It’s difficult to say whether the television broadcast that took place on October 27 on the First National Channel was the realization of the ideas of Egor Benkendorf or Valid Arfush, or if, according to the old Soviet tradition, everything was ordered from above. Nevertheless, the telethon for veterans of the World War II (that we prefer to call the Great Patriotic War) turned out to be really instructive, ideologically speaking. Usually such activities are held before May 9. This time, however, they were held in October, far from any notable dates, albeit under the motto “With the entire world – 1945.” Why now? The host assured that the activity was organized by ordinary enthusiasts who suddenly felt “a call of the heart.” I am inclined to suspect that in practice it was aimed at attracting the veterans’ votes before the local elections. But there was another reason, perhaps even more important. The hall of the Ukrainian Home hosted the senior Moscow colleagues of our current authorities: the first deputy head of the government of the Russian Federation Igor Shuvalov, the deputy head of the government administration Yuri Ushakov, the Minister of Education and Science Andrei Fursenko, and Ambassador Mikhail Zurabov. So there are reasons to doubt the apparent “coincidence.”
Certainly, any charity is a good thing, but in our case there is some understandable surprise: in the US, Great Britain, Germany, Austria, etc., do they also collect aid for their veterans in such a manner? Where is the state policy of the current government?
Well, gentlemen, “scamming” 10 hryvnias from the public is not the right way to go. You should make oligarchs pay fair taxes, so that the country’s wealth does not disappear in offshore banks. Then veterans will have enough — not alms or pittance, but a decent support.
Dmytro Tabachnyk spoke for the Ukrainian authorities. In a somewhat threatening manner the minister of education and science of Ukraine promised to bring back the “truth” to our schools. Apparently, a “common” Ukrainian-Russian history book for teachers is being prepared for this purpose in Moscow already. I fear it will be impossible to realize these grandiose plans without firing dissident teachers who cannot agree with Moscow’s “truth.”
Actually, Stalin’s view on the World War II is actively imposed on us today. Under the motto of de-Stalinization a real Stalinization is taking place. If the Party of Regions and its Moscow curators do not ease up, soon we will have to glorify the “great commander” comrade Stalin.
By the way, he is already being praised. The host said that the victory in the war was reached because “Joseph Stalin made a step in the direction of the Russian Orthodox church.” At this, he didn’t mention how many Orthodox hierarchs and priests were physically annihilated and exiled to concentration camps in the name of Stalin. That is their “truth,” which they are going to bring into our schools. But the real goal of event became crystal clear after the host said that Ukrainians, Russians, and Belarusians are one people and we have one homeland. Thus, if the people and homelands are the same, why are there as many as three states? One would suffice, and we know which one. It’s difficult to invent a more consistent denial of the Ukrainian nation and statehood than that slogan. Isn’t its constant imposition on the Ukrainian society a convincing proof about a decision to liquidate the Ukrainian state?
The statement about one people can be accepted only if one discards all scientific evidence. In all spheres unsurmountable differences, too many for one people, are apparent. Several years ago I happened to participate in a discussion titled “Ukrainians, Russians, Belarusians: People or Peoples?” It was located in Sevastopol and organized by the local Prosvita, the Belarusian Language Society, and the Russian community in Sevastopol. The author was advised to make a chart by indicating similarities with a “+,” and differences with a “–.” There were no similarities for all five criteria: anthropological type, ethnogenesis, language, culture, and mentality. At this, the argumentation on each of these points was given based on Russian and Soviet specialized scientific sources. For example, the first issue was referenced from a book by a Moscow anthropologist, at present a respectable scholar and corresponding member of the Russian Academy of Sciences Tatyana Alekseyeva, who back in the early 1970s conducted a serious research in the Kyiv region. These studies constituted the empiric foundation of the monograph The Origin of Eastern Slavs Based on Anthropology Data, published in 1973 by the publishing house of the Moscow State University. In this work Alekseyeva, using an immense amount of primary sources, once again proved that anthropologically Russians and Ukrainians are different peoples. Moreover, it turned out that the population of ancient Kyiv and the modern Kyiv region is genetically the same, once again refuting the hypothesis of the Russian historian of the 19th century Pogodin about the allegedly “Great Russian” character of ancient Kyiv. A very serious argumentation was also presented regarding all other positions. While the Russian community, guided by their renowned ideologist Yurii Kozhukh (by the way, born in Lviv), could not counter with anything except for propagandist statements. After the discussion, a neutral observer, a Sevastopol citizen, came up to me and paid us a compliment I’m still proud of: “You totally defeated them!”
Unfortunately, during the mentioned telethon the Ukrainian Home became un-Ukrainian for a few hours. It seemed as if we were back in 1975 — even that there is a candidate for the role of Leonid Brezhnev. How much more time will it take for Ukraine to get out of the totalitarian slough, like Albania and Mongolia did?
SHAM SOCIOLOGY
Inter TV channel dedicated the evening of October 29 entirely to Mykola Azarov, who throughout almost the whole program spoke about the “colossal success” of his government. Thank you, prime minister, if it hadn’t been for your eloquence, I would have not known how good our life is. Once Soviet newspapers, which restlessly informed workers about their “constantly increasing welfare,” had this function.
Unlike Inter, the Savik Shuster show gave the floor to representatives of various political forces. But there were manipulations as well. During the discussions on the issue of the decision of the Ministry of Culture, which made dubbing foreign movies in Ukrainian non-mandatory, the host offered the audience to vote for the language they prefer to watch movies in, and it turned out that 71 percent opted for the Russian language. The movie distributor Anton Puhach, who impressed me with his unhealthy aggressiveness toward the Ukrainian language, immediately took advantage of it, demanding the actual expulsion of the Russian language from the home movie distribution. But the “sociological bliss” of “Shuster-LIVE” was broken by Andrii Khalpakhchi, the president of the movie festival Molodist, who asked people in the studio to raise their hands if they belonged to those 71 percent. Only one hand was raised — no 71 percent, not even 50 percent.
Continuing the cinematography topic, now permanently present at the TRK Ukraina, deputy of the State Duma of the Russian Federation Konstantin Zatulin advocated the idea of establishing a single cinematographic space, speculating about the fact that the government in Ukraine did nothing during all years of independence for the development of domestic cinematography. This is natural for a stupid, greedy, and primitive government. It can’t realize that cinema, and culture in general, has an enormous, also political, power. That is why Zatulin offers Ukraine to make Russian movies in joint projects, which, no doubt, will ideologically and mentally work against Ukraine. Khalpakhchi noted absolutely correctly that the Ukrainian movie market today is colonized by Russia. There is one way out of this situation: one should find money and make one’s own movies and organize the movie distribution, as Puhach doesn’t seem to promise anything good in this field for Ukraine.
SPIRITUAL VODKA
Not only Azarov had his benefit performance that week, but also Zatulin, in the program Open Access on the above-mentioned TRK Ukraina channel. The repertoire was disgustingly the same: one people, one country. From all appearances, we’ll be given this spiritual vodka day and night in the near future. Zatulin promised that if Russian is made the second state language in Ukraine, they will make Ukrainian the second state language in Russia as well. This is a proposal for the naive silly people that Zatulin considers Ukrainians to be, and we don’t hurry to correct his mistake. Of course, everything can be made into a law in Russia. Remember Stalin’s “most democratic in the world” constitution, which guaranteed the freedom of speech, outdoor processions and demonstrations. The Ukrainian language in Russia is, in fact, absent, and even if it is formally present, it won’t be able to influence anything, let alone pose any threat to Russian, while the state status of the Russian language in Ukraine is a real threat to the existence of the Ukrainian language. However, as Lenin said, not many “useful idiots” happened to be present in the studio, making Zatulin very angry. He accused TRK Ukraina of selecting a hostile audience.
The deputy from the Party of Regions Konovaliuk actively assisted Zatulin, they were quite a coordinated duet. I don’t feel like catching (this is an unpleasant activity) Zatulin on manipulations, distortions and lies. But one can’t help mentioning some things. Zatulin assured there are no “black lists” of Ukrainians in Russia. But it is impossible to imagine that the deputy of the State Duma specializing on the CIS countries doesn’t know about the recent resonant incident, when Russian border guards removed from a train and returned to Ukraine the many-year prisoner of conscience Vasyl Ovsienko, who was invited to the Russian Federation for a conference. And what is his “good, friendly” advise for Ukraine to give its economy to Russia, because of the allegedly total “inability” of Ukrainians to handle their economy.
And again there is a question. Why are our television relations so asymmetrical? Why do Russians spend day and night on Ukrainian television, and Ukrainians are not admitted to Russian ones? Why is there no parity? If it were this way: Sergey Markov would appear on our Inter, Oleksandr Palii on their First Channel, Konstantin Zatulin on our TRK Ukraina, and Oles Donii on their RTR, Vladimir Zhirinovsky on our ICTV, and Ihor Losiev on their NTV. This would be so democratic, liberal, and fair! But, unfortunately, this is as improbable as the “science fiction” voiced by Zatulin about the status of the Ukrainian language in the Russian Federation (while Russia still ignores the European Charter of Languages, which would force changes in its attitude to the Tatar, Adyghe, Mordovian, Yakutian and many other languages).
The speech of Igor Chubays, who has a reputation of a democrat here, in the program Poyedinok on the Russian channel RTR was very notable. Chubays stated: “We (Russia – Author) lost 5 million square kilometers of territory, instead of 22 million we have just 17.” The democrat forgot to specify that they lost not their territory, but that of other people. One can speak like that only if one truly believes that Estonia, as well as Tajikistan, are “primordial Russian lands.” In this case Chubays spoke like a White Guardist, not a democrat. No wonder the leader of independent Finland Karl Gustaf Mannerheim, despite repeated invitations, didn’t participate in the campaign of the White general Yudenich against Red Petrograd, reasonably considering that for Finland White Guardists were no better than Bolsheviks. Chubays for some reason believes that everything bad started in Russia only after 1917. Before this everything was ideal and just: serfdom, suppressing non-Russians, authoritarian despotism, and imperial carnality.
We don’t care about the wonderful ideas of Russian democrats. Of course, these democrats look better than Za-tulin, but their attitude to Ukraine is almost the same. It is like seeing a good cop, bad cop duo. Russian democracy, unfortunately, didn’t overcome historical imperial chauvinism. Therefore, our attitude to it should be careful, without much credulity and naivete. We know where that gets you.
