NEWS AND VIEWS: Ukraine's "Defender of the Fatherland Day" Old "Red Army Day" with a new image (05/14/00)

NEWS AND VIEWS

Ukraine's "Defender of the Fatherland Day" Old "Red Army Day" with a new image

by Dr. Roman Serbyn

Nine years after acquiring independence, Ukraine is still weighed down with colonial trappings. One such disturbing legacy from Ukraine's tragic past, as Roman G. Golash pointed out in his March 26 letter to The Ukrainian Weekly, is the use of the Russian language by the Ukrainian military. Unfortunately the predominance of Russian is not limited to the military; it continues to pervade most of the state institutions, the publishing industry and the mass media.

Another example of how Moscow continues to captivate the psyche of the Ukrainian administration can be seen in the persistence of Soviet-era civic holidays. For eight years Ukraine could not get rid of the two-day holiday of the "October Revolution" (November 7-8), and dropped it only after Russia discarded it. Like Moscow, Kyiv is holding on to the "Victory over Fascism Day" (May 9), and this year a contingent of Ukrainian veterans was sent to join in the Moscow parade to commemorate the 55th anniversary of the first Victory Day celebrations.

To this mockery of Ukrainian history, Ukraine's president has made a new contribution: again following the Kremlin's lead, Leonid Kuchma brought back the "Red Army Day" (March 23), now designated as the "Defender of the Fatherland Day."

According to the Ukrainian news agency UNIAN, President Kuchma set up the new "Den' zakhysnyka Vitchyzny" in response to demands from social organizations and veterans. It comes as no surprise that the Communist-dominated Association of Ukrainian Veterans would lobby the administration for the return of their old Soviet holiday, even if under a new name. Reverence for the Soviet Army and hatred for the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA) continues to be propagated by the Communist press, and old Communist veterans like Gen. Ivan Gerasimov. The long-term head of the Ukrainian Veterans Association, the Russian-born Gen. Gerasimov is known for his vicious attacks on the UPA.

What is more surprising in the president's decree is the claim that the new holiday is intended to foster patriotism among Ukrainian youth. Wasn't the president made aware by his academic advisors that the chosen date is quite incompatible with such a noble purpose? February 23 has no particular significance in Ukrainian history. The date is borrowed from Russian history when Ukraine was no longer part of the Russian Empire and from a period when Russia was pursuing hostile policies towards Ukraine. In addition, the events commemorated by the date were part of Russia's endeavors to quash Ukraine's newly won independence.

These events take us back to early 1918, when Lenin's government was negotiating a peace treaty with the Central Powers while at the same time trying to reconquer Ukraine. Negotiations at Brest-Litovsk bogged down because the Bolsheviks were unwilling to accept the German demands, but at the same time unable to pursue their "revolutionary" war.

The Germans finally lost patience and on February 18 renewed their drive toward Petrograd. Panicking, Lenin published a decree on February 22 titled "The Socialist Fatherland in Danger." The next day some newly formed units of the Red Army tried to block the German drive to Petrograd. The battle, which took place on February 23 in the vicinity of Narva and Pskov, did not stop the German advance towards the Soviet capital, but since it was the first stand of the Red Army againt the Germans, it was considered the nascent army's baptism of fire and as such provided the official date for Red Army Day.

More important than the battle itself was Lenin's call to arms, in which the Bolshevik leader spelled out the urgent measures necessary to save the "socialist fatherland." Prof. Richard Pipes of Harvard University considers two of these measures - the creation of batallions of forced labor and the execution "on the spot" of "enemy agents" - as marking the opening phases of the Communist terror. Actually, as we shall see below, the Communist terror had started earlier in Ukraine, but with Lenin's decree it became a declared policy of the whole Soviet empire.

In his decree Lenin treated Ukraine as part of Russia. Each position was to be defended by the Soviets against the Germans "to the last drop of blood"; all the wealth that could be saved was to be sent to Russia and what could not be saved was ordered to be destroyed. Lenin submitted Ukraine to the "scorched earth" policy so readily reapplied by his successor during the second world war.

The barbaric decree did not mobilize the Bolsheviks in time to save the Kremlin from signing what Lenin called a "humiliating" peace treaty with the Central Powers. Among other things, the document signed at Brest-Litovsk on March 3 obliged Soviet Russia "to conclude peace at once with the Ukrainian National Republic and to recognize the treaty of peace between that state and the powers of the Quadruple Alliance." At that time Ukraine had made its peace with Germany, and German armies were helping Ukraine free itself of the Russian communist invaders.

The Ukrainian National Republic referred to in the Russo-German treaty was proclaimed an independent state by the Ukrainian Parliament, the Central Rada, on January 25 (the declaration was dated January 22). Ukraine immediately found itself under attack by the Russian Bolsheviks and their collaborators in Ukraine. Russian forces were sent from the east and the north; after occupying Kharkiv, they proceeded towards Kyiv.

Led by anti-militarist Ukrainian Socialist parties, which at first naively trusted their "Socialist" northern neighbor, the Ukrainian government was unable to muster more than 300 students and a unit of Haidamaky for the defense of the capital. The stand against the Russian invader took place on January 29 at the Kruty railroad station. Overwhelmed by superior forces, the defenders were defeated - but only after inflicting heavy losses to the enemy and slowing down their advance on Kyiv. This allowed the Ukrainian government to terminate its negotiations and on February 9 sign a peace treaty with Germany, Austria-Hungary, Bulgaria and Turkey. The same day, after days of bombarding the city, the Red Army entered Kyiv.

The "liberated" Ukrainian capital was subjected to a reign of terror. Thousands of Ukrainian citizens were executed for no greater crime than for speaking Ukrainian or having Ukrainian documents on their persons. The Red commander Gen. Mikhail Muraviev reminded the population that Bolshevik power was brought "on the tips of bayonettes" and would be supported "with the force of the bayonettes". In the meantime, the militarily weak Ukrainian government decided that it had no choice, and on February 16 it requested German aid to drive out the Bolsheviks from Ukraine. The Germans began to move into Ukraine on February 18, at the same time as they started to advance towards Petrograd. But they came to Ukraine not as conquerors but as allies of the Ukrainian national government.

On February 23 the Ukrainian Council of Ministers issued an address calling "on the whole Ukrainian nation to a decisive struggle with the Soviet of Commissars and the bands of robbers from Muscovy." The Ukrainian government explained that it had accepted military aid from Germany and Austria-Hungary, and noted that "A division of Ukrainian POWs, the Ukrainian Sich Riflemen from Halychyna and German armies are moving across Ukraine in support of Ukrainian Kozaks, who are now fighting with bands of the Russian Red Army." On March 1, thanks to the German troops, Kyiv was once more in Ukrainian hands.

The new textbooks of Ukrainian history do not mention the February 23 Russo-German battle in the Narva-Pskov region memorialized by Defender of the Fatherland Day. Nor is there any reason they should.

They should, and they do, teach Ukrainian students about the battle of Kruty. A widely used Grade 10 Ukrainian history textbook describes the event as follows:

"The battle took place on January 29. In spite of their small numbers, the Ukrainian detachments firmly stood their ground for several hours. When the amunition ran out, the heroic defenders (zakhysnyky) of Kruty picked up their dead and wounded, and retreated. One detachment of university and high school students went by mistake to the wrong meeting place during the battle, became separated from the others and was captured. Enraged by the high losses (300 Red Army men died at Kruty), P. Egorov [a Communist commander] ordered them shot. Twenty-seven prisoners were led to the back of the station and killed. Meanwhile the retreating defenders of Kruty moved on in the southwestern direction, destroying the railway behind them. In the morning of January 30 they were met by the Chief Otaman of UNR and sent on to Kyiv. They had fulfilled their duty; they stopped the advancing Soviet armies for several days." (S. V. Kulchytsky, M. V. Koval, Iu. H. Lebedieva "Istoriia Ukrainy." Pidruchnyk dlia 10 Klasu Serednoi Shkoly. Kyiv: 1998.)

If the "Defender of the Fatherland Day" is to promote true patriotism in the Ukrainian youth (as the president intends it to do), then it must be founded on a historical model worth emulating. Can such inspiration be generated by glorifying a minor battle of Ukraine's erswhile enemy against Ukraine's ally? How will a teacher explain to his students that their government is commemorating an event so insignificant and irrelevant to Ukrainian history that it can't even be found in their history book?

Why waste time and energy to justify and explain a meaningless date when the battle of Kurty can provide an appropriate one? Generations of Ukrainian patriots, in Ukraine and the diaspora, were brought up on the memory of the university and high school students who defended their fatherland at Kruty. No better date is needed for the "Den' Zakhysnyka Batkivshchyny" than January 29, the day of the Battle of Kruty. And the students can read about it in their history books.

Dr. Roman Serbyn is professor of history at the University of Quebec in Montreal.

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