Cure for amnesia

A future without repentance is a road that leads nowhere, even if it is falsely decorated by bright neon lights, considered the attributes of “well-being” and “prosperity.” Historical mistakes that have not been spiritually overcome or removed through catharsis, even more so heinous crimes, will inevitably be repeated, albeit in new and unexpected forms. Repentance, in turn, is impossible without two absolutely essential things: knowledge and perception.

As concerns the tragedies of Ukrainian history in the 20th century, the passage of the law “On the Rehabilitation of Victims of Political Repressions in Ukraine” by the Verkhovna Rada in April 1991 could have provided a strong momentum to recognizing these tragedies. At the time, many believed that this would really be so. For the first time this document acknowledged on the highest official level that “millions of innocent people were persecuted for their political activities, statements, and religious convictions on the strength of inhuman and undemocratic laws and as a result of direct lawlessness and arbitrariness.” By enacting this law, the Verkhovna Rada was underlining that is resolutely disassociating itself from the previous totalitarian, terrorist methods of governance, and that it sees the restoration of historical justice as one of its priorities.

However, in many respects this long-awaited and crucial decision, adopted 16 years ago by our parliamentarians remains a declarative one. Scholarly research into the causes, origins, and consequences of the dramatic pages of 20th-century Ukrainian history (again: without which any spiritual purification of society or restoration of historical justice is unthinkable) requires proper attention — special, if you will! — on the part of the state.

True, in 1992 the Presidium of the Verkhovna Rada and the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine adopted appropriate resolutions supporting, among other things, the initiative of the administration of the National Academy of Sciences (NAN), NAN’s Institute of Ukrainian History, the State Security Service of Ukraine, the State Press Committee, the Memorial Society, and the All-Ukraine Association of Regional Historians to launch a national program aimed at publishing a series of documentary books entitled Rehabilitated by History. This series was meant to preserve and perpetuate our memory about the millions of innocent victims of the Soviet totalitarian system in the 1920s-1980s. Now the big question is: what is the actual situation now, 15 years later?

On March 2, NAN’s Institute of Ukrainian History hosted the launch of 36 volumes of this series. This event, which was an exchange of frank opinions about existing problems and a summary of what has already been accomplished, was also — at least in this author’s opinion — an appeal to the conscience of those in power and with money on whom the fulfillment of this important all-national political and social program largely depends.

Indeed, the people heading this program (above all Academician Petro Tronko, Hero of Ukraine, without whose herculean efforts this program would have remained on paper) had many things to tell media people and representatives of the general public. Thirty-six books have been issued, published in most oblasts of Ukraine (21). They total 18,146 pages and contain the names of 153,871 repressed Ukrainian nationals. The editors, historians Roman Podkur and Valerii Vasyliev, stressed that this is only a small proportion of the names of all victims. This is just the beginning of their work because it is still not known how many victims of political repressions have been or are being rehabilitated (the minimal number is at least four times the number of published names). In addition, a resolution passed at one time by the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine envisaged the creation of a national database of victims of political repressions, but no funds have been allocated to this day.

Money has not been provided for other designated purposes. Suffice it to say that for several years (practically until 1997) the Ministry of Finance allocated hardly any funds for the implementation of the national program “Rehabilitated by History” (a national program adopted by the government and parliament!). Some of the newly formed regional groups that actually shouldered a considerable part of the responsibility for this work had to live on a salary of 40- 60 hryvnias, sustained exclusively by their dedication and creative enthusiasm.

Now let us recall the Verkhovna Rada’s pompous declarations in 1991 about the “priority” of restoring the historical truth, and the resolutions adopted by the cabinet, which are binding on the finance ministry. It is probably not the lack of budget funds but the fact that the ruling political and economic groups regarded as their priority — and still do — not the restoration of some abstract historical truth, but “mastering the possibilities” of the state budget.

Hundreds of thousands of people who are truly devoted to Ukraine and are working in every oblast of the country to implement this program have enough problems and to spare. There is, for example, the exceptionally important issue of accessing and using archives outside Ukraine, especially in the Russian Federation and the Republic of Kazakhstan. Creative cooperation with the Security Service of Ukraine should be enhanced and developed, because there is no way to build an objective picture of actual historical events or to ascertain the roots and scale of repressions in Ukraine and its regions without making public knowledge generalized statistics relating to the repressive apparatus of the USSR and the Ukrainian SSR, without publishing pertinent documents, findings, reports, etc.

Valerii Smolii, director of the NAN’s Institute of History, stressed that the project reflects the amazing creative accomplishment of a huge team of authors — in effect, all of Ukraine was involved. Their work was extremely complicated; there were ups and downs, but the main thing is that by publishing these books a new trend in historiography was launched, namely studies of the Soviet totalitarian system. “Historians are well aware that there is a great deal of work still to be done (thus, it is very important to collect eyewitness accounts of totalitarian tragedies, because the numbers of these witnesses are shrinking with every passing year).

However, there is another important aspect. We will solve the funding problem sooner or later, but we are faced with another fundamental problem: the morality of politicians, society, and the moral and ethical rights of past and coming generations. Historical amnesia is a clear and present danger for Ukrainian democracy; herein lies the threat that totalitarian horrors will be repeated,” noted Academician Smolii.

In his well-documented address Academician Tronko emphasized that the formal reconstruction of the facts of totalitarian repressions was not as important as creating a complete picture of those crimes and their causes. Much work still lies ahead. At least another 50 or 60 volumes have to be published, which will cover every oblast of Ukraine (a 100-volume history is projected). Work is underway to establish the names of citizens who were deported during the mass repressions under Stalin, especially from western Ukraine. “These and other problems that we are facing are proof that the program Rehabilitated by History is of both scholarly and the utmost political importance. This project was totally new for us. We had no idea of the true scope, character, and essence of the repressions,” said Tronko.

Finally, it should be noted that not a single representative of the Ukrainian government attended the launch of the series Rehabilitated by History. The only exception was Iryna Syniavska, chairperson of the Zhytomyr oblast council, and MP Les Taniuk. The latter declared that he does not consider the title of the program historically accurate. How can we use the word “rehabilitation” when the point at issue is the fate of millions of people who did nothing wrong to Ukraine? This title best illustrates the attitude of our political elite to the problem of memory and historical conscience. It is one of those cases where true priorities are seen with the naked eye.