Following good academic tradition, let us review history.
Robin G. Collingwood, an Oxford professor and the author of the famous "The Idea of History", compared history and psychology — just like a psychologist analyses his patient's life in order to understand the reasons and the nature of his neuroses, history explores the past, trying to explain the modern "diseases" of humanity.
Ukraine is definitely diseased. For hundreds of years and even now Ukraine is enveloped and has been overcome by a legion of problems. Problems, which obviously still remain unresolved. Historians, philosophers and sociologists, due to their own varied academic analyses, might list a number of reasons. Some of those reasons are offered to the readers as follows:
1. Geography and Environment. Karl Jaspers, one of the greatest philosopher-existentialists, named geographical and environmental aspects as one of the reasons for Europe's political and social development. The same aspects are suitable to the questions discussed here. Ukraine's geographical location and its rich soil are among the first reasons listed for the disasters that have followed this country throughout its history. It is understandable that Ukraine's fruitful lands, situated between the steppes of the East and the forests of the West, attracted various tribes of different peoples that permanently migrated from the East to the West and from the West to the East. Later, when the Slavic tribes, forefathers of modern Ukrainians, settled here, they had to live with the thought that their neighbors would always have tempting visions concerning these lands.
There is a legend about the Bulgarians' migration to the Balkan peninsula. According to this legend, when the Bulgarians arrived in the Balkans, having traveled the territories around the Volga, Asparukh and Bulgarian Rivers the chief said: "It's a beautiful land. We will always have to defend it. Or we can pass it. But then we will travel forever. And if we stay, we will never live in peace, we will fight." And so they stayed and fought for centuries. The story of Ukrainians and the lands shows quite the opposite situation. The beautiful lands made them too peaceful.
A prospective student from Egypt once described to me how the Egyptians imagined paradise. He spoke about green fields, forests that favor shadow, rivers that fill the air with freshness and white cozy houses with orchards around them. He also spoke about beautiful women with smiling faces (not covered with yashmaks). I suddenly realized that he was describing Ukraine. A paradise (if it were not for wars, human greed and vices that cripple any society). This, our Ukrainian paradise, purged its inhabitants of their conquerors' instincts.
2. Religion. Although Ukrainians have never been known for their piousness or devotion, their fate was greatly affected by the choice made by Prince Volodymyr the Great in 989. The adoption of Orthodox Christianity affected a considerable number of Ukraine's historical and cultural features. After the final split of the Christian Church into Roman and Constantinople ones and the fall of Byzantium, Ukraine, along with a few other neighboring principalities, found itself between the hostile Islamic East and the sometimes even more hostile Catholic (Christian) West.
This forced the Ukrainian military classes, the Cossacks and the gentry, to form so-called "Antemurale" (The Holy Barrier) from the East, hiding at the same time behind a similar barrier from the West. Thus, Ukraine stayed under the strong influence of both Eastern and Western cultures, but did not consider itself (and was not considered by others) as a full-member of either of them. This fact is rather misfortunate. Even now, Ukrainians, demonstrate a desire to integrate into the European community. And, having a growing ambition for self-fulfillment as a European nation, are still not able to find all the grounds to ensure themselves of their absolute belonging towards Europe. Europe, on the other hand, guided by the same historical and cultural arguments, is not ready yet to admit historically non-Catholic and non-Protestant Ukraine to "the Club" of European nations. The Club includes only a couple of countries with dominating Orthodox Christianity (namely Greece and Bulgaria; in a few years included with these will be Serbia, Montenegro and Romania)
3. An atypical political order. The next passage might not seem credible: Ukraine was one of the earliest nations to establish a democracy. After the Fall of the Ancient Ukrainian principalities, Ukraine gave birth to a new class - the Cossacks, which, at the middle of 16th century, created one of the most progressive political systems of the period. It included some features of democracy that existed in Ancient Greece, some features of the ideal model of European democracy, and also a disposition to piracy resembling those of the Pacific Ocean. Ukraine could never boast of a monarchic state system like in the West. The Western states were not used to such political organizations, one that did not exactly correspond to feudal structure and monarchy. Thus, Ukraine was not considered as an equitable subject of international interrelations in Catholic and Protestant Europe. Woe is singularity!
All of these aspects triggered the larger disasters — incorporation of Ukraine by Moscovia and, later, the Russian Empire, the period of the Communist regime, and the modern problems: political corruption, lack of freedom of speech, religion, assembly and so on.
So, the factors that a priori could be regarded as absolutely favorable - the rich soil, the inhabitants' peaceable character, strong religious traditions/and early democratic ambitions - indirectly led to the inability to create a strong state, which could have prevented the historical appearance of the negative social features that are so noticeable in modern Ukraine. The problems that arose from these features have to be solved now. By Ukrainians. Taking the past into account.
|
