Last weekend saw protests in Odessa over the unveiling of a monument to Katherine the Great, the Russian Empress who initiated the often brutal conquest and colonisation of eighteenth century Ukraine. The monument has angered and infuriated Cossack groups who regard Katherine as an evil influence responsible for destroying their ancestors’ way of life and ushering in a despotic era of russification and oppression.
Such claims may well be historically accurate, but they ignore the inescapable truth that if this monument to Katherine is really an unacceptable stain on Ukraine’s national honour, then so is Odessa itself. After all, this is a city which often cheerfully pokes fun at the pretensions of the independent Ukrainian state and proudly guards its historical associations with the Russian past while maintaining an air of utter indifference towards the political squabbles of the age. It is a city state of enormous parochialism that is among the pearls of modern Ukraine but one which would no doubt be horrified to hear of itself referred to as such. You could call it an accident of geography if you like, but Odessa and Ukraine are stuck with each other and it is about time everybody got used to the fact.
While there is no doubting that officials behind this latest monument are guilty of deliberately playing on divisive attitudes towards the country’s history, it is impossible to deny that they are also very much in tune with local sentiment, which is as resistant to historical revisionism as areas elsewhere in the Ukrainian heartland were to Soviet rule. Nor are such historically confrontational gestures restricted to Ukraine’s pale of Russian sentiment. Traditional centres of Ukrainian nationalism are often just as guilty as the Russophiles of demonstrating their inability to work towards any sort of consensus, and officials were busy last week erecting monuments to controversial Second World War guerrilla leader and nationalist figurehead Stepan Bandera in western Ukraine.
Both parties would no doubt claim, with much justification, that it is their sacred right and obligation to pursue these highly emotive historical missions, but is this really the way to build a better country? At what point will the various parties decide that it is time to try and focus on what unites the population rather than harping on endlessly about issues which can only divide them?
The fact that monuments to eighteenth century Russian rulers are being erected now, sixteen years since Ukraine declared independence, is a sign of how little has been done to heal the wounds of the past and how much time has been wasted exploiting perceived historical injuries for short-term political gain.
It would be unfair to blame the political classes exclusively for this abject failure, as the general population has consistently displayed a remarkable lack of enthusiasm for any of the many parties over the years who have tried to campaign on a ticket of non-partisan bridge-building.
The truth is that Ukraine remains in many senses a country trapped in its own past and it is hard to see it ever reaching true maturity until this is rectified. There are promising signs in the lack of emphasis being placed on historical ties and linguistic issues in the current election campaign, and the prize that awaits the political leader who can actually overcome the historical prejudices and paranoia of the country is potentially huge.
As it stands, though, the only sentiment that the entire population seems to share is one of disdain for the political classes in general, an irony which would go down just as well in Odessa as it would in Kyiv or Lviv.
