An old medieval saying goes: “City air makes you free.” Tellingly, this proverb emerged in Germany, whose urban centers, first of all, Magdeburg and Hamburg, learned to effectively protect their rights from the local feudal lords as long ago as in the 13th-14th centuries: They won the right to leave at their disposal and freely distribute the money they earned by their own work (it is the problem of “forming the taxation basis from below,” so topical now in Ukraine); to elect the leaders of their community, irrespective of the will of the feudal lord, no matter how influential he is; to have a court of their own, which would address and resolve problems that are important to society; to be free to elect and recall judges. This is how the free European was being formed.
Naturally, all the abovementioned is not the entire system of Magdeburg Rights (Magdeburg Law) which was well known and widespread in Ukraine in the 15th-17th centuries – it is only the key elements. Meanwhile, the contrasting and contradictory realities of the present critical day more than convincingly prove that real local self-government, vested in the updated Magdeburg Law provisions, is an absolutely indispensable, albeit still insufficient, condition for the birth and consolidation of a Ukrainian society of free people who adhere to European values. Indeed, only en economically, politically, and spiritually independent (self-sufficient and proud, if you like) representative of a certain local community is capable, together with millions like him, of making Ukraine a civilized and really strong state.
How can this be really achieved? How can we make use of the priceless historical experience of local self-government, which Ukrainian cities, towns, and villages have? What conclusions should the local government and we, ordinary citizens (and members of the community), draw from this? These topical issues were discussed at the roundtable “Magdeburg Law in Ukraine: Memory and Practice” jointly prepared and held by the newspaper Den, the International Institute of Management (MIM-Kyiv), and the Siversky Institute of Regional Studies.
The participants, who were addressing a wide range of issues, included expert scholars, such as historians, jurists, and political writers, as well as people of practice, mostly heads of local communes. Among them were Oleksandr BYCHKOV, mayor of Semenivka, Chernihiv Oblast); Volodymyr HORBOVY, chairman of the Stary Sambir District Council, Lviv Oblast; Vasyl YAKOVENKO, mayor of the village of Stryzhivka, Vinnytsia Oblast); Viktor OLSHEVSKY, mayor of the village of Snitkiv, Vinnytsia Oblast); Zenon MAKOTA, mayor of Bolekhiv, Ivano-Frankivsk Oblast; Volodymyr BOIKO, Candidate of Sciences (History), director of the Chernihiv Staff Development Center; Kostiantyn MATVIIENKO, expert at the Gardarika Strategic Consulting Corporation; Serhii LEPIAVKO, Doctor of Sciences (History), a professor at Nizhyn Gogol University; Mariana DOLYNSKA, Doctor of Sciences (History), a professor at the Ukrainian Catholic University of Lviv; and Iryna Tykhomyrova, president of the International Institute of Management (MIM-Kyiv). The roundtable’s moderator was Larysa IVSHYNA, editor-in-chief of the newspaper Den/The Day.
Iryna TYKHOMYROVA: “MIM-Kyiv is an institution that teaches to do business in Ukraine. We are sure you cannot be a successful businessman unless you are an active citizen.
Therefore, Den’s humanitarian initiatives are extremely important to us as well as, I am sure, to the entire country.
This roundtable, being held with the application of a unique informational technology, Cisco TelePresence, that has no analogues elsewhere in Ukraine and Eastern Europe (it is successfully applied at US Harvard and Stanford universities), is highly topical.
The questions under discussion are deeply rooted in history, on the one hand, and are the burning issues of the present day, on the other.
To be able to resolve the most difficult problems of today, we should recall and learn very well the lessons of democracy that date back to the times when there were no such states as Russia or the US.”
Larysa IVSHYNA: “I would like to thank MIM-Kyiv and, personally, its president Iryna Tykhomyrova, for making it possible to communicate with our readers, experts, and the respected heads of local government bodies in an entirely new technical mode.
“Now that an extremely burning question arises of whether true democracy will survive in Ukraine, it is important to look back at our past.
We are saying that many centuries ago our lands saw the sprouts of self-government germinate and grow, while the rights of communes were being protected, and the rights of feudal were being restricted (even if this was not done for noble purposes).
We will try to find out how many of the things that has been left in Ukraine, including the ones that follow this historical tradition, are still viable and can be reconstructed and what should be ‘grafted’ again. Are we able, figuratively speaking, to ‘mix’ the valuable historical practice of the past with modern-day nation building?”
Volodymyr BOIKO: “Where did the system of urban self-government, in particular, Magdeburg Law, come from to us? It turns out to be a purely European – above all, German and, to a lesser extent, Italian – thing. From there, across the territory of Poland, Volhynia, and Galicia, this phenomenon came to Ukraine. This was assisted by concrete historical factors – the cities had increased their strength and urban residents became aware of being able to do very much. The central government had in turn understood that it would be better not to interfere into certain things – it was cheaper and more beneficial to delegate some rights to the provinces: let them look into things by themselves. An absolutely pragmatic idea!
“It is important to remember that Ukraine’s Left-Bank lands, onto which this system had spread from Galician-Volhynian and then Dniproside regions, were the eastern boundary of the Magdeburg Law area. There is even a well-known dictum: in the 17th century, the border of Europe passed through the outskirts of Lokhvytsia, the Poltava region, Ukraine’s last eastern city that enjoyed Magdeburg Rights.
“There are some fundamental things inherent in local self-government, no matter whether you analyze the 17th-18th centuries or the present day, such as, for example, the setting of taxes by the local authorities. This is one of the main signs of true self-government. Or take the free disposal of funds: once the commune has met certain commitments to the state, it is free to use the rest of the funds the way it pleases. There are some legal provisions that provide for a required material basis of self-government (buildings, land, etc.). Also of importance is the right to elect people to an office, which shows the extent to which city residents can exercise their rights and powers.
“In the 19th century the Russian Empire abolished Magdeburg Law and self-government. But when it became clear that the Romanovs’ empire was lagging way behind in its development and this could have deplorable consequences, Magdeburg Law was restored. The idea, albeit limited and curtailed one, was to make use of the possibilities of communities and individuals so that they saw the advantage of being part of a commune. Naturally, there were certain barriers, including property qualification.
“Like the Russian Empire before it, the Soviet state wanted to establish total control and, for this very reason, it abolished the system of local self-government.
“The year 1990, when a new law, ‘On Local Self-Government,’ was passed and an attempt was made to restore this system, saw a coexistence of the purely Soviet aspiration to control everything and certain innovations. This picture also prevails today.”
Volodymyr HORBOVY: “I am chairman of a ‘subregional’ unit of sorts – a district council. My native city is Stary Sambir. In the 16th century, there were eight small towns that enjoyed Magdeburg Rights in our relatively small district (800 sq. km.). As a rule, Polish rulers would restore Magdeburg Law because they remembered that these rights had been granted well before by Ukrainian kings. Three small towns in our district were stripped of Magdeburg rights, but this in no way affected the way they looked – there was a beautiful town hall in the center, and buildings were well cared for.
“I agree that it was not to the benefit of the totalitarian regime to leave self-government intact and allow people to be aware of their choice. An interesting detail: the present-day local council occupies now about a half of the premises held in the 18th century by the then self-government body which, incidentally, provided social services to the populace. By contrast, the rights of the present-day self-government bodies are so much limited that we are just unable to offer these services the way it was done formerly. An acute problem for us is the formation of local budgets: instead of coming to us, the main budget-forming funds flow to Lviv or even Kyiv because the legal addresses of the companies that employ our people are registered there. We often joke that our ‘local court’ has also been ‘domiciled’ in Kyiv. The local government bodies have been stripped of the basic resources that ensure viable functioning. We have also lost the right to manage land. Guild- and brotherhood-type public self-organization bodies have been disbanded. My grandfather told me that he had been head of the St. Nicholas Brotherhood. It was a church brotherhood (“bratstvo”) that had its own traditions and standards and was capable of responding to the challenges of life.
“A newcomer could not be called Stary Sambir resident until he or she had lived for 25 years here. This tradition is still in force.
“I must say frankly that, to have our democracy reborn, we should revive a country of cities and towns, a country of Magdeburg Law. Almost all the human and financial resources are now concentrated in the capital, whereas the Ukrainian nation and culture were mostly formed in the provinces.”
L.I.: “Heads of territorial communes usually get embarrassed and say ‘We are provincial,’ even though a new fabric of life is being woven there. Stary Sambir is an outlying town, but I generally do not think there are provinces in Ukraine – the capital is the place where a human being is doing real things for Ukraine.”
Mariana DOLYNSKA: “I will add a fly to the ointment, as far as Magdeburg Law is concerned. Naturally, the idea of urban self-government must be revived. But we should not idealize either Magdeburg Law or the city autonomy that was introduced in the 19th century by the Austrian state. Paraphrasing Winston Churchill’s famous dictum, we can say: ‘Magdeburg Law is the worst form of government except for all those others that have been tried.’
“The principles proclaimed in the 11th-century Magdeburg code of laws are almost ideal. But if we reconstruct the history of Lviv in the 16th-17th centuries, we will see that the laws were very often written in order to be violated.
“I would like to comment on two myths that run rampant in Lviv oblast. The first is about the royal and private status of cities. Lviv was a royal city. A lot of our writers and tour guides believe that a royal city enjoys some grandiose status. In realty, this only means that the city was founded by privilege of the sovereign. The city belonged to the state, while the king and the state were synonymous in the late Middle Ages. A vast majority of our cities had royal status.
“The other myth, or, to be more exact, overestimation, is about the autonomy that Lviv was granted in 1870. What is not a myth here is the fact that the city could use the budget at is own discretion. In terms of the economy, it was a territorial, urban, and economic explosion. But, in political and ideological terms, it was, much to our regret, a period of the making of a myth about Polish Lviv, which was reflected in the erection of monuments to Lviv-related figures and in the first official naming of streets. Unfortunately, this myth is still alive today. And it is sometimes very sad to hear something like this: ‘The Poles built Lviv, and the Ukrainians are ruining it.’”
L.I.: “In 1995 Oleksandr Bychkov, mayor of Semenivka, Chernihiv oblast, and O. Kovalenko, dean of the Chernihiv Teacher-Training Institute’s History Faculty, jointly drew up the coat of arms for the city and district of Semenivka, which was approved by the Semenivka District Council. This year the former coauthored the book Semenivka, a European City. Mr. Bychkov, do people in Semenivka think they have achieved their ambition to be residents of a European city?”
Oleksandr BYCHKOV: “Semenivka is Ukraine’s northernmost city. The people who lived in our city in various periods played a very noticeable role not only on the territory of Ukraine. For example, Semenivka itself was founded by Ukraine Hetman Ivan Samoilovych’s son Semen who was the Colonel of the Starodubsky Regiment, the largest one in the Ukrainian Hetmanate. The city was founded as a Cossack settlement, so the Cossack spirit still pervades Semenivka.
“It was on the territory of Semenivka in October 1708 that Hetman Ivan Mazepa of Ukraine proclaimed to his troops the intention to build an independent Ukraine. It was in the village of Kostabobrovo that Isaac Mazepa, the future head of the Ukrainian National Republic’s government, was born.
“Semenivka residents have always favored the idea of self-government and patriotism. A city can only be successful and European if it enjoys self-government. And, in general, the history the Semenivka population dates back to the period of the Mizyn settlement which existed 20,000 years ago. Self-government in the Semenivka region has a longtime history. The territory of what is now Semenivka district was part of the Polish-Lithuanian state for almost 200 years – it spanned between Novhorod-Siversky and Starodub. These cities were some of the first in Lithuania to be granted Magdeburg Law; they had a town hall and an anthem of their own. And this spirit is still living in the ambitions of my fellow countrymen. So when my colleague Volodymyr Huzovaty and I were advised to write the book Semenivka, a European City, we took this up with fear. But when the book came out, I heard it said at almost every step: is Semenivka really a European city? And garbage dumps” And sewerage? And water supply? Therefore, we have to be up to the mark.”
Serhii LEPIAVKO: “Maybe, we are looking for the roots of Ukrainian democracy in a wrong place? Maybe, coming back to the words of Oleksandr Bychkov, we should look for them in the Mizyn settlement whose residents, according to historians, had neither a king, nor a state, nor a president above them? So it was classical self-government, just in a very ancient version…
“I share the view that we should not idealize Magdeburg Law. However, a civil society is only possible when there are citizens and, hence, communes. We can see examples of democratic development in Ukraine since the early modern times, when Ukrainian cities were awarded Magdeburg rights. Interestingly, Magdeburg Law began to function on a mass scale in Central Ukraine almost simultaneously (plus minus a hundred years) with the emergence of Ukrainian Cossacks. So, in essence, there are two historical democratic components that continuously existed and partially exist now: Cossacks as a self-governing organization, and burghers and cities that exercised Magdeburg Law rights.
“Magdeburg Law in Ukraine was of a limited nature. But we can affirm that in the second half of the 17th century, after Bohdan Khmelnytsky’s rule, Hetmanate cities exercised self-government in absolutely real terms. And it is no coincidence that this very time – the late 17th-the early 18th century – saw the development of cities in Left Bank Ukraine. Later, the restrictive measures of Peter I and the next Russian tsars drastically reduced self-government, which resulted in a gradual extinction of Magdeburg Law as well as of the Hetmanate’s institutions.
“A classical example of the positive effect of Magdeburg Law on cities is Nizhyn which grew, in a matter of a few decades, from a small town into the Hetmanate’s largest city – in terms of economic potential, trade turnover, and the magnitude of fairs and guilds.
“It is very interesting to compare these periods of self-government with the Soviet urbanization which began in the 1930s and continued on a mass scale in the 1950s-1980s. What laid the groundwork for urban development was self-government in the former case and centralized decisions ‘from the top’ in the latter.
“Our historians continue to stick to the opinion that Ukraine was developing as a country of villages, but the idea that Ukraine was a country of cities – at least in the last 50 years – has been acquiring more and more importance in the past two decades. We should seek the sources of the present-day political and economic life and socio-cultural development not only in the villages (although one must still regard them as a source of Ukrainian culture). The prospects of Ukrainian society are in the cities. If the cities regain self-government, Ukraine will become a civil society.”
Vasyl YAKOVENKO: “Our village, Stryzhavka, is over 800 years old. It is four kilometers away from Vinnytsia, the oblast center. Its location is very convenient because it stands next to the Vinnytsia – Kyiv highways. People keep coming to settle here, the village is developing. When I began to work as village mayor in 1998, our population was 8,400, and now it has gone up by 2,000. This growth is caused, above all, by the fact that well-to-do city people are moving to us. Incidentally, the same also happens in European countries.
“The work of the rural authorities depends, first of all, on the people. The authorities will only do well if they manage to come into direct contact with the populace, hear and understand the community. We still apply some principles of Magdeburg Law. Village mayors need to relay on the people because the latter ‘hire’ us to work. Incidentally, we practice such thing as mayoral reports on the streets that represent a certain constituency. As the village mayor and a constituency representative, I separately report on my work.
“More than six years ago we resolved to take garbage off the streets twice a month free of charge at the budget’s expense. We have approved the house construction rules, and nobody is allowed to build without permission. If anybody launches a construction project which the people oppose, residents of a whole street will immediately come to the village, district or even oblast council and thus exert pressure on the local authorities.”
Viktor OLSHEVSKY: “Our village, Snitkiv, is small – only 700 residents. Not all villages have exercised Magdeburg Law rights. My village used to be a small town and, hence, enjoyed Magdeburg Law. I owe more profound knowledge of this subject to Volodymyr Revutsky, author of the book Snitkiv: a History without Emphasis. He had sifted through the Zhytomyr and Vinnytsia state archives, and, as a result, we know very much about our history.
“If I were to draw a chart of Snitkiv’s growth and decline, the peak of growth would be observed at the time when Magdeburg Law was introduced by will of Augustus II. How did we benefit from this? First of all, this law made the town investment attractive, to use modern parlance. A seven-year tax exemption promoted the development of artisanship. Then it was allowed to hold fairs which were essentially free trade areas. Bread, sausages, all kinds of merchandise could be produced anywhere, but the point was to sell the goods cost-effectively. Snitkiv knew how to do this. Accordingly, craftsmanship and the public service sector, including taverns and inns, were actively developing. Indeed, we should not idealize Magdeburg Law, but it really laid the groundwork for self-government.
“Why was it necessary to grant Magdeburg Law to our small frontier town? Apparently, royal power was not sometimes strong enough to defend the borders. And it was sufficient to encourage people with freedoms and additional privileges so that this territory could develop and the people could have something to lose and protect. The residents would voluntarily donate a tithe for the construction and repairs of fortifications.
“If this is the case, why did Nicholas I abolish all this in 1831? Was it not to his benefit to have a self-governing organization that would guard the Russian Empire’s borders, without a penny being spent from the state treasury? I think there was a political subtext in his intentions. Urban self-government represents a danger to authoritarian monarchic power, for it can arouse free thinking in people.
“It would be wrong to hope for positive changes today unless the system itself is overhauled. Unfortunately, the governmental institutions failed to come up to popular expectations in the previous years, even though society was very active and this activity should have just been directed into a proper channel by way of delegating some powers from the center to the ‘lower echelons.’ But we are still unable to pursue our own policies and improve the life of ordinary people. We are being led. The coexistence of village councils and state administrations is diarchy, in which case self-government is a loser. If a district council chairperson has been elected by a direct vote, he or she is answerable to the voters and is always available for people to see him. By contrast, you cannot influence an appointee. But are we prepared to be ruled by elected bodies only? Morally, yes. But financially… I have some doubts.”
L.I.: “My grandmother once told me about how order was maintained in Volyn. A policeman would make the rounds of courtyards on the eve of a holiday. There was a special plaque at every wicket, on which he banged with a latch to call the house mistress out. He said, for example: ‘Ms. Hanna, I must say that you have not whitewashed the walls here and there.’ This was, of course, a great shame for my granny, but the main thing was not to intrude into the fenced area. A policeman in the courtyard would mean for the neighbors that the householders had some problems with the law. Even at that time I understood what private property, someone else’s territory, and your granddad’s field is – as well as what is the protection of your own area, where no authorities have the right to intrude.”
Kostiantyn MATVIIENKO: “Social psychologists use such a term as ‘private space,’ ‘privacy space.’ As for the Russian and, later, Soviet people, they had a much narrower space of this kind in comparison to their European counterparts.
Magdeburg Law, which had come to Ukraine from the West, spread the privacy space first to households and householders and then to cities and villages. Incidentally, the word ‘gorod’ (city) is ours and needs not to be given to the Russians.
The Russian Empire’s agrarian tradition did have at all such a notion as rural courtyard – they did not fence this area.
“Undoubtedly, any autocracy tends to destroy self-government, for the latter means economic freedoms and the freedom of thought and spirit. Self-government often asks the question: do we need an autocrat at all?
This is why self-government is subject to destruction. It is for this reason that 80 percent of the present-day Ukraine’s overall budget is distributed through the state budget and only 20 percent through the local budgets – from those of villages to those of oblast and the Crimean Autonomous Republic.
“We should remember that our country has inherited the current system of administrative and territorial division from the Soviet Union. This division does not meet the standards of a modern information society. As soon as some elections are coming up, we hear some people talk, as regularly as seasonal diseases occur, about federalization, etc.
“OK, suppose we agree that Ukraine should be a federal state. But how can we do this? There are three approaches. Number one: all the 24 oblasts and Kyiv are granted the current rights of the autonomous Crimea and called federal lands. But in this case the oblasts will have very different resources. Naturally, corruption will run riot even to a greater extent than now. This kind of federalization will be ineffective.
“Another way to federalize Ukraine is to replace the oblasts with seven to eight federal lands. But this will produce the same problems – you can’t possibly redraw oblast borders on the map just by force of intuition.
“If we are to federalize Ukraine judiciously, how can we do so? The first stage is to give the status of a subject to territorial communes, i.e., villages, settlements, and cities, and to draw their boundaries. The second stage is to make sure that individuals pay taxes at the place of their factual residence or at least at the so-called election address. The third stage is to study what socio-cultural ties will emerge between these self-sufficient territorial communes. We are aware that in this case it will be necessary to ‘close’ over 5,000 territorial communes, also known as ‘prospectless’ villages and settlements. Incidentally, more than 500 territorial communes have been struck off the register in the years of independence because their populations and, accordingly, village councils have just disappeared. The last stage is mutual recognition of powers: what powers we should delegate to the level of the land authorities, i.e., the land legislature and the land executive. Clearly, these are the powers that cannot be effectively exercised at the level of a self-sufficient territorial commune or at the national level. And what can be delegated to the level of a federal land? We did not intend to make such a survey, and we understood that an individual lives in two dimensions – in their own city or village and in the country. They do not live in an oblast or a federal land, for the residents of oblasts have no common interests in the community. Federal lands are essentially formed to establish the whole range of life support infrastructures that can be effectively managed from the viewpoint of a federal land. So we can conclude that we do not need the oblast level of government. It is sufficient to have two levels of government – central and local – to be able to live a normal life.”
Zenon MAKOTA: “The city of Bolekhiv gained Magdeburg Law in 1603 and has been an oblast-level city since 1993. Bolekhiv is 9 and 60 km away from the resort towns of Morshyn and Truskavets, respectively. A half of the terrain is mountainous. There used to be 40 enterprises here, including woodworking mills. There was a saltworks in Bolekhiv before 2000, which supplied salt even to Moscow, but, as the gas price went up in 2000, this works went belly up. It was about 500 years old and had been built by Count Potocki.
“Speaking of the centralized formation of a budget, one should remember that neither the Ministry of Finance nor the Verkhovna Rada can know what is going on in a village or a city. The ones who know this best are the local mayor, the council members, and the commune as a whole. This is why presidential candidates very generously promise to make city and village mayors free to form the budget and send the remainder ‘to the top.’ I am still pinning hopes on this and think it will be put into practice soon.
“Ukraine, especially its western part, greatly benefited from Magdeburg Law. It is perhaps for this reason that Western Ukraine is considered patriotic. As a rule, there was no Ukrainian government in this land – it was ruled by Austria, Poland, and Russia, but the people tried to remain patriotic. What has also been left of Magdeburg Law is love for running the household, for we are very laborious people. We also borrowed Western culture and religiousness.
“Bolekhiv has been one of the oblast’s best-gentrified cities in the past few years and was even twice on top of the all-Ukrainian list. Our city contributes 213 million hryvnias to the state budget and another 30 million to the Pension Fund – in other words, we usually manage to raise 243 million hryvnias. For some reason, we are considered a subsidy-dependent place, but in reality we get back only 63 million as a subvention. This amount is intended for a population of 22,000: this includes maintaining schools, kindergartens, etc., but it is not enough for economic purposes, for we spend 94 percent of the funds on wages, telecommunications and other services, spare parts, and fuel. Most of the cities have no more vacant areas or facilities to auction off. In the years of independence, 90 percent of all the property has been sold, bypassing the auctions.”
L.I.: “An acute problem is insufficient experience of communicating with the authorities that know how to rule free people. Once there comes a prime-moving group or leaders who know how to work with free people or at least how to set themselves a goal to emancipate people from state-imposed shackles and who are capable of ruling such people, things will be absolutely different. All the predecessors were afraid of free people either due to incompetence or due to unusualness of the task, inertness and misunderstanding.”
By Maria TOMAK, Ihor SIUNDIUKOV,Ihor SAMOKYSH, Inna PAVLIUK, The Day; Vadym LUBCHAK, Anna CHEREVKO
