The times, they are a-changin.’
As we approach the 30th anniversary of Ukraine’s independence, the question of what Ukraine is today, or rather, who are the Ukrainians at this stage in their development, is once again very relevant.
This has been highlighted by several recent events that have made the headlines, and by two important new publications. They indicate that despite vestiges of conservative intolerant ethno-nationalism and openly hostile anti-Ukrainian sentiment generated by Moscow, Ukrainians have managed during 30 difficult years of independence to make substantial progress in building an inclusive democratic political nation. But that it is still a work in progress.
Currently, one of the most famous Ukrainians, and a source of immense pride and joy, is the black sportsman and lawmaker, Zhan Beleniuk, who won Ukraine’s only Olympic gold medal at Tokyo 2020. He had already made history in 2019 by being the first black deputy to be elected to the Ukrainian parliament from President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s Servant of the People party.
Beleniuk, the son of a Rwandan father and Ukrainian, is a symbol of the changing new Ukraine. He was even born in 1991, the year that Ukraine broke free from the former Soviet Union and reaffirmed its independence.
The Olympic champion grew up in Ukraine and acknowledges that he experienced racism as a child. He was “too light for Africa, too dark for Ukraine”. This was one of the reasons he took up wrestling when he was nine years old.
After his triumph, Beleniuk was filmed dancing ecstatically around the wrestling platform with a Ukrainian flag draped over his shoulders. He speaks Ukrainian and Russian and is visibly proud of his Ukrainian identity. He has pledged to immerse himself more fully now in political life and work to better the country.
On a sadder note, the other example of a “non-traditional” Ukrainian hailed as an exemplary patriot and brilliant contributor to Ukraine’s art and culture is Alexander Roitburd, who died on 8 August. A Ukrainian Jew, he was one of those who defiantly raised the Ukrainian standard in Odesa, then still seemingly ambivalent about its loyalties, during the EuroMaidan Revolution that drove Kremlin-backed President Viktor Yanukovych from power in 2014..
Roitburd was a bold controversial artist who in his sexual explicitness did not fear to explore the limits of the permitted and accepted. He was uncompromising in standing up to bureaucratic boors, hostile traditionalists, and the still significant anti-Ukrainian forces in his home city of Odesa. Inevitably, as the director of the Odesa art museum, he was targeted by, but managed to withstand, hostile attacks from local political and ideological foes.
The outpouring of appreciation for Roitburd on his death has revealed the extent to which leading Jewish intellectuals and thinkers have increasingly been accepted and found their place within the bourgeoning Ukrainian political nation.
Of course, this should not be a surprise, given that the president of the country himself comes from a Jewish background.
The support of Odesa’s Jewish intellectual and artistic elite for the Euromaidan was a critical moment in the development of the new Ukraine. And regardless of what we might think about the Ukrainian Jewish oligarch Ihor Kolomoisky, we cannot forget that for reasons best known to him he supported Ukraine, rather than Russia, when Putin attempted to seize much of eastern Ukraine.
If we scan the pages of today’s Ukrainian press we see that Ukrainian Jews, such as former Soviet political prisoners Semyon Gluzman and Leonid Finberg are in their own different ways heavily involved in ongoing political debates.
Slowly but surely, Ukrainians are also taking a fresh, more honest view, of the country’s modern history and the tragic fate of its Jewish population during the Nazi occupation in the early 1940s. It is heartening to see that in western Ukraine many Ukrainians are supporting projects such as the Jewish Headstone Recovery at Rohatyn Jewish Heritage headed by the amazing Marla Raucher Osborn.
But there is still considerable reluctance in some quarters to look the truth in the eye and draw the proper conclusions.
Last month, the Ukrainian documentary “Babi Yar. Context” won the Golden Eye Award at the 74th Cannes Film Festival. Directed by Ukrainian filmmaker Sergei Loznitsa, it deals with the Holocaust in Ukraine. But instead of this being welcomed in Ukraine, there has been a mixed reception, with criticism of the film for its “shortcomings” tending to predominate.
And such enduring attitudes are only the tip of the iceberg. In other spheres where tolerance and civility are called for, the situation has got worse, not better. I won’t even go into the intolerance bred and practiced very violently by some ultra-right groups towards “gay” Ukrainians, or even their political opponents. And this in a country that aligns itself with Europe and its values!
And let’s be frank. The political hatred deliberately generated during and ever since the presidential and parliamentary election in Ukraine in 2019 that resulted in a landslide victory for the new forces mobilized by political newcomer Volodymyr Zelensky has been one of the most odious developments in the nation’s still relatively brief history of independence.
Even now the camps that lost – especially the supporters of former President Petro Poroshenko – continue to reject two-thirds of Ukraine’s voters as brainwashed “zombies” not worthy of being called Ukrainians. This contempt for the very clear democratic results produced by the ballot box amounts to rejection by a shocked and embittered minority of basic realities about today’s Ukraine. This exclusive and patronizing attitude makes a mockery of those claiming to be the most European and patriotic Ukrainians.
Sadly, it attests to a political culture that remains in many ways still highly backward and deficient.
All this is the topic of an important newly published book called in Ukrainian “Each one of us is president” by Iuliia Mendel, who for two years, until very recently, was president Zelensky’s press secretary.
A political newcomer herself, who until she was chosen for the role, had not been connected with Zelensky, this highly capable 34-year-old was able to observe a lot from a privileged vantage point. Fortunately for us, she has had the wisdom and drive to share her reflections and insights.
Using her journalistic skills, she sets out to examine the nature of Ukraine’s current diverse citizenship, the prevailing mindsets, and what is required to build unity around democratic inclusive principles rather that sow division for cheap political and financial ends.
The bottom line of her message is that Ukraine’s present and future depends on each one of its citizens. On the responsibility, they are prepared to shoulder individually and the extent that they remain independently minded and are capable and ready to make decisions that are not imposed on them by others. In that sense, each one of them is a president.
Mendel’s work is very thoughtful and honest, and well written. It is by far the best book I’ve read on Ukraine for many years. It deserves a separate, more detailed, review.
There’s one other new publication on a related topic that I’d also like to recommend. It’s a study entitled “Ukraine at 30: From independence to interdependence. What unites Ukrainians and what divides Ukrainians after 30 years of independence.”
It has been produced by a group of respected researchers and journalists headed by Peter Pomerantsev, within the framework of the Arena program “to overcoming the challenges of disinformation and malign propaganda that endanger democracy” based at the London School of Economics and John Hopkins University.
The authors remind us that: “The 30th anniversary of Ukraine’s independence represents a unique opportunity to reboot the discourse about what Ukraine is and where the country is heading.” Their study “reflects the aspiration to replace externally imposed nation-building narratives with a new vision for Ukraine, as seen through the eyes of Ukrainians in all their diversity of background and attitudes.”
The perfect accompaniment to Mendel’s topical book.
Bohdan Nahaylo is a British-Ukrainian journalist and veteran Ukraine watcher based in Kyiv, Ukraine. He was formerly a senior United Nations official and policy adviser, and director of Radio Liberty’s Ukrainian Service.
