Triumph, poverty, and roundabouts of national identity

The European Union’s constituent documents provide that the new member states are accepted only after the nation that represents the majority of population of a certain country has fully identified itself. We often ask ourselves why the EU delays the moment of complete legal integration of Ukraine into the Union. There are many reasons for that, but the incompleteness of the national identification process is obviously the main one. Unfortunately, the process of national formation in the country is impeded by external influences, civil strife, and antinational tendencies. But Ukrainians are very optimistic. In his interview to Channel 5 His Beautitude Liubomyr (Huzar) said: “Politicians are separated, and that is why they want to split the nation. But a great divine scourge will be sent upon them.”

It is obvious that the divine scourge is not far off. But another judge, the nation’s total enlightenment is just round the corner.

ALONG RIGHTEOUS AND DECEITFUL PATHS

Our way to achieving the national identity was long, complicated, thorny, and far from triumphant. The huge territory of Ukraine resembled a wounded geographic body for many centuries. But we managed to preserve our strength, since people from Bukovyna and Podillia, Tavria and Volhynia, Slobozhanshchyna and Halychyna called this territory their Homeland! After the collapse of the Soviet Union, we did not enter the world empty-handed, but we came with clearly defined geographic boundaries and a good Soviet law of 1989 that allowed to use, protect, and develop Ukrainian language. I remember a brief meeting with the then head of the Verkhovna Rada of the Ukrainian SSR Valentyna Shevchenko in Kyiv during celebration of anniversary of the Taras Shevchenko University. She said then, proudly, but bitterly at the same time: “This law is obviously the most important thing I have done in my life. It is sad though that its ideas and provisions are not used in independent Ukraine.” Indeed, will speaker Volodymyr Lytvyn brag about the way he served his native language in ten years?

We have to agree that during the time of our country’s independence we have faced a lot of original examples of national identity. First of all, oligarchs managed to “identify themselves nationally”: they enjoy eating from Russian, European, and, of course, Ukrainian hands. And they do not feel like abandoning either source of delicacies, though sooner or later they will be deprived of, hopefully, all of them. Freaks of all kinds have found identification too. They are collaborators and saboteurs, and we can clearly see their task and the efforts they make in order to create discord and uncertainty among Ukrainian people, to slow down or even stop the process of forming and spreading of the nation’s image. The so-called political elite identified itself too by keeping close connections with oligarch clans while ruling the country.

It is sad to write such things, when it has been 21 years since Ukraine gained independence. Twenty one wasted years, time enough for a generation to grow up, and we can barely see any progress. It hurts the most when I think about Ukrainian language, which is not only a means of communication, but a tool for creation of national cultural heritage. In my opinion, it is very hard, even impossible to break us, Ukrainians, as a nation. Every evil-doer needs to fix this in his mind, because our history serves as the evidence of it. Even after the president, in attempt to please his political clan, our destructive neighbor, and two primitive corrupt ignorami, gives green light to an anti-constitutional law, and then initiates creation of some commission that would study language problems in Ukraine after his uncovered violence towards our language, even after all this we still believe that the end of impudence and outrage on our political Olympus is near.

HOW UKRAINIANS CONQUERED THE WEST

In the late 19th century, large numbers of Ukrainians went to Canada, the US, and later, to Brazil and Argentina. They took only the most valuable things along, the ones you cannot pack in a suitcase. In the extreme conditions of being in a strange land, our countrymen turned out to be among the strongest and most undefeatable ones. Since the beginning of their stay there, they started taking care of the preservation of their native language, religion, of their adjustment in the new and seemingly harsh conditions of emigration. Along with traditional Ukrainian houses, people erected Prosvita buildings, churches, and schools. The first Ukrainian periodical Svoboda appeared in 1893; it is still published in the US and is the oldest Ukrainian newspaper in the world.

State structures, political parties (from the far right to the far left), organizations for students and sportsmen, art and professional unions, veteran associations, Ukrainian Free Academy of Science, Taras Shevchenko Scientific Society, and famous artistic groups were functioning in exile. A broad and well-structured network of printed periodicals, including science magazines, was formed, which in modern days was transferred to digital version. This whole pyramid was supported almost solely by emigrants, who created various foundations, mutual aid funds, and closely watched how people’s money was used. Activity of the institutions mentioned above was directed at polishing Ukrainian national identity. The youth was brought up in the best traditions of Ukrainian patriotism at home; Saturday schools, Plast, and the Union of Ukrainian Youth served the same purpose. Political emigrants, especially OUN members, consciously refused to become citizens of developed countries and lived without citizenship. They believed that sooner or later the USSR will fall, they would have a triumphant return to their homeland, and never leave again.

But the many years of emigrants’ experience turned out to be of no use to anyone.

Young Ukrainian state was too occupied with privatization and denationalization to pay any attention to the only reputable higher school of Ukrainian emigrants, the Ukrainian Free University (UFU) in Munich, which was founded back in 1921 in Vienna by a handful of professors who could not stay in Soviet Ukraine, and realized their profound scientific and pedagogic potential at the UFU. Later the university moved to Prague, where it was favored by Czechoslovak president Tomas Masaryk. After the World War II, the university was transferred back to Munich, where it still functions today. During the years of its long history, the university became alma mater for hundreds of Ukrainians and foreigners, who received MA and Ph.D. degrees and contributed to scientific and cultural development of not only Ukraine, but other countries as well. The UFU was attended by such famous people as Oleksandr Kolessa, Stanislav Dnistriansky, Volodymyr Derzhavyn, Oleksandr Oles, Avhustyn Voloshyn, Ivan Mirchuk, Volodymyr Kubiiovych, Volodymyr Yaniv, Volodymyr Kosyk, Arkadii Zhukovsky, Stanislav Kulchytsky, Myroslav Labunka, Roman Drazhniovsky, Petro Hoi, George Shevelov, Dmytro Shtohryn, Leonid Rudnytsky, Natalia Polonska-Vasylenko, Dmytro Stepovyk, and many others. Each one of those names is a symbol of preservation of the national identity.

Until 1996, the UFU successfully functioned, partially thanks to the money of the US foundation and the organization Friends of UFU in Europe. But it was mainly sponsored by German state budget. The money was received from the Federal Ministry of Internal Affairs as well as from the Bavarian State Ministry of Education and Religious Affairs. In this way German government supported Ukrainians, whom it identified as political refugees. But 50 years after the World War II was over, and Ukraine became an independent state, they were quite reasonable in the decision to decrease funding of the UFU. That was the time when Ukraine had a chance to step up, especially since after the fall of the iron curtain, hundreds of young people from all parts of the country went to study there at the expense of diaspora. But the government officials have not managed to at least assign honorary awards to the small group of people who did so much for the university. The UFU’s contribution to the development of Ukraine’s national identity in the world is huge. Maybe, that is actually the reason why newly appeared “fathers of the nation” dislike the idea of helping this unique institution.

However, the history knows examples when certain individuals did more than it is possible to imagine for the preservation of the national identity abroad. Among them is Metropolitan Josyf Slipyj, who emigrated after spending almost 20 years in Stalin’s GULAGs. It was the time when active social life began to subside, political emigrants got used to new conditions, settled down, received jobs, and lived like regular local residents. They brought up their children and grandchildren in the spirit of patriotism, but it was only natural that the latter started slowly identifying themselves with Americans, Germans, Brazilians, French, and English. Metropolitan Josyf Slipyj realized the threat of what was going on and led the process of emigrant activation. He personally gathered funds and used them for development of Ukrainian life. He took special care of development of Small and Big Seminaries, Ukrainian Catholic University, and Ukrainian Free University. Thanks to him, scientific and publishing activity within diaspora was revived. Once, after he insisted on building a church and a house next to it in Munich, a group of Ukrainians from Germany reproached him, asking who would maintain those buildings, since they were getting old, and their children were slowly Germanized. The patriarch gave a short, but sagacious and wise answer: “As long as there is a house, people will come.”

THE NATIONAL MASS MEDIA TO OPPOSE PSEUDO-INFORMATION

In the pre-election period, none of our dignitaries touch upon the problem of development, formation, and establishment of national mass media. While Cambridge University professor Montserrat Guibernau indicates in her book The Identity of Nations the following strategy as one of the main ones that can be used by the state in order to form a national identity, which is capable of uniting citizen: “progressive consolidation of the national education and mass media systems as the main tools of promotion of a certain ‘image of the nation,’ with its symbols and rituals, values and principles, traditions, lifestyles, common enemies, and what is the most important, with its definition of a good citizen.”

Every citizen of my country, from a pre-school child to a retiree, uses various mass media on a daily basis. And of course, the most accessible mass media are TV channels, each one of them having a wealthy owner. And neither one of them has heard of and would possibly care about the role of mass media in the process of formation of a single national identity. Ukraine is in dire need of five or six quality national newspapers, editors of which would provide comprehensive and deep analysis or Ukrainian and foreign life. These should be daily newspapers, available to everyone (we are talking about both price and distribution network).

This idea might seem quite strange, giving the existing conditions of information market, but in order to achieve a great strategic nationally oriented goal, we would need a “State program of development of central printed media.” This refers to support of the existing brands: newspapers The Day, Ukraina Moloda, Dzerkalo Tyzhnia, Molod Ukrainy, Silski Visti. We also need to follow the German example and found such dailies as Southern Ukrainian Newspaper, Northeastern Ukrainian Newspaper, and Western Ukrainian Newspaper. This program would also provide for the creation of a daily national Christian Newspaper, the editorial staff of which should include the country’s best religious journalists. This paper should not belong to any certain confession, and it should openly promote the unification of all Orthodox Ukraine. I write so confidently about it, because one cannot imagine Ukrainian national identity without the Christian factor. State support of the central state media is not an anachronism. After the World War II, huge masses of Ukrainian political emigrants ended up in American occupation zone in Germany. Americans watched Ukrainians’ behavior closely in the displaced persons’ camps, and starting from 1946, began to give out state licenses and corresponding funding for publishing periodicals. A permit for one paper soon “overgrew” with four to six smaller publications: enterprising editors fully used their American friends’ kindness to preserve the national identity.

Evidently, there is another problem. Ukrainsky Tyzhden magazine (No. 27, July 6-12, 2012) provides a thoughtful “Instruction” on how to solve the language issue. Among the proposals for printed media, a mandatory rule is provided for all the publications sold in our country to have a Ukrainian version of their product. First and foremost this concerns Russian periodicals, which boldly occupied Ukrainian information market. I would have continued Tyzhden’s guidance imperative: it would be useful to regularly analyze content of such periodicals, given the massive pseudo-informational attack on our information market. Ukrainian national mass media are there to oppose it! Our attackers are wrong in thinking that we are blind. We do see, hear, and understand. Movement towards genuinely Ukrainian mass media will sweep the obstacles from the way of strengthening our national identity.

AN UNFINISHED AND SEEMINGLY UNNECESSARY EPILOGUE

Conquerors have always made good use of the relics of the defeated side. After Lviv was conquered, Icon of the Mother of God, that belonged to Halychyna princes, “traveled” to Belz, and later to Czestochowa, where a majestic temple was erected for it. Nowadays, not only Polish religious community, but the whole Christian world worships Black Madonna of Czestochowa.

And how many of such relics are in Russia? Thousands of them. But there are things that cannot be loaded into freight trains and exported. Horrible news is spread in Pochaiv and nearby villages: God’s Grace abandoned Pochaiv Lavra. The news was caused by the terrible car accidents that happened to some people who were going on a pilgrimage, and the others who were coming back from Lavra (some of them were Russians). You will not hear Ukrainian language in Pochaiv: the place is ruled by overfed monks from Moldova and Russia. If you dare to admit that you belong to Kyiv Patriarchate, Autocephalous Orthodox Church, or Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church, you will be scorned, shamed, and cursed there. Even though the foundation of this temple was laid by Basilians of the Greek Catholic Church…

Another thing scares me: seems like God’s Grace left the hills of Kyiv as well. That is why the president hurries to Greek Mount Athos to bring at least “a little” of God’s Grace from there. But why did he need to go that far, since Moscow is so much closer, and it seems like today the Holy Mountain is privatized by Russians.

But is this the proper way of looking for grace for your people?

Mykhailo Prysiazhny holds Ph.D. in Socioeconomic Studies, is Journalism Faculty Dean at the Ivan Franko Lviv National University, Professor of the Ukrainian Free University (Munich, Germany)