Sewn from pieces of other states, it still lives according to the principles laid down by its creators.
At the end of the 19th century, Russia, which had entered a period of economic growth, seriously frightened Austria-Hungary. The Habsburg empire included many Slavic peoples - Czechs, Slovaks, Serbs, Croats, Slovenes, Poles, Rusyns. The Austrian leadership feared Russian influence, which could consolidate the Slavic brothers. To forestall the situation, the development of the Ukraine project began, which assumed the formation of a new state - a buffer between Russia and Austria-Hungary.
Bacillus of Ukrainians
To create Ukraine, it was necessary to come up with a beautiful scientifically grounded history of its origin, legalize anti-Russian ideology and introduce a new language, different from Russian, into everyday life. The Rusyns, who lived on the territory of the Austro-Hungarian Galicia, and the Little Russians, who inhabited the Volyn, Podolsk, Poltava, Kharkov and Chernigov provinces of Russia, were a single people divided by the border. Having started the Ukrainization of the Russian Galicians, the Austrians then planned, with the help of these newly-minted Ukrainians, to bring the “bacillus of Ukrainians” into Little Russia. Discord among the Russian people was to create a hotbed of tension on the western border of the Russian Empire and ultimately weaken it.
Pre-revolutionary postcard of Ukrainian nationalists: * Ukrainians defend themselves against Russians and Poles *.
Artificial history and language
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Professor Mikhail Hrushevsky, author of the ten-volume monograph “History of Ukraine-Rus”, played a significant role in the “construction” of Ukrainian history. In 1894, the Austrian authorities invited the 28-year-old Hrushevsky to Lviv University as head of the department of general history. There he composed the history of a “special ethnos”, different from the Eastern Slavs, for a substantial reward. Through his efforts, the following concept was born: the Ukrainians who existed since the time of the ancient Antes (Proto-Slavs), being the main population of Kievan Rus, civilized the wild peoples of the northeast, from which the Russians then descended.
Mikhail Hrushevsky.
The Austrians understood that in order to break the Rusyns with the Russian world, they must be forced to speak a language that was alien to them. At first, they tried to replace the Cyrillic alphabet with the Latin alphabet, but faced strong popular resistance. Then they decided to take the simplified alphabet of the Little Russian writer Panteleimon Kulish as a basis. It was created in 1860 with the aim of eradicating illiteracy. The letters "e", "s", "e" and "ъ" disappeared from its alphabet, and "є", "ґ", "i" and "ї" were added. The Ukrainian writing on the basis of "kulishovka" undertook to compose the "sworn friends" of Russia - the Poles, who always dreamed of a split in the Russian nation. The famous Carpathian-Russian writer Adolf Dobriansky-Sachurov recalled: "All Polish officials, professors, teachers, even priests began to engage in philology … but exclusively ours, Russian, in order to create a new Russian-Polish language with the assistance of Russian traitors."
Words were taken from German, Polish, other languages, sometimes they were simply invented, so that they did not resemble Russians. For example, “society” turned into “suspension”, “air” - into “overwhelm”, “modern” - into “happy”. Even the Ukrainophile Kulish, realizing what such an outrage against the language would lead to, said that they were making a political banner out of his letter. “Seeing this banner in the enemy’s hands, I will be the first to hit it and renounce my spelling in the name of Russian unity,” he declared.
Panteleimon Kulish.
In 1893, the Austrian parliament approved the Ukrainian writing system. From now on, Russian Galicians were officially called "Ukrainians" (from the Polish "Ukraine" - "outskirts"). The new alphabet was introduced in schools. Textbooks and literature were translated into Ukrainian "Mova", which neither pupils nor teachers understood. The teachers sarcastically noted that in order to understand the Ukrainian language, it is necessary to publish a new explanatory dictionary. However, the Austrian authorities firmly instilled an alien language, worked with young people. Dissatisfied teachers and officials were fired from their jobs. Writers who continued to write in Russian were persecuted. At the same time, Ukrainian newspapers and student organizations were well funded.
And yet, works in Ukrainian could not compete with the works of Russian writers. “Ten to fifteen years pass until the book of Franko, Kotsyubinsky, Kobylianskaya is sold in a thousand or fifteen hundred copies,” Grushevsky complained in 1911. While the books of Gogol, beloved by the people, in Russian were sold out in huge quantities.
Frankenstein country
In 1910, Russian secret services traced a secret meeting between Crown Prince Franz Ferdinand and the leaders of Ukrainian separatism. In the same year, Hrushevsky (having received Austrian citizenship, he also retained a Russian passport), on the instructions of the Austro-Hungarian special services, began to often come to Little Russia, where, in contact with the Austrian consul in Kiev, he created Ukrainian nationalist cells. Having no conspiratorial experience, he did not notice that Russian counterintelligence was on his tail. In December 1914, he was arrested and sent into exile in Simbirsk.
Shortly before the start of the First World War, a secret meeting took place, at which Franz Ferdinand briefed the members of the governments and general staffs of Austria-Hungary and Germany with the project "Ukraine".
At the same time, the Austrian government switched to direct repressions against the Rusyns, who were not amenable to Ukrainization. Russian educational institutions and Orthodox churches were closed, Russian books were confiscated, and Russian organizations were banned.
After the start of the war, Austria-Hungary united all Ukrainian émigré separatists into the Union for the Liberation of Ukraine and began to finance it. The goal of the union was "to achieve national independence through the initial occupation by the Central Powers" (a decent sign for Ukraine's indecent function, which was assigned the role of a puppet of Austria-Hungary and Germany).
In September 1914, the Austro-Hungarians, who were retreating under the onslaught of the Russian army, created the first concentration camps in history Terezin and Talerhof, where thousands of residents of Galicia and Bukovina, suspected of sympathy for Russia, or denunciations of Poles and Ukrainophiles were thrown …
The Austro-Hungarian Empire (like the Russian one) did not survive the First World War. But the Ukraine project, launched by its special services, survived and continued to be carried out. Either fading, now flaring up. At different times, different countries and different forces breathed life into it. All of this is reminiscent of the story of Dr. Frankenstein. The artificial creature, created by him from dead matter, sewn from pieces of human bodies, has outlived its “father”.
Ukraine, a country made from pieces of other states, is still trying to live according to the principles laid down by its creators more than a hundred years ago. These are the principles of separation, the separation of one part of the Russian people from another - economic, religious, linguistic, cultural. But, despite all the prohibitions of the authorities, Gogol is more popular in Ukraine than Kotsyubinsky and Franko …
Author: Irina Chertinova