Six and a half years ago, Ukraine’s independence came as a surprise to most Ukrainians.
Yet few were as surprised as those Ukrainians who, against their will, wound up outside the former USSR. Ukraine’s Western ‘diaspora’, as it is often referred to, suffered a shock from which it has just barely begun to emerge.
Reviled as ‘nationalist-bourgeois’ during Soviet times, the Ukrainian diaspora cherished a dream, albeit never cogent and rarely elucidated, of an independent Ukraine.
At the time, the Soviet monolith seemed too strong and, with several brave exceptions, the diaspora got on with their own lives.
A concerted effort was made to preserve Ukrainian culture. Ukrainian communities grew up among the more than 1.5 million Ukrainians and their descendants in North America.
Yet, the effort was an uphill struggle that, for diaspora Ukrainians cut off from their homeland, inevitably turned into a downhill slide.
By the 1980s the average age of those participating in community life had risen sharply, a number of diaspora organizations had withered and, without their realizing it, the diaspora entered a state of grave crisis.
Ironically, little changed for the diaspora following independence. Because of an extended period of isolation from their homeland broken only by the periodic influx of a dissident or two, today the diaspora finds Ukraine a strange land and a far cry from the independent Ukraine envisaged.
The initial and quite lasting reaction has been one of rejection.
Most Ukrainian-Americans and Ukrainian-Canadians visit Ukraine only briefly, to visit relatives, track down the members of families broken up during the Second World War, or to gawk at a society built and run by ‘Homo Sovieticus.’
Attitudes on both sides continue to hamper recognition and understanding.
Most Ukrainians harbor an illusion of a unified, strong and purposeful diaspora. Requests such as ‘hook me up with the diaspora,’ as if it were one organization, are commonplace.
For their part, the ‘new Ukrainians’ arriving in Soyuzivka, a diaspora resort in the Catskill Mountains of New York State, with wads of hundred-dollar bills and a need to spend and drink past closing time, elicit distaste.
The fact that Ukraine achieved independence practically by default is a solid psychological barrier. As one Ukrainian put it, ‘The diaspora still wants to be called in to ‘save’ Ukraine.’ A feeling of possessiveness is common among those from the diaspora who get more involved in Ukraine. The sense that ‘this is my country, I know what to do’ is understandable, if at times resented by locals.
Yet more and more members of the diaspora are getting involved. One area of increased activity has been within the ‘Beltway’ of Washington, D.C. There, the Ukrainian-American community has seized on warm U.S.-Ukraine relations to build a lobby to contend with on Capitol Hill. Long denied access to the corridors of power (with a brief respite during the Reagan administration), Ukrainian-Americans have continued their traditional cooperation with other Eastern European nationalities to defend the interests of their homelands.
A growing number of the diaspora have found positions at embassies and company offices in Kyiv. Some have even stayed on to make their life, or at least a part of it, in Ukraine.
Yet, like other foreigners, the diaspora’s contact with Ukrainian society is often fleeting. Herein lies the real tragedy. The processes taking place in Ukraine have largely bypassed this large reserve of qualified and experienced people. To date, not a single member of Ukraine’s diverse diaspora community has assumed a government post worthy of notice. The Baltic states, on the other hand, have seen members of their diaspora communities assume top government positions.
Close involvement carries its own dangers, such as when conflicts inherent to the diaspora, such as the ‘Banderite-Melnikite’ split in the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists, are carried over into Ukraine.
Yet this level of involvement introduces change where it is most important, in the way people think and behave. Moreover, precise use of the diaspora represents a way of ‘leapfrogging’ the glacial pace of development Ukraine currently faces.
In this respect the situation of the diaspora community is akin to that of Ukrainians themselves. Until both groups realize that the Ukraine which is being built today depends on their active involvement, matters will go on as before.
Ivan Lozowy is the executive director of the Institute of Statehood and Democracy. A native of New York City, he received Ukrainian citizenship on Nov. 20.
