Viktor Yushchenko: "All our tragedies occurred when
there was no understanding within the nation"
INTERVIEW: With Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko
By Mykola SIRUK, The Day and other correspondents
The Day Weekly Digest #34, Tuesday, 13 November 2007
claimed nearly 10 million Ukrainian lives in 1932- 33. It should be noted
that Ukraine's parliament passed a bill recognizing the Holodomor as an act
of genocide against the Ukrainian people only last year.
In recent months official Kyiv has been contacting other countries and
international organizations, urging them to acknowledge the Holodomor as
genocide. A dozen parliaments have responded.
On Nov. 1, 2007, the 34th UNESCO General Conference (made up of 193
member countries) unanimously passed the Resolution "Remembrance of
Victims of the Great Famine (Holodomor) in Ukraine." The resolution did
not mention the word genocide.
How does this UNESCO resolution correspond to Ukraine's vision of these
75-year-old events? Will Ukraine keep insisting that the Holodomor be
recognized by the international community as an act of genocide against the
Ukrainian people?
What are the lessons that the current Ukrainian generation and political
elite should learn from this tragedy?
Below President Viktor Yushchenko comments on these and other issues in
an interview with correspondents from five Ukrainian periodicals: The Day,
Silski visti, Ukraina Moloda, Fakty, and the weekly Dzerkalo tyzhnia.
PRESIDENT: The sun has not yet set on this question. We must understand
that conveying the truth about the Great Famine of 1932- 33 to the world
community is not an optional, one-year course. We should clearly understand
that this issue is facing a great many challenges that the Ukrainian nation
must overcome.
What happened yesterday (this interview took place on Dec. 2 - Ed.) is proof
that the amount of work done by Ukraine, its political forces and diplomats
in the past couple of years has been recognized by 193 countries, which last
night unanimously voted in favor of this decision.
For me, it is very important that for the first time the world community
adopted a joint consolidated decision on recognizing the Great Famine of
1932-33 on such a scale. This is the main victory. Other, more specific,
details of this tragedy represent our future work.
If you will pardon my saying so, how can we reproach the world when it has
taken our society 73 years to get a parliament that recognizes this as the
Holodomor?
We have been afraid to say so for 73 years. Now we are demanding that 193
countries do something that we Ukrainians didn't have the courage to do
within our own nation, within our own leadership.
I think that we have received three signals. First, we have provided the
world with enough arguments to show that this tragedy is not only a tragedy
of the Ukrainian nation but a tragic page in the annals of world history,
something that we must respect, honor, and know about all over the world.
Second, it is an extremely important fact that the UNESCO General Conference
has joined in commemorating the 75th anniversary of this tragedy.
Third, it is important that this UNESCO resolution recommends that the
signatories do their best to make this page in history, this particular
truth, part of educational programs and high school curricula throughout the
world, so that people will have a better insight into this event that took
place in Ukraine.
I think that these three signals are the strongest ones, something we can
really feel proud of, because this concerns our tragic history and those
directives that first and foremost we want the rest of the world to
understand and accept.
We're making efforts all over the world, holding various events, and
organizing visits. Dozens of conferences are being organized by the
Institute of Memory.
You won't find a parliament anywhere in the world that has not received my
message about the Holodomor of 1932- 33. This topic is being developed
and implemented, in some places better, and in other places, worse.
Sometimes circumstances are forced, which impede a quick decision- making
process. Let me share one of my convictions with you: the time will come
when most national parliaments will recognize this tragic page of Ukrainian
history, the Holodomor of 1932-33, as an act of genocide against the
Ukrainian people. As a nation, we must be better consolidated with regard to
this issue; we must believe in ourselves.
We must finally dedicate our efforts to one of the Ukrainian themes upon
which is based the kind of understanding, unity, and consolidation that our
nation needs - because unity and consolidation do not come about based on
something that is amorphous; least of all do they come about through
silence.
On the contrary, we must shoulder all the burdens of the past years and
accept all the outrages that were perpetrated against the nation as our own
personal drama. And in this we must sense the need for Ukraine's unification
on an organic, cellular level.
QUESTION: Mr. President, according to the Law on the Holodomor, any
attempts to deny it are prohibited and regarded as acts of contempt to the
millions of victims. How can our politicians be made to observe this law?
Will you insist that the new coalition amend the Criminal Code to institute
criminal liability for Holodomor denial?
PRESIDENT: If you recall Article 2 of this Law, it requires a sequel to the
logistics of this order. If we have proof of denial, then there must be
liability for it. I see logic in the fact that changes to the Law on the
Holodomor of 1932-33 must contain an article on administrative and criminal
responsibility. Yesterday I signed a bill to this effect and did not submit
it to parliament for only one reason.
I would first like to address a special message to the Ukrainian parliament,
elucidating all the circumstances concerning both current and historical
aspects. Then I would propose a resolution on criminal and administrative
liability for denying the Holocaust and the Holodomor.
These two subjects are very similar. They are topical both within our
country and throughout the world, which keeps moving in this direction.
I'm convinced that this will be a good example of the two greatest
tragedies, one of which claimed five million and the other some ten million
lives, that both will have international status on the one hand, and on the
other, that there will be clear- cut boundaries of liability within the
framework of national legislation. Therefore, this issue will shortly be
placed on the agenda.
I'm convinced that there won't be any problems in parliament. We'll find
sides there that have political morals and an unsuppressed national
consciousness, who realize that this step is not aimed against anyone.
This step is not aimed against Russia or the Russian people. Excuse me,
but it is a step aimed against a regime, the only and main cause of that
tragedy. Regrettably, political commentaries on this issue vary.
However, I am convinced that politicians tend to mature with time and become
more conscientious with each passing day as we discuss issues that are so
close to the Ukrainian heart.
Therefore, I'm convinced that we will get this issue moving in the Ukrainian
parliament, as we did the recognition of the Holodomor of 1932-33 as an act
of genocide.
If anyone has questions about why genocide, they should look at two
statistics, particularly Joseph Stalin's census of 1929 and Brezhnev's in
1979. We started with the Ukrainian nation numbering 81 million and ended
up with 42 million.
In 50 years the only nation that shrank by two times was the Ukrainian
nation. All the others increased by two or three times. Of course, this
statistic has to do not only with the Holodomor.
However, I would like to emphasize - especially for the political elite -
that we must outgrow our Little Russian garb and dedicate our efforts to
issues of recognition that are sensitive even to my generation. If we don't
do this, the Ukrainian nation, its consciousness, and subsequent Ukrainian
generations will be deformed.
That is why this is not a playful subject for me, not an optional class in
Ukrainian history but one of the most urgent questions of today. Therefore,
if we want to take good care of our future, we must first of all take good
care of our history because the future is created precisely from history.
We are filtering what is strong, what unites and identifies, what makes us a
more universal and wiser nation. And on the basis of these values is
formulated the answer to the question, what kind of future do we want?
If someone says that the past can be cut off, like with a pair of scissors,
and that we can get together at a roundtable and create a bright future,
this is utopia. No nation does this.
Every nation knocks on the doors of its past, seeking lines of
identification that most vividly demonstrate feelings of national unity and
the strength of the nation, and on the basis of this forms its own
perspective.
In other words, I believe that an individual that works against Ukrainian
history is not a carrier of the Ukrainian future. This is what an absolutely
urgent, straightforward, and contemporary approach is all about.
QUESTION: Dmytro Dontsov once said that Ukrainians must develop a
spirit capable of effectively resisting the spirit of Ivan the Terrible,
which is being constantly reincarnated in Russia.
Do you agree that little has changed in the Kremlin corridors of power and
generally in many European capitals and the rest of the world? To what
degree do they accept Ukraine as an independent country? Is there any
reverse process?
PRESIDENT: There is no reverse process. I am convinced that in the days
of Bohdan Khmelnytsky or Ivan Mazepa asserting the Ukrainian nation was
considerably more difficult than today. We live in a different era, although
no one will say that we are living in easy times. This kind of work has
never been easy.
I do not think that these words have lost their urgency. They remain topical
today. I would probably emphasize another aspect. Ukrainians always like to
cry, either because they are living in the wrong times or they lack
strength, or are in the wrong kind of circumstances.
I am convinced that the key concept of forming national consciousness and an
open society lies in our own inner will. Regardless of who and which
corridors of power are thinking about Ukraine, we need our own concept of
where we are today. What do we have to build up?
Unfortunately, too many myths have been introduced into Ukrainian history,
which have perhaps been introduced on the subconscious rather than conscious
level of many generations.
Living with these myths has given rise to this black- and-white attitude
toward our life and our history. Without a doubt, we must have a truthful
history of Ukraine. Otherwise we will long continue to wander among
contemporary events.
For example, look at how it pains, or does not pain, our Ukrainian hearts to
know what happened to the graves of the youths who died at Kruty? What
nation tolerates uproars, like when our national anthem is murdered?
In other words, this is our symbol, and not simply our symbol but that which
is perhaps the best graphic evidence of our identity as Ukrainians.
Why are they attacking our anthem? Why are they smearing it? Because once
again they want to prove the hackneyed myth of the past that says that we
have no nation, that we have no state, we have different languages in our
country, different churches, even different kinds of history, and differing
attitudes to our national history.
Once again, let me emphasize that this is not a problem of some other
nation, some other capital city. This is a problem of my family, our
families. This is a problem of our nation.
If we continue to allow our national values to be treated this way, we will
live with a sense of being imperfect and second-rate for a long time to
come. That is why these are sensitive things for me.
It is obvious that people are striking at these things, striking Hoverlia,
Kruty, and erecting monuments to Catherine II. I realize that these are
episodes; these are lessons after which a nation becomes different.
I assure you that what we're talking about now has never been discussed
in these offices, within these walls, with this coloration, and in this
context. I am inspired by this because this is progress. We don't need to
be idealists: building a state is a difficult subject. We have a great many
opponents, we have a fifth column.
Ultimately, they will keep working hard to prove that we have failed.
Sixteen years aren't long enough to finally answer the question whether or
not we have succeeded in building our state. I have no doubts that the state
has been established for many centuries to come.
We still face many challenges and we must realize all of them. I have no
illusions about this, either. This is a great test; there will be grave
wounds; great problems connected to our historical destiny.
I would say, however, that the number-one issue is the question that above
all concerns our very nation, our citizens; how much this citizen is aware
of being a Ukrainian national.
Another issue - I don't want to use an insulting qualifier - is that we must
develop a new breed of Ukrainian politicians, who will assign primary
importance to issues pertaining to national consolidation and the formation
of national memory and consciousness that have been distorted over the
centuries.
After all, in view of the historical depression that keeps catching up with
us, bringing tears to our eyes and often serving to disunite us, it is
necessary to form precisely this kind of elite.
Without a doubt, it is emerging. More and more interesting people are
appearing in the Ukrainian parliament, with whom, I will say frankly, it is
interesting to conduct polemics and be aware of all those threads that bind
us to what we understand; that this is our job and those challenges that
Ukrainian politicians, as the avant-garde, should understand. They have to
keep a step ahead of things and explain them to the people.
I am convinced that herein lies the great mission of the new Ukrainian
political generation, a generation that may not always be fully understood
by society in one aspect or another.
Right now we are turning back to the pages that are acquiring passionate
understanding. [I am referring to] the Holodomor in the current context,
when every November tens of thousands of people gather in front of what I
would describe as a sign rather than a monument, for the nation has not made
an adequate acknowledgment that would pay tribute to the fate of nearly 10
million victims who died in 1932-33.
This is more than we lost during the Second World War. Yet with every
passing year we feel this truth taking its place in our history. And for
many this is a discovery.
I will say frankly that I feel some anger toward the intelligentsia and
journalists, who have not always displayed their national stand, while often
exploiting the unique monopoly on the pen, which means on the idea, which
only journalists have, to speak the truth. In other words, much needs to be
raised in society.
I only want to say one thing, that I will never blame some side for failing
to do everything for all this to become a reality in Ukraine.
This is exclusively a question of the titular Ukrainian nation. And I am
sure that its ambitions can change the views of the world, neighbors, and
various regional or international organizations. Everything starts from
here.
QUESTION: Mr. President, what kind of information policy do you think
Ukraine should adopt in commemorating the Holodomor victims?
PRESIDENT: I think this should be a policy for the next several years. To
this I would like to add a general remark: if we keep saying that this is a
bother for the state, then we won't be able to accomplish many things, place
them on the agenda, and achieve them.
This is everyone's business, no matter who you are according to your
position. I am convinced that this is a question of a challenge, when we
talk about how to have a single nation, incontestable territorial integrity,
sovereignty, and by which mechanisms this should be consolidated. This is
a discussion that involves everyone.
The question is: what is your stand, of your family, your children - and not
just on this question but in the widest understanding: security, defense,
and integration; who will we be 10 to 15 years from now - where we have
been or where we want to be?
But this is what the situation looks like. First of all, we must lock in
historical memory. And for this we must develop a vast body of scholarship,
carry out appropriate archaeology, and complete a proper inventory of
everything that exists not only in our archives but abroad, with regard to
one part of history or another.
We simply have to know the truth about what happened in Ukraine in 1920,
1929, in the 1930s, in 1936, the 1940s, and the 1950s.
Therefore, the topic of the liberation movement and its history is one of
the very sensitive pages that we still have to comprehend. We were taught a
different kind of history, so we have a vague attitude to the efforts made
by Symon Petliura.
We know next to nothing about what was accomplished by Yevhen Konovalets
in Kyiv in 1919; about the monarchist endeavors of Hetman Skoropadsky, the
dramatic conflict between him, Petliura, and Vynnychenko, or about the
Arsenal tragedy, Kruty, or the Bohodukhiv army.
All these issues are such a complex and painful mix that demonstrates the
following: as a rule, all our tragedies occurred when there was no
understanding within the nation. This history must be brought forth. If we
learn it, then we will lock it in books, programs, monuments, and street
names. This is a purification of our consciousness.
Therefore, I would say that first comes a great deal of painstaking
scholarly work, on the basis of which enlightening work must be organized,
and later, important educational work in various domains, starting of course
with schools and upbringing in schools, and the introduction of special
courses and all kinds of support for this kind of research to be undertaken
by various scholarly institutions. In other words, perhaps the most
important thing is to popularize the knowledge we already possess and
acquire new knowledge.
I am convinced that raising the level of our self-sufficiency and discarding
Little Russianism are the key tasks of the state authorities today. We must
consistently form our national consciousness. This is the key to the answer
to this question.
People who are enriched with national memory, consciousness, and truthful
history can provide answers to the formation of key national priorities.
This is an integrative connection.
I would even describe it as a pair of correspondences that are interrelated.
As people say correctly, history is the road to the future. Without history
there is no road to the future.
QUESTION: You mentioned the topic of the legal responsibility for the
Holodomor on the part of the political regime. After the 20th Congress of
the CPSU it was far easier to discuss Stalinist repressions than it is to
talk about the Holodomor today. There are a lot fewer people who know
from personal experience what it was.
Even now, a year after the Holodomor bill was passed, there is no
understanding on this issue among the political forces that obtained seats
in parliament after the early elections.
Mr. President, are you certain that your proposed changes to the law, which
envisage administrative and criminal liability for Holodomor denial, will be
passed by parliament, and will the Party of Regions support them?
PRESIDENT: Frankly, above all, I'm relying on support from you. There are
more of you. Believe me: it's not worth pretending that parliament gives its
consent to this with 228 or 232 votes. What decides the matter is society's
consent.
Our society can demolish any opposition to this question, no matter where it
is formed: parliament, or government, or in some regional organization. We
must first plant these convictions in our own hearts. I am convinced that in
the past two years we have accomplished more on this subject than was done
in the past 70 years.
Of course, the heaviest consequence of the Famine of 1932-33 is the victims.
It is very important for us to know these victims because the very
recognition of the existence of these victims leads us to a second
conclusion: these people lived.
Therefore they had their own values and views because of which they clearly
suffered. We are starting to address them. For some, this means a spiritual
aspect: these are souls that can give us strength through our prayers. To
others these souls do not exist; they have forgotten all about them in
keeping with what they were taught.
They have no one to appeal to. Tear a page from a book and say that 1932-33
never existed: you are without memory. But "memory" and "memorial" have
the same root. Everything that has no memory will never be history.
Why is it important for us to consolidate all this through all sorts of
signs that will restore our forgotten memory? I will be announcing a
competition for the best book of 2008 on the Great Famine of 1932- 33.
I will raise funds, and the people who do the finest work on behalf of the
Ukrainian nation will be honored. I will also announce a competition for the
best film on the same subject.
In fact, several film scripts are being developed right now, which will
serve, I am convinced, as vivid proof for the rest of the world, not only
for our nation.
Right now we are talking about the completion of the drafting part of the
work to create a monument to the Great Holodomor and the opening of a
Holodomor museum that will occupy an area of several thousand square
meters. We have enough eyewitness testimony and to spare.
Over the past year the Institute of Memory has identified 1.5 million
witnesses who can relay the truth about the Holodomor. Among them are people
who were only a couple of years old and who remember those terrible times.
Thank God, there are still people left who experienced all this as adults.
Archives have been preserved in our country, although a large proportion of
them were destroyed. But as far as I am concerned, besides the enormous
human tragedies, the 1932-33 Famine also brought another great affliction:
terror.
That which took place in 1932-33 led to 1936-37: repressions and abasement
of human dignity and honor - everything that was set in motion during this
period. Therefore, there is no question that today we must bring up this
topic in all its manifestations in as solid a fashion as possible.
I am convinced that we will have a distinguished national memorial and that
the victims' memory will be duly honored throughout the oblasts.
During a meeting in Kharkiv, I rebuked some heads of oblast state
administrations who are obliged to apply similar steps to all local state
administrations, where little has been done to commemorate the memory of
the victims of the Great Famine.
I am more of an optimist than a pessimist in these matters, although I am
convinced that this question should have been raised in the first days of
national sovereignty.
As of today, every oblast is collecting data on all those who died during
the Great Famine, which will be used to compile regional Remembrance Books
that will be issued next year in conjunction with the 75th anniversary of
the Holodomor.
I am convinced that we will start working on a National Remembrance Book
in half a year. All this has to do with the subject of memory.
I think this is the key to understanding the mission before us. Today we
have to manage to complete this work. Assessments are ahead. We must
record as much pertinent data as is absolutely technically possible because
this is the most important issue at this stage.
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LINK: http://www.day.kiev.ua/191333/