Reinvented Slavic Bicycle
Slavic fraternity, a deeper integration of Slav brothers, the gathering of the lands... All this seems to have already happened long ago, in the ninth century. But a number of non-governmental Slavophile organizations in Ukraine, Russia, and Belarus have decided to institutionalize their sentiments, also Slavophile, at the beginning of the third millennium. Moscow is to host the Congress of the Slavic Peoples of Belarus, the Russian Federation, and Ukraine from May 30 to June 2. This is the official, although not finally accepted, title of the gathering of Slavic integrationists. On March 21, an organizing committee discussed the preparation for and conduct of the assembly of the Ukrainian, Belarusian, and Russian Slavs. The confab was attended by some representatives of non-governmental organizations and people’s deputies (Borys Oliynyk and Oleksandr Tkachenko). Also on the committee’s list is Petro Poroshenko who did not, alas, show up.
The public and political figures met to discuss some details of the congress convocation and implementation of the decisions to be passed. The goal of Ukrainian Slavophiles is to deepen cultural, scientific, economic, and only then political cooperation between the Slavic peoples. Yet its is odd that they failed to invite representatives of other, also numerous, Slavs, such as the Czechs, Poles, Slovaks, Serbs, or Bulgarians. The organizing committee members explained, first, that “the three fraternal peoples” have common roots in Kyiv Rus’ and, secondly, that Poland, the Czech Republic, and Slovakia are much closer to the European Union, as a result of integration processes, than to their Eastern brothers, so it is dubious whether they would opt for some other unifying structures. In this case, is it worthwhile for Ukraine (or, rather, a small part of it) to think up some other unions? True, the European Union does not, and perhaps did and will not, look forward to Ukrainian membership. However, Kyiv will find it far more advantageous at this stage to cooperate with Brussels than with Moscow. At least because the former can offer something to learn and the latter cannot. It is also doubtful that a marriage of two paupers can beget a prosperous offspring. The reference of Slavophiles to the European Union and the same economic problems of European countries which later achieved prosperity may well contain a grain of truth, but not so in the case of the so- called Slav Union. The starting conditions and objective are too different. Moreover, the first countries of the then European Economic Community had no alternative but to integrate economically. Ukraine does: the European Union. Thus is it worth reinventing a new Ukrainian or, say, Slavic bicycle?
In truth, the organizing committee members emphasized that there is no question of establishing a united Slavic state. “Why should we scare off the West?” People’s Deputy Serhiy Kyiashko noted at the meeting. Will the West be frightened? Maybe, seeing the initiators of Slav unity in its dreams. As to deeper cooperation with Russia, our northeastern neighbor seems of late to have only been talking about improvements in this area. Incidentally, the Ukrainian Foreign Ministry has also voiced its support for wider cooperation with neighboring countries. The point is that sometimes the neighbors themselves want to put a spoon of tar in the honey pot (which also applies to Russia to a large extent).
