EDITORIAL: Life after December 1 (12/08/91)

EDITORIAL

Life after December 1

A state, to prosper, must be built on foundations of a moral character, and this character is the principal element of its strength and the only guarantee of its permanence and prosperity.

- J. Currie

After the celebrations of independence cease, after the euphoria subsides, the new, free democratic state of Ukraine will only begin the long and difficult road to true independence.

Only now can the 52 million citizens of Ukraine show that they are indeed committed to the development of their nation-state. After centuries of failed attempts to attain lasting self-government, a goal which has eluded them throughout their historical experience, the people of Ukraine are faced with a bright future of their own design.

The overwhelming 90 percent vote for independence on Sunday, December 1, testifies to the fact that after centuries of oppression, centuries of Russification and decades of communism, the people are slowly waking up from a deep slumber that kept them complacent, passive, and at times even indifferent to their fate, to their future.

Over the past few months, events in what is now the former Soviet Union, have transpired at a dizzying pace. Just last year, the Ukrainian Parliament declared Ukraine sovereign. Yet, in March of this year, the people voted to join a "new and improved union," under the guidance of Mikhail Gorbachev, while expressing overwhelming support for Ukraine's Declaration on State Sovereignty. But the events of August 19 changed all that.

Superficially, it may look like the road to independence was smooth; it may seem that Ukraine benefited from circumstances beyond its control.

Indeed, the course of action taken by Mr. Gorbachev, his policies of "glasnost and perestroika" in the 1980s had allowed the citizens of Ukraine this historic opportunity to move toward statehood. And, the actions of Russian President Boris Yeltsin served as a catalyst for Ukraine's Act of the Declaration of Independence on August 24.

But, Ukraine's independence, its ongoing evolution into a full-fledged nation-state, is built on the bones of its ancestors. Over the centuries many great patriots worked toward the emergence of a free Ukraine. In this century alone, millions fell victim to Stalin's policies of collectivization and destruction of the intelligentsia and churches, millions died at the hands of both Nazi and Communist oppressors.

Within the last two decades, men of such moral fiber as Vasyl Stus, Oleksa Tykhy and Valeriy Marchenko perished in the Soviet gulags; others, such as Ukrainian Helsinki Group founders Gen. Petro Grigorenko and Oksana Meshko did not live to see the day they had always dreamed of. But the principles, their ideals are embodied in the thread of Ukraine; their sacrifice have borne fruit.

Soon after his release from the Soviet gulag, Ukrainian Republican Party leader Levko Lukianenko, a 27-year veteran of the Soviet prisons, said in an interview:

"I consider myself a fortunate man. At the summit of my youth, I truly fell in love with Ukraine. I fell in love with its song, its land; I fell in love with its past, its Kozak era. And I did not want all of this to perish...

"And everywhere I traveled, I thought, what can I do for the good of Ukraine? Continuously, I studied history and contemplated the situation Ukraine found itself in. When I entered university, I wanted to gain the knowledge that would help me in the struggle for an independent Ukraine..."

The former political prisoner's words reflect the sacred hope and holy struggle for Ukraine's independence that have been passed on, unchanged, from generation to generation. Today, we are the generation fortunate to be blessed with the realization of the age-old dream of a free Ukraine.

Slava Ukraini!