NEWS AND VIEWS: 2002 Palij Lecture at University of Kansas focuses on Yeltsin and Ukraine's independence (01/12/03)

NEWS AND VIEWS

2002 Palij Lecture at University of Kansas focuses on Yeltsin and Ukraine's independence

by Dr. Michael Palij

LAWRENCE, Kansas - Herbert J. Ellison, professor of Russian history and international studies of the University of Washington, spoke early last year at the University of Kansas on the topic "Boris Yeltsin and Ukrainian Independence." His visit was sponsored by the Maria Palij Memorial Fund, established to promote Ukrainian studies. His lecture attracted many students, faculty and the Ukrainian community.

The purpose of the lecture was to compare the Ukrainian struggle for independent statehood during the late tsarist period, the 1917 revolution and the ensuing civil war with the struggle of the Soviet period and the revolutionary transformation of 1991.

While the tsarist policy was repressive of Ukrainian nationhood, both politically and culturally, Prof. Ellison noted that, nonetheless, Ukrainians made considerable advances in the official acceptance of their language and in the development of literature and historical studies that enhanced their consciousness of nationhood. They also developed political groups that undertook discussion of the means of acquiring independent statehood and challenged the Russification of Moscow.

In the wake of the collapse of the Russian monarchy, Ukrainian nationalist leaders encountered a Russian Provisional Government whose leader responded with indifference or hostility to the efforts of Ukrainian political leaders in the Central Rada to define and implement a transition to independent Ukrainian statehood. Ironically, that response weakened the struggle to build a Russian democracy, the lecturer stated. It played into the hands of the Bolsheviks, whose deceptive promise of self-determination for the nations of the Russian Empire facilitated their party's seizure of power and forceful consolidation of a multi-national Soviet empire and totalitarian system.

Though Ukraine gained identity as a Soviet republic with its own Communist leadership, the events of the 1920s would bring a systematic purge of Ukrainian Communist leaders who sought to build an independent brand of communism and an autonomous nationhood and culture that challenged Moscow's control.

The brutal policies of the Stalin years brought a massive slaughter and repression of Ukrainians, especially in the collectivization and purges of the 1930s. It also brought a "cultural revolution" that Ivan Dzyuba has described as including a program of Russification vastly more pervasive, efficient and cruel than anything Ukrainians had witnessed during the imperial period, said the speaker. How the Ukrainians responded was evident in their efforts to remove Russian power from Ukraine in World War II.

The achievement of Ukrainian independence in 1991- the second occasion in the 20th century when the Russian empire collapsed - is a fascinating story and a remarkable climax of struggle for Ukrainian statehood, continued Prof. Ellison. It was evident from the ample supply of Ukrainian nationalist ideas in the samvydav writings of the Brezhnev era and the rapid emergence of the Ukrainian nationalist organization Rukh that even the totalitarian policies of the Soviet period had not halted that struggle. The collapse of the power of the Communist Party and the authority of the Soviet center opened the way for the successful affirmation and implementation of an independent Ukrainian state.

To what do the Ukrainians owe the final emergence of national independence in late 1991? Despite the negative experiences of the Soviet years, they did acquire a territorial identity as a Soviet republic, Prof. Ellison pointed out. They were also allowed the use of their native language in their daily life, education and publication, though the political control, and the elements of Russification that lay beneath the surface of Soviet "internationalism," sought to contain the political impact of these concessions and block the formation of a movement for national independence.

The success that came in 1991 owed much to the reforms of the Gorbachev era, though to the very end Mikhail Gorbachev remained hostile to the dismantling of the Soviet Union. His memoirs condemn Boris Yeltsin for allowing the secession of the non-Russian nations. Nonetheless, the policy of glasnost and the chance to form elective, representative bodies opened the way to an open and vigorous drive for national independence that was massively affirmed by a national referendum initiated by the Parliament of Ukraine.

Today's independent Ukraine also owes much to Mr. Yeltsin, Prof. Ellison commented. Unlike Mr. Gorbachev, he first envisaged and then vigorously advocated a new union treaty - the implementation of which brought about the August 1991 coup attempt. The organizers of the coup recognized that though the treaty aimed to preserve the union, it was based on the principle of full sovereignty of the republics and a genuinely democratic structure of federal power. They feared that the treaty would end both the Soviet Union and Communist power.

The power collapse that followed Mr. Yeltsin's brave resistance to the coup allowed him to play the key leadership role that proved crucial to the peaceful achievement of Ukrainian independence, Prof. Ellison noted.

The miracle was also the product of the overwhelming Ukrainian vote for independence in December 1991 and the effective cooperation between Presidents Leonid Kravchuk and Yeltsin in the replacement of the Soviet center with independent republics voluntarily linked in a loose confederation negotiated in the autumn of 1991. The benefit was reciprocal, since the Russian and Ukrainian leaders had cooperated in destroying the power of the Soviet Communist center that denied the independence of both nations.

As with Russia, the building of workable political, economic and social foundations for the new Ukrainian nation still has a long way to go, but Russian imperialism is no longer an obstacle to that effort, and the end of empire has greatly benefited Russian democracy, a vital guarantee of Ukrainian independence. The peaceful revolution that freed Ukraine was surely an inspiring conclusion to the tragic decades of national martyrdom, Prof. Ellison observed.

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