Problems of Post-Communism Political Leadership and Ukrainian

This article was downloaded by: [University of Sussex Library] On: 26 March 2015, At: 07:56 Publisher: Routledge Informa Ltd Registered in England and Wales Registered Number: 1072954 Registered office: Mortimer House, 37-41 Mortimer Street, London W1T 3JH, UK Problems of Post-Communism Publication details, including instructions for authors and subscription information: http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/mppc20 Political Leadership and Ukrainian Nationalism, 1938-1989 : The Burden of History Hiroaki Kuromiya a a Indiana University Published online: 08 Dec 2014. To cite this article: Hiroaki Kuromiya (2005) Political Leadership and Ukrainian Nationalism, 1938-1989 : The Burden of History, Problems of Post-Communism, 52:1, 39-48 To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/10758216.2005.11052191 PLEASE SCROLL DOWN FOR ARTICLE Taylor & Francis makes every effort to ensure the accuracy of all the information (the “Content”) contained in the publications on our platform. 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Terms & Conditions of access and use can be found at http:// www.tandfonline.com/page/terms-and-conditions MANAGING LOYALTY Political Leadership and Ukrainian Nationalism, 1938–1989 The Burden of History Hiroaki Kuromiya Throughout history, Ukraine’s HO will succeed Leonid Kuchma as the third Wpresident of independent Ukraine? Kuchma’s de- leaders have found themselves cision not to manipulate the constitution and the Su- preme Court to remain in power for a third term has in a tug-of-war between been good for Ukrainian democracy. However, like the former president of Russia, Boris Yeltsin, who installed Moscow and the West. Vladimir Putin as his own successor, Kuchma is ma- neuvering to install his favorite candidate, Prime Min- ister Viktor Yanukovych, as the next president, in the face of a popular movement backing former prime min- ister Viktor Yushchenko. Whoever succeeds Kuchma it seems unlikely that a leader will emerge as a decisive winner and articulate a clear and determined vision for the future of Ukraine. Even in independent Ukraine, the Downloaded by [University of Sussex Library] at 07:56 26 March 2015 influence of the country’s former overlord, Russia, remains strong. Russia ardently courts Ukraine (especially through business concerns), and Ukraine, in turn, flirts politically with its eastern neighbor. At the same time, the lure of the West (represented by the European Union, NATO, and the United States) is equally strong. In March 2004, for example, Ukraine had 2,000 soldiers deployed in Iraq, the fifth-largest contingent behind the United States, the United Kingdom, Italy (2,700), and Poland HIROAKI KUROMIYA is professor of history at Indiana University. He thanks his colleagues in Kyiv, Roman Podkur, Yuri Shapoval, and Valerii (2,400). Russia had none. Vasilev, as well as Professor Amir Weiner of Stanford University, for shar- This article does not pretend to predict the future of ing archival documents and stimulating discussions. Part of this article was Ukraine, but it does analyze some long-term trends in presented at a working seminar, “From Document Collections to Writing History,” Moscow, Russia, June 15–18, 2004. At press time, there was no the political thought of the country’s leaders. Whether winner yet in the 2004 Ukrainian presidential election. the winner of the 2004 presidential race follows in his Problems of Post-Communism, vol. 52, no. 1, January/February 2005, pp. 39–48. © 2005 M.E. Sharpe, Inc. All rights reserved. ISSN 1075–8216 / 2005 $9.50 + 0.00. Kuromiya Political Leadership and Ukrainian Nationalism 39 predecessors’ footsteps remains to be seen. But no mat- all-Union interests, and they were very proud of the fact ter what program Ukraine’s next president articulates, that Ukraine achieved a stable “statehood” under the So- he is likely to face the same set of restraints that bedev- viet regime. However, they remained ambivalent about iled his Soviet and post-Soviet predecessors. Ukraine’s future in world history, a reflection of its pre- Ukraine is one of the largest countries in Europe. It carious position between East (a Russian orientation) is much larger in terms of geography and population and West (a European orientation). This ambivalence is than Poland, which is by far the largest of the recent EU still evident among their post-Soviet successors. It is entrants, and geographically it is even larger than France. not yet clear whether future Ukrainian leaders will be Ukraine is a new country and, in general, little under- able to extricate themselves from this historical bind. stood. American Russia specialists often have only the Khrushchev, who ruled Ukraine from 1938 to 1949 vaguest of ideas about Ukraine and its history. A great (with a short hiatus after World War II when Kaganovich majority of textbooks still refer to Kievan Rus as Kiev replaced him) may have been purely hypocritical when, Russia, even though Russia as such did not then exist. at the beginning of World War II, on July 6, 1941, he The field of Ukrainian studies tends to be both isolated addressed the Ukrainian people as “Comrades, Work- and isolationist. This state of affairs obtains in many ers, Peasants, Intelligentsia of the Great Ukrainian areas, from international security and political economy people!” using the heroic history of the Ukrainian people to literature and culture. Yet it is inconceivable to envi- to full effect: sion a stable “Central Europe” or “Eastern Europe,” The cursed enemy has captured part of our native however one may define these terms, without a finer Ukraine by a perfidious attack. This cannot frighten and more profound understanding of this enormous, yet our mighty militant people. The German dog-knights obscure, country called Ukraine. were slashed by the sword of the warriors of [Prince] While no part of history is truly discrete, this article Danylo of Galicia [who founded Lviv in the thirteenth concentrates on the era after the Great Terror of 1937– century], by the sabres of Cossacks under Bohdan 38. With the liquidation of most of the Ukrainian politi- Khmelnytskyi, and the Kaiser’s hordes were destroyed cal leaders who had believed in Moscow’s by the Ukrainian people under the leadership of Lenin 3 “Ukrainization” policy, it was the post–Great Terror and Stalin in 1918. leadership that defined the complex course leading to True, Khrushchev did not fail to remind the “great Ukraine’s independence from Russia in 1991. Their ten- Ukrainian people” of their “brother, the great Russian ure coincided roughly with Stalin’s 1939 reunification people.” Yet it was also Khrushchev who consciously of most of the Ukrainian-speaking territories that had promoted the awakening of Ukrainian national senti- been divided among several neighboring powers in the ment—within certain limits—to win the war.4 This new aftermath of World War I. awakening led to serious complications after the war, Some of Ukraine’s most prominent political leaders including a ruthless civil war against nationalists that are well known, but many others remain faceless gray lasted for several years, mainly in western Ukraine. figures. Nikita S. Khrushchev and Lazar M. Kaganovich Khrushchev made it clear that Ukrainian independence are perhaps the best-known. Their records in Ukraine was anathema to Moscow. As soon as western Ukraine are infamous, and their roles in political repression are was liberated from the Germans, Khrushchev addressed Downloaded by [University of Sussex Library] at 07:56 26 March 2015 widely documented. Yet few know, for example, that the population as “Dear Brothers, Ukrainians, and All Kaganovich, a native of Ukraine and perhaps the most Citizens Who Reside in the Western Region of Our ruthless executioner of Stalin’s policy, spoke the Ukrai- Native Ukraine!” Emphasizing the Soviet liberation of nian language and, according to his own account, was Ukraine, Khrushchev challenged the nationalists: inspired to become a professional revolutionary after reading the literary work Talisman (whose hero, like What [kind of] independent Ukraine can exist, when Kaganovich, was Jewish) by none other than the Ukrai- now Ukraine already is free and Soviet, where the Ukrai- nians are the masters of their situation? Everything is nian nationalist and writer Volodymyr Vynnychenko, set to serve the Soviet Ukrainian people: our workers 1 Kaganovich’s political enemy. live by the laws decided according to their will, de- As this story suggests, most Ukrainian leaders were velop their own native culture, speak in their native violently anti-separatist

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