[aaus-list] Interview with Russian Historian Alexei Miller

[Natalia Pylypiuk]

Dear Colleagues,

In case you do not subscribe to Professor Dominique Arel's
*The Ukraine List,*  I am forwarding to you an
interview given by Alexei Miller. I especially
draw the attention of linguists to the
last sentence.

My apologies to those who have already received this
text.

Regards, N Pylypiuk

>
> The Ukraine List (UKL) #424
> compiled by Dominique Arel
> Chair of Ukrainian Studies, U of Ottawa
> www.ukrainianstudies.uottawa.ca
> 10 May 2008

...

> #17
> Q&A: Ukraine Divided Over Russia
> Interview with Russian Historian and Professor Alexei Miller
> Inter Press Service News Agency, 21 April 2008
>
> BUDAPEST, Apr 21 (IPS) - Key pro-Western politicians in Ukraine are  
> promoting the revival of an ethno-cultural nationalism which is  
> built on opposition to Russia and has driven a wedge between  
> Ukrainians -- western Ukrainians tend to see the eastern neighbour  
> as the eternal enemy, while many in the east see Russia as a part of  
> themselves.
>
> Ukrainian nationalism has been often played down by Western media  
> and analysts, who tend to focus on the allegedly liberal and pro- 
> market characteristics of pro-Western Ukrainian politicians,  
> ignoring one of their essential themes in scoring votes with the  
> electorate: nationalism.
>
> An expert in Eastern European nationalism, Russian history professor  
> Alexei Miller, has carried out extensive research in Russia, Ukraine  
> and Poland. Miller is currently a visiting professor at Budapest's  
> U.S. and Hungarian-accredited Central European University, and works  
> in the Russian Academy of Sciences in Moscow.
>
> IPS: What are the main dividing lines in Ukrainians' understanding  
> of themselves?
>
> Alexei Miller: There is an ethno-cultural Ukrainian nationalism  
> which strongly believes a good Ukrainian is a Ukrainian speaking  
> Ukrainian, that thinks of Russian culture as an alien culture.
>
> In contrast, in the east people mostly speak Russian, they think  
> Russian culture, together with Ukrainian culture, is their culture.  
> They are loyal Ukrainian citizens and they think you can be a good  
> Ukrainian citizen and patriot without necessarily alienating  
> yourself from Russian culture, without questioning that you were on  
> the right side during the war, without necessarily agreeing that  
> those who were so to say on the German side during the war are the  
> exemplary Ukrainians.
>
> The main problem now in Ukraine in terms of ethnic nationalism is  
> that they think the east is an object for social engineering. The  
> east is not proper Ukrainian and should be made proper Ukrainian,  
> whereas eastern Ukrainians believe they have the right to define  
> what Ukrainianness means for them.
>
> IPS: What do you make of frequent depictions in Ukrainian press of  
> eastern Ukrainians as oblivious to what is really happening in the  
> country?
>
> AM: It is absolute nonsense, there are many myths and false images  
> which are supposed to legitimise an attitude towards easterners as  
> objects of social engineering that need to be reshaped into proper  
> people.
>
> There is a trend to describe the "Blue" Ukrainian east as a land of  
> criminals and tyrants, whereas the "Orange" West and Centre  
> represents democracy and western economic orientation. But this is a  
> false picture. The economic transformation of Eastern Ukraine is  
> much more dynamic than in Western Ukraine.
>
> IPS: Where do you place the origins of Ukrainian nationalism?
>
> AM: One of the crucial elements of Ukrainian nationalism was the  
> emancipation of Ukraine, as a project, from the concept of Russian  
> nationalism, which was claiming Ukraine as part of the Russian nation.
>
> The understanding of Russians in the 19th century was that there are  
> different sorts of Russians: Great Russians, (what we now know as  
> Russians), white Russians (which stood for Belarusians), and Little  
> Russians, (which stood for Ukrainians).
>
> Russian nationalism claimed all the territory of Ukraine, because it  
> claimed all Eastern Slavs are Russians, but by that it wasn't meant  
> that Russian nationalism wanted to transform Eastern Slavs into  
> Great Russians.
>
> Ukrainian nationalists had to invent a name for a nation that would  
> separate them from the Russian nation. You have plenty of such  
> examples all over Europe. The point is that if you want to build a  
> Ukrainian national project, then the first thing you have to do is  
> to argue that Ukraine is not Russia, to take distance from it, and  
> that was very much inherited by Ukrainian nationalism.
>
> IPS: How was Ukrainian nationalism affected by the Soviet experience?
>
> AM: There were different periods, but overall there was a  
> transformation, because the Soviet project recognised Ukraine as a  
> separate nation. Under the new project Great Russians, which became  
> Russians, and Ukrainians were now brothers, close relatives who  
> together build a new socialist future and the Soviet Union. As far  
> as the Soviet Union recognised Ukraine, you could be Ukrainian but  
> not hostile to Russia. (Unlike Eastern Ukraine, Western Ukraine was  
> until 1939 under Polish rule, and joined the Soviet Union following  
> a pact with Germany to divide Poland).
>
> In the 1920s we saw the Ukrainianisation of what was then the  
> Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic. It was rather an undoing of  
> some achievements of the old Russian project, which was buried. By  
> 1917 there was only one city in Ukraine where the majority spoke  
> Ukrainian, Poltava, and then again 52 percent of its inhabitants  
> were speaking it. When the Soviets started the Ukrainianisation  
> policy there were plenty of protests from Russian speakers, but  
> these were ignored.
>
> This policy of Ukrainianisation lasted until the 1930s; then Russian  
> was gradually introduced, but it has to be studied how much of  
> Eastern Ukraine was Russified before 1917 or after 1945, how much  
> was about the migration of labour force in both directions, and so on.
>
> IPS: The memory of the Second World War is still hotly disputed in  
> Ukraine.
>
> AM: During the second world war the majority of Ukrainians,  
> particularly from the East, fought in the Red Army, whereas some  
> Western Ukrainians, those who had been under the Polish state,  
> sometimes saw themselves as allies of Germany and were definitely  
> not happy to find themselves among the ranks of the Red Army.
>
> The memory of the war was very much instrumentalised by a Soviet  
> propaganda that claimed it was the right cause against the wrong  
> cause, and this was deeply ingrained in the consciousness of  
> everyone living in the Soviet Union, including Ukrainians in the east.
>
> A new situation was then created, because two versions of  
> understanding what it is to be Ukrainian were brought together.
>
> IPS: The division persisted well into the Soviet Union until our days.
>
> AM: After the annexation of Western Ukraine by the Soviet Union  
> following the Second World War, the regime of imposing Soviet  
> control over every sphere of life became even tighter than in  
> Eastern Ukraine, but there was a long tradition of fighting for  
> Ukrainianness in inter-war Poland, and this tradition survived into  
> Soviet times, in different circumstances, under bigger pressure, but  
> it survived.
>
> As far as they were surviving as a clandestine movement, you might  
> say many of these people were sacrificing their prosperity and  
> careers, sometimes undertaking heroic acts. But they created a war  
> mentality, and after the emergence of independent Ukraine they  
> didn't bury the axe of war, they rather thought that now they are  
> going to win this war.
>
> After the 1960s-1970s the Soviet idea was that a good Ukrainian  
> speaks Russian and some Ukrainian, although you could for instance  
> publish books in Ukrainian language. But it was a policy keeping  
> Ukrainian with a lower status. That had to be changed and it was  
> changed, but it does not mean that you can follow on with the  
> programme of "eradicating colonial influence" because that is the  
> talk of these "fighters" against "Russian colonial heritage."
>
> IPS: Are the positions irreconcilable?
>
> AM: Both sides are very hostile to each other, which has been shown  
> by many elections. The point is there could be some common ground:  
> people in the east could recognise that in the conditions of the war  
> fighting on the German side against the Soviets doesn't necessarily  
> make you a war criminal, but the western side would have to  
> recognise that they cannot eradicate Russian language.
>
> There is a need to build a consensual version of a Ukrainian nation  
> which is not based on the exclusivity of Ukrainian language, on  
> hostility to Russia, or even on justifying atrocities such as the  
> killing of Jews claiming they were active supporters of communism or  
> of Poles because of their 'unlawful colonisation' of Western  
> Ukraine: we know this talk all over Central Europe.
>
> IPS: What are the key historical issues that still weigh in  
> Ukrainian politics?
>
> AM: Firstly, the status of the Russian language. Ethno-cultural  
> Ukrainian nationalists would like to eradicate it, and while they  
> will tell you that they cannot do it now, their policy is based on  
> the hope that you can do it within a generation, which is a wrong  
> policy. Hatred of Russia is influential at the government level,  
> it's more than political; it is cultural hatred.
>
> A second issue is that of the reconciliation of memories. Both sides  
> should admit they have their reasons and wrongs in the Second World  
> War. It should be proclaimed past and nobody should claim to be an  
> impeccable hero, rather there should be mutual forgiveness for what  
> was done in the war.
>
> The next issue is that of potential federalism in Ukraine. People  
> have different opinions on it, but it's clear the issue needs to be  
> addressed. Regions must be given something, how much of these  
> federal solutions could be implemented is another question. There  
> are many people who, from the point of view of so-to-say "western- 
> type Ukrainian nationalism", claim any federalist talk is a cover-up  
> for separatism, which is not true, at least for the absolute  
> majority of Eastern Ukrainians.
>
> Whatever you may say about Eastern Ukrainians, they are not crazy,  
> and they want to stay as the strongest regional business elite in  
> Ukraine; they know as Russian citizens they could end up in  
> Chechnya, and so on.
>
> IPS: How influential is Soviet culture, often equalled to Russian  
> culture, on Ukrainians?
>
> AM: It depends on which Ukrainians. You can have an absolutely  
> negative attitude towards Nazi culture in Germany; that lasted for  
> 13 years, it was very militaristic, etc. But the Soviet culture  
> lasted for 70 years, and it underwent a long evolution. Ukrainians  
> where very heavily represented in the Soviet nomenklatura through  
> all the Soviet period.
>
> It is interesting to observe that the images and messages used by  
> the Orange camp in the 2004 election campaign were all Soviet:  
> Images of popular Soviet movies, popular soviet songs, and so on,  
> which shows just how important the Soviet cultural entity is.
>
> There was a Soviet popular culture that was accepted by people and  
> is still valued by them. If you reduce this to Russian culture, as  
> do the representatives of Ukrainian ethno-cultural nationalism, you  
> simply create a cultural desert; there is nothing there except  
> death. You cannot build a culture on Taras Shevchenko (19th century  
> Ukrainian national poet who wrote both in Ukrainian and Russian),  
> however great he is: you need something more for everyday life.
>
> There is a situation in which you cannot prevent people from buying  
> Russian books, music and so on. The constant talk of 'Western-type  
> nationalists' on the disappearance of the Ukrainian language and on  
> preventing Russian culture from getting into Ukraine and becoming  
> popular can go on but they basically cannot take any serious steps.  
> What they have to do is promote Ukrainian culture, it's an  
> obligation of the Ukrainian state, but this is about investing in  
> what is Ukrainian rather than on increasing taxation on everything  
> which is Russian.
>
> IPS: What historical legitimacy does Russian language have in Ukraine?
>
> AM: What we call now Russian language was created by a joint effort  
> of Little (Ukrainian) and Great (Russian) Russians and approximately  
> half, if not more, of Eastern Slavs with higher education in 18th  
> century Russia were Little Russians.
>
> It is mistaken to think that what was spoken in 17th century Ukraine  
> was Ukrainian language: it was not, there were plenty of dialects.  
> The Ukrainian language that we know nowadays was basically created  
> in the 19th and 20th centuries by a conscious effort of what central  
> European historiography calls 'awakeners'. It was consciously  
> created in an attempt to separate it to from the dominant Russian  
> literary norm which was supposed to be common for all.
>
> The distance between Ukrainian and Russian was not bigger than that  
> between upper and lower German dialects. There can be different  
> possible developments, we know that Dutch is a separate language,  
> but it could easily have been a German dialect.


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