For me the school history lessons were themselves a contradictory fact – on one hand they teach you Ukrainian history, on the other hand they kill all your love for this history. So, where was I? Telling you of the facts one could contradict!
1. The Holodomor
Photo Credit: Andrew J.Swan
Holodomor was a disastrous famine in the Ukrainian SSR in 1932–1933. Millions of people starving to death as a result of the policies introduced by Joseph Stalin, including the family of my grandpa who was smoking since he was 6 and eating nothing but garlic for days (no evil spirits in him since then!) and my grandma whose mother was planning to drawn herself along with my grandma, the youngest of three kids, my great-grandpa having fun in Sybir for owning a horse! Unlike the famine in other Soviet republics there were no natural causes for the famine in Ukraine, the crops of wheat were unusually reach in 1932. The estimated number of starvation deaths ranges from 2.6 to 10 million people. The root of Holodomor is still in debate, though in legal terms there are evidences that Holodomor was designed as an attack on the rise of Ukrainian nationalism and thus falls under the legal definition of genocide.
Thanks to Viktor Yushchenko in March 2008, Ukraine and nineteen other governments have recognized the actions of the Soviet government as an act of genocide. The fact is contradictory for Russians mostly. Who would accept killing so many people, right?
2. Who betrayed the Treaty of Pereyaslav?
Photo Credit: Silanov
The Treaty of Pereyaslav was signed between Cossack Hetman Bohdan Khmelnytsky and Russian tsar Alexey I in Pereyaslav (modern Pereyaslav-Khmelnytsky) in 1654 stipulating the protection of the Cossack Hetmanate by Tsar and a number of liberties granted to the cossacks. Time passed, the Russian throne was succeeded by tsar Petr I and Ivan Mazepa became the Cossack Hetman. And everything was great until the Cossack Hetmanat was ordered to send their forces to fight in Livonia and Lithuania, instead of protecting their homes against Tatars and Poles. At that point Ivan Mazepa, being a Ukrainian Hetman, allied himself with Swedish and Polish armies in October 1708 and fought on their side in the contradictory Battle of Poltava in 1709. This made Mazepa a symbol of traitor in Russian and Soviet history, and the Russian Orthodox Church even anathematized him for political reasons. Good for him! Nowadays Cossack Hetman Ivan Mazepa’s rating is the highest among the Ukrainian Hetmans: 6 sculptures, 17 literature masterpieces, 22 musical compositions, 42 paintings and 186 gravures.
3. Orange Revolution
Photo Credit: neiljs
(aka Pomarancheva Revolutsiya) Mass rallies, pickets, demonstrations of mass protests in Ukraine, organized by adherents of Viktor Yushchenko, the main oppositional candidate on the presidential elections in 2004 after the announcement of preliminary elections’ results by the Central Election Commission of Ukraine. According to these results the victory was granted to his main rival – Viktor Yanukovych. The campaign began on November 22. The main participants of the joint opposition were citizens of Western and Central Ukraine, while East and South supported Viktor Yanukovych. The public opinion in most of the Western European countries and the USA were on the democratic side of the opposition.
The main result of the Revolution was the decision of the Supreme Court which stated that it was impossible to establish the elections results and therefore stated that the elections should be re-run, wasn’t it? NO!!!!! The main result is that now THEY KNOW ALL OVER THE WORLD that there is a Ukraine, Ukraine is an independent country, the people of which have an idea of what they want, though unable to ever get it thanks to local politicians. And in due course of the re-run, held on December 26 Yushchenko won the Presidential elections with over 51% of votes. Sorry he did not have a chance to implement all his romantic hlechyk policies!
Well, hoping you at least heard of these first to points in our contradictory Ukrainian history and sure there’s something you have to say on the third point! Feel free to contradict, I love debate!
