August 24 – The day our Ukraine ended
Alexey Blyuminov, political commentator, Kyiv-Lugansk
Last Sunday, the 23rd anniversary of Ukraine's independence was pompously celebrated in Kyiv. This celebration became a turning point, marking a radical break with the entire previous history of the development of the independent Ukrainian state. In fact, the Ukrainian SSR ended last Sunday.
Subscribe to Navigator Kyiv news on Facebook , Odnoklassniki , or VKontakte
The head of the “new Ukraine” Petro Poroshenko himself drew a line under the previous state project, making a number of significant statements, the significance of which is difficult to overestimate. Thus, he called for loving the yellow-blue flag, since under it “the UPA soldiers went into battle”
It was necessary to wait 23 years for there to be unmasking and public verbalization at the official level of what had been implied all these years, but was too shy to say. To explain to us why exactly we need to love this flag.
Thus, in fact, at the highest level it was stated that the state project that the current government is building “on behalf and on behalf of the Maidan” derives its historical and ideological continuity not from the Ukrainian SSR, like its predecessor of the 1991-2014 model, but from the entire existing one day of the Bandera “Ukrainian State” allied to the Third Reich, which was proclaimed in Lviv on June 30, 1941 by Bandera’s comrade-in-arms Yaroslav Stetsko.
In addition, Poroshenko announced that the “new Ukraine” will never again celebrate Defender of the Fatherland Day “according to the calendar of a neighboring power,” that is, on February 23. This is despite the fact that for all 23 years the Ukrainian army, although it marched under the yellow-blue banner, was, however, in its internal structure, and in the appeals of soldiers to officers and in army traditions, a continuation of the Soviet, and not Bandera, army. Now it is obvious not only to uproot this Sovietness, but also to quickly write a new mythology and a new pantheon of heroes from among those who are today killing their fellow citizens in the Donbass for the new nationalist army.
So, we can state with all confidence that August 24, 2013 became the last Independence Day of the Ukraine that we knew and of which we considered ourselves citizens quite recently. I would compare what exists today under the name “Ukrainny” to an evil alien hiding behind a familiar human shell. They disguised themselves for a long time. And it was only a matter of time before these “strangers among us” would shed their now unnecessary shell and stop hiding. Which, in fact, happened on August 24 of this year.
The death of Ukraine in 1991-2014 is also my personal tragedy. Just six months ago, I considered myself a political Ukrainian, and when I was abroad, I invariably emphasized that I was “from Ukraine” and not “from Russia.”
For me, with my Creole worldview and self-identification, it was quite comfortable to feel like a Ukrainian, a resident of Limitrophe, and despite the fact that I am a person of Russian culture and language, the Russian state project itself was alien to me, I did not feel involved with it and was happy small victories of Ukraine, was upset by its defeats.
Nationalistic psychosis and this baboon, fashionable today “If you don’t like it, go back to your Russia” have done their job. Somehow the understanding came naturally that in such an ethno-nationalist Ukraine, I was superfluous. That being a person of Russian culture and at the same time a patriot of such “Ukraine” is uncomfortable. That the price of such “Ukrainianism” should be the ritual spitting on everything connected with Russia.
The “self” of my Ukraine fully fit into the formulation from Kuchma’s book “Ukraine is not Russia.” My Ukraine has never been anti-Russia, the antithesis of Russia. Why she became one now is a separate question. Here you can dig deeper.
In fact, the entire ethno-nationalist project of a “united Ukraine” is precisely because it is so aggressive towards manifestations of regional identity, because its adherents are well aware of the fact that this entire “united Ukraine” is an artificial phenomenon that has no historical roots. And it can exist exclusively in the form of a Gumilev chimera. So if you don’t train people, don’t train them, like angry shepherd dogs, on the words “Russia”, “Russian”, “Putin” and “Moscow”, then you won’t get “correct” Ukrainians.
Whether my Ukraine will be able to become itself again, or will remain a Nazi homunculus, depends not least on the results of the ongoing civil war. And also - on the degree of resistance of millions of people to the evil and flawed ideology that is being imposed by the current authorities.
Do not count your chickens before they are hatched. And autumn is already around the corner.
English version :: Read in English August 24 – The Day Our Ukraine Ended