Original article in Ukrainian by Yevhen Filindash, for UP
Translated by Anna Platonenko
“An inferiority complex of a grievous past” has become the national idea of the country.
When there are economic problems, the government takes pleasure in meditating on morality and national unity.
But if the quantity of mine blasts in some regions exceeds the quantity of salaries and in the other people spend more time in Portugal than at home, one can hardly develop a national idea.
It seems that Ukrainian government is doing quite well handling this task. Though, this national idea lies in the past, not in the present. I just cannot understand why this idea is made up of defeats alone?
I have long been thinking of writing this article, but what actually prompted me to finally get down to it were two events of a national and local scale.
The first one was the 75 anniversary of the Ukrainian Holodomor (1932-1933), commemorated for almost two weeks at a high official level, and the second – an article “Who Is Going To Answer For Baturin?”, which appeared on the Ukrayinska Pravda website.
They both have a common tendency that has been predominating in the official ideology of the Ukrainian government, major part of intellectual elite and mass media since 1991, and which gained even more strength during the Presidency of Viktor Yushchenko.
This tendency boils down to building a national idea around defeats, depicting the Ukrainian history as a series of constant tragic misfortunes and the Ukrainian people as victims of numerous bloodthirsty enemies.
Judge for yourself.
In January the President and his circles commemorate the victims of a lost battle of Kruty, which took place on January 29. And a week earlier, January 22, they celebrate the Reunion Day – the anniversary of “fusion” of the Ukrainian People's Republic and the West Ukrainian People's Republic, which also ended in failure.
April 26 is the anniversary of the Chernobyl disaster.
July 10 we mourn the loss of Cossacks in another lost battle of Berestechko.
October 14 is the formation day of OUN-UPA, which in the long run was utterly defeated on the birth day of its head, new hero of Ukraine Roman Shukhevych.
November 24, as well as a week before and a few days after this date, the major part of mass media is filled with the events held in commemoration of Holodomor victims, and Viktor Yushchenko’s comments on this subject.
Finally, late October – early November 2008 the President and the Ukrainian government are about to mark a 300th anniversary of a lost military defense, in which Mazepa’s defending garrison and all the population of Baturin were killed.
It is beyond all reasonable doubt that all these are of utmost importance to Ukraine and one should in no way forget about them.
But let us not make the appraisal of the events, their historical importance and consequences. For the Ukrainian people agree on most of the mentioned issues. And on some of them they, however, completely disagree.
We are talking about quite different things now. Is it really true that the national idea of Ukraine will be a “defeatism complex”?
One should undoubtedly pay tribute to the memory of the dead. But if people are systematically accustomed to such mournful events and dates, which carry a label of defeat, and bring up the younger generations under such conditions, the result can only be one and the same.
The appearance of a strong inferiority complex of a loser nation, which has always been suffering and losing, is quite evident. And the worst of it is that this complex is getting a firm grip on the Ukrainian youth, which is getting used to such an interpretation of its country’s history.
The Soviet history is indeed not the best example of objectivism, but it brought up millions of people, creating myths of victories…
Somebody will say: “We are bringing up the generation that knows the tragic events of its country”. Yes, one should certainly do. But what will this generation know about Ukraine’s victories?
Even if people orient themselves to success and achieve it, they, being a part of the “nation that is always suffering”, will still feel the effect of such an inferiority complex, either consciously or subconsciously.
Moreover, such ideology does not at all favor the development of patriotism and national consciousness.
Quite the contrary. The desire to study, work and live abroad, not in Ukraine, and utter unwillingness to sacrifice one’s life and health for the defense of Motherland – these are some of the key results of such an ideology formation. Sociological studies, especially those held among the young people, discover such results.
The most surprising thing in the actions of the Ukrainian political and intellectual elite is a very unique ability to even turn the events, which could in fact be a subject of national pride, into a losing position.
For instance, they choose and commemorate the lost battle of Berestechko (with church choir services and running commentaries throughout the most popular TV channels) instead of many Ukrainian victories: the battle of Korsun, Zhovti Vody, Pyliavtsi etc that took place in the times of the victorious war of national liberation under the leadership of Bohdan Khmelnytsky.
And instead of the unification of Western Ukraine or at least of the major part of its territories and population, with the rest of Ukraine into one single country, which in reality took place in September-October 1939, they commemorate the anniversary of an attempt to “fuse” the Ukrainian People's Republic and the West Ukrainian People's Republic in 1919, which did not actually take place and ended in failure.
Indeed, it was the plan devised by the USSR and Germany. Indeed, there was a division of Poland. But it is us who owns the territories!
And even more, Viktor Yushchenko and his supporters are trying to give the 9th of May – perhaps the day of the biggest Victory in the human history, one of the key participants of which was the Ukrainian nation – a flavor of failure, equating the Soviet soldiers with Roman Shukhevych and other figures of the OUN-UPA, which lost in the long run.
When we are talking about the events that can undoubtedly be considered as “black pages” in the Ukrainian history, the “losers” are somehow trying to show off in public, foaming at the mouth over the quantity of victims of, say, 1932-1933 Famine. Indeed, the President and his circles are constantly talking about 7-10 millions of victims.
In the meanwhile, according to the estimates of many Western scientists and leading Holodomor experts at the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine, 3-4 million people died in 1932-1933 in Ukraine.
Of course, such figures are not less shocking, but why do they actually double or even triple the real results? Why do they always pick up the highest numbers when estimating the quantities of victims?
It turns out that the tradition to distort facts, which dates back to the Soviet times, is still widely popular among the anti-Soviet leaders. But the striking difference is that back in that time they distorted and overrated the facts about the tons of cast iron and coal: the achievements, in other words. And now it is all the same, but with tons of corpses: the failures, in other words.
The only rational explanation of such a “defeatist” state politics in the ideological sphere may stem from two reasons. Firstly, by constantly commemorating many tragic events of the Ukrainian history on such a large scale, the ruling elite seeks to distract the attention of the whole society from various problems of current importance that this elite is not able to solve.
That means, ranging from the infrastructures like public utilities, which have not been repaired or renovated for decades and are just about to collapse, and to the decrease in population which amounts to 6 million people in the last 15 years…
Secondly, taking all the horrors of the past into account, the present government is looking much better than it would actually be, if the historical achievements laid the foundation of its ideology. Yet, they do not understand that by doing so they demonstrate their own incompetence and inferiority, the vivid example of which might be the comparison of state politics of the other countries in this sphere.
In France, the leading EU country, which has recently been compared with Ukraine in mass media by territory, population and form of government, there are three main public holidays, apart from the religious ones.
They are the Bastille Day (July 14), the Victory Day (May 8) and the Armistice Day, when the armistice treaty between the Allies and Germany was signed in Compiègne Forest on November 11, 1918, and which used to be earlier called a Victory Day of the First World War.
In the USA, so dearly worshipped by our President, the main federal holiday, again apart from the religious ones, is July 4, that commemorates the adoption of the Declaration of Independence of the USA on July 4, 1776, declaring independence from the Kingdom of Great Britain.
Finally, the most important and most influential among all the neighboring countries – Russia. Apart from the New Year, International Women’s Day and some religious holidays, they also celebrate February 23, officially proclaimed as a “Red Army Day or Day of Soviet Army and Navy” and Victory Day (May 9).
In 2005 Russia first celebrated a holiday, a National Unity Day or Day of People’s Unity (November 4), which is somewhat artificial and therefore not really popular among the Russians, but which praises the country’s achievements in the past. It commemorates the popular uprising which expelled the Polish-Lithuanian occupation force from Moscow in November 1612.
As we see, the above-mentioned and the majority of the other world countries choose the victorious historical events, the example of which moulds the nationwide pride and optimism.
As a contra argument we may cite Israel as example with its memory for Holocaust, but it is not a telling example because of at least two reasons.
Firstly, the Jews, as a nation, have been deprived of both a country and a homeland, where they could reside, for more than a thousand years. And all this time, in contrast to Ukrainians, they have had no physical possibility to achieve any collective, nationwide victories.
Secondly, having created such state as Israel, the Jews remember and commemorate not only Holocaust, but also, for example, the anniversaries of their victorious wars with Arabs.
In conclusion, psychology states that crimes (from murder and rape to fraud and swindle) are in most cases provoked by victims themselves, who subconsciously behave like a potential victim from the very beginning.
So, maybe we should not wait until the Ukrainian ‘elite’ finally turns us all into a nation with pitiful history, which is always complaining about everything and everybody? The nation that only takes pride in the fact that Ukraine “has not perished”… Why don’t we keep in mind that we are not only the nation of great sorrows and martyrs, but also a country of great victors and winners?
However, we should not go too far fabricating victories and achievements, for Ukraine has the real ones and they are quite enough…
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Yevhen Filindash, Director of the Livy Pohlyad Center of Social Analytics, a people’s deputy of IV-V convocations
