FIASCO OF THE UNDILUTED “RUSSIAN IDEA”
The Social Liberal Association (SLON) and Union Party, these principal exponents of the “Russian idea,” failed to surmount the barrier to get into Parliament (SLON’s main man, Volodymyr Hryniov, could not even collect enough votes in his own majority constituency). This shattering fiasco in the elections means that the pure “Russian idea” does not play in Ukraine.
Naturally, voters in the east, south, and the Crimea want a higher status for the Russian language, just as they are after certain cultural guarantees and closer ties (cultural exchange included) with Russia, but such views do not predominate even among the conservative electorate.
The Communists are more flexible, of course. Their plans reach even father in this direction, but they are kept in the background, with the emphasis on social aspects. Voting for the Reds rather than SLON, the “Russian Ukrainians” made themselves perfectly clear; they want to speak Russian, they want their children and grandchildren to follow suit, they want to watch Moscow television, read books published in St. Petersburg, but above all they want to be paid on time, at least once in a while, walk safe streets, and have reasons, even if illusory, to believe that the authorities are not a pack of thieves..
Less politicization, in the words of Petro Symonenko, more loyalty to the Ukrainian state, a certain “Ukrainian policy” aimed at preserving the Russian ethnic and cultural community (incidentally, Ukraine’s Russian Diaspora is the world’s largest) - these approaches do not seem to be understood by Moscow analysts and politicians. Not so long ago Konstantin Zatulin proposed to form a “Russian party” in Ukraine as a mouthpiece for the “Ukrainian Russians” and which would also lobby for Russia. “All those Communists” are no good for this role, he stressed, so what is needed is a Russian party and precisely under this name. Viacheslav Nikonov also mentioned somewhere that the Ukrainian electorate gave the government a C-/-/- for the situation in the country, primarily in the economy.
Inherently romantic, Ukrainians are still undecided on whether Ukrainians and Russians being so close linguistically, culturally, and historically, is good or bad. Some say that, except for this closeness, the Ukrainian language would have been spared “Russian expansion” and yesterday’s peasants would not lapse into the local facsimile of low-class Russian the day after getting a job in the capital’s public transport depot... Maybe so, but such closeness, even a degree of affinity have certain advantages, quite tangible ones. Even SLON would have a hard time drawing a distinct line between Russians and Ukrainians within this nation which is obviously not Russian, but also not “purely” Ukrainian. In the Baltic states the situation is very different, in that the distinction becomes apparent after only a few minutes, say, in Riga. A Latvian and a Ukrainian speak, think, and act very differently. Recent events in Riga show that at a time of economic ordeal Russian Latvians would support not the Communist but the very Russian idea which failed in Ukraine.
