Russian Empire in scaffolds

Now almost every day in Ukraine sane, conscious people ask themselves a simple question: what country are we living in, if its Russian imperial administrative toponyms are being used and abused, in season and out of season? Everything happening in Odesa on September 2, 2012 (the city’s anniversary) suggested a clear-cut answer: the south of Ukraine is occupied by an alien state, rooted in the ideology of restoration of the Russian Empire’s Novorossia (New Russia) in particular, and the worst traditions of the Russian Empire in general. New evidence can be found in a pompous unveiling of the restored Alexander Column. The event was led by the city’s fathers, representatives of the Ukrainian branch of the Russian Orthodox Church, pro-Russian organizations, and the consul of Russia.

What made this event ever more surrealistic (to put it as mildly as possible) was the fact that the unveiling of the column in honor of emperor Alexander II (who signed the notorious Valuev Circular and Ems Act, and authored an extremely controversial peasant reform and a true counter-reform of education, which virtually paved the way for the revolutionary chaos of 1905 and 1917) took place at the center of Taras Shevchenko Park, not far from the monument to the great poet (by the way, executed in the conventional “socialist realism” style). The Ukrainian national flag and anthem created true cognitive dissonance. Truth be told, the anthem was performed shyly and confusedly, to the cheers “Glory to Rus’!” from the crowd, while a few Ukrainian flags were literally smothered by a host of Odesa City banners sporting the imperial crown and a five-point star, and the flags of the Russian Empire, the present-day Russian Federation, and the former USSR. The cadets of the local military school, with Ukrainian emblems on their uniforms, looked out of place and looked rather as a troop of jesters at a royal court.

However, when it came to language, the masterminds were consistent as ever: the memorial plaque next to the column was written in Russian and English. Not a word in Ukrainian, lest His Majesty’s memory be offended. However, this mishmash is not to last long: the park is soon to be renamed in honor of the emperor, and the Ukrainian flag will be ousted by the others – just as local and Soviet-time holidays and festivals have ousted national Ukrainian holidays, both official and popular. And all this will be done to the accompaniment of faint squeaking of the crushed local Ukrainians.

However, it seems to be their fault, too. Starting from the 1990s, most local Ukrainians chose to be puppets in the hands of Odesa’s pseudo-elite. It is strange to hear today the lamentations of those who have been collaborating with the former mayor Eduard Hurvits. (It is noteworthy that on the websites under his control, which jump at every opportunity to censure the incumbent mayor Oleksii Kostusiev, such pro-Russian games hardly evoke any noticeable objections.) Little wonder, since it was Mayor Hurvits who launched the imperial restoration of the city, albeit with some minor and inconsistent shows of reverence towards the titular nation.

What Kostusiev did was just dropping all the masks. Suffice it to recall the pompous reburial of Prince Vorontsov and his wife, the restoration of the monument to Catherine II, and so on, and so forth. These actions were accompanied by similar pro-Russian rhetoric, with virtually the same cast of actors. The Ukrainian community did nothing to define absolutely new approaches to the political and legal struggle for their rights, and offer new players, not involved in any non-Ukrainian circles. Instead, it remained a mere puppet in the others’ games, including those which involve historical memory.

Of course, as an architectural site, the column itself bears no blame for the submission of monument preservation to the interests of restoring the Russian Empire. As a matter of fact, the column has always been an object of manipulation in the hands of the city’s authorities from the very start. Its appearance is due to the desire of Odesa’s then authorities to toady to the central government and show their loyalty. The monument was raised on the spot where in 1875 the fathers of the city were most graciously honored with imperial audience at the Royal Pavilion, specially built for Alexander II. The monarch kindly allowed his subjects to lay out a park of his name on the site (and here one cannot avoid an analogy with Serhii Kivalov, who also kindly gave permission to erect a monument to his person on the premises of the Odesa Academy of Law).

The communist regime was wise enough to leave the column be, and used it to suit its own ends, only replacing the imperial attributes and symbols with its own. The more so that Russian imperialism hardly ran counter to the policy of the champions of a united Soviet nation and world revolution. Moreover, in the 1930 a knoll at the foot of the column was decorated with a floral image of Joseph Stalin.

It seems that today the same floral design would adequately reflect the local authorities’ ideology. In 1954, the column was christened a “memorial in honor of the reunion of Ukraine and Russia,” and a concrete monument to Bohdan Khmelnytsky was built nearby. However, soon it was removed out of harm’s way. In the years of Brezhnev’s reign, the column was again “reinterpreted,” but this time around, it was supposed to honor Aleksandr Suvorov. In fact, it was vested with a certain imperial Russian sense as a symbol of the region’s liberation from Turkish oppression (this is exactly how tourist guides have been referring to the Russian occupation of southern Ukraine).

Perhaps it is these manipulations that stripped the column of any sacral status among the citizens of Odesa. The site was overgrown with shrubbery, and the column itself was indeed in bad need of repair. The place was mostly used as a latrine (now the rest of the park will probably also be used as such). And suddenly, in the summer of 2011, the city and oblast authorities decided to make a present to their fellow citizens. It is symbolic that at first the column, hastily restored with the help of “donations from the public and charitable sponsors,” was supposed to be unveiled to honor the bicentennial of the Battle of Borodino or the 400th anniversary of the Romanov imperial house. Notably, hundreds of non-Russian imperial monuments still lie in ruin, while Ukrainian monuments are relentlessly destroyed (as was the recent case with the Ukrainian artist Mykhailo Bozhii’s memorial plaque), let alone the decrepit state of the city’s public utility infrastructure. However, they are not on the authorities’ list of priorities.

We will spare our readers the details of the unveiling ceremony. They were in line with the scores of all other similar pro-Russian events: the same assurances of eternal friendship (between Russians and Russians?), mantras about shared history (what kind of history, I wonder?), and patriotism (of course, also “shared”). However, there was something quite special. Among the sweet stares and smiles, and to the accompaniment of patriotic noises the local legislator Kosmin, main defender from the “Ukrainian plague,” read a greeting message from the emperor’s great-great-granddaughter, who emphasized that all of us (who on earth are “we,” all Odesites, or even all Ukrainians?!) were heirs to great Russian history and culture, which even now belong to the common civilization space (which, alas, is becoming the case). The message also outlined an agenda for more anniversaries to come (in fact, an agenda for the further Russification of the “heirs’” historical memory): Borodino, the Romanov House, and even the 225th anniversary of “Empress Catherine’s II great journey to New Russia and Crimea.”

No doubt, this letter was supposed to play the same part that a character’s direct speech plays when used by an artful writer or playwright. The paradigm of the festival was reflected in the following commentary: “Today our city is at last being reborn, as new monuments are being raised, and old ones are coming back. Odesa regains its former grandeur as the Empire’s southern capital. And once there is a capital, the empire will arise sooner or later.”

All this has long ceased to impress. It is something else that is strange. Among the first comments on the event in social networks, alongside with absolutely axiomatic and sane (and sometimes even unprintable) negative response, there were calls to honor other figures, albeit with non-Ukrainian background, who had shown tolerance towards Ukrainian culture and statehood, such as Tomas Masaryk, Jerzy Giedroyc, Volodymyr Zhabotynsky et al. However, there were other reactions: “Why, what is wrong?” “Everyone has a right to honor their favorite characters,” etc., corroborated with misplaced analogies with Europe, drawn totally out of context.

Some even went as far as to declare that the monuments to the heroes of the Russian Empire were the direct result of the absence of these in Ukrainian environment, in defiance of all the research in this area, including ours. Why don’t such individuals then openly admit to the unanimity of views with advocates of Russian imperialism?

All of this only testifies to a lack of Ukrainian population’s Ukraine-centered historical memory. Moreover, it is evidence of the pernicious effects of the pseudo-liberal, cosmopolitan, plebeian post-modern propaganda, which postulates that national history is relative and nonessential, while the new Ukrainian identity should reject national principles and only appeal to most abstract and universal notions, mostly confined to primitive, materialistic values. Yet even Nature abhors a vacuum. The place of our historical memory, destroyed by such and similar claims, is being steadily usurped by another kind of memory, a far cry from Ukrainian values and interests.

Yet the historical monument evokes nothing but sympathy. When will they at last become what they should be, objects of history and esthetic pleasure, and stop being used as tools in someone’s dirty hands?