On Decommunization, Identity, and Legislating History, From a Slightly Different Angle

During Yanukovych’s presidency, Ukraine was systematically presented with an ideological choice between two Ts: Tabachnyk1 and Tyahnybok.2 Which is to say, between Ukrainophobia thinly masked by Soviet nostalgia on the one hand and provincial ethnic nationalism on the other. The space for a third way of thinking was consciously limited, and society was mechanically divided along linguistic lines, which were routinely instrumentalized during election campaigns.

The hasty discussion of the “historical” laws passed by the Verkhovna Rada has given me a strong sense of déjà vu. It’s as if we’re being forced back into this logic of “choice without a choice” between the two Ts (or pick whatever “up-to-date” names you’d like). Among historians, two clear camps have formed, and they (to paraphrase Mikhail Zoshchenko) have “expressed their ideology to the fullest.” At times this discussion between supporters and opponents of “decommunization” (and, by the way, that term is sometimes used to mean the laws that have been passed, while other times it implies a sort of broader, indistinct ideological project) has been reminiscent of parallel Komsomol meetings. At those meetings, they condemned and called for the extermination of – depending on party affiliation – nationalism or communism. Underlying this irreconcilable rhetoric was a fairly obvious similarity in the two sides’ approach to discussing problems.

What does this similarity consist of? Above all, a conception of the historian as doctor, who has to prescribe society medicine against communism or nationalism. What’s more, both sides of the ideological barricade are like communicating vessels. They’re interdependent. They need each other, so that they can put their opponent into a clearly defined ideological box, and then use that to elevate themselves morally and garner social capital. In Western academia that can still be accomplished quite well, exploiting the stereotypical image of Eastern Europe as a sphere of political anarchy, economic backwardness, and ethnic nationalism. And in the Ukrainian case you can brilliantly play off a feeling of insufficient empathy on the part of the “Western world” and numerous prejudices and defensive reactions; by echoing these sentiments, it’s not particularly hard to earn the reputation of a patriot and a person of firm convictions. These two seemingly antagonistic ideological positions coexist perfectly. By unmasking each other, they mutually support and fuel each other.

It’s interesting that, in the heat of the argument, a striking similarity to, for example, “anti-Donetsk” or “anti-Galician” logic often goes unnoticed. Both narratives contain a conception of a ruined ideal (depending on your ideological position, either European or Orthodox), a crudely simplified image of the imagined opposing group (“Galicians,” “residents of the Donbas”) as separated by “identity” or “values,” which that group supposedly imposes aggressively on the rest of the country, ther...