The coup: Ukrainians on the barricades (12/29/91)

The coup: Ukrainians on the barricades

"Three Nights of Alarm" was the headline on an October 20, 1991, article in Ukraina magazine that told of the participation of Moscow's Ukrainians in resistance to the August coup attempt. The report, which is introduced by USSR People's Deputy Rostyslav Bratun, is by Moscow journalist Larysa Trylenko. The translation below was prepared by Roma Hadzewycz.

I knew many of them before the days of August that became historic...They were the face of Ukrainian Moscow...Yes. Do not be surprised Ukrainian Moscow indeed, because it is hard to count how many of our countrymen live there. Those who registered their nationality as Ukrainian - they alone number about 300,000. Remember the television footage from Moscow public meetings: when the blue and yellow flag was still considered subversive, it masterfully appeared on the squares and streets of the Russian capital. The Ukrainian community was organizing, discussing and uniting in the cultural-educational society Slavutych, the Association in Support of Rukh and the Youth Club. When the hour of the great trial arrived, flag-bearers with their blue and yellow flags came to the barricades that defended the "White House" - acting on the slogan "For our freedom and yours." The Ukrainian "company" of the 20th unit of the people's militia came. Moscow journalist Larysa Trylenko describes the scene. She herself was on the barricades along with the men - as befits a true Ukrainian Kozak's wife.

- Rostyslav Bratun, USSR people's deputy

* * *

The "political presence" of Ukrainians in Moscow was demonstrated during the very first actions of the democratic citizenry. As early as November 7, 1989, when the first true demonstration of the people proceeded down the streets of the capital, as an alternative to the official rally that took place in accordance with the usual order, under the usual slogans and among the usual ranks of the militia on Red Square - already at the first democratic demonstration in Moscow there was a small group of people with blue and yellow flags. That is how the Moscow Association in Support of Rukh, the Ukrainian Youth Club and the Slavutych Society manifested their existence.

I must say that the reaction at Moscow public meetings to the Ukrainian flags was most positive: "Well done, Ukrainians!" "This is Rukh? How commendable!" People come up to us, shake our hands, thank us, make inquiries. One gets tired answering all the questions, explaining the symbolism and its origins (for previously the Ukrainian problem was described with two terms: "Petliurivshchyna" and "Banderivshchyna"), expounding on the meaning of the word "Ukraine" and even those things that are not so simple, even as regards a favorite Russian word, "khokhol"...

Moscow's Ukrainians appeared at manifestations carrying not only flags, but also slogans appropriate to the given moment; they distributed the independent Ukrainian press and leaflets that delineated the positions of Ukrainian democrats: they spoke out about our problems, and stood up to lies and slander.

During the August days of 1991, the Ukrainian flag was raised very high over Moscow. On the first day of resistance at the Russian "White House" - in the morning the resistance still was unarmed and defenseless, while by the evening it was transformed into a citadel of lawfulness and democracy - a dirigible with a huge tri-color Russian flag was sent aloft. Almost immediately another flag - the blue and yellow - was added. (Later the flags of sovereign Lithuania, Georgia and Armenia appeared there as well.) The Ukrainian flag was raised by Vasyl Povzun, Ruslan Nesterenko and Heorhiy Lukianchuk, members of the Association in Support of Rukh.

Vasyl has been working very closely with Democratic Russia from the very start and that is why, when the first reports about the putsch came out, he went to the headquarters of DemRus. After that he was everpresent at the walls of the White House. He participated in the construction of the first barricades, and prepared leaflets and pasted them throughout the city; he did everything that thousands of activists of democratic organizations did during those hours.

The first public meetings were held. As usual, our boys came with their flags. More and more Ukrainians gathered, attracted by the flags - among them were locals and visitors who happened to be in the Russian capital on those days.

When defense of the Russian Parliament was being readied, as everyone knows, the press and television provided practically an hour-by-hour account of events. So when the throngs of thousands - full of decisiveness, but completely unarmed and unorganized - began to progressively unite into more or less defined formations and to divide themselves into "companies" of 100 (sotni) that were headed by persons at least somewhat familiar with military matters - somehow, in and of itself, a Ukrainian sotnia was created.

Our boys remained near the barricade that they had erected with their own hands and on which they had placed our flags. And, you know, this happened completely by accident, but truly there is a symbol in all of this: it was from the southwest, from the direction of Ukraine, that Ukrainians were defending the White House.

I'll be frank: these "fighters" did not look warlike. Well, what kind of a soldier, for example, is Roman Dmytryshyn, a chemist/analyst, a docent at one of Moscow's institutions of higher education, a person well on in years with thick eyeglasses and the irreplicable dialect of the Galician intelligentsia? Or the gray-haired ecologist, originally from Luben, an ardent defender of the environment in "times of peace." Or the high-browed boys, reserved and ironic, somewhat foppish even in the assault setting of a military town - students and graduate students of Moscow institutions of higher education (oh, please believe that it is not the worst Ukrainian youths who attend selective institutes and universities in the capital).

Oleksa Kotov (our flag-bearer) must have felt like a fish in water: he once was in the air force, though he is also a person with an extraordinarily peaceful specialty, a restorer and wood-carver...Oleksa not only demonstrated his full battle preparedness by his appearance, in a very approachable and clear manner, he also explained to the others all kinds of pertinent things: such as how a helicopter disembarkation functions; when a building like this one is "taken"; where, his opinion, the other side's snipers were positioned; and that one should not grumble much about the incessant rain because this, in fact, decreases the effectiveness of a chemical attack.

Three nights of alarm and uncertainty. No one had accurate information. The attack, supposedly, was to occur at 10 p.m. No, at 1 a.m. ... at 3 a.m. ... Those military vehicles and tanks are supposedly ours; and those farther away, supposedly are not ours. Then, supposedly, as a result of multi-level negotiations, an accord was reached - there would be no attack. Supposedly Moscow's military units would be relieved by fresh forces, especially the excellent Vitebsk division, which people's deputies purportedly had tried to agitate and intercept...

What was real was only these people, very young, in work clothes and lightweight summer suits (in those first days everyone came as they were), students and workers, scientists and cooperative owners, Afghan war veterans and those who could take up neither weapons nor metal pipes. All were equally unswerving in their decisiveness: they would not move from this place, they themselves, through the strength of their spirit, would stop this frightening thing that was closing in on all of us.

One would like to name everyone, but the magazine page makes this impossible: nor do I know all of them by name. Some are familiar faces, we've met at those public meetings, but there were also so many unfamiliar persons, locals and visitors, who were drawn by their conscience and sense of one unalterable truth during these difficult hours to the white walls of the Russian Parliament, to the blue and yellow flags of Ukraine. Besides, this account was not written for fame's sake - though they are truly very dear to me, these boys of ours, that Ukrainian "company" and our entire community of Moscow Ukrainians. Ultimately, the position and behavior of a person in those very important and very deeply experienced days is a personal affair; we stand with this before God and no one else.

There was one more moment in his episode. Ukrainians and Ukrainian flags were, as usual, very warmly welcomed by Muscovites. "Youngsters, how good it is that you are with us!" And then, the obligatory question, posed very carefully: "What's happening in Ukraine? Why is Ukraine silent?"

We knew that Ukraine was not silent. We spoke about the decisive position taken by Rukh, about the statement issued by the National Council, and noted that the appeal of the chairman of the Supreme Council of Ukraine was not at all like the heavily edited and misrepresented "interview" shown on the program "Chas" on central television. We reported on the republican strike committee's intense work. But, for nearly two days, Ukraine, in fact, remained silent. There was no unequivocal and decisive statement from the republic's authorities, as there was from other sovereign republics.

Afterwards we heard the temperamental and at once steely logical interviews of (Vyacheslav) Chornovil, (Volodymyr) Hryniov and other democratic leaders, and our spirits were somewhat lifted. Nonetheless, the resolution of the Supreme Council's Presidium, incomplete and evasive, did not correct the situation. Well, it is fine not to recognize the State Committee on the State of Emergency until a decision is made by the all-union Supreme Soviet... But when this conglomeration of marionettes, which still predominates statistically in the Supreme Soviet and at the congress, votes that the acts of these criminals are constitutional, then what? Hide one's conscience in a pocket never to be retrieved? Yes, there were moments when we did not know what to say. But the honor of Ukraine, and its position at that time were proven by the Ukrainian flags on the Moscow barricades.

- Larysa Trylenko