Still, there is something crucial, life-changing, for us Russians in our approach towards the Ukrainians and Ukraine. Russia is also important for the Ukrainians, but only as a point of repulsion which helps to define their distinctive identity. For the Russians, Ukraine, on the contrary, permanently attracts its attention— to subdue it and to tailor it to our own “style and similarity” as something absolutely "native"; nothing is more annoying than the obvious differences with the Ukrainians in language, mentality, culture, and historical experience. The only differences the Russians do recognize are the differences, say, between Vladimirshchina and Riazan;shchina (the Vladimir and Riazan’ region) but not in the context of relations between the two nations.
There is an idea that Russia without Ukraine, in terms of its imperial ambitions, is imperfect. Brzezinski, and not only he, said something like that. This is true, but not so much due to Ukraine’s economic and geopolitical importance for Moscow. Much more importantly, the traditional Russian treatment of Ukraine supports a Russian imperial consciousness thanks to which the Russian Empire, albeit in a truncated form, still exists. I emphasize that it is crucial for the Russian imperial consciousness as far as Ukraine is concerned—not the Baltic states, not the Caucasus. Once the Russians discover that the Ukrainians are really other people, the Russian imperial myth will collapse, and with it the inevitable end of the empire will arrive. I must say that the Russians are always ready to admit that the Ukrainians are a nation, but—please—a "brotherly nation." Behind this lies the sly but firm belief that we, the Russians and the Ukrainians, are one nation, destined to live in one state with its capital in Moscow. Speaking of "the brotherly Ukrainian people," the majority of Russians perceive the Ukrainian language and Ukrainian community in general as an annoying historical misunderstanding, a historical dislocation caused by the pernicious influence of Lithuania and Poland. Meanwhile why the Russians do not ask the question: can it be that this dislocation is they themselves? It’s we, the Russians, who happened to be historically dislocated. Tatarism disrupted our own unity, but even in the thirteenth century, there had been two opposing historical vectors defining the further formation of the Ukrainian and the Russian peoples. The first vector was the fight against the Horde in alliance with Europe, the second one was the struggle with Europe in alliance with the Horde. They were personified respectively in the personalities of Danilo Halitsky and Alexander Nevskij. The first vector is natural and logical in its cultural history, while the second is the deepest perversion with far-reaching cultural, governmental, historical, psychological, and moral consequences. While the King Danilo Halitsky is an iconic figure for Ukraine, Alexander Nevsky, the adopted son of the Khan is just a symbolic figure of Russia, just its "name". This is the basis for current Russian-Ukrainian relations. There is no need to talk about "two brotherly peoples."
Civilizational hostility had been already predetermined by these two historical figures.They may be described as the embodiers of their nations. As much as Danilo Halitsky is unlike Alexander Nevsky the Ukrainians differ from the Russians in their attitude to law, liberty, and property. While Ukrainian self-identity is historically drawn towards Europe, the traditional Russian consciousness perceives Europe with greater or lesser degrees of hostility, distrust, and envy, the flip side of which is Messianic pomposity and an accusatory pathos aimed at the “tainted West”. Europe for the Russians is "Paradise lost," from where they were snatched by the Tatar Lasso. It is a conflict between an original European nature and an imposed aziatizm of history; nationhood defined the Russian psychetype, all its complexes and phobias. All Russian neurosis—from alcoholism to Bolshevism—stem from this. The Russians lost Europe, and want not just to forget it—they decided to hate it, gently loving their historical misfortune, that aziatizm imposed on them by their fate. And this psychological and mental perversion is called Russian patriotism. Ukraine, thanks to Lithuania and—yes, even—the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, retained a connection to Europe, had been preserved as the RUS ' in the true sense of the term. And we have regenerated the Moscowia, having lost our original civilizational identity. This is the subject of our Russian, more precisely Moskowia, jealousy, which determines our attitude toward Ukraine.
Yet at Pereyaslavska Rada (1654), with the infamous "reunification" treaty, I must say very reluctantly accepted by the Cossacks, two different people of different cultures spoke different languages . Few people know that in Pereyaslavl that the Cossacks, agreeing to swear loyalty to the Muscovite Czar, insisted that he, in turn, would guarantee the liberties of the Cossacks—that is, the Cossacks stated themselves to be bearers of Western legal culture. Of course, this caused outrage in Moscow, and there they stated that "we do not have the custom to give an oath to the Czar’s subjects, yet your liberties will be respected by the Czar." The Cossacks had no particular faith in Moscow because four squadrons never swore an oath to the Czar in Pereyaslavl...
It is well known how Russia "observed" the Cossack liberties—she tried all means to eliminate Ukraine as a "historical mistake." Soon after Pereyaslavska Rada it began the so-called “Moskovization” of Ukraine by establishing governors, eliminating municipal self-governments, oppressing Cossacks, promoting snitching, etc. The Malorossia Prikaz or Office was established in 1662. It was directly subordinate to the Czar. Malorossia Prikaz, or Office of the Little Russia (tas they called Ukraine) was a central government agency, directly subordinate to the Czar, created in 1662 in Moscow to control the territories of the Ukraine side of the Dnieper (Glukhov, Kiev, Nizhin, Nemiroff, Novgorod-Seversky, Perejaslav, Pohar, Pochel, Romney, Starodub, Chernihiv, Chigirin). Via this Bureau the Czar appointed the bidders who vied for the Hetman of Ukraine position, appointed the Governors of the Ukrainian cities, built multiple fortresses in Ukraine, and directed the actions of Moscow and the Cossack troops. In addition, the agency oversaw the activity of the Hetman, the leader of Cossacks and controlled all Ukrainian contacts with Moscow. The Kremlin now ignored the Pereyaslavska Rada agreements. Then there was a open genocide in Baturin (1708), the response of Peter the Great to Mazepa’s attempt to defend the remnants of Ukraine’s sovereignty. Then followed two attacks on the Zaporizhian Sich, one by Peter the Great (1709) and the second by Catherine (1775). Then followed the transformation of Ukraine into a set of provinces, the imperial policy of Russification and finally Stalin's manmade famine, Holodomor as a means of suppressing the Ukrainian national resistance. More recently, at the time of Viktor Yushchenko’s presidency, we saw the way Moscow struggled with Ukrainian "historical misunderstanding" by turning Gazprom's valves.
Of course, the Cossacks in the seventeenth century shouldn’t have entered into such an devastating confrontation with the Poles, who in terms of civilization were much closer to the Cossacks the Muscovites despite their shared Orthodoxy. In turn, the arrogant Poles should have realized that Moscow would be the major winner in their conflict with the Cossacks: the federal and legal reforms of Rzeczpospolita (Poland) originally consisted of only two entities, Poland and Lithuania, but should have recognized Ukraine as the third. When it finally did, at the conclusion of Gadyachiv Unia (Union) (1658), it was too late as the Cossacks' hatred of the "Lyachs" (pejorative for the Poles) was too great, and the project failed. Had happened earlier, Ukraine would have had a good chance to exist today as a full-fledged European state. And our, Russian, fate would have been different, because without Ukraine Russia would unlikely become a monstrous empire that had eventually given birth to Bolshevism. Muscovy would inevitably joined the more civilized and powerful neighbor. And we, the Russians would have lived in Europe now, without having behind the Gulag and other infamous historical experience. And the very history of Europe would have been different...
Thus, we have "two fraternal peoples." But, as we see, ultimately the cultural and historical genesis of the Russians and the Ukrainians are quite different, even opposite. We, the Russians, obviously, are brothers with the Ukrainians, but brothers subjected to some unpleasant mutation. We are dangerous, as if carrying some destructive infection, and because of that anyone who lives on the western border—the Ukrainians, the Balts, and now the Belarusians—instinctively withdraw away from us. Instead, China pushes closer to us.
Along with the idea of "two fraternal peoples," there is the rather shameless jingoistic concept of the "triune Russian people", allegedly consisting of Great Russians, Ukrainians and Belarusians. At the first close examination, this myth crumbles. Do they mean the closeness of the languages? I am sure that most of the adepts of the idea "the triune Russian people" cannot understand much of spoken phrases in Ukrainian—the language differences between Russian and Ukrainian are obvious and significant. The two languages are certainly related, but, say, the Serbian language is also very close to the Russian one, but to no one considers the Serbs and the Russians as one people. By the way, the language the Serbs and the Croats speak is generally the same, but these people, despite their general Slavic roots, are not “fraternal” and from the point of view of civilization have different development vectors. They were divided by religion. What about the Serbs and the Montenegrins? They have one language, one faith. The differences between them a hundred times smaller than that between the Russians and the Ukrainians. Nevertheless, despite the great aspiration of Serbia to consider Montenegro as simply its extension—no more!—the Montenegrins consider themselves to be a separate nation with its own history and culture. I am not going to go here into details, but probably very few people know that from 1920-26 the Montenegrins waged a national liberation guerrilla war against the Serbian army, which occupied Montenegro under the pretext of “fraternal assistance”. And if such "twins" as Serbia and Montenegro in the end settled on separate bedrooms, then what about Russia and Ukraine?
In conclusion, we must mention one more issue. That is the hot Russian-Ukrainian dispute that goes on the historiosophical, economic, political arena. This is a debate about Ukraine itself, its sovereignty and its ability to exist as an independent state. It also goes on the field of culture. Here, perhaps, the main strategic "high-rise", for which the Russians are fighting, is Gogol’s name and legacy. The Russian argumentation of the jingo is as follows—Gogol wrote in Russian, called himself Russian. It means no special Ukrainian identity does exists, we can only talk about some "regional" “Malorussian” originality—an ethnographic shade. Obviously this is a common trick intended to justify imperial policy towards Ukraine and the very existence of the empire. It is the time to tell the truth. Typologically Gogol (I'm not talking about his origin) is a purely Ukrainian writer, who had also Polish roots, writing in Russian due to historical and political circumstances. The fate of Ukraine in the empire had predetermined Gogol's destiny. How else could a talent, born in a colonial province, make a literary career? Certainly, he had to go to the imperial center, that is St. Petersburg, and write in Russian, and meeting the requirements as far as ideology is concerned. It is not by accident that Nikolai Vasilyevich (Gogol) brought together these opposing principles—the ice of the imperial St. Petersburg and fire of the Cossack Sich envoys. Under the “Christmas Eve” Pastoral Gogol hid his sorrow for the dead Cossack liberties of Ukraine...
Say Gogol's 'Taras Bulba' is the jingo’s trump card that manifests an explicit political opportunism. As you know, the story had two different endings, and the pathetic words about "Russian Czar" in Taras’s monologue when he was dying appeared only in the second edition. In fact, Gogol created a vivid, poetic "splint," making a significant contribution to the imperial mythology "of Ukrainian and Russian unity." But that didn’t soothe Gogol: in Russia, he suffered, he languished. In his 'Evenings on a Farm near Dikanka' he depicts a flight to an unreal Ukraine. In fact, it is a lament for Ukraine, hidden away in laughter, in the style of a fairy tale. Let’s recollect how Vakula, the blacksmith, got an appointment with Catherine II in the delegation of the Cossacks, who, sensing their looming end, arrived in St. Petersburg with hope to appease "the Empress Mother."
Russia stifled Gogol. He rushed away from Russia, but where to he was to go? To Ukraine, turned into the Little Russia (Malorossia)? There, he was doomed to a miserable provincial stagnation. Then Gogol found Italy as a new, ideal substitute for Ukraine. In Italy, he was resurrected spiritually, and from there he wrote candid letters in which "Russia, St. Petersburg, snow, scoundrels" appeared in a single line. In Italy, he "woke up at home." And how did it end? Russia in the face of Matthew the pop-obscurantist strangled Gogol. That's his whole story in brief.
Gogol was unable or was afraid to identify himself as a Ukrainian, and this ruined him. Living as a Polish-Ukrainian (characterized as such in his frank discussions with the Poles in Italy) he diligently, but in vain, tried to suppress it by superimposing a Russian identity. Gogol did not like Russia, its cold, commoners, officials, strange, hopeless history, though he was afraid to admit it to himself. That's why "Dead Souls" was written, and from that viewpoint this phantasmagoric fresco becomes clear. Having created it, Gogol frightened himself, his repented, and, moralizing, became a preacher and thus killed the artist within. Gogol is a sacrifice to the Russia that devoured him. The Ukrainian writer, caught in his Russian destiny, like a bird in a snare...
Well, let’s summarize. For us Russians it's time to realize that Ukraine’s independence is absolutely natural. It’s historical justice, which we must not just recognize—e need to understand it and accept it. The mere understanding that Ukraine is really another country, a foreign country, is the key to our self-knowledge, self-criticism and self-liberation, the basis of a new birth of a Russian mentality without any imperial and anti-Western stereotypes. If this happens, all of our vision of history and the world will change. Ukraine faces us Russians as a mirror. We must honestly and fearlessly look into it. And, as our Russian saying goes, "do not blame the mirror if your mug..."
Alexey Shiropaev
Îðèãèíàë çäåñü:http://shiropaev.livejournal.com/306475.html
Translated by Irene Goncharova
Edited by Brian Yang Hoffman