It is difficult to doubt that the Year of Ukraine in Russia and the Year of Russia in Ukraine were organized by the people which had been brought up by the Soviet realities. However, against the background of both "years of friendship" in the Ukrainian-Russian relations the conflicts kept flaring up. And nothing can be done about it: conflicts are a usual thing in the everyday life. They testify: all of us-Ukrainians and Russians-are not to be pushed now by a totalitarian state. Certainly, it would be better, if there were no complicated conflicts, but it is another kettle of fish.

The conflict around Tuzla is the complicated conflict. It split our society into two parts: one blamed Russia, another spoke in support of it. Emotions whirled around the Island of Kosa Tuzla obscuring the gist of the problem. In the meantime it consists in active protection of our national interests with simultaneous development of our relations with the big eastern neighbor. Tuzla should teach us a lesson.

The Anniversaries of Pereyaslav Rada

The parliament failed to review the directions of foreign policy ever since 1993. Thereupon one political scientist accused Verkhovna Rada of the absence of desire to modernize foreign policy strategy, and national deputies of desire to poke in the past while clarifying relations with other states. Naturally, he meant Russia.

Undoubtedly, the ten-year-old document is obsolete. But looking at the Ukrainian-Russian relations one cannot forget the common past. It isn't an abstraction, but personal experience of all adult Ukrainians and Russians. Anyway, the Russian party aspires to use 350th Anniversary of Pereyaslav to link the past and present in the mind of citizens of both countries.

Unfortunately, the desire of the Russian party to turn back the clock finds sympathizers among Ukrainian citizens. For

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this reason we should analyze our history again and again, that is "poke in the past". In my articles in the Dzerkalo Tyzhnia Weekly "Three Pereyaslavs" (#33, 2002) and "The Third Pereyaslav" (#5, 2003) I called upon my colleagues to pay due attention to the next anniversary of the Pereyaslav Kozak Rada. In a word, I wrote that Russia should be respected as the powerful neighbor, as the country connected with us by the centuries of common lot. However, politically it is necessary to keep away from the Russian state. There is no contradiction between these theses. If we wish to maintain our own identity, it is necessary to become good friends with nations, which do not intend to devour us.

We often shed tears that the Ukrainian nation is divided into "easterners" and "westerners", but we fail to keep in mind that this noticeable division is a consequence of Pereyaslav. "Westerners" are different only because they were under pressure of Russia for three centuries less. Since 1654 the Imperial Russia deprived the Hetman Ukraine of the attributes of statehood and started russification. After the downfall of Russian autocracy the independent Ukraine emerged again, however it failed to escape the dominance of empire restored by Bolsheviks. It is not necessary to blame Ukrainian politicians. All imperial territories-even Poland and Finland-remained in the grip of Russia until 1989.

The Soviet state limited the strife of peoples for independent life with the help of stick and the carrot policy. The formula of Soviet national statehood was this carrot. The Constitution of Ukraine made provision for the outright renouncement of the membership in the Union; however the unconstitutional communist nomenclature ruled with a rod of iron. The economically and demographically powerful republic with its wide constitutional rights and settled traditions of struggle for liberation presented the special threat for Kremlin. Therefore in Stalin times it was exposed to preventive reprisals to a greater degree; this victimization included deportations, terror by famine, mass forms of individual terror.

The possibilities of mass terror as a method of state governance became exhausted with Stalin's death. With the liquidation of Gulag it was necessary to go over to the national policy based on carrots, instead of sticks. The grandiose celebration of the 300th Anniversary of "Reunification" of Ukraine with Russia in 1954 became the best evidence of such modification. The doubtless liberalization of political regime was accompanied by the rhetoric of "friendship of peoples". The new masters of Kremlin used it to convince Ukrainians, that after "reunification" they got everything they were dreaming of. The outstanding Ukrainian thinker Ivan Lysiak-Rudnytsky named this liberalized national policy the "new Pereyaslav". However within the framework of the second Pereyaslav they

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triggered the headlong russification of all spheres of Ukrainian national and cultural life.

The 350th anniversary of Pereyaslav Rada - the third Pereyaslav-symbolizes the old tendency of the former Imperial center to devour Ukraine carried out under qualitatively different conditions of the modern world. As compared with the post-1917 events, when the regeneration of the Russian empire occurred with lightning speed, today's happenings are spun out. B. Yeltsin's one-step solutions to restore the former borders of the empire by the way of CIS have failed. The new leaders of Russia know better, but the final goal is the same.

The Ukrainian-Russian border

The Tuzla problem has not been tackled from the point of view of all history of formation of the Ukrainian-Russian border yet. It's worthy of it...

Making the national state, the Central Rada led by M. Hrushevsky had to take care of demarcation in the first place. It took ethnographic principle as a basis and proclaimed Ukrainian those Russian provinces, in which Ukrainians made the absolute majority. The population census showed that Ukrainians prevailed in three provinces of Southwest krai (Right-Bank Territory), in three Left-Bank provinces and in three provinces of Novorossiya that is in eight and a half provinces. The Central Rada claimed a right for the continental part of Tavriya Province only, as in Crimea Ukrainians were not a majority. At first it didn't raise a claim for the Kuban area as well, where two thirds of Ukrainians lived. In 1917 Kuban formed its own government, and negotiations about its joining Ukraine should be carried on with it, and not with the Provisional government.

The Provisional government in Petrograd did not wish to adhere to an ethnographic principle in defining Ukrainian autonomy. It recognized the jurisdiction of the Central Rada only for the territory of five provinces; those were the territories with which Hetman Bohdan Khmelnytsky had been joining Russia in 1654. At first the Sovnarkom started from the same position. But when there was a necessity to create a Soviet republic, as an alternative to the national state, it agreed to accept the borders determined by the Central Rada. Without the support of Bolshevized soviets of soldiers' and workers' deputies especially popular in Novorossiya and Slobozhanshchyna it was impossible to create the national soviet republic in Ukraine.

When the next authorities replacement in Ukraine Hetman P. Skoropadsky achieved the consent of the Crimean government of General S. Sulkevych to annex the peninsula to Ukraine as an autonomous formation. Simultaneously the negotiation about annexation of Kuban was initiated. But after the new Bolshevik capture of Ukraine the Soviet republic was restored in the former borders.

In October, 1925 the Central executive committee of the USSR placed two Ukrainian districts of Shakhtynsk and Taganrog under the North-Caucasian Krai of Russian Federation. After the All-Union population census in 1926 the CC CP(B)U decided to make a request for Moscow to return these districts to Ukraine, and also to hand over to it southern areas of Kursk and Voronezh provinces, where the Ukrainian population lived compactly. The

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number of Ukrainians in border areas of Russian Federation, according tot the census, exceeded 2m. However the CC ARCP(B) ignored this shy demarche.

Later people's commissar for education of Ukraine Mykola Skrypnyk with the assistance of local authorities initiated the Ukrainianization of 37 districts of the North Caucasian Krai, including 19 districts of Kuban area. The progress in Ukrainianization allowed him once again to raise the question about transferring of Kuban, Shakhtynsk and Taganrog districts under the jurisdiction of Ukraine. On December 14, 1932, as a reply, the resolution was issued by the Sovnarkom of the USSR and CC ARCP(B) "About the State grain procurements in Ukraine, Northern Caucasus and Western area" signed by V. Molotov and J. Stalin. The Ukrainianization of almost half of the areas of North Caucasian Krai was characterized as the "Petliura" affair. It was required to immediately switch the office-work of local administrations, newspapers and magazines from Ukrainian into Russian as "more understandable" for Kuban settlers. The teaching at schools was also switched to Russian starting with the new school year.

Probably, in another situation the people would revolt. But the denationalization was backed in awful way: confiscation of all stocks of foodstuffs among Kuban peasants and Kozaks which had been put away until the new crop next year.

The terror by famine killed hundreds of thousands of local inhabitants. Ukrainian Kuban was lost. The descendants of Zaporizhia Kozaks, which survived in an atmosphere of state terror, have kept Kozak traditions, however they have denationalized under the state totalitarian pressure. During the Tuzla crisis, the Ukrainian press expressed fears, that indeed the Kuban Cossacks can be used as a shock force, and not the armed forces of Russia.

The transfer of Shakhtynsk and Taganrog districts from Ukraine to Russia in 1925 went on almost unnoticed. Even today it goes unnoticed. On the contrary, the transfer of Crimean oblast from Russia to Ukraine within the framework of celebrating 300th Anniversary of Pereyaslav Rada in 1954 was arranged extremely solemnly. Accordingly after 1991 the requirements, addressed to Ukraine, to return Crimea and the "city of Russian glory" Sevastopol turned into continuous and well organized campaign. It went on for years, though under the arrangement between the FSU republics the administrative borders of the disintegrated Soviet Union became frontiers. There were no exceptions from this principle; otherwise it could lead to anarchy and chaos in the corresponding states. This arrangement, accepted in 1991, opened the way for implementation of the international principle of inviolability of the post-war borders in Europe fixed in the Helsinki declaration by The Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe (1975).

For years Ukraine tried to open the way for the Treaty about friendship, cooperation and partnership with Russia. The treaty fixed the absence of territorial claims of the parties. The Russian party recognized the principle of transformation of administrative borders of 1991 into frontiers, but in exchange for it they wished a contract fixing important concessions granting the status of the Black Sea Navy in Crimea. As is known, Russia got it.

In April, 1999 B. Yeltsin signed the treaty. It looked like the parties hit in the

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solution of bilateral problems. However, it turned out that there was a witty way to destabilize the situation: a dam-a complex hydraulic engineering structure worth millions of money-should be constructed. But there are cases, when the price is not the point. On December 24, 2003 Russia put a finish to the issue of a mode of usage of the Kerch Strait and sharing of natural resources of the Azov Sea sparing no effort.

What does Russia crave for?

The area of Tuzla does not exceed 35 hectares, and the territory of Russia makes more than 17m sq. km. It is clear, that the strict actions of Russian authorities in legally losing situation with Tuzla were not motivated by local territorial claims.

It is necessary to realize, what Russian national interests are about, when Ukraine is at stake. It is not only Tuzla with an integrated package of Azov-Sea problems that failed to be resolved in the direction desired for the Russian party ever since 1991. Not only Crimea with the naval base in Sevastopol; the latter problem was also solved for the benefit of Russia. It is necessary to analyze without emotions the main national interest of Russia in relation to Ukraine. This analysis will help to understand the policy of Russian leaders in relation to Ukraine irrespective of their political orientation, vital experience or any other qualities both public and human.

Certainly, during this analysis it is not necessary to have hang-ups about the conflicts in the Ukrainian-Russian relations only. The main thing is that both nations stuck together in one state for centuries and they met the challenges of history staying together. We need only to recollect two world wars! Each nation had its patriotism, but in times of the ordeals they shared common feelings. In 1914 the Moscow Ukrainskaya zhizn magazine featured the leader containing such significant lines: "According to our national development we should show the understanding of current events, healthy political reason and organized will of the nation, which has thousands of connecting links-blood, tribal, economic and historical-with

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the country facing now Germany and Austria-Hungary." The author of this leader was Symon Petliura...

Three and a half years later Chief Otaman of the Army of UNR S. Petliura was compelled to be at war with Russia. At bay he sent the young men who hadn't smelled powder yet to the Kruty Station to stop the armies of Muravyov which were eager to invade Kyiv.

In 1998 the Ukrposhta put out the stamp devoted to the 80th Anniversary of the Battle of Kruty. What kind of battle was it and in what war? I was asked to check the caption. It defined the war as a Ukrainian-Bolshevik one. I had to fetch my schoolbook to make mail officials to name this war Ukrainian-Russian. It contained collocation which had been impossible for the Soviet times: the Ukrainian-Russian war. Nation cannot wage war with a party-these notions are incommensurable.

Is Ukrainian-Russian war possible today? This past December the international conference was held in London: "Transformation of NATO: agenda for the new century." Minister of Defense Yevhen Marchuk heading the Ukrainian delegation named a war with Russia an act of schizophrenia while answering the correspondent of the Ukrainian service of BBC. Really, it is very difficult to imagine a Ukrainian-Russian war, especial a current political regime in Russia. However regimes may be changed and Russia has already proclaimed the new military strategy, according to which it reserves for itself the right to preventive strike, including the nuclear one. Who will protect Ukraine, if an irresponsible politico happens to be at the helm in Russia?

From 1917 to 1919 Russian armies four times (!) invaded Ukraine. Historians named the events of that time as Civil War. Actually one can call civil only war between white and red Russian formations on the territory of Ukraine. The capture of Ukraine by Russian armies of both colors should be called interethnic wars, which burst out with disintegration of multinational empires. Each nation, if they can not settle it in a friendly way, stands up for its own national interests.

I am afraid, that the impossibility of the Ukrainian-Russian war today, which should not be called in question, is substantially based on the "achievements" of Leninist-Stalinist national policy from

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1917 to 1991. The russification of Ukraine which began after the Pereyaslav Rada became especially intensive during the existence of the Soviet totalitarian state. Now Russian leaders can expect that they need no war for realization of their national interests in Ukraine. However, without the force component the realization of these interests can drag on and on.

Each issue of one of Kyiv dailies carries small diagrams showing the results of the last sociological poll. They help to tally opinion of us. Here are the results of two polls concerning language.

What is your command of Ukrainian? 74% of polled persons had fluent command, 4% - do not know Ukrainian, and all other have partial command. What is your command of Russian? 82%-fluent, 2%-do not know Russian. Is there any other country in the world where citizens have worse command of their native language than of the foreign one?

In what language do you communicate at home? 50%-in Ukrainian, 48%-in Russian, 2%-some other language.

After such answers the reaction to the question, whether Russian should be made the second official language, becomes understandable. In August, 2001 44% of responders were positive about it, in December 2003-55%. Naturally, the state rests upon the native language. If one of two state languages is the language of the neighbor country, Ukraine, taking into account all other circumstances, will again be split into Malorossiya, Novorossia, Southwest krai and meanwhile Ukrainian-speaking western oblasts. There is no need in an army to gain such Ukraine.

Almost everybody in Russia thinks that Ukrainians and Byelorussians are the same Russians, though torn off from Russia-mother from the Mongolian conquest to Pereyaslav Rada. All Russian historians since Tatishchev, Karamzin, Solovyov, and Kliuchevski maintained it. External persuasiveness of this historical scheme was backed by one simple circumstance: the grand dukes of Moscow descended from the house of Ryurik. During four hundred years, as modern Russian textbooks on history maintain, there appeared comparatively unimportant ethnographic differences among the descendants of Russ people. The reunion of three nations and confluence of them into one is considered natural and desirable. The last elections to the State Duma showed that the electorate supported national patriots. The geographical maps masterminded by them only three Baltic States already shielded by NATO stay away from the boundaries of Great Russia. The success of these elections proves that the pressure upon Ukraine will increase.

The overwhelming majority of people still remember the times of L. Brezhnev. But it seems that not all of them understand why Russification of Ukrainians has acquired such ugly magnitude and forms. There is a simple explanation: in the mid-60s the demographers warned that in the nearest 25 to 30 years Russians will become a national minority in their own country. One couldn't count on the birth-rate increase among them, and the state embarked on russification of the nearest relatives-Ukrainians and Byelorussians.

The demographic situation in modern Russia is not alarming, but nightmarish. The population diminishes catastrophically, mainly due to the low

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birth-rate among Russians. According to the most pessimistic prognoses, population of RF will halve-down to 70m inhabitants-within the nearest 50 years.

Such demographic crisis can lead to actual loss of Siberia and Far East. These regions are endangered not by primitive conquest, but by settling migrants. The density of population in the trans-Ural regions is ten times lower, than in the European part of the RF, i. e. 2.4 per 1 km2. Moreover, almost all population is concentrated in big cities, and the enormous rural territories are uninhabited. In the Chinese regions near Amur the density of population makes 130 people per 1 km2. This gap causes gloomy thoughts.

The political elite of RF realize the forthcoming dangers. A year and a half ago Yevgeniy Primakov put into words the homespun truth in his article "What threatens Russia?": "In connection with the dropping birth-rate and decline of life interval, which is caused by the malnutrition, widespread smoking and alcohol abuse in the first place, Russian population is dwindling almost a million a year... A crisis is aggravated by the uneven distribution of population over the territory of Russia, with the density of population tending to zero in the Far East and Siberia. And vacuum cannot last for long. "

Therefore we can conclude: Russia does not need Ukraine existing as something isolated from it. To insure its future it desires to swallow us up. Russia would like that the absorption which was held up for fifteen years due to the disintegration of Soviet Union, goes on in new forms. Although Ukrainians, unlike Chechens or Tatars, are beyond the boundaries of the RF, their absorption is considered to be more perspective.

I do not think that we can call an aggression this Russian wish to devour Ukrainians which was inbred by many centuries of propaganda. It is not a conquest. Nobody knows if it is for the best though. The citizens of Ukraine give different answers depending on many factors. And the degree of Russification is not the least one.

It is known, that from olden times the desire of official circles of empire to eat up Ukrainians found a response among the Ukrainian elite. Kozak petty officers by origin became noblemen, well-educated Ukrainians from raznochinetzes got cushy jobs in the imperial bureaucratic vehicle. Those, who did not want to become Maloross, felt ill at ease. However, their number grew, and they challenged the powerful empire. They called themselves and representatives of their nation Ukrainians according to the place-name "Ukraine" existing from the times of middle Ages. In fact this empire deprived Ukrainians of their history and their self-naming. Ukrainians appear in Russian textbooks of history-from tsars' to modern ones-somewhere from the 14th c, although the continuum of our historical development starts from the epoch of Kyiv Russ and earlier.

If in the centralized empire there are two more or less equivalent as to their quantity nations, one of them always feels its interests infringed upon, as its existence is perceived by the elite of dominating nation as a source of potential separatism. In the Austrian empire which had also absorbed the part of Ukrainian land, after the long fight between Austrians and Hungarians a consensus was found:

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Austria-Hungary consisting of two indissolubly united parts. The Russian empire chose the way of denationalization of Ukrainians. The rulers of empire deemed this way perspective because Russians and Ukrainians have a lot in common.

However denationalization was not a success. The Ukrainian people showed surprising resistance, constantly generating fighters for national liberation in its milieu. On every historical stage of empire they had to deal with such fighters-followers of Mazepa, Petliura, and Bandera. The most frightful pursuits befell Ukrainian people in Stalin's time, when the totalitarian state annihilated those strata of population which in future could become dangerous for it.

But Ukrainians always separated the state in which they lived, and rulers with which they had to coexist, from the state-making people. The anti-Russian moods among them are unpopular even now. According to sociological poll of January, 28, 2003, 53% of respondents said that they had fully positive opinion about Russia, and 36% had rather positive, than negative opinion. During such poll last November, which is after Tuzla, the extraordinarily high level of liking to Russians was also shown. 84% of answerers said they consider Russian people the blood brothers of Ukrainians and do not treat Russians as foreigners.

However, progressively less people in Ukraine are in a hurry to join Russia. Since 1991 the citizens of Ukraine felt all advantages of the independent state. Those, who went to school in the early 90s, are now making their life knowing unfalsified history of their nation. They fully understand that it is very dangerous to rely on political decisions in Ukraine made beyond its limits. The more time separate us from the unforgettable 1991 the more such people will grow up in Ukraine.

The "liberal empire" of Anatoliy Chubays

After signing in September of the last year in Yalta of the framework agreement of Russia, Ukraine, Byelorussia and Kazakhstan about creation of Common economic area (CEA) passions among Ukrainian politicians were running high again: where to go and what integration to choose? The representatives of all branches of Ukrainian power declared adherence to the idea of European integration a long ago, didn't they?

It is possible that Ukraine will not be fully admitted to the European Union, as far as parameters of its economy fall short of European standards. At the same time it may look like joining the CEA our state will be able to get serious economic advantages. What is to be done?

The formation of free trade zone within the limits of the CEA is the main trouble for Ukrainian politicians. Meanwhile Russian politicians are for the deeper integration: free movement of capital and labor, customs union, and common currency. Who will benefit by it?

The CEA may be a luckier project, than the CIS. Especially when Russian businesspersons hold with politicians. Intentions of the latter were worded by Alfred Kokh in the TV program the "Freedom of speech" covering the Tuzla crisis on October, 24 of the last year. During the live broadcast A. Koh said that interests of Russia were not limited by the Island Kosa Tuzla,

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that it must own Crimea, Kherson, Mykolayiv, and Odesa.

These claims are not new; these high demands were made since 1991. For example, pre-Luzhkov mayor of Moscow, one of "superintendents" of Gorbachev's perestroika Gavril Popov demanded to add Odesa and Crimea to Russia. Today's approach of Kokh is qualitatively different, although the strategic purpose remains the same: "Frankly speaking, it is all the same for me whether Ukrainian flag or Russian tricolor will be streaming there. It is important, that in reality this must be Russian land, our interests have to be taken into account, Russian capital ought to be working there, Russian people, Russian interests should be present. It seems to me, for this purpose diplomatic channels are already exhausted. It seems to me, we're late for it, and it is impossible to get these territories de jure. There is only way-economic expansion, cornering of land, buying up real estate, buying up these factories, buying up infrastructure etc. "

?not so long ago the supporters of Eurasian choice of Ukraine maintained that it is necessary to go to Europe together with Russia, because the latter was positioning toward the European Union and even had better communication-with-Europe indexes, than Ukraine. Koh substantiated the program of buying up of Ukraine in plain language: "In the end the expansion of Russian capital into Ukraine will tear it off from orientation toward America, NATO and it will have to make a u-turn toward Russia. And if we back this process, it will be completed in a few years, maybe, a decade. And we will get friendly Ukraine fully dependent on Russia economically. "

The program of economic absorption of Ukraine is complemented by the liberal empire idea recently worded by Anatoliy Chubays. This is an original political roof for the CEA.

The term "liberal empire" found its way to the mass media, and every commentator treats it to his/her liking. I think, it should be considered together with other forms of Russian Empire as a logical development of previous forms-both tsar's and soviet.

At first it was a tsarist empire, in time it became autocratic. The grand dukes of Moscow got an imperial matrix together with the principality permit from the Mongol-Tartar rulers as early as in time of Ivan Kalita. The Russian state under Ivan and especially Ivan IV the Terrible may be considered an empire, although it was called Muscovy in the West in the early reign of Peter the Great.

After the fall of autocracy Bolsheviks revived the multinational empire in an original form. The political system created by V. Lenin was a two-element one. It consisted of the soviet public administrations formed after the general elections and communist party dictatorship, - independent of electors' will. Such political system could exist, while there was communist party dictatorship. When the party disintegrated, the "socialistic commonwealth" of satellite CE countries and Soviet Union disintegrated as well.

The contemporary Russian Federation has three factors determining its imperial status: tradition, the largest territory in the world with inexhaustible natural resources and nuclear weapons. This tradition dating back to Mongol-Tartar time hampers its integration into Europe. In any case, the ruling circles of Russia do not express such intentions.

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The Russian political system substantially differs from European. These differences are determined not by Constitution, but by the character of society. The consequences of the soviet domination are substantial: the high degree of dependence of the majority of population on the state, absence of developed public institutions. In fact, the liberalism of modern political order shows itself only in the absence of autocratic power of hereditary monarchy or communist party dictatorship. Democracy is secured constitutionally, but it is a sort of guided system.

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There are only slight social differences between the Post-Soviet Ukraine and Russia. Essentially, it is the absence of hard currency fuel resources in Ukraine which help to tackle acute social problems. Maybe, it is to our benefit, as it mobilizes us to overcome difficulties, instead of corruption. To provide for high living standards, Ukraine must develop the institutions of civil society. Which partner is better-European Union or Russia? The answer is obvious.

The "liberal" empire differs from the soviet one by the absence of wide constitutional rights for the union republics up to the right of renunciation of the alliance with an empire. In soviet time these rights were false, but the moment came, and it became possible to declare the state sovereignty, and then and to come out of the Union. Now it will not be the case: a party can disintegrate, while a state-never. Actually, there will be no allied republics in the liberal empire. There will be territories with the elected bodies of power and wide self-government. They exist already, because Russia is this liberal empire, only increased to fit the size of the Soviet Union.

Is it worth ruining our independence obtained without blood in 1991 though with great losses of many millions of people of several previous generations? The answer is obvious.

And finally, the most important thing. Will Ukrainians preserve its national identity in a liberal empire taking the above arguments into account? Will they dissolve in the darkness of coming decades? If it happens, the 400th anniversary of the Pereyaslav Rada will go unnoticed...

Translated from the Dzerkalo Tyzhnia Weekly,

N 2 (477), 17.01.2004

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