Ukraine, 25 Years from Now

[Valin]

National Review:

Looking ahead on the silver anniversary of its independence from the Soviet Union.

George Weigel

September 15, 2016

 

Ukraine marked the silver anniversary of its independence last month. It has been a rugged 25 years, and the last two and a half have been exceptionally tough. Russia, which has clearly never accepted the fact of an independent Ukrainian state that is not a Muscovite vassal, made a first stab at realizing its imperial ambitions by invading, occupying, and annexing Crimea — in blatant defiance of the Budapest Memorandum (1994), which guaranteed Ukraine’s borders in exchange for its ridding itself of nuclear weapons. Following that reversion to the politics of Anschluss, Moscow and its local minions have conducted, in the Donbass region of eastern Ukraine, a war that has cost almost 10,000 lives while internally displacing 1.5 million people. Occasional bleats notwithstanding, the West has largely stood by during this aggression, even as Ukraine attempts to defend itself while seeing through across-the-board reforms in its legal system, its state bureaucracy, its constitutional arrangements, and its economy.

 

Yet, somehow, the spirit of the 2013–14 Maidan revolution, which ushered in the present moment in Ukraine’s turbulent history, continues to inspire Ukrainians to do the seemingly impossible: effect a major economic and political transition while fending off military aggression. That may have something to do with three distinctive features of the Maidan revolution — three keys to its success — that will have a lot to do with whether the promise of a free and prosperous Ukraine is realized in the next 25 years.

 

In a world in which the word “populism” is typically misused, or used in so many different ways as to become virtually meaningless, the Maidan revolution of dignity was a genuinely populist phenomenon: It was a a people’s revolt, in which brave men and women asserted their dignity and rights as citizens, not subjects. And in doing so, they took a giant first step toward exorcising the demon of Homo sovieticus — the thwarted and stunted human personality created by Communism — and putting it behind them. As one brave Ukrainian said during those freezing days in Kyiv when he and thousands of others faced down Russian snipers, “We came to the Maidan looking for Europe” — protesting their government’s decision to back off from an agreement to accelerate accession to the European Union — “and we found Ukraine.” Meaning, I think, that he and tens of thousands of others found themselves as free and responsible agents, protagonists of their own history and destiny, rather than subjects, and often victims, of authoritarian government. That sense of dignity was crucial to the success of the Maidan, and it will be crucial to Ukraine’s future.

 

Second, in a country too often riven by inter-faith conflict, the Maidan revolution was genuinely ecumenical and inter-religious. People who previously could not imagine themselves working in harness found a new solidarity in living in the truth, and in putting their lives on the line for the truth about their rights as citizens. And out of this may come something of real consequence for the future of those parts of Europe where the Orthodox theological heritage dominates the religious landscape. The new cooperation and conversation between the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church and those Ukrainian Orthodox communities that have disentangled themselves from the Russian Orthodox Patriarchate of Moscow (a scandalous mouthpiece for the Kremlin on Ukrainian affairs these past several years) may open the path to a development of real consequence in Eastern Christianity: an Orthodox theory of civil society and democracy, including an Orthodox theory of Church and state in which the Church does not function as chaplain to the czar (in whatever guise he appears).

 

(Snip)