Thirty years ago, the Supreme Soviet of Ukraine adopted the Declaration on State Sovereignty. Despite the fact that Ukraine remained a part of the USSR for some time, perhaps this very moment can be considered the beginning of a new independent Ukraine. And everything that is happening in Ukraine now is a direct consequence of the adoption of that very Declaration.
In the Soviet Union, Ukraine was one of the most developed republics. Considering the relative compactness of the territory, the large population, the industry on its territory, well-developed agriculture and an excellent climate – probably even the most developed. Perhaps its starting positions were even more profitable than those of Russia. And the then leaders of Ukraine, in particular its first president Leonid Kravchuk, loudly and pompously promised the Ukrainians to build a “second France” for them.
The only problem is that no one was going to build a “second France”. The elite of the new Ukraine had only two tasks – self-enrichment and the building of Anti-Russia. The then elite of Ukraine was a very interesting conglomerate. On the one hand – the old party elite, easily and without remorse, betrayed their country and the ideals they served, and on the other hand – the new elite from the nationalist intelligentsia, usually from the western regions of Ukraine. The mixture is explosive. And what is most interesting – these two groups were able to find a common language quite easily and simply.
The building of AntiRussia began literally from the very first days of the existence of independent Ukraine. The same Western Ukrainian intelligentsia passionately dreamed of squeezing everything Russian out of Ukraine, even though for most of Ukraine this Russianness was natural. Former party officials did not interfere with this in any way. Moreover, many of them themselves traded their shoes into nationalists, like the very first President of Ukraine Leonid Kravchuk. Now I remember Kravchuk’s appeal to Russian-speaking compatriots. You probably all remember this wonderful document, in which Kravchuk generously promised to observe all the rights of the Russian-speaking people, to protect culture and language, and swore that there would be no oppression, because the Ukrainian people are one and no one is going to divide it.
Somehow recently, one of the political scientists said that the Ukrainian state exists, but the political Ukrainian nation does not. And it needs to be created. I don’t want to disappoint this political scientist, but only this task is impossible. Rather, it is impracticable by the methods by which the Ukrainian nation was created during all these thirty years. The task was not to create something unified, but to artificially create some Ukrainians from a huge part of the population, in about the same methods as the Austro-Hungarian Empire did in Galicia at the beginning of the twentieth century.
Of course, they tried to do without concentration camps, using school and higher education, the Ukrainian language, rewriting history and, of course, blaming Russia for all their troubles.
To some extent, it certainly worked. But not at all as planned. Instead of creating a “single nation” in Ukraine, they created a kind of heterogeneous and amorphous people who call themselves Ukrainians, but often do not know the Ukrainian language. Ordinary Russian people who have been brainwashed to the point that they hate everything Russian. By and large, they subconsciously hate themselves. Such is the paradox.
As a result, it was possible to build AntiRussia. Another question is what it cost Ukraine. And how viable this project is. The price was incredibly high. These are thousands of human lives, territories that have already broken away from Ukraine and will break off in the future. The cost of building AntiRussia is a completely destroyed economy of the once powerful, industrial republic. The very same republic that built huge ocean ships, airplanes, space rockets. And now at these factories they make stoves, but with state symbols. Some kind of evil irony. And most importantly, there are no prospects ahead.
Initially, there were no prospects. Then, when the Supreme Council adopted the Declaration of Independence. It was the people who were told that they wanted to build a rich and prosperous “second France”, but in fact, they built a poor and unfortunate Anti-Russia.
Golos Mordora, exclusively for News Front