Serhiy KRYMSKY: “We have not one future but many, and the past offers a selection”

“UKRAINE MUST BE UKRAINIAN” OR “GO HOME”

As for to the problems of Ukrainian social development (which, unlike Den’, is ten years old, not five), it is necessary to point out the excessive concentration on attempts (by both our politicians and media) to adjust this development to a certain known standard: Western, Russian, or even Eurasian standard of general Slavic solidarity. Ukraine must be Ukrainian and not necessarily like any of the Western countries, Russia, or a Eurasian state. In other words, the need to utilize world experience does not mean adjusting social and cultural development to some or other European or Russian standard. I saw a beautiful cartoon in Literaturnaya gazeta dating from tsarist Russia. The caption read “A Knight at the Crossroads” and the picture showed him facing a boulder which, instead of the traditional grim directions left, right, and straight, promising disaster in the end wherever he went; it had just one legend: “Go home.”

We should consider our originality while, of course, making the best possible use of world experience and that of our neighbors. Ukraine has a very special social environment. I might even say (and I hope no one will misunderstand me) that Ukraine is polysystemic. There are many subsystems, both cultural and of civilization. The thing is that this situation developed historically, owing to Ukraine’s central geopolitical location (between East and West, North and South); it is at the crossing of many roads. Western European cities emerged in place of Roman garrisons (like Paris, London, Frankfurt), but Kyiv and Kyiv Rus’ appeared at the crossing of fundamental merchant routes and main tracks. The Dnipro River was the main trade line between the West and East, since the Mediterranean was first controlled by Arabs and then by the Turks. And so that crossing of numerous civilizations and a multitude of influences in middle Dnipro Basin left its impact on the further development of our culture.

Russian historian Vladimir Soloviov once pointed out that people in Old Rus’ were drawn to the image of a ship, both in daily life and in culture; they buried their chiefs in caskets resembling ships; churches (three-domed) looked like ships. Personally, I believe that Kyiv Rus’ was a ship cruising among multiple cultures. This left its trace in the choice of faith. There were many religions and Prince Volodymyr could choose. He did, but those religions were historically preserved. A part of Ukraine was under the Austro- Hungarian Empire and was thus part of Europe in the truest sense of the word. Another part, the Dnipro Basin was linked to the Eurasian theater and culture; the eastern part of Ukraine was under the Oriental despotism, primarily in the form of the Russian Empire. Here one finds several civilization trends. In fact, Nestor the Chronicler describes Kyiv Rus’ in his Tale of Bygone Years as an association of many tribes; he considers the Poliane cultured, but treats the Drevliane (they lived near Korosten, not far from the Poliane) as strangers that went to the public baths with their wives or other women. Nestor portrays them in a negative light, and that multitribal system would survive as Ukraine went to Poland or Russia. Crimean influence is also quite strong. Certain authors, especially in Russia, are outraged by the Crimea being transferred to Ukraine [in 1954]. Yet, the fact remains that Ukraine has traditionally been connected with the Crimea and often the Cossacks consulted the Crimean khan when electing their hetman. There were constant wars and alliances, and we have a common history. I do not mention certain prestigious authors currently claiming that most of the Crimean populace were Ukrainians, because the peninsula was spared feudalism. And what slaves there were would eventually be freed. They settled, built homes, and had families.

CONSOLIDATION, HISTORICAL EXPERIENCE, AND SUBSYSTEM CHARACTER OF SOCIETY

Different influences make different subsystems. Their influence is still here, and our job is not to ignore this historical experience. Today, primary importance should be attached to the problem of consolidation in our social and political life as well as by attracting the media’s attention. Second, this consolidation must be carried out while preserving the interests of the regions (something even Verkhovna Rada has come to understand this) and subsystems the way we now understand them.

This issue is linked to the problem of a single Local Christian Church in Ukraine. On the one hand, this is an important problem serving that same consolidation; on the other, one must remember that unification in church life might lead to a degree of turning the canons into dogma. They could become the allegedly only true ones and not be supplemented with any other interpretations, lifestyles, traditions; this could in turn lead to major friction in society.

In fact, such coexistence of different faiths is a normal phenomenon in the modern world. In the United States, for example, one finds dozens of them. In France, this strictly Catholic country with considerable “experience” of struggle against the Reformation, President Jacques Chirac is a Catholic and the prime minister a Huguenot. Don’t misunderstand me. I am not one to support any restrictions on any integrating or unifying processes. I am simply calling for a very cautious approach to such phenomena, considering the historical experience and subsystem character of Ukrainian society. In other words, we need here the kind of liberalism and tolerance peculiar to modern Western Christianity, and which can somehow prove useful for us.

THE INTELLIGENTSIA AS GENERATOR OF THE NATIONAL IDEA

I would like to single out the role played by the intelligentsia in today’s Ukraine. I have always considered that a nation begetting and promoting the Bolshevik notion of rotten intelligentsia is truly unfortunate. Actually, the intellectuals form the cultural elite of every nation; they are the active subject of the national self-consciousness of ethnic communities. In Nazi Germany, Alfred Rosenberg devised a plan to annihilate the Polish nation. He proceeded from the concept that all it takes to destroy a nation is to uproot its aristocracy, intellectuals, and clergy. Then the rest turn into a herd. This means that a nation cannot exist without national consciousness, without a national idea generated and nourished precisely by the intelligentsia, the more so that the problem of the intelligentsia is assuming a new meaning: in the age of the Internet (that can be accessed by anyone, students included, to receive the entire system of knowledge constructed by the human race), intellectualism, heuristics (a discipline dealing with the laws of creativity), and the search for certain spiritual/cultural values assume special importance. This is a mission assigned the intelligentsia, a mission which is especially important in the life of countries and peoples, Ukraine among them, the more so that we have the sad experience of nihilism toward the intelligentsia and bringing other social strata to the fore.

UKRAINE: LOOKING FOR ITS OWN “VECTOR”

How is one to understand Ukraine’s so-called European vector? It should not be interpreted literally, the way so-called European civilization is interpreted in the West. This notion includes such attributes and characteristics as rationalism, technicism, Christianity, Western Europe’s having gone through the Reformation, and the experience of the ancient world. It is a specific complex characterizing what we know as European culture. Ukraine’s European vector is often referred to in the sense of simply using European standards. Of course, we should use them, yet imposing Western rationalism, technicism, and reform ideas on a society with its own mentality is not expedient, for it could lead to ignoring that nation’s own spiritual experience.

Here is my point. When we discuss the emergence of Kyiv Rus’, we often read about strong Byzantine influence. Quite right, although one ought to mention also those of Bulgaria as well as the Crimea with its tradition dating from the Kingdom of Bosporus. There were many trends, and they were certainly united by Byzantine influence. The emergence of Kyiv Rus’ culture, to which Ukrainian culture is related, of course, as are Russian (to a degree) and other Slavic cultures, led to the formation of a new Greek-Slavic Eastern Orthodox civilization. It is a special kind of civilization with its specifics and whose importance is as fundamental as that of Western European civilization. It has its own Eastern Christian tradition different from the Western one, and its own unique culture. Suffice it to point out iconography, an art that developed only in this region. I do not mention all those cultural values that inherently evolved here. Yet there were also shortcomings.

There was not only an orientation toward the political-legal field (as in Western Europe), but also the concept of Holy Rus’; the space inhabited by people was sacralized. It was a civilization distinct from the that in the West and having its own thousand-year- old tradition. If one understands being European as a transition to Western European civilization with its technicism, rationalism, ideas of the Reformation, and individualism, European civilization is individualistic, upholding the value of the individual; in Ukraine, we have the idea of sobornist’ (the idea that truth resides in the community of the faithful — Ed.), an altogether different idea. You see, it would be an artificial adjustment ignoring our people’s historical experience. Yet what I have said does not rule out utilizing world experience, including Western standards. It is just that we must correctly understand our European vector.