The 1996 J.B. Rudnyckyj Distinguished Lecture University of Manitoba Presented by Serhii Plokhy Associate Director Peter Jacyk Centre for Ukrainian Historical Research Deputy Editor Hrushevsky Translation Project Dr. Serhii Plokhy is an Associate Director of the Peter Jacyk Centre for Ukrainian Historical Research at the Canadian Institute of Ukrainian Studies, University of Alberta. He serves as Deputy Editor of the Hrushevsky Translation Project, and has co-edited, Mykhailo Hrushevsky, History of Ukraine-Rus'. Vol. 7: The Cossack Age to 1625. (Edmonton and Toronto, 1999). His latest book, A Rebel Faith: The Cossacks and Religion in Early Modern Ukraine has been accepted for publication by the Oxford University Press, and will appear in print next year. He also authored a number of articles on the role of history and religion in the shaping of the Russian and Ukrainian identities. THE CRIMEAN DISPUTE: HISTORY IN RUSSIAN- UKRAINIAN TERRITORIAL CLAIMS Introduction The dissolution of the USSR -- the last world empire - brought to the fore the whole range of problems that usually accompany the dissolution of empires. The disintegration of the Ottoman, Habsburg, and, to some extent, French empires took place in the midst of war. Despite the fact that Britain and later Portugal withdrew from their colonial territories almost peacefully, the national, tribal and religious conflicts that commenced after the departure of colonial administrations eventually resulted in bloody conflicts and wars. Among the many problems that have followed from the dissolution of the USSR is the border question. Although the border disputes in the former USSR have not been as sharp as they are in the former Yugoslavia, they do constitute a serious threat to peaceful relations between the former Soviet republics. It was hardly accidental that the first major manifestation of the national unrest in the USSR came with the events in Nagorno-Karabakh, a region claimed by two former Soviet republics: those of Armenia and Azerbaidzhan. The transformation of administrative borders into state ones is proving to be a very complicated and uneasy process.[1] With the disintegration of the USSR, the border question has raised to the level of special importance the relations between two other republics of the former Soviet Union-Russia and Ukraine. The problem came to light in late August of 1991, after the proclamation of Ukrainian independence. On August 29 the spokesman for the Russian President, Pavel Voshchanov, announced that if Ukraine seceded from the USSR, Russia would reserve the right to revise its borders with Ukraine.[2] In fact, the new Russian authorities claimed Russia's right to the eastern and southern oblasts of Ukraine, areas, which underwent a high degree of Russification during the Communist regime, and to the Crimean peninsula, a region transferred from Russia to Ukraine in 1954. Since the results of the Ukrainian referendum (held in December of 1991) demonstrated an overwhelming support for the idea of Ukrainian independence (more than 90% of the voters that took part in the referendum voted for independence) the nationalistic factions in the Russian leadership were forced to abandon previous Russian claims to the eastern Ukrainian oblasts and concentrate specifically on the issue of Crimea, the only region in Ukraine where ethnic Russians constitute the majority of the population and where the vote for independence was the lowest one in Ukraine. The results of the referendum in Crimea also showed that the support for independence in Sevastopol was slightly higher than in other areas of Crimea (in Crimea it was 54%, in Sevastopol - 57% in favour). There was also other indication that voters in Sevastopol were more "pro-independent" than in the other areas of Crimea. In the vote for the president of Ukraine that was conducted simultaneously with the referendum, Viacheslav Chornovil, the head of the Lviv regional administration in Galicia - the stronghold of Ukrainian nationalism, received in Sevastopol more votes (10,93%) than the representative of the highly Russified city of Kharkiv, ethnic Russian Vladimir Grinev (8.38%). The vote in Sevastopol signalled serious threat to the Russian interests in the area and from the first days of 1992 Sevastopol and Black Sea Fleet appeared in the centre of the massive propagandistic campaign, launched by the Russian parliament. As the "all-Union resort" and home of the Black Sea fleet, Crimea has been viewed by many Russian politicians as an "ancient Russian territory." Leaders of the parliamentary nationalistic factions have been using every single opportunity to claim that the transition of Crimea to Ukraine in 1954 was conducted allegedly in violation of the Russian constitution and that there are more than enough legal arguments in place to demand the transfer of Crimea back to Russia.[3] In April of 1992, when the confrontation over Crimea had reached its peak, Russian Vice-President Aleksandr Rutskoi on his visit to Crimea made a direct claim to that territory, justifying this claim on the basis of historical arguments. Rutskoi rejected one part of Crimean history - the transfer of the peninsula to Ukraine in 1954, and emphasized another - the annexation of Crimea by the Russian Empire and its military presence there: "If one turns to history, then again history is not on the side of those who are trying to appropriate this land. If in 1954, perhaps under the influence of a hangover or maybe of sunstroke, the appropriate documents were signed according to which the Crimea was transferred to the jurisdiction of Ukraine, I am sorry, such a document does not cancel out the history of Crimea."[4] Since 1992 the issue of Crimea, Sevastopol and the Black Sea Fleet has constantly remained in the center of Russian-Ukrainian relations. The Black Sea issue has been raised again and again each time the political struggle in Kremlin has intensified. From Aleksandr Rutskoi to Aleksandr Lebed, every consecutive "strong man" in Kremlin would raise the issue, and appeal in that way to the nationalistically orientated Russian electorate. As the power struggle in the Kremlin intensified with Yeltsin's heart attack in June, 1996, the issue of Sevastopol and the Black Sea Fleet were again resurrected by the presidential hopefuls Moscow mayor Iurii Luzhkov, and then Security Council secretary Aleksandr Lebed. Much further than Luzhkov or Lebed went in their claims to Sevastopol members of the Russian parliament, Georgii Tikhonov, the Chairman of the Duma Committee on CIS Affairs, publicly stated that Sevastopol "was, is and will be Russian." Tikhonov and his Committee submitted to the Duma resolution that stopped the partition of the Fleet, and declared Sevastopol to be an exclusive base of the Russian Black Sea Fleet.[5] Though the current crisis over the Black Sea Fleet and status of Sevastopol has a number of elements that distinguish it from the previous "Sevastopol crises," there is a lot in common between the new and old Russian-Ukrainian debates on the issue of Crimea. What is in common in all of them is the type of historical argumentation that is used by the Russian side to make its claim to Se vastopol. The cornerstone of all Russian claims to the Crimea and Sevastopol is a myth of Sevastopol as an exclusively Russian city, the "city of Russian glory," the symbol of Russian fleet and Russian glorious past in general. This paper takes as point of the departure John A. Armstrong's definition of the myth as the integrating phenomenon through which symbols of national identity acquire a coherent meaning.[6] Thus, the main goal of this paper is not to define whether the Sevastopol myth is "true" or "false," but to determine how the myth was created and how it has been transformed in order to meet the challenges of the changing political circumstances. For the nationalistically orientated Russian politicians, the history of the Russian presence in the Crimea is closely connected to the history of the fleet, and henceforth, to the history of its main base in the Crimea - Sevastopol. The former commander of the fleet, Admiral Igor Kasatonov (was recalled from Sevastopol to Moscow in December 1992) stressed in an interview with the Russian newspaper Literaturnaia Rossiia, that Russia in any form cannot be imagined without its glorious Black See fleet. According to Kasatonov, the Ukrainian takeover of the Black Sea fleet and its naval bases in Crimea and Black Sea region would throw Russia back three centuries, to the times before the rule of Peter I. Kasatonov was really proud to say in his interview that during his tenure as a commander of the fleet, the tombs of Admirals Lazarev, Nakhimov, Kornilov, and Istomin were restored in St. Volodymyr (Vladimir) Cathedral in Sevastopol.[7] In the autumn of 1996 when the status of Sevastopol once again was under discussion in the Russian parliament, the Russian newspapers published the appeal of A. P. Nakhimov, G. V. Kornilova, and A. P. Istomin, allegedly offsprings of the Sevastopol heroes, to the President, government and parliament of Russia. The appeal called on the authorities to put effectively Sevastopol under the Russian control.[8] The names of Nakhimov, Kornilov, and Istomin, the commanders of the fleet and defenders of Sevastopol during the Crimean war of 1853-56 may symbolize better than anything else, the sense of Sevastopol myth, as it exists in contemporary Russia. Sevastopol Mythology: Imperial Period The Sevastopol myth as many other myths, based on the war events, aroused from the humiliation of defeat. War victories give pride to nations, glory to generals, but very rarely serve as a basis for the myths that can mobilize and bring a nation together. From the times of Ancient Greece and the veneration of 300 Spartans, stories about the heroism of those, being defeated, serve as an important component of nation's heroic mythology.