Ukraine: Exposing the Myth, Rejecting Nationalism, Embracing Patriotism and Founding "The New Ukraine"

After more than a year of a new regime in power in Kiev, and after a period of refusing to acknowledge the fact that power changed hands in February 2014 illegally or  after evading the questions about the nature of the current regime's initial illegitimacy, we find today that the media, especially in the West,  has finally accepted that there was a coup in Ukraine that deposed former Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych.  The Germans like to say that 'there are always two sides to a story or point of view'---Dialectic. And since the powers that be now agree that there was a coup, we cannot dismiss the feelings or position of those who voted for the person who was deposed. The people of Rovno, Chernihiv and Sumy would have reacted exactly like the people of Crimea and the Donbas if their native sons (Kravchuk, Kuchma and Yuschenko respectively) had been deposed as heads of state by their opponents.  Taking from Dostoyevsky’s quote that  "If God does not exist, everything is permitted",  I may add that “ If there is no respect of the rule of law and legitimacy, then anything can be expected.” The rebellions in the Donbas and the anarchism of  Ukraine's extreme right that spearheaded the coup testify to that.

I consider myself a free thinker and as someone who has been following  the developments in the lands of the ex-USSR since the 1980s. Why? Perhaps because I found the landmass and people curiously intriguing; Perhaps because I liked Russian literature---Pasternak, Dostoyevsky, Pushkin, Turgenev, Bulgakov, Chekhov, Gogol, Tolstoy etc.--- perhaps because I like the 'narodnie pyesni' etc; and/or perhaps because I studied there, Belarus mostly, and wrote about the place. The two Soviet leaders I really admired were Lenin and Gorbachev, especially for the genuineness of their souls. Lenin made mistakes, especially in his reaction when under duress, but he admitted to them, and so is Gorbachev.  Lenin  is the one who first made it possible for standard Ukrainian, then a localized mushrooming language, to be taught in the entire territory of what is Ukraine today;  he expanded Ukraine, adding most of what at the time was the Russian speaking, but mostly ethnically Ukrainian  Southeast (Novorossiya in Czraist times) to Ukraine; he reeled against Great Russian chauvinism; let Finland, the Baltics and Poland go and was horrified by Stalin's heavy-handedness in crushing the opposition in Stalin's native Georgia.  So, basically, Lenin's intention was good, so is Gorbachev's, a Cossack(half Zaporozhian and half Don) whose Siberian wife traces her ancestral home in Chernihiv. Gorbachev deplores the direction the guys in Kiev are taking Ukraine, just like me.

In Cameroon, the people say that "If you allow yourself to become a banana, monkeys will eat you up in no time." That is what the heads of state, past and present, allowed Ukraine to become, and that is why a potentially great country in the heart of Europe is the mess it is today.  Ukraine is the most mentally messed up country in Europe and they cannot be entirely blamed for it. History is responsible.  In Gogol's 'Taras Bulba', the Zaporozhian Cossacks (the forebears of Southern and eastern Ukrainians) fighting the Poles who at the time lorded the lands of much of present day Ukraine, could not wrap their minds around the nature of their people (Ukrainian or Rus elites) they found in Kiev and the center who were acting Polish, or those of the West who had abandoned the Orthodox faith and picked up Catholicism (Uniate), like the Poles. I spoke with a Polish guy here in the USA (He hates Russia and blames it for all of Poland's troubled history), who portrays Poland as a victim. 

     “Russia took Eastern Poland and gave it to Ukraine and Belarus  during the Second World War." He said. (He meant what is today Western Ukraine).

      “Those were Rus lands, I replied."

     " Lviv, Ivano- Frankist, Dubno etc. were built by Poland, and Poles were the majority there,” he added.

     “The occupying Poles lived in the cities, while the natives lived in the countryside. That has been the case throughout history in every occupation. Occupiers live in the city and the natives in the countryside. Besides, Poland is the one that first invaded Russia in 1605.” I told him.
       He was quite.
      "And Poland took the Rus lands; what are today Belarus and Ukraine (Ruthenia), and then went on to  lord it over these territories for  centuries. “ I added.

      “If we didn't take Ukraine, the Tartars or Russia would have.” He retorted.

     “If Russia had, it would have treated it as a part of Rus (the former Kievan Rus) recovered, as a brother reunited; and some of the people in Ukraine and Belarus today would not be thinking today that they are not a part of the Rus family,”  I told him.

       Later that day, he came back to me and said in a contemplative manner, "I think Poland made a mistake back then. We should have made Ukraine an equal member of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. We should have allowed them into the Szlachta. We shouldn't have imposed on them."

     He meant the imposition of the Polish language, culture, religion etc on what is today Ukraine and Belarus, which the Ukraine elite under Polish occupation picked up and which transformed the dialects spoken in what is Ukraine today.  It was a mistake all right. But it is too late. Today, Ukrainians are having a hard time determining for sure who they are. They got messed up by history and strangely enough, many of them are looking for salvation from the outsiders who messed them up in the past.”

As a free soul and free thinker, I wouldn't be comfortable in today's Ukraine. I also wouldn't be comfortable in Putin's Russia and never got along well with the authorities in Lukashenko's Belarus. But I grudgingly accept the fact that Putin and Lukashenko are fully for the interest of those countries.
      Are the guys in Kiev fully for Ukraine's interest?
      No. 
     Ukraine's interest involves reconciliation within. The thief Yanukovych understood that more than the lying and bloody Poroshenko and co. The other thieves (Yuschenko, Kuchma and Kravchuk) also understood that in varying degrees. And this thing of politicians from the Center of Ukraine tapping on the rabid nationalism of  Western Ukraine in order to get to power is Ukraine's biggest curse, because it ties their hands from engaging in a genuine manner with their brethren in the South and East of Ukraine.  And truth be told, the most tolerant and least xenophobic Ukrainians are those from Eastern and Southern Ukraine, the people who are being repressed in Ukraine today because they still view Russia  and Russians as their brothers and because they speak Russian (even though the majority here are ethnic  Ukrainians).

The division in Ukraine today is mirrored between two brothers from Chernikiv, one of whom is married to a Russian and lives in Russia, sees no reason why the government in Kiev and its supporters  consider Russia  and Russians as enemies, while the other lives abroad in Western Europe and wants Ukraine to have nothing to do with Russia. The pan-Slavic  brother  is  from the ancient Severian tribe that Ukrainians in Chernihiv come from as well as Russians right across the border, meaning that they share the same DNA. In a way, he at least understands, like many ethnic Russians do, that Ukrainians and Russians are the same people of Rus, that they are brothers, despite their divided history. 

A wrongly held view is that because of  Russification, many Ukrainians cannot say that their first language is standard Ukrainian.  The  first written work that is considered standard Ukrainian was the Eneida of 1798, written by Kotliarevsky.  Yes, it was mostly from the Middle Dnieprian dialect spoken in Poltava, Kiev and Cherkassy, with sprinklings from the Slobodan dialect and steppe dialect spoken by the Zaporozhian Cossacks.  Taras Shevchenko polished this new language, but even so, it was still localized and used mostly by the intelligentsia (which in the days of Polish rule spoke mostly Polish) that was also literate in Russian. Back then, more than 80% of the population was illiterate and spoke their dialects of Ukrainian(broadly the northern, southeastern and southwestern dialects). Schooling in the 1800s across the Russian Empire meant learning in Russian, a state language which was widespread especially in the urban areas, or in Ukrainian, a new language intended for use for the peoples once under Polish control. The Bolsheviks even promoted Ukrainization from 1921-1932, a period of rapid schooling (where literacy rate crossed 80%), but the majority of those who became literate during this period picked up standard Russian over standard Ukrainian as a matter of choice. True the Ukrainian language was discouraged from 1933-1957.But it is obvious  the vast majority of East and South Ukraine never used standard Ukrainian in their history(delineation), but spoke their local dialects that has evolved into Surzhik today. As a matter of fact, the local dialects of Eastern and Southern Ukraine are closer to standard Ukrainian more than the local dialects of the Northern and Western Ukraine, even though the people of Eastern and Southern are historically Russian speakers, most of whom in their history never used standard Ukrainian in their day to day lives  or  at school. 

The point is, to move forward, Ukraine needs to embrace its dual identity. French legendary leader Charles De Gaulle once wrote that “Patriotism is when love of your own people comes first; nationalism, when hate for people other than your own comes first." 


The hope should be that the truce brings about a somber realization to all the parties involved in the conflict  that Ukraine needs more patriotism and less nationalism.  In a patriotic Ukraine, embracing all Ukrainians  and their identities, and taking into account all the aspirations, interests and concerns of all the regions of the country is the right thing to do.The New Ukraine cannot be founded based on the narrow views of one side or the suppression of the Eastern and Southern portions of the country.

By Janvier T. Chando, author of “ Ukraine: The Tug-of-war between Russia and the West https://amazon.com/dp/B0B2T4XWWD/ref=cm_sw_r_tw_dp_YWGHMQF2P1RE0PPJXH0…

FALLEN HEROES: African Leaders Whose Assassinations Disarrayed the Continent and Benefitted Foreign Interests

by Janvier T. Chando and Janvier Tchouteu