In his newly published book, president expounds for 560 pages on why Ukraine is not Russia
President Leonid Kuchma was a guest of honor at the 16th Annual Intenational Book Fair in Moscow on Sept. 3 as he plugged his latest literary work, titled “Ukraine is not Russia.”
During a brief appearance at the stand of his Russian publisher, Kuchma said he had been inspired to write the book in order to further strengthen Ukraine’s independence.
The genre of the 560-page work, whose cover shows Kuchma squatting in the middle of a field of cornflowers, is described as “explanatory” in the introduction.
“We still need to explain in Russia, Europe, the United States and Ukraine that Ukraine is not Russia,” Kuchma said.
Kuchma said that while Russians need not worry about losing their national self-identity, that danger remains real and current for his compatriots.
“We have created Ukraine, and now it is time to create Ukrainians,” Kuchma said, emphasizing that Russia has nothing to fear from an independent Ukraine.
“Russia will always have its representative in Kyiv,” Kuchma said. “Any Ukrainian president will be Russia’s man, because Ukrainians won’t stand for anything else.”
Kuchma described the subject of Ukrainian-Russian relations as a “mine of information” about which thousands of books could be written.
Flanked by Russia’s ambassador to Ukraine, Viktor Chernomyrdin, Kuchma explained that he had written the book in Russian.
“I still can’t write freely in Ukrainian. I can speak fluently, but not in the kind of Ukrainian that our writers curse me in,” Kuchma said.
Kuchma’s book was issued by Moscow’s Vremya publishing house, which agreed to pay the author a 10-percent royalty.
Initial response to the book has exceeded expectations, Vremya staff reported.
“Most of the orders that have come in so far have been from Russian book distributors and representatives of foreign embassies,” Vremya marketing director Aida Khankishieva told the Post on Sept. 8.
Vremya director Alla Gladkova said that she was delighted by the positive response, but she expressed some puzzlement at what she described as the lukewarm reception the book has received so far in Kyiv.
“I can understand why the millions of Ukrainians who dislike Kuchma aren’t interested, but this book does represent a valuable historical document,” Gladkova said.
Representatives of several Kyiv-based book distributors, including Bukva and Bukvoyid, said that their representatives in Moscow had contracted with Vremya to receive copies of the book, which should be available within weeks.
Ukraine’s pro-presidential media, meanwhile, have been busily promoting Kuchma’s book. Fakty, the nation’s largest-circulation tabloid daily, published extensive excerpts on Sept. 5.
The excerpts included Kuchma’s observations about the character of Ukrainians and Russians.
“We are a poetic and artistic people, something that is not a merit but is simple fact. We are inclined to exaggeration, metaphor and hyperbole, and have still not lost our sense of oneness with nature,” Kuchma writes.
Kuchma also observes that Russians are somewhat less optimistic than Ukrainians. “If something bad or undesirable happens, a Russian will say to himself, ‘I knew it!’ while a Ukrainian says, ‘It could be worse,’” Kuchma writes.
The titles of the book’s 14 chapter include: “Very different countries,” “Thoughts on the character of Russians and Ukrainians” and “On relations with one another.”
The book also deals with the touchy subject of Crimea, which has been claimed as Russian territory by some Russian nationalist politicians. Kuchma points out Crimea receives everything it needs from Ukraine and depends on Dnipro water and Donbas coal for its existence. He refrains, however, from discussing historic rights to the peninsula.
During his presentation, Kuchma openly acknowledged that he did not write the book alone. He said that he did not list his helpers by name because he feared some might be offended if they were listed in the incorrect order.
“This practice [of taking credit for what others have written for you] is not a rarity in the political history of mankind,” Kuchma said, saying that the book represented an honest effort to contemplate his work in public office and the historic challenges of the time.
Perhaps coincidentally, the title of Kuchma’s book is the same as that of an important speech delivered three years ago by U.S. foreign policy guru Zbigniew Brzezinski, who served as national security advisor to President Jimmy Carter. At a high-level conference devoted to Ukraine’s progress in nation building held in Washington during September 2000, Brzezinski said that Ukraine outshone Russia in protecting human rights, building democracy, implementing economic reforms and effectively using foreign assistance.
Kuchma’s first book, titled “On What is Most Important,” was published in November 1999. It presents his views on political and economic topics.
