On the «Wise Airs» of Ukrainian Politics

(Continued from page PERSONA)

The article «Hopes of 1991 and Realities of 1999» by Oleh Bereziuk ( The Day , No. 31) was timely. Even though there is an Independence Day holiday in our calendar, people who sincerely cheered and celebrated victory in 1991 now feel bitter and despondent. Of course, we should blame ourselves. Why are Ukrainians so easy to buy? Indeed, as Catherine II said, «the quest for office will prevail.» I see changes in my colleagues with whom I once stood on the Verkhovna Rada plaza. Is it really they who prayed on their knees for freedom? And now, as one of your authors said, the prevailing idea is to bite off and pocket as big a hunk as possible, while virtually everything is permitted. But at that time, they were wearing embroidered shirts and the first yellow-blue badges. Yet, they failed to stand the test of temptations, as Empress Catherine once predicted. These are my pessimistic thoughts on the article.

The article «The Secret Project of Ivan Mazepa» By Heorhy Melnychuk ( The Day , No 31) also provokes thoughts about compromises with conscience. Indeed, those times are comparable with our situation. But still, the current situation is more transparent, and people have sufficient information. I cannot agree to this phrase: «...Colonel Iskra and Justice-General Kochubey fell victim to his (Mazepa's — T. L. ) intrigues...» For it is Iskra and Kochubey who informed on Mazepa, and it is not Mazepa who had them executed: they were executed by order of the Tsar. They must have also fallen victim to their own intrigues, carried on by the anti-Mazepa Cossack officer corps. Does history really not teach us anything?

I almost shun television to calm myself down, but I do read and trust Natalia Lihachova's analytical articles . I learned from her article

«Television in the Name of ‘Dear Leonid Brezhnev'» ( The Day , No. 31) about the replacement of the Minister of Culture, or, to be more exact, the replacement of one official by another, perhaps equally lackluster, one. I agree to the assessment of situation concerning our culture. Stagnation, stagnation, and again stagnation, even greater than in the so-called stagnation period. The impression is that of a quagmire: the same old cadres, old thinking, and old patterns. Everything that at least a little differs from the cosmopolitan standards is being rooted out, so that it does not, God forbid, grow. What especially angers me is the overall intellectual oversimplification, when everything more or less complex is dubbed as «of no use to people» or «incomprehensible to the people.» Brainwashing again. Asked by all my acquaintances how I am, I answer: «Waiting for October.» They do not understand at first, so I explain it to them .