History as National Myth

Ukraine belongs to the so-called non-historical nations of Eastern Europe, whose nationalism and nation-states (arguably more than those of the West European countries) can be regarded as direct prod­ucts of a highly elaborated historical myth.

Mykhailo Hrushevsky, a renowned Ukrainian historian and the author of the Ukrainian historical myth, was elected the first head of an independent Ukrainian state in 1918. His ten-volume History of Ukraine- Rus' was published between 1898 and 1936, and his main achievement as a historian was that he managed to fill the numerous gaps in the Ukrainian past, transforming Ukraine from a young, emerging nation without a history of its own into a historical nation.

During Hrushevsky's tenure as head of the Ukrainian government, the trident, an emblem of the Kyivan princes, was adopted as the emblem of the newly emerged state. Now it serves as the official symbol of independent Ukraine. The anthem that was adopted by the Ukrai­nian state under Hrushevsky and now serves as the national anthem of Ukraine also contains direct references to Ukrainian history, particularly of the Cossack era. Its title, 'Ukraine Is Not Yet Dead,' echoes the title of the Polish national anthem, 'Poland Is Not Yet Dead.' Apart from evi­dent Polish influences, the title of the Ukrainian anthem reflects the belief of Ukrainians in their own 'historical' past. That past is reflected in numerous Ukrainian songs, poems, and prayers. 'Bring back the free­dom, bring back the glory to our Ukraine,' goes one of the prayers that can be heard today in Ukrainian churches all over the world.

This historical mythology, which could not exist without a highly developed interest in history and at least a partially developed histori­ography, contributed immensely to the emergence of an independent Ukraine in 1991. The victory of the pro-independence forces in the December 1991 Ukrainian referendum, which put an end to the exist­ence of the Soviet Union, came about as a result of the victory of two principal myths. The first was historical: that of Ukraine as an old nation with a glorious past that was deprived of its statehood by tsars and commissars.

It is quite interesting (and in many ways characteristic of Ukrainian nationalism of the early 1990s) that none of the components of the histor­ical myth contributing to the outcome of the 1991 independence referen­dum was anti-Russian (or anti-Jewish, anti-Polish, etc.). The highly developed Cossack mythology that was successfully revived in the pre­independence years had all the characteristics of an inclusive myth that allowed not only Ukrainians but also millions of Russians, many of whom have mixed ancestry, to associate themselves with the mytholo­gized Cossack past. Numerous writings on the man-made famine of 1933 in eastern Ukraine, along with commemorations of the Chornobyl nuclear disaster of 1986, have portrayed Ukraine as the principal victim of the communist system. Sporadic attempts to present that system and its crimes against Ukraine as the product of a Russian or Jewish anti­Ukrainian plot were effectively overshadowed by the inclusiveness of the historical myths of both the famine and Chornobyl, in which all citi­zens of Ukraine, whatever their national, social, or political affiliation, were viewed as innocent victims of the Soviet system.

Once independence was achieved, the integrity and inclusive char­acter of Ukrainian historical mythology was severely challenged. The pre-independence Cossack and famine mythologies exhausted them­selves in the face of the crumbling of the economic-greatness myth and deteriorating standards of living. Nationalistic, exclusive myths like that of the Ukrainian Insurgent Army, which fought both Nazis and Soviets during the Second World War, though vigorously accepted in western Ukraine, were violently rejected in the east. During his last months in power, the first president of Ukraine, Leonid Kravchuk, and later his successor, Leonid Kuchma, tried to reintroduce a modified version of the Second World War myth into the all-Ukrainian historical consciousness and launched a campaign to celebrate the fiftieth anni­versary of Ukraine's liberation from Nazi occupation. But these initia­tives were openly rejected in western Ukraine, owing to the simple fact that liberation from the Nazis meant reoccupation by the Soviets.