Introduction: A Place between Two Borderlands
Ukraine literally means borderland (Reid Reference Rodriguez2015, 1; Subtelny Reference Tairova-Yakovleva2009, 3). Culture and institutions in Eastern Ukraine have been heavily influenced by the Russian path of institutional development, also known as Russkii mir (Russian world). European models and patterns influenced the evolution of culture and institutions of Western Ukraine.
One could argue whether the impact of the Central and Eastern European model (Poland) in western Ukraine was more significant than that of the Western European model (Austria). But instead of assuming that “the course of modern Ukrainian history has largely been the tale of two parallel paths, one tread by the West Ukrainians in Austrian Empire and the other by the East Ukrainians in the Russian Empire” as does Orest Subtelny (Reference Tairova-Yakovleva2009, 220), the aim of this article is to explore a distinctively Ukrainian path of historical evolution.
What may potentially characterize the Ukrainian path of historical evolution? Power is probably the most important explanatory variable that allows explaining the other particularities of the Russian path (Oleinik Reference Oleinik2011, chap. 4). A specific model of power, Russian power, permeates relationships at the micro- (within a family), meso- (within an organization), and macro- (in politics) levels. This model lies closer to violence than to power understood as human ability to act in concert (Arendt Reference Arendt1969). The European path—in its Eastern or Western version—has more dimensions. However, if we follow Michael Mann (Reference Mann1986, 1) and see all societies through the prism of “multiple overlapping and intersecting sociospatial networks of power,” then the European path will lie closer to power since it supports democratic structures and processes.
In those terms, the Ukrainian path has some unique features indeed. Since the 11th century Ukraine’s historical evolution has been characterized by its population’s exemplary resistance to power, especially when violence substitutes for power. The first revolution occurred on Ukrainian soil as early as 1068, when the citizens of Kyiv, dissatisfied with the rule of their prince (knyaz’) Iziaslav, drove him out and installed his nephew Vseslav in his place (Plokhy Reference Portnov2015, 36; Hrushevsky Reference Hrushevsky1992a, 56). It was just the beginning. Another revolution occurred in 1113 when Vladimir Monomakh was proclaimed prince (Hrushevsky Reference Hrushevsky1992b, 210). The scale and scope of the mass uprising of 1648 had no match elsewhere (Subtelny Reference Tairova-Yakovleva2009, 123). Another large-scale revolt marked the beginning of the 20th century in Ukraine. In 1919, almost the entire Ukrainian countryside revolted against the Bolsheviks’ attempt to implement principles of war communism in practice (Subtelny Reference Tairova-Yakovleva2009, 365). The post-Soviet history of Ukraine was not short of revolutions either. The 2004 “Orange” revolution was followed by the 2013–2014 Revolution of Dignity. In these circumstances it will not be an exaggeration to say that Ukraine has lived a millennium of rebellions, from the 11th century to the 21st century.
The distinction of being dedicated rebels came at a price, however. It may well be that Ukrainians devoted all of their energies and creativities to protests as opposed to more constructive work. For instance, Ukrainians’ “specialty” in rebellions may have slowed down their progress in nation-state building. Nikolai Kostomarov (Reference Kostomarov1861, 78) wrote that “Ukrainians, in the past, appeared unprepared for a statehood.” A century and a half later, Serhii Plokhy reached a similar conclusion: “Successful rebels, the Ukrainian politicians turned out to be amateurs at building a state and organizing armed forces” (Plokhy Reference Portnov2015, 217). This article explores the hypothesis that if a distinguishable Ukrainian path of historical evolution exists at all, it is the path of rebellion and protest.
Particular attention is paid to the myths associated with the perception of Ukrainians as dedicated rebels. Myths are among building blocks of a nation-state, especially in Eastern Europe where an ethnic model of a nation-state prevails. The article discusses elements that constitute a Ukrainian “mythology” and their uses in nation-state building in this country. These myths occupy the central place in the national consciousness of Ukrainians being at the origin of both their strengths and weaknesses. Given the assumed centrality of the idea of rebellion for Ukrainian national identity, the myth of Cossackdom is considered in depth. It is argued that it plays a more important role than previous Western scholarship had assumed. This myth can potentially become a basis for a consolidation around Dnieper nationalism (Wilson Reference Yavornitsky2002, 50) as a middle ground between the European and Russian paths in Ukrainian history.
Myths of the Nation-State in the Making
Ukraine’s existence as an independent entity refers to a series of short moments in the country’s history. Ukraine had a dependent status and was ruled by the foreign powers for most of its history. The involvement of multiple and heterogeneous external powers, from the Tatars to the Austrians, and the fact that they controlled different parts of the Ukrainian lands (southern, western, eastern and central) is necessary to understanding persistent differences between Ukraine’s macro-regions. Compared with the longue durée of Ukraine’s dependent status, this country’s independence has been of court durée. Ukraine is a latecomer in terms of nation-state building, its nation-state is still in its childhood. According to a survey of foreign and Ukrainian experts conducted in 2012–2013, 100 percent of them perceived Ukraine as “a state without a national idea and common identity” (Korostelina Reference Korostelina2014, 88).
Even if Ukraine’s independence was a myth, its persistence in and importance for Ukrainian historiography needs explaining. This question also prompts a broader discussion of the role that myths play in nation-state building, especially at the early stages of this process. Seen from a social constructivist perspective, myths may actually help people to construct the desired social reality. A similar reasoning lies at the origin of the Thomas theorem that stipulates: “If men define situations as real, they are real in their consequences” (Merton Reference Merton1995, 380). It follows that people’s beliefs in myths count more than how far those myths depart from reality.
David Marples’s (Reference Marples2007) attempts to argue that some assumptions on which Ukrainian historiography is based have more in common with myths than with historical “facts” ignore the role of myths in constructing the social reality. If myths fail to have real consequences, this simply means that not enough people believe in them. Or, alternatively, if there is a critical mass of believers, their beliefs may not be strong enough to have real consequences.
Myths play an important role in nation-state building. After all, a nation-state can be thought of as social reality organized in a particular manner. Anthony Smith (Reference Smith1991, 14; emphasis added) defines a nation “as a named human population sharing an historic territory, common myths and historical memories, a mass, public culture, a common economy and common legal rights and duties for all members.” For this reason, every nation constructs myths and Ukrainians are no exception (Smith Reference Subtelny2004, 19; Smith Reference Smith2002, 20). Myths help their members “define the foundations of their identity and system of values” (Plokhy Reference Plokhy2010, xvii; see also Kuzio Reference Kuzio1998, 121).
According to Smith, the reliance of East European nations on myth making tends to be heavier than in the case of the other European and North American nations. In contrast to Western Europeans and North Americans, who use a “civic” model of nationhood, East Europeans and Asians lean toward an “ethnic” model. The latter involves emphasis on “genealogy, vernacular cultures (myths, customs, traditions), ‘ethno-history,’ [and] popular mobilisation” (Smith Reference Smith2002, 9). Slovakia serves as an illustration. Similarly to Ukraine, this country’s independence prior to the dissolution of Czechoslovakia in 1993 was of court durée. Slovakia existed as an independent state from 1939 to 1945 only. Naturally, Slovak nation-state builders create and actively use a national mythology (Findor Reference Findor2002).
More specifically, myths help cultivate a sense of common belonging to a nation-state in the making. Dankwart Rustow (Reference Shkirda1970, 350–351) considers the sense of belonging to a community as a condition for a successful transition to democracy. He further indicates that this background condition is best fulfilled “when national unity is accepted unthinkingly, is silently taken for granted.” Because of their seemingly nonrational nature, myths create conditions in which national unity is taken for granted, provided that they are widely shared. As Roland Barthes (Reference Barthes1957, 251) argues, myths always have their origin in facts, in historical reality. The myth conveys a specific interpretation of those facts that could eventually become “natural” and “taken for granted.” This outcome is achieved by way of simplification: the myth “abolishes the complexity of human acts, it gives them the simplicity of essences, it does away with all dialectics, with any going back beyond what is immediately visible, it organizes a world which is without contradictions, because it is without depth” (252). In other words, a contestable character of myths refers less to facts than to their interpretation.Footnote 1
The Ukrainian nation in the making most likely follows the East European path. If so, the Ukrainian nation will come into existence when its members accept a critical mass of myths of various kinds—historical (they underpin shared memories of the nation’s past), war (they facilitate a clearer differentiation between Us and Them) and identity (they underpin shared beliefs about the nation’s present and future).
Historical myths are a specialty of historians. In addition to their purely academic studies, historians make and disseminate myths. In this respect, historians participate in nation-state building (Subtelny Reference Tairova-Yakovleva2009, 226). Since Ukrainian historiography has faced fierce competition from Soviet, Russian and Polish historiographies of Ukraine, instead of a unique set of myths, several sets of myths regarding Ukraine’s history coexist. In these circumstances, changes in the political situation often lead to revising the myths that prevail at a particular moment in time. “History textbooks … were completely rewritten several times: after the fall of the Soviet Union, the Orange Revolution of 2004, and the election of a new government in February 2010” (Korostelina Reference Korostelina2014, 79). Not all of these myths are compatible with the idea of the Ukrainian nation-state, which is our principal interest here.
Among the key myth-makers of historical myths of the Ukrainian nation are Kostomarov, Mykhailo Hrushevsky, Dmitry Yavornitsky, and perhaps Subtelny. The books “of the Genesis of the Ukrainian people” written in the mid-19th century were probably a first comprehensive attempt to produce a mythology of the Ukrainian nation. Although their author has never been officially revealed, historians assume Kostomarov’s authorship (see, for example, Plokhy Reference Portnov2015, 158).
Ukraine’s Historical Myths
Yitzhak Brudny and Evgeny Finkel (Reference Brudny and Finkel2011, 822) identify three myths that potentially constitute the foundation for shared memories of the Ukrainian nation about their past: the Cossack “warrior democracy,” the Austro-Hungarian legacy of Galicia (the myth of “the return to the West”), and the short-lived Ukrainian independent state from 1917 to 1920. This list is not exhaustive, as some other myths will also be discussed below. As a matter of fact, the myth of Cossackdom is an umbrella myth: it contains explicit or implicit references to a number of the other constitutive myths, namely freedom as a core value, individualism and even the myth of the return to the West mentioned before.
Cossackdom
Ukrainian historians “consider that the phenomenon of Cossackdom embodied the best characteristics of Ukrainians, which are supposedly reflected in the Cossack desire for freedom, independence, and a democratic way of life” (Magocsi Reference Magocsi2010, 188). For instance, the myth of the return to the West may actually have deeper roots and go back to the Treaty of Hadiach signed by Cossacks’ Hetman Ivan Vigovsky, and the representatives of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth in 1658. This Treaty reflects the Cossacks’ disillusionment with the actual implementation of the 1654 Treaty of Pereiaslav with the Russian tsar. The Cossack leaders had a second thought and considered returning to the previously hated Poles, provided that Ukraine was given an autonomous status within the Polish-Lithuanian-Ukrainian Commonwealth. Subtelny’s (Reference Tairova-Yakovleva2009, 144) assessment of this historical event suggests that its mythological aspects prevail over factual ones: “although the Treaty of Hadiach has fascinated historians because of its potential impact on Ukrainian, Polish, and Russian history, its actual influence was minimal because it was never implemented.”
First mentions of Cossacks date to the end of the 15th century, when relationships between the population of the Ukrainian lands and the Crimean Tatars, who became vassals of the Ottoman Empire, deteriorated. The Tatars’ raids necessitated a response and the emergence of Cossacks as border guards became one. Cossacks were stationed in towns located across the border between the steppe and the forested area of Ukraine (it started north of today’s Cherkasy). Hrushevsky (Reference Hrushevsky1993, 337) says that Cossacks were first mentioned in 1495, Yavornitsky (Reference Yavornitsky1990–1992, 2:337) believes in happened in 1492.
Within the time frame of one and a half centuries, Cossacks made a remarkable evolution from a loosely organized network of small bands composed of people representing various walks of life (fugitives from the masters or the families; foreigners, including the Tatars, representatives of the nobility, the youth searching for glory and so forth) to a group with its own government, the Hetmanate, and ambitions to establish a state. By the mid-17th century, “the Cossacks, who had come into existence on the margins of society … were now thinking about creating a state of their own” (Plokhy Reference Portnov2015, 100; see also Magocsi Reference Magocsi2010, 251; Subtelny Reference Tairova-Yakovleva2009, 116).
At the same time, the process of state-building appeared to be highly divisive. Not all Cossacks wanted to be associated with a state regardless of its nature. Two major categories of Cossacks, Zaporozhian, or “unregistered,” and Ukrainian, or “registered,” held opposite views on the state. The first valued freedom and independence, the second served the government, initially Polish and then Russian, after an unsuccessful effort to create their own state. The adjectives “registered” and “unregistered” refer to the Cossack’s status either as a state servant receiving a salary or a “freelancer” selling the service of protection on a case by case basis. Institutions and values of the two groups diverged to a significant extent. Unregistered Cossacks leaned toward anarchy whereas registered Cossacks to some extent accepted statism. The “hard core” of unregistered Cossacks lived on the island of Khortytsia in Zaporizhia (“below the rapids” on the Dnieper River), which explains their name. The relative size of the two groups varied, but unregistered Cossacks generally outnumbered their registered fellows. For instance, by 1589, there were 3,000 registered Cossacks and 40,000 to 50,000 unregistered (Subtelny Reference Tairova-Yakovleva2009, 111).
Zaporozhian Cossacks
Cossacks slowly extended southward the territory under their control. By the mid-16th century they went beyond the rapids and settled on the island of Khortytsia. They were led by the Prince Dmytro (Baida) Vyshnevets’kyi, which further confirms the social heterogeneity of Cossackdom (Yavornitsky Reference Yavornitsky1990–1992, 1:61). Even though chronologically Zaporozhian Cossacks emerged later than Ukrainian Cossacks, the former quickly became the guardians of original Cossack values, traditions and institutions (Subtelny Reference Tairova-Yakovleva2009, 153).
The value of brotherhood had a terminal character for Cossacks. They perceived themselves as knights similar to the knights of Malta: being a Cossack meant for them to be admitted to knighthood. For this reason, all other loyalties—to the family, to the loved one, to the other social groups—were sacrificed in favor of a superior loyalty to the fellow Cossacks. Some taboos that existed among Cossacks can be better understood in this light. Namely, women were not allowed to enter or visit the Cossacks’ permanent camp in Khortytsia, Sich (Hrushevsky Reference Hrushevsky1999, 230; Gordon Reference Gordon1983, 83). The Cossacks believed that a married man would place the interests of his wife and family ahead of those of the fellow “knights.” The status of being married made the Cossack ineligible for any elected post (Yavornitsky Reference Yavornitsky1990–1992, 1:131, 138, 181–183).
The military and administrative organization of Zaporozhian Cossacks also had more authentically Cossack features than that of Ukrainian Cossacks. In short, this organization can be labeled a “warrior democracy” (see subsection “Democracy” below). Basic fraternities—kureni—formed a federation rather than a hierarchical organization. Cossacks from the same Ukrainian land formed a kuren’. Its members regularly elected their head, kurinnyj otaman. All the kuren’ constituted a kosh, the Cossack body living in the Sich. The kosh leader, koshovyi otaman, was also elected on a regular basis.
Cossacks borrowed some names and organizational ideas from the Tatars, the most regular counterparts, creatively adapting them to their needs and local circumstances (Yavornitsky Reference Yavornitsky1990–1992, 2:43). For instance, when deciding the organization of the kosh, the Cossacks were likely inspired by the practice common among the Tatars, who pooled their sheep together, entrusting them to the care of the most experienced shepherd among them. The sheep owners held “shares” of this common enterprise (Yavornitsky Reference Yavornitsky1990–1992, 1:58–59). The organizational form initially used exclusively in the context of agriculture, was adapted by Cossacks to their military and administrative needs. In other words, the kosh was a union created in the interests of common wealth, and, thus, can be compared with the commonwealth as a form of political and administrative organization.
Ukrainian Cossacks
Cossacks on the payroll (reestr) of the Polish crown, the registered Cossacks, had several privileges compared with unregistered Cossacks. In addition to regularly paid allowances, the government also formally granted full freedom to registered Cossacks within their jurisdictions, whereas unregistered Cossacks were subject to “the usual jurisdiction of their lords and starostas,” heads of the local administration reporting to the Crown (Hrushevsky Reference Hrushevsky1999, 378). In practice this meant that registered Cossacks had their own administration, including judicial. A registered Cossack could be judged by the other registered Cossacks only. Furthermore, the scope of registered Cossacks’ administration extended beyond their own ranks. A colonel “served as both the supreme military and the supreme civil authority in his territory” populated by registered Cossacks with their families and civilians (Magocsi Reference Magocsi2010, 247).
The maximum number of registered Cossacks was set by the Crown in consultation with the Diet. A permanent shortage of funds, along with the fear that Cossacks would become too powerful and independent, resulted in a regular mismatch between the number of Cossacks willing to get the official status and the number of places in the register. Those excluded from the register normally went southward and joined the ranks of Zaporozhian Cossacks (Yavornitsky Reference Yavornitsky1990–1992, 2:43). Their feeling of being excluded by the government has to be taken into account when explaining unregistered Cossacks’ drift into anarchism and “unruliness” (see subsections “Freedom” and “Unruliness” below). All state-building initiatives within the Hetmanate were carried out by registered Cossacks—more specifically, by their top leaders, starshina. Unregistered Cossacks did not participate in those initiatives persistently resisting them (Tairova-Yakovleva Reference Tairova-Yakovleva2011, 178). The heterogeneous character of Cossackdom allows both proponents of a strong state and anarchists find inspiration in this myth when discussing alternative routes of nation-state building.
Freedom
Two institutions, the traditional Ukrainian community, hromada, and Cossackdom, underpin freedom as a terminal value in Ukrainian culture. Comparing the hromada with the traditional Russian community, obshchina, Kostomarov (Reference Kostomarov1861, 64, 74) emphasizes that members of the former had much greater degrees of freedom than members of the latter. Members of hromada had the rights of free entry and free exit. In a similar manner, Zaporozhian Cossacks had the freedom to join or to leave the Sich at will (Yavornitsky Reference Yavornitsky1990–1992, 1:122). When Ukrainian peasants believed that joining a hromada benefit their interests, they became members. Even after joining the hromada, the peasant kept his property and autonomy. A parallel between a traditional Ukrainian institution, hromada, and the institution of commonwealth can be drawn one more time. Hromada had some features of a joint-stock company, in contrast to obshchina membership, which was ascribed and difficult to change.
In contrast to Zaporozhian kosh, hromada had more balanced relations between genders. Gender discrimination most likely existed (this issue did not attract enough attention of Ukrainian historiography), but women certainly enjoyed some freedoms that Ukrainian men had. Namely, the degree of sexual freedom of young women in Ukraine was more significant than in Russia, especially before they married. Both young men and young women were expected to have sexual experience before marriage. Women’s early sexual experience was not only tolerated but encouraged in a sense (Plokhy Reference Portnov2015, 20–21; Tairova-Yakovleva Reference Tairova-Yakovleva2011, 238). Women enjoyed sexual liberties even at the time of Kievan Rus’ (Hrushevsky Reference Hrushevsky1992b, 385–387), which suggests the presence of a continuous pattern in Ukrainian history.
A deep appreciation of freedom by Cossacks was mentioned previously. The registered Cossacks knew no authority over his but that of the starshina (Hrushevsky Reference Hrushevsky1999, 62). The unregistered Cossack acted under fewer restraints since his superiors did not have many prerogatives of the starshina and could be changed easier from below. Traditions of libertarianism and anarchism naturally tended to be stronger among Zaporozhian Cossacks. Even the destruction of the Sich in 1775 by the orders of Russian Empress Catherine II did not undermine the appeal of these traditions to the now dispersed Cossacks and their descendants. southern Ukraine in general, and the region of Zaporizhia in particular, remained a stronghold of anarchism until the end of the 20th century. Huliaipole, a town near Zaporizhia, became the capital of Makhno around the 1920s, when Makhno and his fellow “anarchy Cossacks” undertook an attempt to build a society according to anarchist principles (Shkirda Reference Smith2004, 85) that remains without precedent elsewhere. In an overview of the state of anarchism in the Soviet Union in the 1980s and 1990s, references to the events and anarchist groups in Dnipro (Makhno briefly controlled this large industrial center) and Zaporizhia are more frequent than mentions of the other places in Ukraine (Dubovik, Reference Dubovik2016).
It follows that negative aspects prevail in the definition of Cossacks’ freedom over positive ones: the lack of restraints, the absence of all the material and moral oppression by the social hierarchy, the lack of executive power over them (Hrushevsky Reference Hrushevsky1999, 38) and so forth. In these circumstances, the concept of freedom from seems to be more appropriate than the concept of freedom to (Oleinik Reference Oleinik and Strelkova2015, 244). The absence of constraints does not necessary enable one to get what he or she desires, which is the essence of freedom to.
In the final account, one’s incapacity to achieve freedom to may potentially undermine this subject’s freedom from. The case of Zaporozhian Cossacks serves as an illustration. Their love for freedom did not exclude their loyalty to the Russian tsar. “Ordinary Cossacks ideally wanted to keep the freedoms of their ancestors, but under the patronage of the ‘benevolent and caring’ Russian monarch” (Yavornitsky Reference Yavornitsky1990–1992, 3:250).
Individualism
A high value attached to freedom in Ukrainian culture goes together with a high degree of individualization. Hrushevsky (Reference Hrushevsky1992b, 372) finds first manifestations of the tendency toward individualization in Kievan Rus’. Discussing various forms of punishment used at that time, he finds a surprisingly infrequent use of corporal punishment. One of the functions of the law in Kievan Rus’ (Russkaia Pravda) was to protect honor, penalizing such acts as detention without legal process, slander, and public insults (such as a slap in the face) more heavily than were the infliction of material or physical damages.
Continuing the comparison of the two forms of traditional communities, historians of Ukraine oppose the individualism of members of the Ukrainian hromada to the collectivism of members of the Russian obshchina. One’s participation in a hromada did not exclude the priority of the individual interests over the interests of the hromada as a group. Since the hromada can be compared to a joint-stock company or a commonwealth, it creates an environment in which individualism prevails over collectivism without excluding the latter as a complement to the former.
At any moment, the Ukrainian peasants could reconsider their involvement in the hromada and create an economic and social unit on the basis of the household, khutor, that would be independent and geographically separated from the hromada. In the mid-19th century over 85 percent of the peasants in Right-Bank Ukraine and almost 70 percent in Left-Bank Ukraine worked individual homesteads (Subtelny Reference Tairova-Yakovleva2009, 256). The khutor is a family enterprise par excellence (Kostomarov Reference Kostomarov1861, 79).
Democracy
The myth of democracy as an integral part of the Ukrainian national consciousness has two historical roots: the institution of Viche that existed in Kievan Rus’ and has been revived several times since then, and the institution of Rada, a key element of Cossacks’ warrior democracy. The modern Ukrainian parliament, Verkhovna Rada, inherited this name.
Viche
The centers of power coexisted in Kievan Rus’, a public gathering of the city dwellers, Viche, and the prince, with his court and his army, druzhina. In Kievan Rus’ all inhabitants of a city could come to the place of a public gathering and participate in a Viche regardless of their social origin (Kluchevsky Reference Kluchevsky1956, 192). The division of powers between the two centers of decision-making was not quite elaborated, but one certainly counterbalanced the other. The Viche invited a particular prince to serve as the ruler, concluded a contract with him, riad, and had power to terminate the prince’s tenure in the case of his unsatisfactory performance (Hrushevsky Reference Hrushevsky1992b, 211). This led to the emergence of a simple yet functioning system of checks and balances.
The prince’s power was not absolute for several reasons. First, the prince’s discretion was limited by certain conditions set by the Viche when sending him an invitation to serve or accepting his offer of services. Second, the prince’s power did not have a “divine” character. The Orthodox Christianity was imported to Kievan Rus’ from Byzantium where power of a ruler was believed to be sacred and given by God. However, this belief became neither popular nor widely accepted in Kievan Rus’ (Hrushevsky Reference Hrushevsky1992b, 227; Kostomarov Reference Kostomarov1861, 58). Third, Kievan Rus’ was not a centralized state, having more in common with a federation (Hrushevsky Reference Hrushevsky1992b, 207; Kostomarov Reference Kostomarov1861, 48, 64). The principalities that formed the “federation” had a significant degree of autonomy, their own princes and their own Viches.
The traditions of Viche did not disappear with the disintegration of Kievan Rus’ into a number of loosely connected (if connected at all) principalities and republics. The Novgorod Republic in the 13th and14th centuries kept and further developed the democratic traditions inherited from the time of Kievan Rus’ (Kostomarov Reference Kostomarov1861, 43, 46). The Novgorod Republic embodied a viable alternative to the model of unlimited power, Russian power, that was emerging and strengthening in the Principality of Vladimir-Suzdal and the Great Principality of Moscow around the same period of time.
The population of the Ukrainian lands subsequently revived the institution of Viche on several occasions, when opportunities for democratic decision-making arose. For instance, Western Ukrainians organized several Viches both in the cities and the countryside during the 1905-1906 election campaign to elect the members of the 11th Imperial Council of Cisleithania within Austria-Hungary (Subtelny Reference Tairova-Yakovleva2009, 328).
However, the strengths of democratic traditions associated with the institution of Viche shall not be exaggerated. The Viche did not interfere with the day-to-day exercise of power by the Princes. The Viche was reluctant even to exercise its core functions of selecting the princes and enforcing contracts with them. Hrushevsky (Reference Hrushevsky1992b, 211–212) calculated that in the 11th and 12th centuries the community—hromada—participated in the selection of the ruler in 14 cases out of 40 when the prince changed. The Viche proposed its own candidate on three to five occasions only. He concludes that the Kievans may have simply wanted to find a prince that would spare them from the need to participate in politics and governance altogether.
Rada: The Institution of Military Democracy
The process of decision-making in Cossackdom also had elements of democracy. All matters of public importance were to be discussed publicly, with the involvement of the interested parties. Cossacks created the institution of Rada (council), their general meeting. As a matter of fact, there were Rady at each level of the organizational structure of Cossackdom: kuren’, the Cossacks’ leaders (starshina), the Zaporozhian Cossacks’ kosh, and the registered Cossacks’ entire military body. Even pupils in the Sich (they learned Cossacks’ military art and basics of literacy) had their own Rada (Yavornitsky Reference Yavornitsky1990–1992, 1:147). Participants in these deliberations formed a circle, which aimed to highlight an equal weight given to everyone’s opinion. This arrangement explains the other name under which the institution of Rada is also known, Cossacks’ kolo, or circle (Hrushevsky Reference Hrushevsky1999, 222).
Yavornitsky considers the Rada as a direct descendant of the Viche. He draws an explicit parallel between these two institutions. “Zaparozhian Cossacks’ worldview was based on their community (hromada), brotherhood. The Cossacks’ community is based on the same principles of people’s rule (narodnopravstvo) as in Kievan Rus’ or in Pskov and Novgorod in the North of Russia. What the ringing of the bell did in the North, was achieved with the help of drums in the South. After hearing the sound of drums, all people, regardless of their rank and social status, headed to the central place to decide the issues of importance for them, in the same manner as free citizens of the Swiss cantons or the American states do today. The Rada, the people’s Viche, was the embodiment of the Cossacks’ community” (Yavornitsky Reference Yavornitsky1990–1992, 1:139). Similar to the Viche, the Rada limited the discretion of the Cossacks’ rulers, their starshina. All holders of administrative positions in Cossackdoms had to get elected at the Rada on a regular basis (Tairova-Yakovleva Reference Tairova-Yakovleva2011, 318). Yavornitsky (Reference Yavornitsky1990–1992, 1:139) concludes that in Cossackdom “three factors put limits on the power: regular reporting, time [the limited length of the tenure] and the Rada.”
Other Ukrainian historians tend to be more skeptical about the existence of genetic links between the Rada and the Viche. These two institutions may be similar since they embody principles of archaic, spontaneous democracy. Indeed, both shared the same shortcomings. For instance, “there was no exact count of votes or identification of a majority—it was assessed by sight. There were no forms of representation” either (Hrushevsky Reference Hrushevsky1999, 222). Linda Gordon, who based her study on the Polish sources, goes even further, arguing that the Rada shall be better understood through the lens of Cossacks’ individualism. “The Rada … stemmed less from an implicit or embryonic democratic principle than from an individualistic, antistatist (or historically pre-nation-state) principle” (Gordon Reference Gordon1983, 84). For this reason, she doubts if Cossacks managed to build a democracy however imperfect it might be, preferring to label their system of governance as “dictatorship tempered by mob intervention” (Gordon Reference Gordon1983, 87).
This conceptualization of Cossacks’ system of governance ignores the existence of the three constraints of the power mentioned before: regular reports, time, and the Rada. If mob intervention is to be added to this list (Kostomarov Reference Kostomarov1861, 50), then it is a fourth constraint. At the same time, Cossacks’ adherence to principles of direct democracy was a serious obstacle to the creation of more complex and stable forms of governance. Direct democracy worked relatively well at the micro-level, with the number of parties involved not exceeding several dozen (kuren’, sotnia—the “hundred”—Cossacks’ basic military unit). At the higher levels of the social and military organization, direct democracy created more problems than it solved, indeed. Cossacks’ inability to move from direct to representative democracy is probably a key explanation for the failure of their entire project, both in military terms and in the terms of nation-state building.
One reason for Cossacks’ lack of progress can be found in particularities of their principal occupation—their involvement in low-intensity warfare with the Crimean Tatars and the Ottoman Turks (during their highly successful sea raids to Constantinople and the Black Sea southern shores). Hrushevsky (Reference Hrushevsky1999, 102) writes that “harrying the Tatars was their specialty.” The Cossacks’ hundred—a military unit composed of up to one hundred Cossacks—was the optimal organization in those circumstances. The hundred “suited the best for small encounters with the Tatars” (Yavornitsky Reference Yavornitsky1990–1992, 1:266). When the Cossacks confronted regular troops, for instance, the Poles, their rate of success was significantly lower. Namely, during the mass uprising of the mid-17th century, the Cossacks, led by Khmelnitsky, scored only one clear victory, near Zhovti Vody in 1648 (Hruschevsky 1956b, 186). In the other campaigns and battles, even when the Cossacks with their then allies—the Crimean Tatars, emerged victorious, they often were unable to capitalize on the success. For instance, the Cossacks nominally won the battle of Zboriv in 1649, but appeared unprepared to make the next strategic, as opposed to purely tactical, moves capitalizing on their victory (Hrushevsky Reference Hrushevsky1956c, 93–101). The lack of managerial skills and, thus, coordination at the macro-level, and the Cossacks’ leaders’ incapacity to “think big” were likely to be blamed. The experience of the small-scale guerilla border war simply left the Cossacks unprepared to face challenges of large-scale coordination.
The Cossacks and their successors’ inability to move from direct military democracy to representative democracy led to the emergence of the gaps between, on one hand, the leadership, and, on the other hand, the rank and file. The Cossack leaders simply did not have a strong position in negotiations with the potential allies or actual enemies, being unsure whether they could subsequently be able to “sell” the deal to the Cossack mass. The 1649 Zboriv Treaty is a case in point. After failing to capitalize on the victory in the battle of Zboriv, Khmelnitsky and the other Cossack starshina concluded less than a perfect agreement with the Poles. This agreement would have likely been simply rejected by the Cossacks, which led their leaders not to reveal all its clauses. Khmelnitsky’s “only hope was that changing circumstances may invalidate the obligations he took when signing the Zboriv Treaty” (Hrushevsky Reference Hrushevsky1956c, 227). Hrushevsky’s (Reference Hrushevsky1999, 435–436) observation that “agreements with the Cossacks had always been concluded more for the sake of appearances and had never been rigorously implemented” can be better understood in this context. Agreements become binding and enforceable when the signatories have a clear mandate to sign them and can be held responsible for their implementation before their respective constituencies.
Return to the West
Western Ukraine was a birthplace of this myth, being at the forefront of the Western influences on Ukraine’s institutions. The Western influences spread in Ukraine via two routes, Poland (Hruschevsky 1992b, 501) and Austro-Hungary. Only the latter left unambiguously positive associations in the Ukrainian consciousness. The idea of returning to Europe had supposedly more chances to get good reception if it implied the Austrian connection. “Nationalists, mostly from ex-Austro-Hungarian Galicia, adopted the ‘Return to Europe’ slogan, as a counterweight to the supposedly Asiatic nature of Tsarist Russia and the USSR” (Brudny and Finkel Reference Brudny and Finkel2011, 822; see also Portnov Reference Reid2007, 121).
Whatever the implied connection is, there are several obstacles to the reaching of the status of a national myth as opposed to a regional myth by the idea of the “Return to Europe.” On the one hand, attempts to implement Western institutions without first creatively adapting them to the local conditions in the past have been counterproductive: instead of promoting socioeconomic development, they suppressed it. On the other hand, the satisfaction of some western Ukrainians with playing the role of a pupil of the West has some similarities with Little Russianism, the attitude taken by some eastern Ukrainians vis-à-vis Russia and its culture. The same Western Ukrainians strongly criticized this attitude.
In Ukraine of the 14th to 17th centuries, the institutional environment of the urban life in general, and the organization of crafts and trade in particular, followed the Western European canon. The Polish government and nobles saw fit to import the German models on the Ukrainian soil, hoping to get an additional source of income with their help. Medieval Ukrainian cities lived under Magdeburg Law, supposedly the most progressive at that time. However, outcomes of the implementation of this legal framework were rather disappointing, even from a purely fiscal point of view. “Urban crafts and trade, the urban economic life in general, declined instead of flourishing” (Hrushevsky Reference Hrushevsky1995, 141). Hrushevsky (Reference Hrushevsky1995, 139) attributes this result to the unwillingness or incapacity to adapt the Western institutions to the local conditions, to take into consideration the national and religious particularities of Ukraine.
The expectation that the mere adaptation of institutions of a more developed culture could solve all problems is indicative of Little Russianism or Little Europeanism—depending on which culture serves as a model for institutional importation. Little Russianism is known relatively better. The Little Russian mentality involves the acceptance of “a ‘little brother’ role in the building of the Tsarist and Soviet empires” (Kuzio Reference Kuzio1998, 155). A similar mentality probably exists when one tends to uncritically perceive European culture and its institutions. The Little European adapts a consumerist posture and expects that the adaptation of the European institutional model will suffice for improving his or her quality of life. Subtelny (Reference Tairova-Yakovleva2009, 218–219) describes the 19th century “rutenstvo” in similar terms, as an uncritical endorsement of the institutions and practices of the Habsburg Empire.
Neither Little Russianism nor Little Europeanism offers an efficient protection of Ukrainians’ national interests. It would be at least unwise to expect that someone will promote and protect these interests if Ukrainians themselves are unable to do so. National interests come first, especially if they conflict the other nation’s interests. Expectations that the Europeans would put the other nation’s interests first were broken on several occasions in the past. For instance, in the 15th century, the citizens of the Novgorod Republic in vain hoped that Casimir IV, the Grand Duke of Lithuania, with whom they concluded a treaty of mutual cooperation and security, would honor his promise and help them to counter the aggression of Ivan III, the Grand Duke of Moscow. The situation changed, and the Lithuanians’ best interests were not to get involved in this war (Hrushevsky Reference Hrushevsky1993, 275).
Unruliness
The myth of the “unruliness” of Ukrainians has roots in Polish historiography. This word is especially common in the Polish sources of the 17th century (Hrushevsky amply cites them in the relevant volumes of his History of Ukraine-Rus’). For example, he quoted an expression that became common in Poland in the 1630s: in Ukraine “swawola rules” (Hrushevsky Reference Hrushevsky1956a, 128). Swawola in Polish means unruliness, lawlessness, and anarchy (Hrushevsky Reference Hrushevsky1999, 412). The association of Zhaporozhian Cossacks with unruliness tended to be particularly strong, whereas registered Cossacks were perceived by the Poles as less “unruly.”
The idea of unruliness does not necessary have exclusively negative connotations. It can be used not only as a negative label but also as an element of the positively, as opposed to normatively, constructed Ukrainian national identity. The latter requires studying the context in which Ukrainians developed a distaste for orderliness and subordination—whatever grounds this subordination may have. On one side, Cossacks—these ideal-typical Ukrainians—emerged if not in the no-man’s lands but certainly in the no-state’s lands. The borderlands, their home, were initially outside of the control of any state—Polish, Russian, or Ottoman. Central Ukraine in the 14th to 16th centuries was “a boundless area with no government or control and excepted from the regular system of law enforcement and state administration” (Hrushevsky Reference Hrushevsky1995, 287).
When attempts to establish some rule of law were finally made in the late 16th to 18th century, it was the Polish law—that is, a legal system totally disconnected from the local traditions and institutions. In other words, the state and the law were perceived as alien and imposed since the origins of Cossackdom, which explains “the Cossacks’ permanent opposition to the state order and social regime of Poland” (Hrushevsky Reference Hrushevsky1999, 60). In these circumstances the Cossack was first and foremost an “insubordinate man” (Hrushevsky Reference Hrushevsky1999, 206).
To summarize, the particularities of the institutional environment in which Cossackdom emerged and was strengthened have to be taken into account when making sense of Cossacks’ drift into the unruliness and the rejection of power. Cossacks’ svavillia (the Ukrainian term for swawola) is the exact opposite of samovlastie in Russian culture (Oleinik Reference Oleinik2011, 108–109). Samovlastie involves one’s unrestricted rule over the others that does not require any justification. One of the meanings attached to svavillia refers to the resolution to act disregarding the will and interests of the others. The absolute power in the former case finds its exact opposite, the absolute rejection of any power, in the latter. This tendency to reject power constitutes an important obstacle to the transition from freedom from to freedom to in Ukraine, since it involves the rejection of not only violence but also of power as human capacity to act in concert altogether.
Betrayal
In contrast to the myth of unruliness, the myth of betrayal is embedded in Russian historiography and political discourse. Its origins go back to the 1709 battle of Poltava. The Cossacks switched sides on the eve of the battle, joining the troops of Charles VII instead of fighting against them with Peter I. Peter I can be considered as a creator of this myth—or at least he personally contributed to its making (Plokhy Reference Portnov2015, xx). That the Cossacks led by their Hetman Ivan Mazepa switched sides is an established fact. However, the Cossacks may well have had good reasons for switching sides. One way to interpret their decision is to place it in the context of the Cossacks’ endless fight for their freedom and autonomy.
The Cossacks considered the 1654 Treaty of Pereiaslav as a mutually binding agreement. The list of departures of the Russian tsars from their contractual obligations by 1709 grew rather long, from the Cossacks’ point of view (Tairova-Yakovleva Reference Tairova-Yakovleva2011, 320–330; Subtelny Reference Tairova-Yakovleva2009, 147). The Russian tsars did not honor their promise to respect and protect the Cossack’s old liberties, progressively imposing on them the same centralized system of governance as elsewhere in the nascent Russian empire. Peter I refused to send troops to Ukraine to defend its territory against the Poles, who threatened to invade Ukraine reestablishing their rule, shortly before the battle of Poltava and so forth.
The deep dissatisfaction with the position of Ukraine within the Russian empire was growing not only in the milieu of the Cossacks’ starshina but also among the rank-and-file Cossacks. Speaking more specifically about Mazepa, who was seen by Peter I as a key traitor and his personal enemy, all the favors and awards received by Mazepa from the Russian tsar shall not overshadow the difficult choice the former faced: either he would have been removed from the office by the Cossacks, or he would have lost his power as a result of Peter I’s administrative reforms in Ukraine.
The myth of Mazepa’s “betrayal” highlights obstacles to nation-state building that exist when the power elite of a state in the making is disconnected from the country’s population. Mazepa took his decision without consulting the other Cossacks’ leaders, not to mention the rank and file (Tairova-Yakovleva Reference Tairova-Yakovleva2011, 335). Without securing a solid popular support for the fight for the national independence, the leaders have no other choice but to seek international alliances—with Charles VII, for example. Or such alliances have a highly circumstantial and unreliable character.
Holodomor
The Holodomor, a man-made famine in Ukraine in 1932–1933, has several interpretations in Ukraine’s historiography. The perception of this event as a mass politically motivated murder of the Ukrainians is embedded in Ukrainian historiography. Marples (Reference Marples2007, xii) even argues that “the interpretation of Famine as genocide was initiated in the North American Diaspora” and only subsequently adapted by Ukrainian historians.
An important nuance must be emphasized in the Ukrainian studies of the Holodomor. The fact that the Holodomor was a mass murder is not disputed by representatives of the other historiographies of Ukraine. The list of its victims in Ukraine includes up to 4.5 million people, if one counts indirect losses (Applebaum Reference Applebaum2017, 280). The disagreements began when historians attempted to assess to what extent this wholesale killing was purposeful and, if so, what was its exact purpose. Charles Tilly (Reference Wilson2002) differentiates between two forms of state-backed exterminations of civilians: genocide (state-directed or state-authorized killing of populations identified by race, ethnicity, or religion) and politicide (wholesale killing of populations identified by political affiliation). The Ukrainians constitute a majority of the victims of the Holodomor, but the Russian population of Ukraine did not escape a similar fate either. The Holodomor particularly affected the rural population of the country whose political affiliations and preferences were not always clearly manifested. These considerations raise doubts as to the applicability of the two terms proposed by Tilly to the case of the Holodomor.
Ukrainian historiography actually proposes to perceive the situation through the lens of a mass but discriminate and purposeful killing with the aim of coercing the Ukrainians to be more obedient and accepting of the central Soviet government. “The Holodomor was not designed to kill an entire ethnic group but rather to kill a large proportion of them in order to bring them to the centralized government” (Korostelina, 2004, 78; see also Applebaum Reference Applebaum2017, 347). This interpretation of the Holodomor fits well the myths discussed previously—namely, the myth of freedom and the myth of unruliness.
Victims
The Holodomor as an element of Ukrainian national identity is closely linked to the other constitutive myth, that of a victim. According to this myth, Ukrainians are pictured as a “peaceful people who nevertheless has always faced the need to protect themselves against external enemies, the key obstacle to the creation of the [Ukrainian] state” (Portnov, Reference Reid2007, 108–109). Irina Zherebkina (Reference Zherebkina2002) argues that the image of a raped and abandoned woman, a ‘defiled mother’ (maty-pokrytka), serves to illustrate this national myth. She interprets several characters in Ukrainian literature, including the works of Taras Shevchenko, its founder, in this light.
As any other myth, the myth of a victim has its origins in reality. As of the time of this writing, Ukraine is involved in a hybrid war started in early 2014 by its eastern neighbor, Russia. The interplay of between nationalism in three forms identified by Rogers Brubaker in the post-Soviet context constitutes a driving force of this military confrontation. Brubaker (Reference Brubaker1996, 5–6) differentiates nationalizing nationalism, homeland nationalism, and nationalism of the national minorities, and argues that nationalizing nationalism may be a response to homeland nationalism understood as attempts of a foreign power to extend its influence beyond the national borders under the pretext of protecting the ethnonational “compatriots” in other states. Ukrainians’ nationalism is nationalizing in these circumstances. “Despite having ‘its own’ state, the core nation is conceived as being in a weak cultural, economic, or demographic position within the state. This weak position—seen as a legacy of discrimination against the nation before it attained independence—is held to justify the ‘remedial’ or ‘compensatory’ project of using state power to promote the specific (and previously inadequately served) interests of the core nation” (Brubaker Reference Brubaker1996, 5).
Heroes
No mythology is complete without a list of national heroes. There is little doubt that upon closer inspection no national hero’s biography and profile appear to be flawless. Ukrainian national heroes make no exception. However, if one accepts the conceptualization of myths as self-realizing prophecies, then the same reasoning applies to national heroes. They cannot be dismissed as being imperfect. Their strength consists in providing reference points that help better understand the Ukrainian national consciousness.
Both Zaporozhian Cossacks and Ukrainian Cossacks have their own iconic figures. For the former, this role is played by Sirko, the otaman of the Zaporozhian Cossacks’ kosh in the second half of the 17th century. As the legend goes, he led the Cossacks in 55 battles and was victorious in all of them but one (Yavornitsky Reference Yavornitsky1990–1992, 2:200). The historians, who disapprove of the “unruly” and “freedom loving” Zaporozhian Cossacks, also refuse to fully appreciate this personality. For instance, Tatiana Tairova-Yakovleva (Reference Tairova-Yakovleva2011, 15) calls him a “famous political adventurist.” Sirko indeed embodied all the ideal-typical qualities of unregistered Cossacks, along with their strengths and weaknesses mentioned previously.
Bohdan Khmelnitsky, the Hetman of Ukrainian Cossacks and the leader of the mid-17th century Cossacks’ uprising, plays a similar role with respect to Ukrainian, or registered Cossacks (Subtelny Reference Tairova-Yakovleva2009, 125). His efforts to build a first Ukrainian nation-state cannot be denied indeed. Nevertheless, he was up to this task neither because of his personal qualities nor due to the Cossacks’ inability to move from direct democracy to representative democracy. On more than just one occasion Hrushevsky unveils motives of personal revenge behind Khmelnitsky’s actions during the uprising. Khmelnitsky repeatedly required that the Poles delivered him the small nobleman Chaplinsky, his personal arch-enemy, pretending that the entire Cossacks’ army badly wanted the same (Hrushevsky Reference Hrushevsky1996, 63; Hrushevsky Reference Hrushevsky1956b, 159; Hrushevsky Reference Hrushevsky1956c, 207, 221). Hrushevsky (Reference Hrushevsky1997, 1500) concludes with a note of sadness that “Khmelnitsky was not a master (khaziain), there was no master at all” meaning that the uprising did not produce a true statesman, let alone statesmen.
Ironically, Hrushevsky himself also had a chance to become one two and a half centuries later and also did not quite succeed. Hrushevsky is a Ukrainian national icon in two senses. On the one hand, he “did for Ukrainian history what Shevchenko had done for Ukrainian literature” (Reid Reference Rodriguez2015, 91). He was a leading myth-maker of Ukrainian historiography and, thus, a major contributor to the awakening of the Ukrainian national consciousness. On the other hand, he was also a political figure, the leader—the head of the central Rada (parliament)—of the short-lived Ukrainian Republic. His credentials in the first quality are undeniable, whereas his track record as the statesman raises controversies.
Uses of the Myths as Building Blocks of the Ukrainian Nation-State
Historians produce “raw material” for myth making by highlighting some historical facts and interpreting them. However, in order to connect a myth to nation-state building, input from political leaders and civil activists is also needed. A national mythology represents a “toolbox” for nation-state builders. At the end of the day, some myths become central elements in the emerging edifice whereas others play the role of a mere décor at best. Not all the ten previously outlined myths have had an equal weight even if there have been attempts to incorporate most of them into the project of building the Ukrainian nation-state. For the sake of brevity, the discussion will be limited to two opposite examples: one refers to the myth of hromada as a community built on the ideas of individual freedom and commonwealth simultaneously and the other refers to the myth of Cossackdom as the historical foundation of the modern Ukrainian nation. A comprehensive discussion of factors contributing to a successful appropriation of a myth would lead beyond this article’s scope.
Authors of a political project in the second half of the 1990s explicitly attempted to connect it to the myth of hromada. Hromada gave its name to a center-left political party associated with the names of Pavlo Lazarenko, the former prime minister (1996–1997), who was subsequently found guilty of corruption and fraud by a US court, and Oleksandr Turchinov, the former acting president of Ukraine (in 2014) and the current Secretary of the National Security and Defence Council of Ukraine. According to Hromada’s political program,Footnote 2 this party aims to revive “the best traditions of Ukrainian communities [hromady] and is an heir of the social-democratic movement in Ukraine supported in the past by T. Shevchenko, L. Ukrainka” and several other iconic figures. This myth making attempt miserably failed. The party took part in two parliamentary elections, in 1998 and 2006, failing on both occasions to make it to the Verkhovna Rada. The party did not manage to reach out to nationally conscious voters even when the name of Lazarenko had not been equated yet with corruption in the mass consciousness.
The myth of Cossackdom has been more closely—and far more successfully—connected to the nation-state building project. In contrast to the myth of hromada, whose promotion was attempted by political entrepreneurs, the popularity of the myth of Cossackdom can hardly be attributed to specific individuals. Instead, it can be considered as an outcome of numerous civil activists and members of critical communities.
The myth of Cossackdom had been widely shared even before Ukraine became a formally independent country in 1991 with the dissolution of the Soviet Union. As an observer notes, “the perception of contemporary Ukrainians as direct heirs of a Cossack Hetman [in 1990] was taken for granted” (Kasyanov Reference Kasyanov2007, 90). The Ukrainian edition of Yavornitsky’s History of Zaporozhian Cossacks appeared in 1990–1992, further contributing to the popularity of this myth.
References to Cossackdom were common in the interviews conducted by the author during the 2013–2014 Maidan (Oleinik and Strelkova Reference Oleinik and Strelkova2015) and later, with leaders of the volunteer movement that gained strength in 2014–2016 helping the Ukrainian military to stop the Russian advances in eastern Ukraine. The interview guide did not contain specific questions on the memories of Cossackdom. Cossacks’ traditions were mentioned by the respondents spontaneously, as a source of inspiration in their fight and institutional innovations. It comes as no surprise that the basic unit of the protesters’ organization during the 2013–2014 Revolution of Dignity had the name of Cossacks’ military unit, sotnia. The same applies to the other organizational forms used during the 2013–2014 mass protests and their aftermath: Viche and Tabir (a temporary camp of Cossacks on the move). For instance, the layout of a tent camp set in Kyiv’s city center in late November 2013 and its internal organization matched that of Tabir. It can be argued that the exemplary capacity for resistance to violence showed by both protesters on the 2013–2014 Maidan and volunteers helping to curb the military aggression in 2014–2016 has been strengthened by their successful appropriation of the myth of Cossackdom and its adaptation to their current needs.
Conclusions
This overview of Ukraine’s myths leads to several conclusions. Ukraine’s dependent status during most of its history explains the fact that the country’s path has an essentially negative definition. Ukrainians are different from Poles, as both parties learned from the 17th century to the first half of the 20th century through a series of bloody conflicts in the west of Ukraine, including the Volyn tragedy at the end of World War II (Magocsi Reference Magocsi2010, 681; Subtelny Reference Tairova-Yakovleva2009, 475).Footnote 3 Ukrainians are different from Russians, as the two parties are currently discovering in the process of the ongoing military confrontation in the east of Ukraine. Ukrainians continuously rebel against violence.
The question as to whether Ukrainians will be able to define their historical path and, consequently, national consciousness in positive terms—what they are and what they want to be, is still open ended. Is Ukraine to follow the Western path and to “return to Europe”? Alternatively, is Ukraine to follow the Russian path and to return to the “Russian world”? Or can the country define its future on its proper terms by choosing a Ukrainian path? One way to positively define the Ukrainian path involves moving from violence to power understood as human ability to act in concert. Without making this move Ukrainians, will likely continue to lag behind the other European countries in nation-state building. Their specialty, rebellion, suffices to reject violence that is externally (by the other countries) or internally (by the state) imposed. Rebellion does not suffice to build a capable nation-state. Subtelny (Reference Tairova-Yakovleva2009, 96) observes that “the problem of a Ukrainian elite, or rather, the lack of one, now emerged as yet another of the central and recurrent themes in Ukrainian history.” The society produced truly decent leaders neither at the time of the Cossacks’ uprising in the mid-17th century nor during the 2013–2014 mass protests and subsequent mobilization against Russia’s aggression. One of the qualities of such a leader is exactly to show that the state can be associated not only with violence but also with power. The environment in which the association of the Ukrainian state with power becomes a possibility is composed of institutions of representative democracy built up using several myths, first of all, the myth of Cossackdom.
Author ORCIDs
Anton Oleinik, https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5229-1052
Acknowledgments
The author is grateful for comments made by a Nationalities Papers’ anonymous reviewer on an earlier version of this article.
