ешк штшт Review і і ? 3 * THE UKRAINIAN REVIEW A Quarterly Magazine devoted to the study of Ukraine. EDITORIAL BOARD Mrs. Slava Stetsko, M.A. Volodymyr Bohdaniuk, B.A., B. Litt. Editor Associate Editor Marta Sawczuk, M.A. Dr. Anatol Bedriy Associate Editor Associate Editor Professor Lew Shankowsky Oleh S. Romanyshyn, M.A. Associate Editor Associate Editor Askold Krushelnycky Deputy Editor Cover designed by R. Lisovskyy Price: £1.50 or $3.75 a single copy Annual Subscription: £6.00 or $15.00 Editorial correspondence should be sent to: The Editors, “The Ukrainian Review” 200 Liverpool Road, London, N1 ILF. Subscriptions should be sent to: “The Ukrainian Review” (Administration). c/o Association of Ukrainians in Great Britain, Ltd. 49 Linden Gardens, London, W2 4HG. Overseas representatives: USA: Organization for Defence of Four Freedoms for Ukraine, Inc. P.O. Box 304, Cooper Station, New York, N.Y. 10003. Canada: Canadian League for Ukraine’s Liberation. 140 Bathurst Street, Toronto, Ont., M5V 2R3. Printed in Great Britain by the Ukrainian Publishers Limited 200 Liverpool Road, London, N1 ILF Tel.: 01-607-626617 THE UKRAINIAN REVIEW Vol. XXXIV No. 1 Spring 1981 A Quarterly Magazine Contents Taras Kuzio: TH E R U S S IA N ID E A — FA C T A N D FIC T IO N ....................................................... 3 NEWS FROM UKRAINE R U D EN K O ON H U N G E R ST R IK E ....................................................................................................... 39 NEW R E PR E SSIO N S IN U K R A IN E ....................................................................................................... 39 TH E FR O N T IER S O F C U LTU R E ....................................................................................................... 41 TH E K A N D Y B A D E C L A R A T IO N ....................................................................................................... 58 George Kulchycky: THE ANTAES, RUS' AND BYZANTIUM: A STRUGGLE FOR SU PER M A C Y ON TH E B LA C K SE A FROM TH E III TO X I C EN T U R IES ....... 67 NEWSBRIEF SO V IET U N IO N FA C E S B R E A K -U P ........................................................................................... 77 UKRAINIAN NATIONALISTS AND THE FREE TRADE UNIONS ............................... 77 B A D LO SER S ........................................................................................................................................................ 77 PIC T U R E S OF W A R IN A F G H A N IST A N ............................................................................... 79 Volodymyr Yaniv: ASPECTS OF THE FOURTH UNIVERSAL ........................ ............................. 82 BOOK REVIEW ' ■ Published by The Association of Ukrainians in Great Britain Ltd. in cooperation with Organization for Defence of Four Freedoms for Ukraine Inc. (U.S.A.) and Canadian League for Ukraine’s Liberation. Ü£?î AFGHAN GUERILLAS ON THEIR WAY TO RAID RUSSIAN OCCUPIERS. THE MAN, THIRD FROM THE RIGHT IS ARMED WITH A CAPTURED RUSSIAN ANTI-TANK ROCKET LAUNCHER. T. KUZ10 THE RUSSIAN IDEA — FACT AND FICTION •— Third Rome to Third International — “I think the theory of “Russian colonialism” is not only unfair to the Russians but also erroneous in fact... the basic features of national life in the U.S.S.R. are a direct result of the hege­ mony in our country of socialist ideology... The Russians, no less than others are its victims; indeed, they were the first to come under fire". (Shafarevich. I. Separation or Reconciliation? The Nationali­ ties Question in the USSR p. 97)1 “Is it reasonable to act as if Russia’s tragedy began only in 1917? Can one allow oneself simply to forget the history of V. one’s own idelogical forefathers?" (Yanov. A. The Fate of the Russian Idea p. 289)2 The rise of Russian Nationalism (both “dissident” and, official) in recent years in the USSR of which Solzhenitsyn is the most well-known, has put forward the perhaps startling proposition that what has taken place during the sixty years of Soviet rule is not the fault of the Russians but that we are all equally responsible. Another interesting theory is that Bolshevism was imported from the West and that ‘Russia’ was3 “dragged along the whole of the Western bourgeois-industrial and Marxist path”. It seems that “it has always been someone else who was to blame for the troubles of Russia — but not its own people, not the Russians”.4 So the Byzantine Greeks, Germans, Poles, Ukrainians, Jews, the ‘West’ and now China are all to blame. The only inconsistency in this line of thought is that if the West is morally lack­ ing, and Russia so “superior”, why was it that Russia and not the West succumbed to this ‘dark whirlwind’, Bolshevism. If we continue this theorem to its logical conclusion it is surely “profoundly humiliating for the Russian people, depicting it as a helpless blind man ready to follow any guide”.5 Putting the blame for imperialism on an ideology, whether under Peter 1) Solzhenitsyn A. “From Under The Rubble”. London. Fontana/Collins. 1976. p. 88-104. 2) Yanov A. “The Fate of the Russia it Idea". Studies in Soviet Thought. 17. 1977. p. 289-308. 3) Solzhenitsyn A. Letter to Soviet Leaders. London. Index on Censorship. Dist Fontana Books. 1974. p. 21. 4) Yanov A. The Russian New Right: Right Wing Ideologies in the Contem­ porary USSR. Berkeley. University of California Press. 1978. Institute of International Studies Rese arch Series. Monograph no. 35. p. 96. 5) Ibid. p. 96. 4 THE UKRAINIAN REVIEW the Great' or today’s USSR, seems to be a peculiarly Russian trait. This inability to accept guilt is noticeable in the fact that even6 7 Soviet historio­ graphy has distorted the history of the non-Russian peoples to try and show that Tsarist aggression was “progressive”, not in fact annexation but reunification (vossoedinenie), for which the non-Russians had supposedly exhibited a positive yearning (stremlenie). Thus today’s “friendship of peoples” (druzhba narodov) is projected into the past, and Russian ‘leader­ ship’, then and now, was positive due to the Russians being the ‘elder brother’ (starshii brat). In the words of one author, “this interpretation, in its broad dimensions and supporting arguments, which run counter to those of other historians (especially the first generation of Bolshevik historians), can only be described as an eleborate historical myth”.8 The failure to admit guilt was vividly portrayed to a Jewish political prisoner who met some Russians in the camps who among themselves9 “only talk of whether they can allow other nations to be separate, and at the same time stubbornly refuse to recognise themselves as an imperialistic nation — to see the truth”. The failure to see the source of the sickness within themselves must be surely a means of portraying everything the Russians ever did as being somehow ‘good’, and if later there is a change of mind they blame it on others. But, as is clear to all those who have ever had the opportunity to come into contact with Russians at first hand10 “without a clear diagnosis it is impossible to cure a disease”. The deeper causes of this lie in the inferiority complex Russians have towards the outside world (and especially the West), and can be seen in the USSR, in the love of bigness and power and ‘might is right’ including claims under Stalin of being the ‘first, largest and best’ country in many fields and Khruschev’s ‘catch up campaign’. Hence the importance of the military to the Russians, as being the only area in which they feel equal, thus,11 “for the Russians the instinctive question is: who is the stronger and who is the weaker (something which makes detente tricky”. Hedrick Smith12 goes 6) For a good example of an attempt at diluting Russian Imperialism see Riasa- novsky N. V. Old Russia, the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe. Slavic Review. 1952. XI. (3) 171-188. “Even Luxemburg was famous for its feat of arms once upon a time.” p. 173 and “in 1654 in its hour of need, the Ukrainian people through its rada appealed to the Tsar in Moscow, beseeching him to take them under his domain”, p. 179. 7) Probably the most thorough accounts are: Tillet L. The Great Friendship, Soviet Historians on the Non-Russian Nationalities. Chapel Hill. University of North Carolina Press, 1969 and Tillett L. "Nationalism and History.” Problems of Communism. 1967 XVI (5). Sept. Oct. p. 36-45. Pipes R. Russia Under the Old Regime. London. Penguin Books Ltd. 1979. p. 97 makes an interesting point when he states that absorption of Ukraine by Russia for example, is called by Soviet historians ‘unification’ (prisoedinenie) whereas an identical act elsewhere is termed seizure (zakhvat) i.e. England seized Egypt. 8) Tillett. L. 1969. p. 4. 9) Vudka A. “A Nation Without Roots”. Ukrainian Review. 1977. XXIV (3) Autumn. 8-11. p. 9. 10) Ibid. p. 9. 11) Smith H. The Russians. New York. Ballantine Books, 1976. p. 323. 12) Ibid. p. 351. THE RUSSIAN IDEA — FACT AND FICTION 5 on to tell us about a Swedish diplomat that he knew in Moscow, who lamented to him that the Russians gave “short shrift” to his country and other small countries. This great-power chauvinism manifests itself in foreign relations, such as in Czechoslovakia in 1968 and Afghanistan in 1980. The versions put forward by the KGB as to why these countries were invaded i.e. that an outside threat was mounting13 (W. German, American, Pakistani etc) were more readily believed than those put forward by a handful of “Russian Democrats” who demonstrated in Red Square. It was quite obvious who was more familiar with the psychology of the Russian Narod, when14 “the KGB openly appealed to the deep medieval ground of the nationalist subconscious of the masses of the Russian people — and was successful”.