Liberation of an occupied spirit

The quintessence of a nation’s historical experience is probably the best way to describe the 1,000-page study entitled Ukraina: politychna istoriia Ukrainy XX — pochatku XXI stolittia (Ukraine: Political History of the 20th and Early 21st Centuries), recently issued by the Parliamentary Publishing House of Ukraine.

A politician who does not know the history of his own country is as absurd (or a disaster for his nation) as an engineer who does not know the ABCs of physics and mechanics, or a physician who is unable to write a simple prescription correctly. Only once this rule (even law) — which is generally understandable to any political class in the West — becomes as axiomatic for those in power in Ukraine will it mean a real step toward Europe. This book — given the proper attention on the part of Ukraine’s political and intellectual community — may be of crucial help.

National historical experience (as the sum total of collective, individual, cultural, and political consciousness) is precisely the milieu in which each of us exists and acts; which keeps influencing our acts in a tough, concrete, and inexorable way. This was what the authors of the book, who took part in The Day’s roundtable, had in mind during their discussion of those 20th-century events that marked the most formidable and most important period in Ukrainian history.

Below we present the remarks of the three historians who took part in The Day’s roundtable: Stanislav KULCHYTSKY, deputy director of the Institute of History at the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine; Yurii SHAPOVAL, head of the Center for Political Studies and the Institute of Political and Ethnic Studies at the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine ; and Vladyslav HRYNEVYCH, a senior research associate at the Institute of History.

Larysa IVSHYNA: The topic of our discussion is Ukraine’s political history of the 20th and early 21st centuries; its lessons, reservations, conclusions. All of us are aware of one simple but very important thing: the citizens of modern Ukraine (if this country wants to be modern) need more than knowledge of their history: they have to possess active historical knowledge. Naturally, our contemporary life has formed a general demand for lessons from the national political history of the 20th century.

Therefore, the volume that is being launched at The Day’s editorial office, of which you are the authors, will serve as the starting point of our discussion. Our readers are familiar with you, and you all know each other well, so I suggest that we dispense with the formality of introductions and move on to the first question: what most important and fundamental conclusions can the Ukrainian reader reach after reading your single-volume study? Dr. Shapoval, will you kindly answer first?

THE UKRAINIAN ELITE WAS THE DETERMINING PROBLEM IN OUR NATIONAL HISTORY DURING THAT “BLOODY CENTURY”

Yurii SHAPOVAL: Before answering, I would like to make a brief comment on the background of our book. It was preceded by the fundamental six-volume Politychna istoriia Ukrainy XX stolittia (The Political History of Ukraine in the XX Century), which took four years to write and was completed in 2002. This was followed by the idea to produce a dynamic work that would “compress” this huge material into a 1,000-page volume. This project was the result of the creative collaboration between the National Academy of Sciences’ Institute of History and ours. We also involved researchers from other Ukrainian cities in this project. From the outset I was one of the active supporters of this project. I argued my points with the authors, read galley proofs, and shortened the manuscript (I can’t avoid saying so). And finally our “child” is here, the book has been published, and here it is in front of you.

If one speaks about the key thing (for me personally, of course), the ideological dominating idea of our work, it is the problem of the Ukrainian elite, Ukrainian cadres, Ukrainian political management, if you prefer (we analyze this in our book, starting with the period of “Young Ukraine” in the late 19th century). In other words, the discourse can be formulated this way: Who were those people who personified and/or governed Ukraine in the 20th century? What can we say about their political, intellectual, administrative, and purely human qualities? What can we say about the consequences, results, and effectiveness of their activities? In many respects, these problems determined the vector of our historical development in the 20th century, the course our historical events took. Let’s face it: these problems remain topical today and perhaps have become even more acute.

There were many discussions, promises, arguments, and even hatred and confrontations. Then what? Why does this happen? Why does the current generation of politicians not want to learn the lessons of the past? Why do our politicians, as soon as they see the light at the end of the tunnel, start digging another tunnel?

I must admit that I have a secret plan, a dream (it may well be totally unreal, utopian). I would very much like for this book to be read carefully by politicians, at least by some of them (those who are in power and in the opposition). Maybe copies of this book will lie permanently on some people’s desks. Is this realistic, is it possible? Life will tell.

Stanislav KULCHYTSKY: As all of us present here today remember, we recently celebrated Ukraine’s Unity Day. Every year on Jan. 22, through the prism of burning current events, we are coming to an increasingly better understanding of what happened in 1919. That year the Ukrainians living in Halychyna, the Dnipro region, and eastern Ukraine proclaimed their desire en masse and with conviction to live in one single state home. I believe that this dramatic history of Ukrainian unity, incredibly complicated and rich in so many tragic collisions, the desire of the entire Ukrainian nation to unite from the westernmost to the easternmost lands, is one of the main ideas of our book.

Today there are no longer any doubts: Ukraine, which acquired the status of an independent state in 1991, will remain thus forever. This allows us — it obliges us — to sum up and view the history of a century that ended only a few years ago in retrospect. Our book is dedicated to the 20th century, the most tragic period in Ukraine’s thousand-year history; a period marked by two world wars, the Kremlin’s war of terrorism against its citizens, the period of the Holodomor, and the destruction of our national spirituality and culture. But the fact remains that in this same century — after so many tragic failures — Ukraine finally obtained statehood.

When Vynnychenko was studying the tragic collisions in the Ukrainian lands during the 17th century, he wrote that its history cannot be studied without taking a dose of bromide. This quotation is well known. Frankly, I would not rush to agree with Vynnychenko, although his statement is truly forceful. I wouldn’t, first of all, because a dose of bromide is “necessary” while familiarizing oneself with both the history of Ukraine and of many other countries (in this sense, we are not alone). The main point is that there is an obvious regularity (I hope that it is clearly apparent in our book), namely, that the more foreign rulers seek to oppress the spirit of the people (to put it coarsely: to beat Ukrainians on the head), the stronger the nation’s historical memory becomes; its consciousness becomes more resilient, and is filled with a sense of national dignity.

Of course, not everything is as simple as meets the eye. Some of our contemporary ideologues, historians, and especially politicians, including the late Yevhen Kushnariov whose baton was passed to a certain extent to Dmytro Tabachnyk, are consciously or subconsciously trying to eliminate the national foundations of our state. As a result, Ukraine will inevitably stop being a Ukrainian state. Yet the process of rapprochement among Ukrainians from all regions is irreversible and objective; in our book we closely follow all the components of this process. Everything in our history was dramatic: there were speculations on the desire of western and eastern Ukrainians to live in a single country (at times this devolved into mutual accusations after the Red Army’s “liberation campaign” in 1939). Naturally, there are differing approaches to issues concerning language, religion, and culture in various regions, but there is something far more important, something that keeps bringing all Ukrainians closer together. The most important thing is that citizens of Ukraine who speak Ukrainian or Russian understand each other — of course, not in the narrow sense of the word but in its broadest. Despite all attempts to change it, the vector of our development remains Europe-oriented, and this is quite evident from our book. This can be traced back to Khvylovy’s slogans “Away from Moscow!” and “Long live psychological Europe!” in the 1920s.

What is paradoxical about this?

Kulchytsky: You see, Khvylovy, being a communist, did not want to fill his slogans with the political content of which he was later accused (after all, he considered himself an artist, a writer above all). As a communist, he wanted to defend the national foundations of Ukrainian life, but “suddenly” he was not understood in the way he had in mind.

Incidentally, when the former president of Ukraine, Leonid Kuchma, titled his well-known book Ukraine Is Not Russia, he also meant something other than what they read into this title in Russia.

Kulchytsky: I agree that this book by Kuchma produced quite an impact on Russia, primarily by its title. Here is the latest paradox: Verka Serdiuchka’s famous song during the last Eurovision contest, whose title the Russians understood as “Russia, goodbye!” They got really offended.

These are complexes.

WAS THE INDIVIDUAL IN SOVIET TOTALITARIAN SOCIETY EQUALLY TOTALITARIAN?

Let’s return to the subject of the lessons that readers should draw from your book. Dr. Hrynevych, would you please take the floor?

Vladyslav HRYNEVYCH: I will start with a brief general remark. Every serious book (this one is no exception) has several aspects that are perceived by people who are interested in it. I would point out three: First, the political topicality of this work; second, public interest in the publication; and third, the content of scholarly problems encompassed by this book.

If one considers all this consistently in regard to our book, the question is, “Which topics are most popular and most topical in modern Ukrainian society?” I think the answer to this question is: the set of problems related to the history of the Second World War (within this set it is necessary to single out the separate topic of the history and activities of the OUN and the UPA), also of course, the subject of the Holodomor of 1932-33. These topics are the most popular, judging by the number of titles of scholarly and semi-popular works on our book market, the index of quotes, and so on. In other words, here political topicality and public interest coincide to a considerable extent, which is, of course, explained by the fact that these topics, acute, tragic, and sensitive for the public, were kept secret for so long. The Holodomor is a case study. This subject was an absolute taboo even for professional historians, so that some of its aspects were not completely understood. Stanislav Kulchytsky, who is present at this roundtable, was a pioneer in this sphere. To summarize, the following conclusion seems possible: it was during the Soviet period in the political history of Ukraine during the 20th century that the “energy lines” of scholarly and public interest converge with regard to one problem or another.

As for the question that interested me the most when I was working on the chapters of this book for which I was responsible, I would formulate it as follows: How “totalitarian” was public consciousness during the totalitarian period? Numerous archival sources confirm that the situation was not as unequivocal as claimed by certain research schools, including in the West (among them those that coined the word sovok, a term denoting a Soviet-era person). They confirm with the aid of numerous examples of how people clearly rejected duplicitous Stalinist propaganda, for example, when the government explained why it was necessary to sign a non-aggression pact with Hitler in August 1939. There are many such examples. In the event that this scholarly problem is successfully resolved, I am convinced that we will receive very tangible “dividends,” the most important of which will be the development of a model of Ukrainian national identity.

Let us consider why Stalin (and his ideologues) worked so hard to develop a theory of so-called Ukrainian Soviet patriotism? Naturally, it was not because Stalin allegedly “loved” Ukraine, but because the Russians and Ukrainians had a different kind of identity and patriotism. So it was decided to ruthlessly destroy the natural Ukrainian patriotism that was rooted in national principles and created over centuries, and replace it with “Sovietism.”

The history of the Second World War remains a special topic. It is the litmus test for, and the intersection of, various types of national identity and historical memory. Characteristically, both professional historians and ordinary people in Russia refer to it only as the “Great Patriotic War,” whereas there is a negative attitude to this appellation in Ukraine (for some Ukrainians the war began on Sept. 1, 1939, precisely when the Second World War broke out).

Perhaps we regard the history of this war from a broader angle?

Vladyslav HRYNEVYCH: Here one should talk about the negative attitude to the “myth” of the war. I would like to add that, for example, there are people in my family who went through the whole war, from Serpukhov to Vienna. This, however, does not influence my attitude to the systematically developed mythology that concerns the past war.

NATIONAL CONSOLIDATION AS A WAY TO COUNTERACT DANGEROUS MYTHS

Let’s talk about myths and ideology. Putin and his milieu recently ordered a “statist” and ideologically correct textbook on the history of Russia. Do you think there is an approach in Ukraine that would help us mature — not to such “state construction,” of course — but to a conscious formation of national memory?

Stanislav KULCHYTSKY: To answer this question, let us remind ourselves who commissioned the founding of the Ukrainian Institute of National Memory headed by Academician Ihor Yukhnovsky. How was the financing of this institute undertaken, and how was its staff selected? Let us turn our attention to the problems relating to book publishing in Ukraine and the print runs of books on Ukrainian history.

As for what is happening in Russia, I absolutely agree that there is a trend toward restoring the “values” of the Soviet past. This is dangerous for us, especially considering that, among other things, there is an essential difference between Russian communists and ours. Whereas in Russia Ziuganov and his people were long ago been largely removed from the process of making important national decisions and are kept at a distance from politics, in Ukraine the party headed by Comrade Symonenko is in an altogether different situation. Since the formation of the so-called anticrisis coalition — whose existence was impossible without the communists’ votes — their activities have dramatically increased, and the representatives of this political force have received a number of important posts (in particular — and this is important for the subject we’re discussing — they head the State Archives of Ukraine). As for the Party of Regions, there are unfortunately more than enough people in this party with a Soviet past in their heads, although economically this party is a far cry from the CPU. So what do we have in the end? On the one hand, Russia’s undisguised pressure and on the other, “parallel” pressure within our own country, which has the same objective. This is why we must make every effort to expand the circle of social forces capable of consolidating the Ukrainian people (and not in the narrow economic sense of the word).

Yurii SHAPOVAL: Without a doubt, a whole system of myths about the war, and not just about the war, is being renewed (or created anew) in Russia, and this is alarming. The new textbook that was commissioned by the Russian government contains a revised approach to the entire Leninist-Stalinist period in Soviet history. Whereas for us Ukrainians Stalin has always been a tyrant, a criminal, a totally immoral individual, and the “modernization” done by him can never be recognized as optimal (I am putting this very mildly) considering the oceans of blood that accompanied it, in Russia we see an altogether different approach: yes, there were victims, of course, but look at the result! This myth is being spread at a very rapid pace. This is very dangerous and we must say so frankly.

I wholeheartedly “welcome” the reproaches being addressed to President Viktor Yushchenko by the Kremlin and Kremlin-minded circles: that the president of Ukraine is allegedly paying a disproportionate amount of attention to the subject of the Holodomor of 1932-33, that he is deliberately “inflating” this problem. Indeed, Yushchenko the politician was the first to properly draw international and Ukrainian attention to this tragedy — let me stress that he did so on the national level, and I believe that he deserves every credit for this.

Of course, I can also see the “shadowy” side of the growing public interest in the “hot spots” of Ukrainian history. Today almost everyone who can read believes he can teach us, particularly Prof. Kulchytsky and me, how to write history.

Perhaps such articles in the media are meant not to teach but to create a totally different backdrop for such important topics.

Yurii SHAPOVAL: That is entirely possible. We are also witness to the process of banalizing historical knowledge, which is accompanied by neophyte emotions. “There is nothing that difficult about history,” they say. I am reminded of a brilliant statement by a French historian, if I remember correctly: “There is no history, there are only historians.” Seriously speaking, laying aside all paradoxes, historians should have a sense of responsibility. They should rid themselves of their “inner censor” and foster freedom and self- respect.

To be frank, the impression is that despite the signals being sent by President Yushchenko, which you just mentioned, a lot less has been done to cleanse our national historical memory than is needed. I am talking about the quality and level of our history textbooks, their print runs, the need to recertify educators, and most importantly, the formation of clear-cut, well thought-out principles of the humanities policy, a stable policy without our notorious “one-use” practice. At times one wonders: just like the UPA fought without a state, so Ukrainian historians worked (are working?) without a state. Do you get a sense of this?

Vladyslav HRYNEVYCH: Quite frankly, we started feeling that have a state only recently. You don’t have to look far for examples. For years scholars’ salaries were deplorable, and people were working out of sheer enthusiasm. Another eloquent fact: the previous “anticrisis” government practically froze the activities of the Institute of National Memory,

Yurii SHAPOVAL: It actually scaled back the status of this important institution.

Vladyslav HRYNEVYCH: I must admit that I admire the idea of budgetary financing for bodies, such as this institute. There are institutions like this in Poland and Lithuania, and they are financed by certain structures of the civil society. However, we cannot ignore the fact that our civil society is still too weak, so we have to adopt a different approach.

But does this society exist?

Stanislav KULCHYTSKY: There are elements of it.

Vladyslav HRYNEVYCH: I will say another thing: in our one-volume work I prove to the cynics that public opinion existed in Ukraine even in Stalinist times, in the late 1930s. Up to 80 percent of citizens (and I am prepared to defend these figures) refused to believe Stalinist propaganda. A mere six to seven percent honestly believed in it.

Coming back to the Institute of National Memory, this is something we need very much, considering our realities (level of education, quality of instruction, and the “quality” of pseudohistorical literature that has literally flooded our book market).

Stanislav KULCHYTSKY: Print runs are not as important as setting an appropriate high standard and intellectual level for books dealing with historical issues, and we should discuss this. I can assure you that the book we are launching has a certain standard and it is maintained in all the chapters, in all the thematic sections.

Larysa IVSHYNA: Except the political experience of independent Ukraine, the chapter dealing with modern history, where you can spot substantial warps just by leafing through it.

THE MAIN CONSIDERATION FOR HISTORIANS MUST BE FREEDOM

What can the state do to improve the situation? Do you feel that your ideas and works are in demand? Our newspaper believes that your work should be showing the new government and democratic coalition what Ukrainian values and priorities are all about. We can see certain changes, and this is also noteworthy; there is a statement — although a very belated one — by three political leaders about Ukraine joining the Membership Action Plan. Of course, this does not mean that from now on this topic must be discussed from morning until night. But we need an idea about these values.

Yurii SHAPOVAL: Personally, I do not idealize our president. But as you can see, the “last islands” of freedom may be disappearing from our neighbor’s country, so you feel joy that we no longer have a monoideology (and no one is demanding it). And you rejoice in this.

As for cleansing our historical consciousness and forming a proper culture of memory, I am convinced that education in schools is the key factor.

Even preschool education.

Yurii SHAPOVAL: Maybe. And when you see the way the — God forgive me — Bologna Process (which some people call the Obolon Process) [pun on the Obolon district of Kyiv: Ed.] is being introduced...

Historians don’t need anything from the state except a salary. Freedom must be the main thing for historians. Remember Jerzy Giedroyc, who worked indefatigably while living in Maisons-Laffitte near Paris, generating ideas that would later change the relations between Poland and Ukraine, along with the entire situation in Eastern Europe. The man didn’t need any self-promotion.

The question, once again, is how to make quality historical knowledge accessible to society in a quicker and easier way; with the aid of what institutions?

Vladyslav HRYNEVYCH: The public is watching the Cadets TV series with admiration. Here’s another, even more striking, example. There is a TV series about a SMERSH agent, who is portrayed as an absolutely positive hero. I can’t give you an exhaustive answer to your question; various ways and options are possible, like creating Westerns, TV series about Cossacks or the UPA.

THIS WAS PRIMARILY THE OCCUPATION OF THE SPIRIT

Let’s all agree that the point in question is a struggle for our past. We cannot expect understanding from those who are being specially paid not to understand it. Giving up the national information space is the first destructive step toward the final loss of sovereignty. Yes, we’ll still have our frontiers, flags, and other external attributes of statehood, but all this will be transformed into external trappings.

One thing is very important: values must be inculcated. This is an exclusively elite kind of work, and all intelligent people must take part in it.

Vladyslav HRYNEVYCH: Talking about how Ukraine and its values are perceived in the West, we should remember that old Soviet research centers there often employed former Soviet nationals with “specific views.” Ukraine was not even mentioned there. Today, fortunately, we can say that the situation is qualitatively changing.

Recently I read an interesting heading on a Web site. It was in Russian: “They want to call our happy childhood Soviet occupation!” How does this strike you?

Vladyslav HRYNEVYCH: Everything is ambiguous here. Consider this: you become a slave and spend such a long time in this condition that you gradually forget how and when it began. Let me cite some statistics. When the Red Army entered Kyiv for the third time in 1920, its national composition was as follows: 80 percent Russians, 8 percent Ukrainians, and the rest were from other ethnic groups. Trotsky was right when he declared: “The Red Army looks like an army of occupation in Ukraine. Something must be done about this situation immediately!”

Anyway, we aren’t talking about an armed occupation. We should be discussing the occupation of the spirit. Being Ukrainian in Ukraine was not only a status with no prestige, it was also dangerous.

Stanislav KULCHYTSKY: Ukraine’s misfortune is that decisions of vital importance to its destiny and future were being made outside its borders. The Holodomor is a graphic example. It was by using such heinous terrorist methods that Stalin strengthened his rule and position within the party-army-secret police triangle in 1933.

We are becoming aware of this (and our book is actually about this growing awareness), aware of the intolerability of this situation. Ukraine is consciously and methodically ridding itself of Sovietism. Although it is slow, this process is underway. Generally speaking, our book shows how deep the hole in which we found ourselves is and which was dug from outside Ukraine.

Yurii SHAPOVAL: With your permission I would like to state in conclusion that we are grateful to the management and personnel of the Parliamentary Publishing House of Ukraine for their dedicated and professional work on the manuscript. Special thanks are due to the editors of The Day, who offered us an opportunity to launch our project in front of such a large audience. Many thanks!