsaw University and former professor of Donetsk National University:
“I was born in Dnipropetrovsk. In his youth, my father was a teacher in the village of Zhabye, Ivano-Frankivsk oblast. He used to tell me wonderful fairy tales and legends about Oleksa Dovbush and the opryshky brigands, and sing Lemko and Boiko songs. As a child, I became so infatuated with this unknown land that it seemed like heaven to me. But for some reason the people in my city rarely mentioned this land and then only reluctantly.
“In time I moved to Donetsk, where I taught the Ukrainian language at the university for many years. Perhaps I lived in a somewhat isolated world. Ours was an elite community dominated by the traditions of a university that produced Vasyl Stus, Vasyl Holoborodko, Ivan Dziuba, and others. Donetsk is an influential intellectual center with numerous educational and research institutions. It has a nationally conscious Ukrainian intelligentsia. There’s Stepan Myshanych, chair of the Ukrainian Language Faculty at Donetsk National University, and Professor Biletsky, who has published a three-volume Ukrainian encyclopedia of mining terminology, to name just a few. Next year our university will host the Fourth International Congress of Ukrainian Studies. I hope this will help my countrymen to feel the intellectual strength of international Ukrainian scholars. Unfortunately, among them will also be those who will change their colors to yellow-and-blue only for a day. That’s a shame.
“In 2001 my colleagues and I managed to set up a memorial plaque to Vasyl Stus. For several years it was gathering dust in a cellar, while the dean of the faculty from which Stus graduated told me: ‘Come on, Valentyna, was he really a poet of genius?’ And when the memorial plaque was unveiled, we said that we had saved a patch of Ukrainian land in Russian-speaking Donetsk. Unfortunately, university deans and rectors are products of the old Soviet system, who have failed to love the young Ukrainian state with their hearts. The current situation in Donetsk reminds me of the Soviet ideological propaganda machine, the only difference being that it is even more blatant and cynical. Therefore, every day I support the drive ‘Call Donetsk and Tell Them the Truth!’”
Serhiy ARKHYPCHUK, stage director of the National Opera of Ukraine:
“I remember how in 1975 I enrolled at the Dnipropetrovsk Theater College. At the time Dnipropetrovsk was closed to foreigners. The authorities were hunting down dissenters and prosecuting them with great fanfare. In particular, there was an infamous trial of a group of creative intellectuals who had written a letter about the state of the Ukrainian language in the region’s educational and cultural institutions. When they found out that I was from Rivne oblast, my new acquaintances would ask me mockingly if we still kept weapons in our lofts. In the late 1970s I met an Estonian named Neeme Kuuningas, who is now the art director of the Estonia Theater. He was surprised when I told him that I was from western Ukraine. They don’t divide their homeland into east and west. Consider one more example. In the late 1980s a friend of mine and I held a soiree to mark the centennial of Ivan Franko’s birthday. She was a local and was viewed as a hero in the local milieu. At first the audience suspected some sort of provocation, because until then nobody had ever held such a patriotic soiree. After independence she initiated a festival of Ukrainian and Jewish cultures. I asked her whether these two peoples did not deserve to be represented in separate festivals, to which she replied: ‘You can stage a separate festival for every culture in western Ukraine or in Kyiv, but Donetsk is a multinational city.’ Indeed, the Soviet ideological machinery was especially powerful in Ukraine’s east and south. The Donetsk Opera House was a laboratory of Soviet opera. The ballet The Magic Stone and the opera Ten Days That Shook the World were just some of its productions. The opera house received additional subsidies for performances, some of which were never staged. However, Lviv and Donetsk maintained certain parity in terms of conductors or opera singers. The famous baritone Petro Onchul and tenor Petro Lobaty still work at the Donetsk Opera. Of course, they have their own viewpoints on the current events. I believe that the division into east and west, and attendant separatist trends, will teach us all a lesson that we shouldn’t disregard spiritual and cultural values. I spoke to middle-aged and elderly people from Luhansk who traveled to Kyiv to support their candidate. I managed to establish contact and communicate with them. Unfortunately, the absence of balanced information has had a profound impact on them.
“The early and mid-1990s saw mass pilgrimages to Kaniv and the Zaporozhian Sich. The Chervona Ruta Festival was held in Donetsk, Zaporizhia, Kharkiv, and the Crimea. In January, on the Act of Union Day, people formed a human chain that stretched across Ukraine. At a certain point all of this stopped because of the absence of a consistent national policy. But today the huge role of Kyiv, Poltava, and Cherkasy is obvious. In effect, the center of Ukraine, around which everybody is rallying, is the most graphic proof of Ukrainians’ unity, no matter what some may say.”
