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8Journal of Siberian Federal University. Humanities & Social Sciences 5 (2015 8) 981-993
УДК 141.201
Social and Philisophical Problems of "Post-Soviet Space" (Exemplified by Ukraine)
Michel P. Yatsenko*
Siberian Federal University 79 Svobodny, Krasnoyarsk, 660041, Russia
Received 09.09.2014, received in revised form 11.12.2014, accepted 16.01.2015
Problems associated with the threats that globalization brings to the peoples of the world are analyzed in the article. In this respect, collapse of the Soviet Union and its consequences are of fundamental importance for the understanding of political, socio-cultural and ethnic processes taking place in the "post-Soviet space." The author emphasizes that a lot of tendencies that characterize the "post-Soviet space" are most pronounced at a series of "color revolutions".
The author analyzes causes and nature of the confrontation on the Maidan. The article shows that the "independent" Ukraine for almost a quarter of a century failed to find not only a worthy place in the world, but even a distinct socio-cultural identity. It is connected not only with the deep contradictions inside the Ukrainian society that have been accumulating for centuries, but also with arrogant external interference. The recent events in the center of the capital of Ukraine showed complexity of civilization choice of the "post-Soviet republics" in the context of globalization.
Keywords: sovereignty, civilization, socio-cultural identity, axiological scale, Old Russian nation, mentality, historical self-consciousness.
Research area: philosophy.
Introduction
February 2014. As we are moving closer to the Maidan we are more overcame by a sense of tragicomedy: such a wild combination of camouflage, cameras flashes, bags with dissolving winter, etc. - even Salvador Dali would envy.
Underground passages and the tube are closed, and tents with different slogans and mottoes are located along the entire length of the main street of the capital of Ukraine. There is also a piano, painted in the colours of the national flag, which a young man in camouflage plays: a
cigarette in one slot and two narrow others are definitely tuned not for Chopin...
Stripped to naked Grushevskogo Street brings tears: removed cobblestoned skin slides by dirty waves from historical hills.
Against the shattered stadium headed by the painted Lobanovskiy monument (what has football to do with that?!), among grimy houses an artist in a helmet rises on the construction of tires... Indeed, such barbarism in the twenty-first century should be captured, as the road that leads not only to government buildings, but also to the Lavra is destroyed.
© Siberian Federal University. All rights reserved
* Corresponding author E-mail address: [email protected]
The Ukrainian government is so absorbed in studying history that makes striking discoveries. In Kiev, near tube station "University" stationary goods are sold, including the globes of Ukraine. If the globe of Ukraine can be considered only as a tourist attraction, but the newspaper "Holos Ukrayiny" - quite serious, official organ of the Verkhovna Rada, gives the whole newspaper column for the article proving that the great prophet Buddha has Ukrainian roots. It turns out that the founder of one of the world religions belonged to the Scythians-Aryans from the gender of some Budins who lived in the territories of the present Sumy and Chernihiv oblasts.
Great-Ukrainian Buddha is not the only historical revelation in the pages of the "Holos Ukrayiny". Over the last two years, the main parliamentary newspaper quite seriously wrote about Ukrainian ethnic origins of the ancient civilizations of Egypt and Greece. As a result, such striking conclusions somehow imperceptibly started to appear on the pages of textbooks for high and secondary schools: "The name of the main Egyptian Temple of Het-Ka-Ptah sounds like in Ukrainian: "Khuta-Ptaha" (translated from Ukrainian - a hut of bird... Judging by the images on the pyramids of Pharaoh Cheops' wife and his mother Hetepheres, Egyptian queens at that time were blondes with blue eyes. In addition, trident that is now the lesser coat of arms of Ukraine is used there quite often".
Discussion. Recently, by definition, there can not be different interpretation than the aforementioned one in the history books of Ukrainian schools. It would be possible to dismiss such heresy, if all these pseudoscientific schemes didn't clearly evidence Russophobian vector. This is how state identity is understood by many Ukrainian political and nationalist circles. However, great Russian scientist Nikolay Yakovlevich Danilevsky, using the term "identity" (that can not be adequately translated into other
languages), gave it a slightly different meaning. He understands identity as an essential value, which protection is the most important mission of the state. "Identity principles bear the richest fruit, and borrowing customs and manners lead to the loss of one's identity" - these words of Danilevsky are the quintessence of Russian conservatism. The main pathos of work is not confirmation of the identified civilizations' hierarchy, but their juxtaposition and comparability. Its cultural-historical types have completely different grounds - religion, culture, politics and socioeconomic structure [2].
According to the practice of the last few decades, we are not able to build our identity on the basis of the perceived cultural heritage. The situation in Ukraine is particularly demonstrative in this respect. Not only political, but also scientific debates, in which historiography, freed from the shackles of the party showed the hottest interest to primary sources, evidence about the chaos afflicting the modern Ukraine, especially since many of the primary sources were not even available previously and access to the others was hindered in every possible way. In recent decades there appeared a lot of new publications claiming to be scientific and strictly objective.
Many Ukrainian historians are trying to construct "a thousand years of Ukrainian history" by introducing the terms "Ukraine", "Ukrainian" in the eras where these terms were out of the question. Two landmark theses were the key elements in the considered historiographic process: about Kievan Rus as "a common cradle" of East Slavic peoples and about "reunification" of Ukraine and Russia in 1654. Specific monographs, as well as reviews on them point to the complex tangle of contradictions that characterize modern Ukrainian science. In particular, all the issues connected with the origin of Old Russian people appear to be particularly sensitive for scientific (and not very scientific) public. The following
Kiev. Confrontation. February 2014
Kiev. 14.02.2014 - St. Valentine's Day
example is provided to make it clear how deep the disagreements are.
Talking about the terms concerning East Slavic ethnic unity, Ukrainian scientist, academician P. Tolochko notes that the concept of "Russian people" in B. Grekov's and N. Derzhavin's works was "meaningfully equal ... to the concept of "East Slavs"" and that "B.D. Grekov also used the term "Slavic nation"". Next, P. Tolochko notes: "In all fairness it should be said that even founding fathers of the Old Russian nation conception had never claimed its uniformity and full formation completion in the whole national territory of Rus'" [5, p. 13].
Along with the problem of the single Old Russian nation formation, all the issues connected with the problem of Ukraine and Russia reunification traditionally generates much interest. It is natural that the 360th anniversary of the Council of Pereyaslav was the good reason for the emergence of new historical researches on this subject, as well as historiographical works. Sources analysis allows to state that the formula of "lesser evil" regarding the fact of Ukraine joining to the Muscovite State in real propagandistic work of ideological apparatus and the works of leading historians of the USSR from the beginning tended to the formula if not of "absolute good", then, in any case, to the recognition of "historical progressiveness" of the event. However, the old scheme and statements of Russian historiography were first subjected to "rational revision" in the works of Ukrainian historian M. Hrushevsky. Ukrainian historical process was strictly separated from the Russian one: "all-Russian nation", both in the past and in the present, was recognized as the one that fell into three distinct "separate nations"; Kievan Rus was recognized as the only creation and the first state of Ukrainian people, etc. Accordingly, Ukraine's joining Russia, as well as further colonial incorporation of Ukraine
into the Russian Empire was recognized as a negative event.
Such changes were necessary to the Stalinist regime under conditions of the forthcoming new world war. For national conscription it was very necessary to restore the historical memory about the heroes of the Russian Empire and its victorious wars. Russian historical figures that contributed most to the state centralization and its military successes were extolled the most: Ivan Kalita, Dmitry Donskoy, Ivan the 3rd , A.V. Suvorov, M.I. Kutuzov and, of course, Ivan the Terrible and Peter the Great.
Thus, the idea of Ukrainian people reunification and formulation of the "one nation" conception of Kievan Rus as the common ancestor of Ukrainians, Belarusians and Russians, was combined with the works about the liberation war of Ukrainian people in the middle of the 17th century and Ukraine's joining Russia. The term "reunification" in relation to the events of 1654 started to be widely used by scientists, historians, writers, party workers, etc.
Major changes took place in the provisions relating the history of Ukraine-Russia relations. The key aspects of the history of Ukraine, closely related to one another, were subjected to transformation. These are the problems of Kievan Rus, Ukrainian people's origin, "ethnic unity" of Russians and Ukrainians, as well as Ukraine's joining Russia in 1654. Offering new provisions - about Kievan Rus as the cradle of Ukrainians, Russians and Belarusians and their ethnic unity down to the single Old Russian nation at the period, further formation of the modern East Slavic nations, etc. logically led to a change in attitude, in fact, to the very fact of Ukraine's joining Russia, which is interpreted as "reunion". This is particularly evidenced by the official party documents, "Hallowing the name of Bogdan Khmelnitsky, who is loved not only by Ukrainians, but all the peoples of the Soviet Union,
the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR established the Order of Bogdan Khmelnitsky. This act of the Supreme body of state power of the Socialist state is a vivid manifestation of the greatest respect of all the Soviet people to the great son of the Ukrainian people, whose name is associated with historic reunification of the Ukrainian and Russian peoples.
After 1991, with the communist system collapse, the situation would seem to be changed radically, but nothing like this happened. Some people connect it to the fact that the approaches that were formed in the Soviet era, when the history of the Russian people was divided into several parts, artificially separating the "Ukrainian" and "Belarus" components from it still dominated in Russian historiography.
Not only politicians, but also representatives of the scientific world, did not hesitate to give their separatist "history" explicit anti-Russian character, portraying Russians as a greedy and cruel exploiter of poor "Ukrainians". In fact, the "Ukrainian historiography" represented not only a complete denial of the pre-revolutionary Russian historiography, but also the notorious "Soviet approaches", that, in any case didn't turn "Russians, Ukrainians and Belarusians" into the eternal enemies of each other.
"Russian-Ukrainian interstate relations in the light of the Euro-Atlantic factor influence are so complex and contradictory, inconsistent and exposed to political environment, dynamic (at that dynamics, which is understood as progressive movement is combined with recurrent backward movement), that it is very difficult to identify any specific tendencies in historiography of the problem, although it seems possible to specify one feature. It lies in the fact that the Russian literature devoted to the problem of Russia-Ukraine-NATO differed in greater consolidation of positions, than, for example, Ukrainian literature. The reasons for this are clear, and they
are connected with the internal political situation in both countries" [6, p. 210].
The reason for the present crisis in Ukraine lies in the fact that Ukrainians could quickly restore and develop the culture, but could not independently carry out creation, translation and preservation of civilizational structures. They couldn't not because they didn't want to, but because they constantly were between European, Russian, Asian and Muslim civilizations, and none of them could give an example of civilization connectivity for Ukraine as a border culture-civilization. Border culture-civilization can not directly borrow civilizational structures of any single civilization, because they all affect it at the same time.
Mentally and geographically Ukraine belongs to European civilization. Nevertheless, Ukrainians in the peaceful periods of their history had time only to preserve their own culture, but were unable to reach civilization connectivity within their own aristocratic traditions and couldn't quite successfully develop their own literature and philosophy as a way of motivations fixation and transmission, as different civilizations constantly tore it to pieces.
Ukraine has always been in the grip of civilization that periodically led to the destruction of its culture. The culture of Ukraine after another destruction restored within the people who every time had to produce new elite, as the old elite, destroyed due to opposition of civilizations, in principle, could not have single coherent and more or less continuous in time civilizational orientation. "There has always been peace in Ukraine if the direction of civilization parasitism was convenient for all the Ukrainians. But when different parts of Ukraine wanted to parasitize on different civilizations, there were conflicts in Ukraine that ended with "ruins". And after the current possible "ruins" Ukraine, without a doubt, will in time eventually reborn as the whole
Kiev themes. February 2014
Kiev, the government quarter. February 2014
Kiev. The road to Kiev Pechersk Lavra. February 2014
country, but may permanently lose Ukrainianness" [3]. However, independent Ukraine one way or another is sliding to Russophobia, although constantly changing Ukrainian political elites strongly emphasize their commitment to the "universal human values".
According to V.K. Egorov, universal human in the mentioned quality is a tragedy. The author puts hope on understanding universal human as kassireros "harmony of dissonant", as unity in variety and diversity. V.K. Egorov puts forward a thesis that globalization as a natural process can implement this interpretation and, thus, can not only make the world united and its culture universal, but also create a "new world of new worlds". "Globalization is not universalization and multiculturalism, but interculturalism... a statement that now we live in one world is sociologically noncontradictory only concerning economic and geopolitical processes" [4, p. 104].
Ukraine combines two extreme fragments of civilization vectors that combine two opposite directions: focus on liberty and pursuit of excellence. According to the teachings of the monk Nestor, historical consciousness is expression of the struggle between good and evil, eternal good of the human soul with the demonic temptation of malign forces. For the supporters of the Western lifestyle the world is represented in the form of children's tinker toys, which can be changed with the help of specific set of simulacra. This is what we fully observe in the modern Ukraine. Freedom-oriented people regard state as a hostile one, which should be regularly shaken by demonstrations, demanding certain preferences. Such a view implies approval of the potential chaos as a sign of civility and, on the contrary, public peace is interpreted as a slavish obedience to the state. That is why barbarously vandalized, grimy streets of Kiev are admired by all the western slaves considering acts of banditism as a manifestation of "civil society".
History confirms that the Ukrainians managed to restore the culture quickly, but they could not independently transmit and preserve their civilization structures. Border culture-civilization can not borrow civilizational structure from any single civilization directly, because they all affect it at the same time. It is possible to state that Ukraine could never do what any European country that belonged to the same civilization could do, and could, in principle, freely exchange the cultural achievements, strengthen-weaken and fall under the power of another, without being in ruins at the same time.
Ukraine has always been in the grip of civilization that periodically led to destruction of its culture. Thus, the culture of Ukraine after another destruction restored within the people who every time had to produce new elite, as the old elite, destroyed due to opposition of civilizations, in principle, could not have single coherent and more or less continuous in time civilizational orientation.
Ukrainianness is a regular creation-destruction-restoration, as well as development of national culture under conditions of periodically changing selection of civilizational orientation. In fact, the problem of modern Ukraine has not a cultural, but civilizational character, as struggle of different civilizational motivation system is manifested: European individualistic consumer system of motivations and Russian collectivist system of motivations. Thus, not so much cultures, but civilizations conflict in Ukraine.
When Western countries aim to convey the Ukrainians their standards, patterns and norms, this is not enough, as alien norms, penetrating into the environment with different system of motivations are implemented quite differently than in the civilization environment of their origin. In addition, what human values are we talking about if Germany and Poland reflect on democracy when it is necessary to provoke the
country, but may permanently lose Ukrainianness" [3]. However, independent Ukraine one way or another is sliding to Russophobia, although constantly changing Ukrainian political elites strongly emphasize their commitment to the "universal human values".
According to V.K. Egorov, universal human in the mentioned quality is a tragedy. The author puts hope on understanding universal human as kassireros "harmony of dissonant", as unity in variety and diversity. V.K. Egorov puts forward a thesis that globalization as a natural process can implement this interpretation and, thus, can not only make the world united and its culture universal, but also create a "new world of new worlds". "Globalization is not universalization and multiculturalism, but interculturalism... a statement that now we live in one world is sociologically noncontradictory only concerning economic and geopolitical processes" [4, p. 104].
Ukraine combines two extreme fragments of civilization vectors that combine two opposite directions: focus on liberty and pursuit of excellence. According to the teachings of the monk Nestor, historical consciousness is expression of the struggle between good and evil, eternal good of the human soul with the demonic temptation of malign forces. For the supporters of the Western lifestyle the world is represented in the form of children's tinker toys, which can be changed with the help of specific set of simulacra. This is what we fully observe in the modern Ukraine. Freedom-oriented people regard state as a hostile one, which should be regularly shaken by demonstrations, demanding certain preferences. Such a view implies approval of the potential chaos as a sign of civility and, on the contrary, public peace is interpreted as a slavish obedience to the state. That is why barbarously vandalized, grimy streets of Kiev are admired by all the western slaves considering acts of banditism as a manifestation of "civil society".
History confirms that the Ukrainians managed to restore the culture quickly, but they could not independently transmit and preserve their civilization structures. Border culture-civilization can not borrow civilizational structure from any single civilization directly, because they all affect it at the same time. It is possible to state that Ukraine could never do what any European country that belonged to the same civilization could do, and could, in principle, freely exchange the cultural achievements, strengthen-weaken and fall under the power of another, without being in ruins at the same time.
Ukraine has always been in the grip of civilization that periodically led to destruction of its culture. Thus, the culture of Ukraine after another destruction restored within the people who every time had to produce new elite, as the old elite, destroyed due to opposition of civilizations, in principle, could not have single coherent and more or less continuous in time civilizational orientation.
Ukrainianness is a regular creation-destruction-restoration, as well as development of national culture under conditions of periodically changing selection of civilizational orientation. In fact, the problem of modern Ukraine has not a cultural, but civilizational character, as struggle of different civilizational motivation system is manifested: European individualistic consumer system of motivations and Russian collectivist system of motivations. Thus, not so much cultures, but civilizations conflict in Ukraine.
When Western countries aim to convey the Ukrainians their standards, patterns and norms, this is not enough, as alien norms, penetrating into the environment with different system of motivations are implemented quite differently than in the civilization environment of their origin. In addition, what human values are we talking about if Germany and Poland reflect on democracy when it is necessary to provoke the
Lviv, S. Bandera Street
citizens of Ukraine to overthrow their legitimate authority.
There is another important aspect in the context of globalization. Nation and citizenship
don't always coincide with the West European stereotypes. Besides, the very historical development of Ukraine proves that spiritual anthropology can not be only personalistic, as
spiritual health of a nation and a family are equally within spiritual anthropology's range of problems, besides, individual and universal here are interdependent. While mental health of an Ukrainian will be determined by his\her arbitrary choice, given that the state information machine and the whole system of education will impose spiritless or historically alien to the Ukrainians values, health of individuals and the nation as a whole is out of the questions. Alien spirits in the spiritual sphere are more destructive than in the physical one.
Along with that, it is important not to forget that Ukrainian philosophy in the name of Gregory Skovoroda and its other prominent representatives formed its own largely unique version of understanding the laws of construction of organizational tectological forms of existence and the
relationship between man and the cosmos, by which it becomes possible to reflect the patterns of development of cosmo-informational structure of society more fully and adequately. The fact that historically, the concept of "truth" in the Slavic world is of particular significance is equally important. In most Slavic languages, the concept of "truth" acts as a characteristic of the social norms unity that defines the parameters of social progress.
Conclusion. In the modern global world territory conquest, colonization and neo-colonization with its monocultural production are replaced by informational-technological colonization, when in developing countries there created the order, when they extract resources and give them in the process of unequal exchange to the advanced countries. Having entered the process of globalization the mankind is at a crossroad. The objective content of this thesis lies in establishing of the united system of internal social interaction, i.e. in depletion of development reserves on the basis of fundamental social relations "goal-means" within the frames of external and inter-community interaction. The key word here is the concept of global society, "... but not as united humanity, not liberal and centralist, but characterized by its specific forms of social differentiation, which expresses the fundamental social relation of goals and means. A new type of social differentiation is established in a global society, in which the lines of separation within society and between societies, as well as goal and means intertwine into the network that pervades all the society, and democracy is brought to its logical limits - becomes a universal right of the struggle for survival, where the very concept of right itself becomes superfluous" [1, p. 18].
The core of V.V. Putin's latest messages and speeches is the idea of sovereignty that is understood in the broadest meaning of the word. From the formally state one to economic and political cultural-ideological, although the president carefully avoids direct references to ideology. Putin determines demographic and values catastrophe that followed the collapse of the Soviet system. Inability of the nation to self-reproduction is a product of value disaster and, on the other hand, it finishes this catastrophe by itself. If the nation is not able to reproduce itself, its fate is obvious, and it does not need an enemy.
Sovereignty means opportunity (and, at the same time, a real right) to take actions with ourselves, proportionate to oneself, a state and a country. If there is no such possibility - development and leadership are out of the question, because leadership and sovereignty join at this point. The sad experience of Ukraine confirms the thesis proven by history: only a multipolar world based on the historical foundation, can stop unconstructive, violent imposition of a single system of values to the world community and preservation of their socio-cultural identity by all the peoples.
References
1. Goriunov V.P. Ob"ektivnye osnovaniia sindroma kontsa istorii [Objective Foundation of the End of History Syndrome] // Scientific Opinion. 2012. № 10.
2. Danilevskii N.Ia. Rossiia i Evropa [Russia and Europe]. M., 2003.
3. Datsiuk S., Matvienko K. V chem sut' ukrainstva? [What is the Essence of Ukrainianness] // Ukrainskaia Pravda. 2009. 25 мая.
4. Egorov V.K. Philosophiia kul'tury i diskussiia o protsessakh globalizatsii [Cultural Philosophy and Discussions about Globalization Processes] // Globalization and Prospects of Modern Civilization / Editor in Chief K.H. Delakarov. М.: КМК, 2005.
5. Tolochko P.P. Drevnerusskaia narodnost': voobrazhennaia i real'naia [Old-Russian Nation: Imaginary and Real]. SPb.: Alteiia, 2005.
6. Fedorovykh A.P. Problemy possiisko-ukrainskikh otnoshenii v 1990-е gg. v otobrazhenii sovremennoi istoriographii [Problems of Russia-Ukraine Relationships in the 1990s in the Modern Historiography] // Problems of Modern History: Sources, Historiography, Studies / editor in chief M.V. Druzin. SPb.; К.; Mn.: Saint-Petersburg Institute of History of the RAS; Institute of History of the NAS of Ukraine; Belarus State University, 2008.
Социально-философские проблемы «постсоветского пространства» (на примере Украины)
М.П. Яценко
Сибирский федеральный университет Россия, 660041, Красноярск, пр. Свободный, 79
В статье анализируются проблемы, связанные с угрозами, которые несет в себе глобализация для народов мира. В этом отношении распад СССР и его последствия имеют принципиальное значение для понимания сущности политических, социокультурных и этнических процессов, происходящих на «постсоветском пространстве». Автор подчеркивает, что многие тенденции, характеризующие «постсоветское пространство», ярко проявляются в серии «цветных революций».
Автор анализирует причины и сущность противостояния на Майдане. В статье показано, что «самостийная» Украина не сумела почти за четверть столетия обрести не только достойное место в мире, но даже четко выраженную социокультурную идентичность. Это связано не только с глубинными противоречиями внутри самого украинского общества, которые накапливались столетиями, но и с бесцеремонным вмешательством извне. Последние события в центре украинской столицы продемонстрировали сложность цивилизационного выбора «постсоветскихреспублик» в условиях глобализации.
Ключевые слова: суверенитет, цивилизация, социокультурная идентичность, аксиологическая шкала, древнерусская народность, менталитет, историческое самосознание.
Научная специальность: 09.00.00 - философские науки.
