1. What do you see as the most memorable events of 2015? How would you summarize geopolitical developments of the year and Ukraine’s place in this international picture?
2. What special personal experiences did you have in 2015?
3. Who do you see as the hero and the antihero of the year?
4. Our publication celebrates its 20th anniversary in 2016. Tell us more about your relationship with Den/The Day, please.
“ UKRAINIANS HAVE TO HELP THEMSELVES BY REFORMING THEIR COUNTRY… ”
Roland FREUDENSTEIN, Deputy Director, Wilfried Martens Centre for European Studies:
1 “Terrorism and refugees. And the first time I had a strange feeling in my stomach when using the metro (during the Brussels lockdown).
“I’m not a great believer in geopolitics if it means that countries’ fate is decided by their location. Because that would mean that Russia’s neighbors could not really choose the political system and alliance they want. So, I trust more in the power of values. And here Ukraine reconfirmed its choice of 2014: that it wants to be a normal modern European country. It’s our sacred obligation to help Ukraine. But most of all, Ukrainians have to help themselves by reforming their country, and that means curbing the power of the oligarchs.
“Russia was successful in redirecting attention from Ukraine to Syria but its economy is still going to hell. I hope the West won’t let Russia get away with the frozen conflict in Donbas. We are in a very long confrontation with Russia, and democracies are notoriously weak at long conflicts. But we have to get our act together on this.”
2 “Seeing my kids grow up at lightning speed (daughter, 13 and son, 15). Taking them to America for the holidays and seeing them fascinated by the spirit of freedom.”
3 “Hero: Angela Merkel, for a humanitarian gesture in the refugee crisis – but she should have coordinated better with EU partners, and sought compromise with her critics in other EU countries. Antihero: Viktor Orban, for instrumentalizing the refugee crisis, and undermining liberal democracy!”
“AS FOR UKRAINE, I LOOK AT IT WITH OPTIMISM…”
Lilia SHEVTSOVA, Senior Fellow at the Brookings Institution:
1 “My impression of the world in 2015 is probably one of a joyless, gray landscape. It is not clear whether it was dusk or dawn. Global institutions are completely paralyzed. The liberal civilization, which has always been the motor of development, has entered into a series of crises, which it has been unable to cope with so far. As the Russian autocracy is fighting for its life, it is steamrolling the country’s society and continuing to intimidate the world. This is hardly a cheerful background for our everyday lives.
“As for Ukraine, I look at it with optimism. The nation has survived and kept true to the direction it is fighting for. This is your chief achievement.”
2 “It is probably due to being too deeply involved in the monitoring of the life surrounding me that I cannot recall any turning point or some major development in my personal life. I can only mention the fresh understanding that the crisis is not always a bad thing, and it is an inevitable stage on the way to change...”
3 “I have already overcome my penchant for maximalist estimates. I would name Chancellor Angela Merkel as the person of the year, seeing that she has now become the most courageous politician. Anti-heroes, on the other hand, are too many to list...”
4 “For me, Den is primarily a personal experience. First of all, it is my friendship with editor-in-chief Larysa Ivshyna and warm relationship with the entire team. For me, Den is also a terrific project that includes not only the newspaper, but also books, some of which are now on my desk: Return to Tsarhorod, Catastrophe and Triumph... I wish Den’s team a great drive to last for the next 20 years!”
“AS A RESULT OF THE 2014-15 WAR, UKRAINE HAS FOUND ITSELF IN THE CENTER OF WORLD HISTORY AND ITS GEOPOLITICAL WEIGHT HAS INCREASED IMMEASURABLY”
Yurii SHCHERBAK, political writer, diplomat:
1 “2015 will go down in history as Putin’s failure to destroy Ukraine and establish a new pseudo-entity called Novorossia. Together with Novorossia, the so-called ‘Russian World’ has turned into a bloody mirage. The attempt to divide Ukrainians on an ethnic basis and force Russian-speaking citizens to embrace the Riazan-Buryat ‘culture’ of violence, enslavement, and total alcoholism has suffered a crushing defeat.
“As a result of the 2014-15 war, Ukraine has found itself in the center of world history and its geopolitical weight has increased immeasurably. A worldwide pro-Ukrainian coalition of democratic states has been formed. Putin’s Russia has suffered an ignominious historical defeat in its attempt to revive the Evil Empire. Russia has turned into a sponsor of terrorism and an authoritarian regime doomed to a collapse. That this will occur is only a matter of time.
“Ukraine’s new geopolitical quality and its pivotal role in the balance of forces are to be reconsidered by our political elite which, unfortunately, still remains provincial and, in some cases, Moscow-centered.”
2 “For me, 2015 was a year of hard work on a new novel about the 2014-15 events. I have just finished and am proofreading this novel.”
3 “I consider Nadia Savchenko hero of the year. I am looking forward to her returning to Ukraine. I am sure she will change, to a large extent, the hypocritical political landscape of Ukraine and play a major part in the history of this country.
“The anti-hero is Putin, a sinister troll who has ruined the international security system, destroyed the remnants of Russian freedoms, and unleashed a war against Ukraine, thus becoming an international criminal who will be condemned if not by an international court then by history. He who has followed in the footsteps of Hitler and Stalin in the early 21st century looks as ugly as one who would begin to repeat the misdeeds of Nero or Ivan the Terrible in our era.
“What awaits Putin is the fate of Ceausescu, Milosevic, and Qaddafi. He is aware and afraid of this.”
4 “The past 10-12 years of my literary and political writing have been closely linked with the newspaper Den. The latter has been printing my analytical articles, opinions, forecasts, and comments on international and domestic events. Some publications, such as the articles ‘The Power of Darkness’ and ‘A Beast from the Abyss,’ were very special for me and, I hope, for readers.
“I am proud to be involved in selecting winners of the Den prize named after James Mace, a great American Ukrainian whom I had the honor to know personally and take part, together with him, in an international conference on the 1932-1933 Holodomor-Genocide of the Ukrainian People held in Italy.
“The newspaper Den is an illustrious political and cultural event in today’s Ukraine. It is a patriotic voice of Ukrainians; it is the best pieces of national political journalism written by such authors as Larysa Ivshyna, Ihor Losiev, Ihor Siundiukov, Serhii Hrabovsky, Stanislav Kulchytsky, Valentyn Torba, Ivan Kapsamun, Mykola Siruk, and many others.
“I am convinced that, in the future, historians will be searching Den files for answers to the burning questions of Ukrainian life. I am sure they will find a lot of answers here.”
“THE UKRAINIAN NATION EXISTS, IS STABILIZING, AND HAS FOUND A NEW IDENTITY AND NEW HEROES”
Gerhard GNAUCK, correspondent, Die Welt, Warsaw:
1 “This was an uneasy year, and I can remember photos of individuals and families walking from Greece to central Europe after crossing the sea. This reminds me, for example, of the millions of German and other refugees in the 20th century, and, at the same time, it is a sign of the future, an augury of what may still happen. It is a strength test for the European Union.
“As for Ukraine (I am sorry to quote a rival publication), what stays in my memory is a big article, ‘Our Small Victories. The 10 Real Successes Ukraine Has Achieved since the Maidan’ in focus.ua. These victories are real. Six months ago, we in the West could only read the most negative and pessimistic things about the Ukrainian state. But now we can see that it is really a state, it is a nation that exists, is stabilizing, and has hound a new identity and new heroes. Conversely, Putin’s crisis has only begun. The aggressor has been punished to some extent and has got into a spiral of extremely serious problems of his own. But the Donbas problem is still to be solved, and it is difficult to say what will occur in Crimea.”
2 “My children are growing and begin to understand what Europe and the world is. They ask: ‘Daddy, are they still shooting in Ukraine?’ I’d been to Kyiv in September and seen the Maidan, so I said to them on the phone: ‘No, they aren’t.’ God grant they stop shooting altogether in the next year.”
3 “A hero? The two women who have done great deeds and whom I wish still more successes. It is Svetlana Alexievich, a ‘daughter of Ukraine, Belarus, and Russian culture,’ as she herself says, and Maria Haidar, an assistant to the Odesa oblast governor. A group of Germans and I met her in September. This kind of women are the mainstay of the world, including the Russian world – in a good, not Putin’s, sense.
“An anti-hero? There were two election campaigns in Poland in 2015. Many of the participating political forces trampled in the mud what others had built in the past 25 years. The result? Victory in the elections and a dangerous rocking of the boat.”
4 “A very strong memory of the 2004 Orange Revolution. The second day of the revolution, a Tuesday, big uncertainty, there are so far only men and cheerful students on the Maidan. Yulia Tymoshenko’s great speech on the Maidan, then the beginning of the siege of the Presidential Administration. On the same evening, by courtesy of the editor-in-chief Larysa Ivshyna, I could meet the ex-premier and defense minister Yevhen Marchuk. We spoke for four hours until 1 a.m. I asked who would win. Mr. Marchuk explained to me: ‘It is the people who will win, or, to be more exact, the people plus those parts of the establishment who are fed up with the current regime.’ It was astonishing to hear this on the second night of the face-off. Naturally, my newspaper, Die Welt, printed this interview.”
“UKRAINE AND ITS PEOPLE HAVE STOOD THE TEST, BUT THERE ARE ORDEALS AHEAD”
Oleh SHAMSHUR, Ukraine’s Ambassador to France:
1 “Unfortunately, the most striking memories are the most traumatic. It is information, photos, and videos from the Donbas zone of the war against the Russian aggressor and the November 13 Paris terrorist acts. As for the second part of the question, I will say briefly: Ukraine and its people have stood the test, but there are ordeals ahead. The international situation around Ukraine is now more complicated and, frankly speaking, of little benefit for the interests of our state. Geopolitically, the world is in a state of mutation, when the traditional regulating mechanisms of international relations have been in fact destroyed and the new ones are not yet in sight, and what is in sight does not look very good. Tellingly, even the very mention of democratic values as a factor of foreign policy is often interpreted as manifestation of dilettantism.”
2 “The beginning of my full-fledged work as Ukraine’s Ambassador to France; intensive bilateral contacts between our countries, including four visits of the president of Ukraine; and ratification of the EU Association Agreement by the French parliament.”
3 “The true heroes are our military and volunteers in the battle area, while terrorists of all hues are anti-heroes.”
4 “I can remember satisfaction over the publication of your newspaper’s first issues – Ukraine saw the birth of a serious analytical newspaper.”
