Once upon a time, somewhere in the early 1980s, my colleague from near Vinnytsia, trying to include me in some of his reasonings, half-trustingly said: “We are Russians!”. To which I immediately replied with pressure: “I am NOT Russian!”. Then he, as if conciliatory, “gave in”: “Okay, okay, we are Ukrainians.”
I remembered it then, not as an indicator of the concepts of this colleague, but as a completely certain socio-cultural dimension of that lethargy, which even more educated individuals spread “with intoxication and selflessness” at that time. They wanted to be “Russian”. My neighbor would turn on some kind of accordion for whole days and hum Soviet songs at the top of his voice.
For decades, schoolchildren were encouraged to such a proven mechanism of integration as “Zarnitsa” with its Russian-Soviet romance. All this rushed into the consciousness and settled in the subconscious with a dirty temper. I bring all this to the understanding of the sticky mire we are now crawling out of. But on this path, there are many who still live as phantoms of the Russian world and Russian culture.
Shortly before the war, while buying apples at the bazaar in Obolon, he struck up a conversation with a saleswoman from Noskivtsy, Vinnytsia. They are regulars at this bazaar, carrying apples. From time to time I get into various, often very difficult, conversations with my compatriots. I got hooked on the topic of Russian songs that were played at weddings and various celebrations in Vinnytsia. She asserted with complete certainty: “So what, but I have a song of Pakhmutova.” And then there was a silence when she babbled, “And Putin is a smart man!”. I asked her if she had heard about the war in Donbas, and wished that she would die soon.
Highly probable, she was a teacher who may have continued to teach Russian as a foreign language. This was the case in many villages until recently. Teachers as carriers of Russification and all kinds of political retrogradation, this is generally an interesting topic. And how difficult it is for a true teacher and enlightener to get out of that circle!
About a month or two ago in Lviv, not far from a store from the Rukavychka chain, some apparently resettled woman asked me: “Please tell me, where is the Rukavychka or Varyeshka shop?” They say that now these citizens of Ukraine are trying to open Russian classes for their children in Lviv!
The other day, a video went viral on the Internet that in Franik, a lively guy was kicking out some inquisitive rascals who were trying to hum some sad songs in their own language. “Don’t play Russian songs for me here! That’s all. Get the hell out of here!”.
But this is all just a saying, the meaning of which boils down to how difficult it is to sweep our home from the occupier’s inclinations. This should be a key moment of the government’s cultural policy, in which intelligence, people and money should be invested. There is no such policy yet. The example with “united” TV channels is telling and revealing.
The central content of my essay, which I have been thinking about for a long time, is the idea of ”how Russia will disintegrate” or even “how should we divide up Russia.” Like, it is an empire and will inevitably fall apart. Even deep-thinking academic conferences were held, where they talked with inexhaustible self-indulgence about how we should divide Russia. Look, they say, how brave and far-sighted we are! And how!
The problem is that Russia will not disintegrate by itself. It is also necessary to invest in ideas, people, money, and most importantly, an appropriately directed national policy. In order for politics to be national, it is necessary that, at least during the war, the leading officials do not bother to “look Putin in the eyes” and do not conduct negotiations with a world bandit.
For this, it is necessary to implement a political and informational course based on the national interest. National interest not only in relation to Russia, neighbours but also current partners. And for this, the national government needs to act. Where is our national government? Do we have one? It is good to hope that this will contribute to the collapse of Russia. Although this is a strategic issue of national security! The current meddler will first run to ask permission from Kolomoiskyi.
But let’s return to the “disintegration of Russia”, which should be a consequence of national liberation movements. Judging by the fury with which the Buryats behave in Ukraine, they are thinking about how to earn money by complicity in the crime of the empire. They prove that they are “also Russian”.
From the observations shared by Roman Bezsmertny about the stay by the occupiers in Motyzhyn, they were quite sure that they had come to “liberate”. He had the experience of communicating with the Mari people, Mordovians, and Tatars even during his service in the Soviet army. Those impressions continue even now. Of the many occupying bandits, whom he dealt with, only one, when asked directly about his origin, said that he was an Azerbaijani and even sympathized with Ukrainians.
All the rest, who were originally from the Volga nation, meaning by their appearance and characteristic accent were not Russians, claimed that they were Russians! And only after further questioning by Bezsmertny did they mention that they were Mari people, Bashkirs. Even the Volga Tatars, who have a somewhat higher level of self-organization and self-identification, said that they were Russian! All of them want to be Russian and participate in the war against the “Banderovtsi” to prove that they are also Russian, Bezsmertny concludes.
Let’s look to the south, to the long-suffering Kuban. A country inhabited by Cossacks. In June 1775, without firing a single shot at the Muscovites, brought by the Serb (!!) Tekeli to destroy Sichi, they left it by order of Queen Ekaterina and asked for permission to settle on the lands of the Nogai Tatars and Adyghs.
Having settled there, they sowed buckwheat and selflessly helped the tsars to subjugate the Caucasian peoples under Moscow’s rule. They composed a Kuban anthem, overflowing with gratitude to Queen Ekaterina, who expelled them from Zaporizhzhia and graciously allowed them to settle in the Kuban. They sang sad Ukrainian songs and the governments sometimes mourned for Ukraine. They still sing. Some of them in the villages even talk in the local language, that is, Ukrainian, but they do not want to know that it is Ukrainian. They talk to themselves – that’s all!
Their attempts to connect with Greater Ukraine during the liberation struggle were mercilessly suppressed by the Bolsheviks. The Stalinist-Kaganovich Holodomor massacre and mass deportations in 1932-33, the siege of Moscow and repression did break the backbone of the local self-organization of Kuban Ukrainians. Memories and some remnants of national identity remained.
Modern ethnographic atlases of the Transcaucasia and the Caucasus, published in Russia, give the places of settlement and name all nations, even the smallest ones. There are no Kuban-Ukrainians. Everything is filled with a dirty red colour called Russian. It is impossible to hope that on the basis of memories and well-drawn historical and linguistic maps, the Cubans will remember their origin and solidarity with Ukraine. It is useless to think about their political self-organization in these circumstances. This does not happen in real life.
These observations encourage us to think about how realistic are the hopes that “Russia will fall apart” because national liberation movements will unfold in it. These are, at best, naive hopes for utopian justice, which seems to inevitably come from someone’s good intentions. History is made by organized efforts. People, money and purposeful government policy should be invested in this creation. The policy of the national government. You have to create it yourself.
Arsen ZINCHENKO, people’s deputy of the Verkhovna Rada of the 1st convocation, doctor of historical sciences, professor
Україна Молода
