PERSPECTIVES: Three cheers for Kharkiv (02/24/02)

PERSPECTIVES

by Andrew Fedynsky

Three cheers for Kharkiv

Last month at a reception at the Ukrainian Museum-Archives (UMA), Cleveland's Ukrainian community welcomed a large group of businesspeople from Kharkiv. Wandering around the UMA, one of the guests came across the multi-volume set of eyewitness testimony the Congressional Commission on the Ukraine Famine compiled in the mid-1980s. He was visibly moved.

"My grandmother lived through the Famine," he said, "but she never talked about it. God bless the United States for compiling these accounts."

Others I spoke with were also aware of the Famine. How could they not be? Kharkiv was Ukraine's capital in the 1920s and center of the nation's cultural renaissance. Most of the leading literary journals, publishing houses, theaters, art studios and cultural organizations were located there. The creative energy generated in Kharkiv, rivaled that of Paris or New York.

It all changed in 1929, when Joseph Stalin ordered the collectivization of agriculture and declared war on Ukrainian culture. Artists and intellectuals were arrested and murdered by the thousands. So were their audiences and patrons. As for the surrounding countryside, it became a man-made Hell, stripped of every scrap of food. No one's done a survey, but surely most of Kharkiv's citizens must be descended from Stalin's victims.

In 1934, with nearly all of Kharkiv's political and cultural leaders dead or imprisoned, Stalin moved the capital of Soviet Ukraine to Kyiv. Tragically, the city's suffering did not end with the Terror and Famine. Only a few years later, the Germans and the Soviets fought bitter battles the entire length of Ukraine. During a 22-month occupation of Kharkiv, the Nazis executed 100,000 of its inhabitants and deported another 60,000 to work as slave laborers. By the end of the war, the city's population had fallen to fewer than 200,000.

Today, with 2 million inhabitants, Kharkiv is Ukraine's second largest city and first among industrial centers. The surrounding area is still largely agricultural and most of the rural enterprises remain collective and state-owned. The right to own land, so basic to prosperous economies, is still fiercely contested in Ukraine's Parliament where the Communists do whatever they can to block or delay land reform.

As far as I could tell, there were no Communists among the Kharkivites visiting Ohio. They were uniformly young - ranging from their mid-20s to the early 40s - and they all seemed comfortable with the concept of free enterprise. With slick brochures and impressive power-point presentations, they had an easy, friendly manner about them. Most seemed well aware of how much they didn't know and were eager to learn about Western business practices.

Half of them spoke Ukrainian. Some spoke English. Amongst themselves, they spoke Russian. Nearly all displayed Ukraine's blue and yellow in some manner, whether on business cards, brochures or lapel pins.

This visible but low-key patriotism reflects Kharkiv's vote in the independence referendum in 1991. The city is heavily Russified - indeed half the population is of Russian heritage - yet given an unequivocal choice, they voted better than 9 to 1, along with the rest of Ukraine, to sever ties with Moscow and go it alone. "Experts" were astounded. "Who would have thought?" they asked.

I can't tell for sure, but I bet the Famine was a subtle but decisive factor in the vote. During the era of Soviet censorship, people were only vaguely aware of how it had happened, but somehow everyone knew. Call it the collective unconscious or whatever, but, given a choice, Ukrainians overwhelmingly opted for the uncertainty of independence over continuing a relationship that had brought so much suffering and horror.

So how is Ukraine doing now? A week before the Kharkiv delegation came to Ohio, Moody's Investment Rating Agency upgraded Ukraine's bonds two notches and bank deposits one notch, citing "a sharp improvement in the country's macroeconomic indicators over the past two years." The U.S. Agency for International Development reports that Ukraine's GDP grew by 5.8 percent in 2000 and "a remarkable 9 percent and [perhaps] as high as 9.5 percent in 2001 with every indication that this growth will continue through the near term." In fact, JP Morgan's Emerging Markets Bond Index Global lists Ukraine as the top performer last year, returning more than 55 percent on investments.

After nearly a decade of dismal news, Ukraine's economy is showing very positive signs.

The United States has played a major role in all this, providing direct economic assistance and high-level political support: until recently, Ukraine was the third largest recipient of U.S. foreign aid. In addition, a steady stream of U.S. officials, including President Bill Clinton and Vice President Al Gore, visited Ukraine numerous times, encouraging, cajoling and speaking eloquently about Ukraine's historic travails and her enormous potential.

Supporting Ukraine makes good strategic sense. Ukraine's independence transforms Russia, freeing it to pursue a democratic course instead of an imperial one. But the United States also owes Ukraine. Upon achieving independence, Ukraine voluntarily dismantled its nuclear arsenal - the third largest in the world at the time - thus contributing more to American security than just about any other country.

America also owes Ukraine a heavy moral debt. In 1933, when millions were dying from a deliberately induced famine, virtually no one spoke out in protest. Instead, President Franklin D. Theodore Roosevelt extended formal recognition to the Soviet Union that year, while America's leading newspaper, The New York Times, used its pages to help the Soviet Union conceal the Famine. America's journalistic establishment then rewarded Stalin's collaborator, Walter Duranty of The New York Times, with the Pulitzer Prize.

Given its tragic past, it's a miracle that Kharkiv survived at all. Now, having met businesspeople from that city, I have every confidence that Ukraine is on the right track. Its economic growth is fueled by the energies of tough, resilient, intelligent people like these Kharkivites who are gamely working to enter the global market. In the 1920s, their city was the center of Ukraine's cultural renaissance.

In the 1930s, it became ground zero for Terror and Famine. Now it's the 21st century. For one of the few times in their history, Ukrainians are enjoying freedom, peace and stability. I can't wait to see what the good citizens of Kharkiv will do with those kinds of tools.

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