“It is very honorable to be Ukrainian in Canada”

On Oct. 14 Ukraine marked the Day of Ukrainian Cossacks, the feast of the Holy Protection of the Virgin Mary, and the 65th anniversary of the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA). On this occasion we talked to Levko LUKIANENKO, a legendary Ukrainian dissident, founder of the Ukrainian Helsinki Group, member of the Ukrainian parliament, and the author of many books. Now in his 80s, he is extremely open to the mass media and members of the public.

You served as Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of Ukraine to Canada. How does the Ukrainian Diaspora celebrate UPA anniversaries?

“The Day of the UPA is very widely marked in Canada, because the political emigration that came there after the Second World War is very active. The Day of the UPA is a great day for them. They hold conferences and gatherings, at which former UPA warriors wearing their military uniforms talk about the war and the battles in which they fought. The Ukrainian Diaspora in Canada has erected a very splendid monument to an UPA warrior. It is a large vertical four or five-meter-square slab on which a soldier wearing a mazepynka stands. The inscription ‘UPA’ is next to the sculpture, but it is not very noticeable, because the emphasis is on the handsome and slender warrior. “Before Ukraine became independent, the Ukrainian Diaspora did not simply celebrate; it continued to fight. They appealed to embassies, the Canadian authorities, and the United Nations, and organized demonstrations near the Soviet Embassy. Later they created the Anti-Bolshevik Bloc of Nations (ABN), headed by Yaroslav Stetsko, the former head of Bandera’s government.

“It is very honorable to be Ukrainian in Canada. People talk about having Ukrainian parentage at the drop of a hat. They say this proudly in English because many descendents of Ukrainians don’t know the language. Ukrainians have proved themselves in Canada. For example, you do not need police in those city blocks where Ukrainians live, and their character traits, like diligence and honesty, have won them respect among the Anglo-Saxons.”

The National Brotherhood of the OUN and UPA has been a member of the European Confederation of Veterans of World War II since 1995, but their status as war veterans has not been recognized in Ukraine. Do you think the newly-elected parliament will have enough political will and patriotism to grant UPA soldiers such a status?

“The president is inclined to solve this problem in a patriotic manner, but he did not do this before because the Verkhovna Rada was unpatriotic, to put it mildly. We are in the 17th year of independence and we have never had a patriotic Verkhovna Rada. I think the newly-elected parliament will do this, because for the first time we have a situation where the democratic side in parliament has four or six votes more than the anti-Ukrainian side. This is a serious factor and therefore patriotic measures can be implemented.”

In one of your books you wrote that you are of Cossack ancestry. Do you know who your ancestors were and under whose command they fought?

“I don’t know my family history that far back, but there was a company in the Chernihiv regiment in Horodnia raion of Chernihiv oblast, where I come from. According to legend, our village of Khrypivka was founded by a Cossack named Khrypaty in the 17th century. There were nameplates on the sides of the wooden houses saying ‘Cossack Nykyfor Skoibida’ or ‘middle class citizen Ivan Petrenko.’ In our village we had Cossacks, serfs, and bourgeois. I come from a long line of Cossacks on both my father and mother’s side. Their parents and grandparents had to perform the corvee (unpaid labor) for a landowner. My mother’s maiden name is Skoibida. If there was a Cossack named Nykyfor Skoibida, it was registered in the church books and everyone knew about this. Over one-third of the population of our village was Cossack, so lower middle class people and peasants were in the minority.

“I can proudly add that in the Verkhovna Rada (I can’t remember whether it was the second or third convocation), 12 of us members of parliament went to St. Sophia Cathedral, where Patriarch Volodymyr reinstated us in the Cossack register during a solemn ceremony. Now I can consider myself a real Cossack.”

There are nearly 30 Cossack organizations in Ukraine. To which do you belong?

“I consider myself a member of the Zaporozhian Sich Cossacks, led by Hetman Volodymyr Homeniuk. But this membership is very conditional. I am dissatisfied with the organizational state of the Cossacks because some Cossack organizations were created by Russian chauvinists and they are contemptuous of the Ukrainian language. All those Cossacks should be sorted out, but I did not have time for this when I was in parliament, and at the moment I am not involved in this. But the very idea of the Cossacks’ revival is positive, and I am pleased that these things are being done. I know that a draft law has been prepared, containing conditions that Cossacks will have to meet, which will be adopted by the Verkhovna Rada. At the very least they have to love Ukraine, speak Ukrainian, defend it, maintain Ukrainian customs and traditions, and fight for a Ukrainian Ukraine and the renewal of our spiritual values. If a Cossack does not do this, he will be expelled from the organization. We need such a purge now because there are many organizations that do not love Ukraine.”

Do contemporary Cossacks fulfill the patriotic and educational function vis-a-vis society and youth in particular, which they have taken upon themselves?

“Not as much as I would like. For example, they have not managed to cleanse Ukraine of the imperial symbols that defame our nation. But Cossacks managed to successfully oppose the unveiling of the monument to Russian Tsarina Catherine II. They stopped this anti-Ukrainian action, and kudos to them for this.”

You did not run in the elections this time to the Verkhovna Rada and are writing a book. What is your book about?

“The book will be about my imprisonment, prison, and the concentration camp, how we lived there, what we thought and did.”

You wrote in one of your books that you always wanted to travel. What countries have you visited since you were released?

“Before my imprisonment I served in the army in Austria and traveled to Hungary and Germany. In the Soviet Union I visited only Azerbaijan and Georgia. Later I was in Siberia for so long that now I don’t want to go anywhere. If I traveled somewhere abroad as a member of parliament, I did so out of sheer necessity. I did not have any special bent for traveling because I missed Ukraine very much: I wanted to stay at home. But because of my ambassadorial obligations I lived in Canada, and later I went on a business trip to the US. When I was the president of the Ukrainian branch of the World League for Freedom of Democracy, I visited Taiwan. When I was the head of the Ukrainian Helsinki Group, I spent two months as a member of the political intelligence unit in Belgium, France, and Germany. On one occasion I visited Austria.”

Have you visited the places of your imprisonment since your release?

“I visited Kuchino, the museum of the prison where I was held. The museum was organized by Russian dissidents with whom I was imprisoned. Now I maintain relations with some Russians, but for the most part - with Ukrainians.”

When will Ukraine finally become Ukrainian?

“Russian colonial servitude has crippled us, we are a sick nation. This will not happen very soon, but I don’t think the process will be as long as Moses led the Jews from Egypt through the desert for 40 years, until the older generation that had lived in slavery died. I think this process will be quicker.”