BUFFALO, N.Y. – This city’s Ukrainian-American Civic Center (UACC) commemorated a movement that four years ago consistently made front-page news all over the world. Using eyewitness accounts and photos of two UACC members, Dianna Derhak and Victor E. Glasko, and the music of local talent extraordinaire Myron Deputat and eminent bandurist Victor Mishalow, a program on February 23 transported the attendees back to the days of the Euro-Maidan Revolution that has become known as “The Revolution of Dignity.”
Dianna Derhak
Protesters use barricade of burned-out buses as defense against government troops, January 25, 2014.
The Ukrainian revolution of 2013-2014 was the ordinary citizens’ response to then President Viktor Yanukovych announcing on November 21, 2013, that he would not sign an Association Agreement with the European Union, after which he proceeded to hold negotiations to forge closer ties with Russia. All over Ukraine, people took to the streets in peaceful protest, demanding the resignation of the president and a return to a European vector. In the early morning of December 1, 2013, the government ruthlessly struck back when its specialized riot police, the Berkut, descended without warning onto a crowd of mostly youth in central Kyiv, beating and arresting them.
Infuriated by this vicious attack, protests erupted all over Ukraine, though Kyiv’s central square, the Maidan Nezalezhnosty, or Independence Square, remained the focal point. Ordinary citizens occupied and barricaded Kyiv’s center and a few surrounding streets in response to the government’s insistence to ignore the will of the people. Despite this, the “Maidan” remained peaceful and businesses in and around the center continued to operate normally.
Victor E. Glasko
A slingshot vs. water cannons, concussion grenades and bullets, February 19, 2014.
The government became increasingly impatient with the people, and resorted to using unprovoked violence by police and government hired thugs called “titushky,” including humiliation, kidnapping, torture and even murder of protesters. On January 16, 2014, the Ukrainian Parliament passed outrageous draconian anti-protest laws that criminalized normal, peaceful methods to protest and assemble. On January 19, as citizens marched up Hrushevsky Street, a block east of the Maidan, to the Ukrainian Parliament, the protests exploded into violent clashes between the people and police. Casualties mounted on both sides of the conflict. On January 22, 2014, the first deaths by firearms were recorded; the victims were primarily the protesters.
Four years later, as patrons entered the UACC pub on February 23, they were propelled into the events of January 2014 on Hrushevsky Street by many of the 23 framed photos of the Revolution of Dignity taken by Ms. Derhak.
Victor E. Glasko
Youth from Lviv demonstrate at Kyiv’s Main Post Office on the Maidan, December 8, 2014.
As attendees continued, they were ushered into the hall by another series of Ms. Derhak’s photos and came face to face with symbolic barricades set up with wooden palettes, tires, a series of seven photographic prints of the revolution by Mr. Glasko focusing on the climactic events of February 2014, and two large banners by Ms. Derhak – on the right barricade one saw vast crowds on Kyiv’s Independence Square, on the left a was banner from Kyiv’s Dnipro Hotel that read (in Ukrainian) “Heroes of the Maidan shall not be forgotten.”
To the left of the “heroes” banner, a display of the UACC/Ukrainian-American Freedom Foundation medical mission to Ukraine reminded people that the fight for the dignity and liberty of the Ukrainian people continues today in the Russian-Ukrainian war in Ukraine’s east. A narrow passage between the two banners was the entrance to the main staging area of the commemoration.
There, the audience journeyed into the climactic days of February 18-20, 2014, when government forces forced the people into a standoff behind a barricade of flames and black smoke from burning tires, wooden palettes and old furniture on Independence Square. By the time the smoke cleared on February 20, 2014, the protesters were victorious, albeit at a cost. Almost 100 lives were lost, mostly to snipers firing from multiple directions. Seventeen police officers also lost their lives. Estimates have surfaced of up to 700 deaths from the start of all hostilities through February 20, 2014.
Ms. Derhak, introduced by Mr. Deputat, spoke first of her experiences on the Maidan in January 2014, how she cautiously observed unfolding events and marveled at how the people on the Maidan worked united, yet without a single obvious leader.
People leaned forward looking at a slideshow featuring highlights of the revolution by Mr. Glasko. Some started to cry. All stood in silence to remember the fallen while the adopted requiem of the Maidan funerals, “Plyve Kacha,” played to a slide show of many of those who sacrificed their lives on the Maidan, those who became known as the Heavenly Hundred.
Shortly after the cessation of hostilities on the Maidan, “little green men” of Russia invaded and occupied Crimea and succeeded in igniting a war in the eastern Ukrainian region of the Donbas, claiming that fascists had taken over Ukraine and that Russian speakers were being threatened. While Ukrainian leaders appeared to hesitate, ordinary people rallied and many, without hesitation, voluntarily went east to fight for Ukraine’s freedom and integrity, learning the art of war in the heat of battle. The war continues even today and has claimed over 10,000 lives and displaced about 1.7 million people. Despite plenty of evidence to the contrary, Russia persists in denying any involvement in the war in Ukraine, and continues to buttress its forces, poised for an attack on Europe thereby threatening global security.
Victor E. Glasko
The left side of Buffalo’s symbolic barricades. The banner reads “The heroes of the maidan shall not be forgotten.”
Thus, the revolution continues, and a worldwide community of Ukrainians has mobilized to help. In an appeal for assistance, Yuri Hreshchyshyn spoke briefly, outlining the UACC and Ukrainian-American Freedom Foundation mission to provide medical supplies to the freedom fighters of Ukraine. Working closely with the Cleveland Ukrainian American community, Buffalo has shipped over 55,000 pounds of medical supplies to Ukraine since initiating the project in June 2014. Those present responded, donating close to $700 in support of this medical mission to Ukraine.
Meanwhile, Moscow continues to maintain that Ukraine is an artificial state, an aberration of history, that Ukrainians are incapable of self-governance and that Ukrainians are, at best, “lost Russians” who need to be returned to the “family” at whatever cost. The Maidan proved otherwise. On the Maidan, people complained that they were leaderless and constantly searched for heroes to follow, while the politicians constantly lagged behind, unable to catch-up. People on “the outside,” including the two eyewitnesses at the commemorative event in Buffalo, saw something more. In the midst of crisis the masses on the Maidan appeared to work like a well-oiled machine. One foreign journalist labeled the phenomenon “horizontal self-organization.”
As one participant of the remembrance noted: “The fate of a nation was largely determined by the conviction, dedication and selflessness of ordinary Ukrainian citizens who were willing to sacrifice everything, including their lives, to achieve a brighter independent future for Ukraine without Russian dominance or interference.” The ordinary people themselves are the heroes they seek.