Eurasia Daily Monitor

May 10, 2010


The Viktor Yanukovych administration is undertaking a radical overhaul
of Ukraine's national identity that turns its back not only on the
Yushchenko era, but also on two earlier presidents. All three presidents
promoted Ukrainophile national identity that was based on the doyen of
Ukrainian historiography, Mykhailo Hrushevsky, president of the 1918
Ukrainian independent state and murdered by the Soviet authorities in
1934. President Yanukovych and Minister of Education, Dimitry Tabachnyk,
have outlined policies to re-write school textbooks, in some cases
together with Russia (Ukrayinska Pravda, April 27). These would no
longer be based on the Hrushevsky framework, while also permitting
Soviet-Russian national identity to influence Ukraine's education
system.

The Yanukovych administration is unashamedly moving Ukraine to a
neo-Sovietophile and Russophile view of Ukrainian history and national
identity. This step will be even more divisive than that pursued by
Yushchenko. The shift from a Ukrainian to a Soviet-Russian national
identity is reflected in four ways.

Firstly, as Ukraine celebrates the 65th anniversary of World War II,
billboards and posters throughout Kyiv and other Ukrainian cities
reflect the Yanukovych shift in Ukraine's national identity to one more
acceptable to Moscow. Parades in four Ukrainian cities for the first
time, included 1,000 Russian troops (Ukrayinska Pravda, April 8).
Tabachnyk ordered that school textbooks no longer refer to "World War
II" but to the Great Patriotic War. In his view, there were heroes from
the Great Patriotic War and "collaborators," within which he includes
Ukrainian nationalists (Ukrayinska Pravda, April 12).

Secondly, Tabachnyk has returned to the Soviet era ideological views of
Ukrainian nationalists as Nazi hirelings. Attacks on nationalists
returned during the 2002 and 2004 elections as a way of portraying Our
Ukraine and Viktor Yushchenko as "nationalists." In the 2004 elections,
fake "nationalists" were registered as technical candidates and SS-style
street parades were organized in Kyiv, voicing support for Yushchenko.
These views were then given widespread media coverage aimed at reducing
support for him in Eastern Ukraine.

Today, Ukrainian television, which is under the control of oligarchs and
since Yanukovych was elected has returned to self censorship, is again
exaggerating the influence and support of the nationalist Svoboda
(Freedom) party as a way of mobilizing Russian-speakers to remain loyal
to the Yanukovych administration. The moderate opposition is largely
ignored on Ukrainian television; Yulia Tymoshenko has not been invited
to hold interviews since the elections.

Thirdly, the rehabilitation of the Soviet leader, Joseph Stalin, whose
ideology the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE)
placed on an equal par with Nazism in a resolution last year. A Stalin
bust was unveiled in Zaporizhzhia on May 5 and further busts are planned
in Odessa and other Russian-speaking cities. Billboards greeting Stalin
were erected earlier in Luhansk and Donetsk.

As the PACE representative from Luxembourg asked President Yanukovych:
"It seems that in Ukraine, a process of the heroization of Stalin, and
increasingly, a return to the Soviet interpretation of the Second World
War, is taking place. Could this trend be supported by your government
too, and particularly by the Minister of Education? What are you doing,
Mr. President, to stop this most disturbing process?"
(http://assembly.coe.int).

Yanukovych's response was to say that there should be a local referendum
to determine whether the city's inhabitants support a Stalin bust
(UNIAN, April 26). He could not openly condemn the bust as the Communist
Party (KPU), in whose grounds the bust was unveiled, is a member of the
Stability and Reforms coalition. The 2006-2007 Anti-Crisis coalition
also included the KPU many of whose voters have re-aligned with the
Party of Regions.

Party of Regions deputies defended the Stalin bust by countering that
there are statues of the "Nazi" nationalist leader, Stepan Bandera, in
Western Ukraine. This is a false comparison as Western Ukrainians
support Bandera monuments whilst Eastern Ukrainians do not support
Stalin statues. An April opinion poll found that 57 percent of
Ukrainians opposed Stalin monuments and only 10 percent supported this
step. Those opposed ranged between 76 percent in Western and 57 percent
in Eastern Ukraine (www.uceps.com.ua).

Fourthly, as in Russia, a rehabilitation of Stalin comes with a
downplaying of Stalinist crimes. President Yanukovych said to PACE that
the famine was a tragedy for all Soviet peoples, not only Ukrainians,
denying that it was "genocide." The new Yanukovych position is the same
as the old Russian stance on the issue. It was, "like pouring oil on an
already simmering fire in Ukraine's polarized politics," the former US
Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs,
David Kramer, wrote in the Kyiv Post (April 28).

On the day of his inauguration the section on www.president.gov.ua
established by Yushchenko on the 1933 famine was removed. The Ukrainian
Security Service (SBU) Chairman, Valeriy Khoroshovsky, closed the
agency's archives department which had released documents on Soviet
crimes against Ukrainians and the famine.

The Party of Regions and KPU did not vote for the November 2006 law on
the famine which, together with a January 2010 Higher Appeals Court
ruling, defines the famine as "genocide" against Ukrainians. Yushchenko
condemned Yanukovych's "cynicism" for infringing both at PACE
(www.razom.org.ua, April 27). The Stability and Reforms coalition plan
to overturn the famine law (Ukrayinska Pravda, April 29).

This four-step shift to a Soviet-Russian identity has ramifications for
both Ukraine's domestic and foreign policy. Domestically, it undermines
Yanukovych's claim that he will bring stability to Ukraine which was
believed in Western countries that largely welcomed his election. As the
April 27 riot in the Ukrainian parliament has shown, a radical shift in
Ukraine's national identity towards a Soviet-Russian framework will
bring turmoil and conflict while deepening its regional polarization.

Moreover, Ukrainian foreign policy will be affected by the shift in
national identity, as revealed by the Black Sea Fleet long-term base
agreement until 2042-2047 and further pro-Russian policies. These have
not only closed Ukraine's path to NATO membership but also damaged EU
membership aspirations. Perception is everything in international
affairs and the Yanukovych administration is not perceived in Brussels
as "European." Brussels and Washington may gradually realize that
Yanukovych will not bring either stability or reforms, in the name of
the pro-government parliamentary coalition.

--Taras Kuzio