Thirty-five years ago today, Ukraine’s Parliament declared independence, “restoring” it, in the eyes of those who see its history in teleological, state-centric terms: the Kyïvan Rus’ state, the quasi-democratic Cossack Hetmanate of the 1600-1700s (whose progressive potentials even Marx noted), the Ukrainian People’s Republic of 1917-20, and so on. (Serhy Yekelchyk’s article “The Making of Independent Ukraine” is an excellent overview of the gaining of independence and its meaning since 1991.)
I was in Kyïv at the time, and while my memory is foggy (I lost my journal from that summer, in which I kept pretty detailed notes on daily life in Ukraine), I remember the week leading up to that declaration as an eerie lull between the beginning of the coup — launched by a cadré of Soviet hardliners in an effort to restore the Union as it floundered — and this surprising parliamentary pronouncement that came a few days after the coup had fizzled out.
I had returned to Kyïv from the enthralling Chervona Ruta music festival in Zaporizhzhia on the first morning of the coup. The entire bus ride, we passengers had to listen to state radio playing a monotonous alternation of classical music (the kind they played to mark the deaths of key Communist Party leaders) and a toneless male voice announcing our “new ministers,” and it wasn’t clear what would greet us upon our arrival in Kyïv.
Unlike Moscow, the Ukrainian capital was relatively quiet. Rumors circulated through the week about armed Soviet militia units encircling the city, but none ever manifested in the city itself, and by the time of the parliamentary vote, we were in that zone of knowing that something crazily new was emerging, but not knowing anything about how its emergence would play out. The previous two years (about half of which I had spent in Ukraine) had been a wild ride — exhilarating for me, a young Ukrainian-Canadian who was free (more or less) to travel and witness the excited optimism of so many young people, as well as the discombobulated confusion among many of the old.
Within the three months that followed the declaration of independence, which was to be ultimately decided on by a national referendum, Ukrainians rallied, and on December 1, over 90% of them voted to approve Ukraine’s independence.
Today, Ukrainians continue to fight to preserve what they fought for then, and what many fought for back in 1917-21 (and then some again in the 1940s, though that was more complicated): the hope offered by self-determination. The “self” part of that self-determination has always been a work in progress, as it is everywhere. Canadians, for instance, are never as united as they get when they are being economically attacked and verbally threatened by the bully to their south. Likewise, Ukrainians have grown much more unified by the vicious attacks they’ve suffered at the hands of their bully next door; and four and a half years of such violence can wear anyone down.
But the determination to withstand being bullied remains and is worth celebrating. Слава Україні.
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