FACES AND PLACES: Been there, done that! (05/16/99)

FACES AND PLACES

by Myron B. Kuropas

Been there, done that!

As President Leonid Kuchma entertains the siren call of "Slavic unity" as preached by Belarusian President Alyaksandr Lukashenka, we need to remember that Ukraine has been there, done that.

Cooperation with Russia was first attempted by Hetman Bohdan Khmelnytsky in the 17th century and the result was a national calamity. Ukrainians believed the 1648 Treaty of Pereiaslav was a mutual defense pact. Moscow interpreted it as an invitation to rule. The end came slowly but, inexorably. In 1686 the metropolitanate of Kyiv was incorporated into the Partriarchate of Moscow with the formal approval of the ecumenical patriarch of Constantinople, effectively ending Ukrainian Orthodox autonomy.

Russian absorption followed. Moscow abolished the Ukrainian Hetmanate in 1764; the Zaporozhian Sich was destroyed in 1775; Ukraine was formally incorporated into the Russian empire in 1783; in 1863 the Ukrainian language was officially designated a Russian dialect spoken by "little Russians."

Ukraine's second experiment with "Slavic unity" occurred at the end of the first world war. Having failed to entice the Kyiv-based Ukrainian National Republic into the Bolshevik camp, Lenin pushed for the establishment of a Soviet Ukrainian republic centered in Kharkiv. With the defeat of the nationalist forces, the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic signed a treaty with the Russian Soviet Federated Socialist Republic. This time, Muscovite control was evident from the beginning, despite protests by such national communists as Mykola Skrypnyk, who declared "a single, unified Russia is not our slogan. We can never adopt such a slogan."

Tragically for Ukraine, a unified Russia was Moscow's slogan and when, in 1922, the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics was established, it was obvious that Russia planned to pursue that goal. Despite a vigorous Ukrainianization campaign during the mid-1920s, Ukrainian influence was quickly eroded. The 1924 Soviet Constitution stipulated that all republic decisions could be suspended by the Soviet Central Committee in Moscow and that the Soviet Supreme Court had the right to review all republic legislation. The obliteration of Ukrainian national consciousness was complete by the XIVth CP(b)U Congress in 1938 when Ukrainian Communist Party Secretary Nikita Khrushchev condemned an emphasis on Ukrainian culture and language as a pernicious manifestation of "bourgeois Ukrainian nationalism" intended to undermine the heroic role of the Great Russian people in the building of a socialist society. So much for Ukrainian-Russian "unity."

Slavic unity in general, is not a new phenomenon, first appearing as a formal doctrine, "pan-Slavism," in the 19th century. "The idea of a union of all Slavs into a mighty coalition began in the 18th century at a time when almost all Slavic peoples were minorities in the Russian, Austrian, Turkish and Prussian empires," writes Louis L. Snyder. At the time, German romantic philosopher Johann Gottfried von Herder glorified the Slavs as a modest, peaceful people, obedient, uncorrupted by modern society, with no pretensions toward national expansion. Slavs were urged by philosopher Herder to rediscover their past, renew their language and to stand firm against the increasingly decadent West.

The fathers of pan-Slavism were two Lutheran Slovak idealists, Jan Kollar and Pavel Safarik who contributed to the ideological development of "Samobytnost," a principle which held that all Slavs shared the same heritage. Out of this idea emerged the concept of a Slavic federation promoted by Frantisek Palacky, a Czech. Encouraged by the spirit of liberty and fraternalism that prevailed in Austria in 1848, Palacky helped organize a Slav congress in Prague that same year in hopes of initiating a movement that would transform Austria into a federation of equal nationalities.

Slavs attended sessions in their native costumes, greeted each other with the word "Slava," and unfurled a new Slavic tricolor flag, blue, white and red. Jan Kollar called for the publication of an international Slavic periodical, the formation of a Slav academy, a Slav library, and both central and national committees for political and cultural affairs. The congress, however, reached no consensus, ending abruptly two days earlier than planned when a revolutionary radical group led by Mikhail Bakunin, a Russian, staged an uprising in the city.

At the time, pan-Slavism struck a responsive chord among Ukrainian intellectuals. The Society of Ss. Cyril and Methodius called for a federation of equal Slavic nations. Taras Shevchenko, a member of the society, dedicated his poem "The Heretic" to Pavel Safarik, writing: "Glory to you, Safarik, ever and forever! That you called into one ocean all the Slavic rivers."

Hopes for an Austrian federation of nationalities came to an end in 1867 when Austria reached a compromise with the Hungarians and the Austro-Hungarian empire was created. That same year the Russians hosted a second Pan-Slavic Congress in Moscow. From the beginning, Moscow dominated the proceedings, insisting that Slavic unity could only be achieved when all Slavs adopted the Orthodox faith, the Cyrillic alphabet and the Russian language. Until such an amalgamation was accomplished, the Russians "graciously" consented to serving as "big Slavic brothers" to all the other "little Slavs."

The main apostle of pan-Slavism at this juncture was Nikolai Danilevsky, who grafted great Russian Slavophilism, onto pan-Slavism, advocating the "liberation" of the Slavic people by Russia. Western Europe, he argued, had degenerated into religious anarchy as a result of Catholic political despotism; Protestantism advocated the "foolish idea that religious truth was based on personal authority." The true faith of the Slavic people was Orthodoxy, he maintained, preserved in its pristine form by the Russians, inhabitants of the third and final Rome. Holy Russia, ruled by Orthodoxy, the holy tsar, and the people (narod) would lead the world to the paradise of true Christianity.

Later, the ideological foundation upon which Russian messianic nationalism is constructed - Orthodoxy, autocracy and narod - was refined and adopted by the Russian Bolsheviks. Marxism-Leninism became the new Orthodoxy; commissars replaced the tsars; the proletariat became the new narod.

No nation has tried harder to cooperate with Russia than Ukraine, and no nation has paid a greater price. Slavic unity with Russia means Slavic suicide. History is a teacher and, in the words of philosopher George Santanaya: those who cannot remember the past are doomed to repeat it.

Myron Kuropas' e-mail address is: mbkuropas@compuserve.com

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