HISTORY. Secrets of Ukrainian Independence! Sokova, Ogryzko, Alfyorov @ukrainian_radio

Were there any moments? But is it historically at all, by the way, and can it be anti-historical to pose questions like this, and which ones during the years of independence were so pivotal, but we may have done something wrong, made the wrong decisions, and could have done something differently. I would say that we have had an extremely large number of such moments, but let's understand that it is extremely easy to talk from a bird's-eye view about the affairs that take place between insects, but of course, we only see the wrong turns when we have experienced them.

Some call it a rake, some call it simply history, because such moments have happened in all states, in all peoples. Of course, one could say, well, the Orange Revolution, what a turn it was, or the Revolution of Dignity.

Everywhere we had different, you know, now that we are talking, what should have been done with Crimea this way or that way, and what should have been done on the Maidan, to keep dancing? We must understand that everything that has happened to us is within the limits of our national memory and our mentality, which has been playing the same game for thousands of years. This is our reaction to the events - these are the Maidan protests.

And our reactions to the events, remember, were the economic Maidan, the language Maidan, the tax Maidan. And as soon as the children were beaten, the people stood up.

And this is within the limits of our mentality. And we will go the way we go. Therefore, there is no need to regret anything. This is our evolution.

Yanino, I think we underestimated the trauma we had as a country in the post-Soviet space. and the trauma that the Russian Federation inflicted on us. And the way we live now is, well, exactly what Sasha was talking about, it's an analysis of those traumas that we have n't worked through.

And now we have to work five times harder to prevent this from happening in the future. This concerns culture, this concerns language, this concerns national memory, this concerns the military, this concerns, in principle, self-identification. And such a manifestation, it seems to me, is a miracle that we have definitely achieved, and this is probably not so much connected with post-traumatic, post-Soviet pain, but rather with our national identity genes.

This is a developed civil society. It is strong, it is we who sit on the Maidan, which has experienced and seen a lot. And it was all done by people, it was all done by Ukrainians.

I am probably a representative of those traumas and, conversely, overcomings that the new generation born during our independence has. I went to school in 1991.

That is, my educational path and the moment that I remember was right at the beginning of our independence and only in 2014, so imagine what a huge path, uh, a young person has traveled who finally self-identified. Until I was 14, there was no talk of self-identification at school, I studied at a Russian school, in the Russian-speaking city of Zaporizhia, in the Cossack region, nor about understanding my history, but the exploits of the heroes of my country.

And all this did not exist, all this was not implemented. The value of language was also absent. Therefore, only now do we see that in recent years, probably with the full-scale invasion, this process of self-identification and a truly conscious, strong nation, an independent country, it has begun to take shape very strongly. And it seems to me that the process of reversal has begun.

We will never stray from this path again. And so at this moment, when we are once again celebrating Independence Day, it seems to me that we have something to be proud of. In fact, Mr.

Volodymyr, I think that we are truly strong because we have already developed such a powerful internal unity, which Yanina just said absolutely correctly, which, well, no matter what anyone wants to do, well, it will not be broken in any way. Well, because it has already entered our consciousness, into how we see and feel ourselves.

Well, both of these, thank God. You know, speaking of history, I think we still need to give it a little bit of a retrospective in depth, because actually, well, what is history, well, I don't know, maybe Mr. Oleksandr won't correct me.

It seems to me that history is not a set of facts, it is not a set, so to speak, of some events, but it is self-identification. This is what sets us apart from others and what we should and are proud of.

And that's it. I look at this, you know, from the perspective of a diplomat. Well, someone else says to me: "So in Russia, when do you celebrate Diplomat's Day?" Well, I say: "Well, when the UNR created the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and then we, and I think to myself: "Why?" Well, look, the first treaty between Russia and Byzantium, although oral, was concluded in 864. The second one four years later.

The first written one, which was recorded by chronicles in 911. And let's ask ourselves the question: "So, where are we from? Are we from 1000 there, 900, 17, 18, 20 or some 22nd year, or are we from 911, which is already confirmed by the chronicles? Well, unfortunately, there is no text yet, it got lost somewhere, but I think we will find it anyway. " So this is this continuity, it says that we, I have not said the last word, that we have something to be proud of, yes, we just need to absorb it all, absorb it into ourselves, pass it on to our children, grandchildren, and so on, so that they understand that this is, well, a truly great nation in Europe, and we are simply its descendants.

We must preserve what was, pass it on to our successors and show that we are truly the masters of this land and we are not going anywhere. Is there Muscovy there or is there not Muscovy there, well, my slogan, you know what it is? We will make Russia small again.

It will definitely be. I am convinced of this. That is why no matter what is done from the outside, no matter what attempts are made to put us in the wrong position that we want, eh, we can make a lot of our own mistakes. Well, thank God, not so long ago we passed another, uh, another barbell and passed it, it seems to me, normally.

Do you mean those protests that were in July? And the attempt and the attempt to deprive independence on Busap. Yes.

Yes. This is also another proof that we as a nation have formed, and therefore there is no other force that can put us in some other disadvantageous situation for us. That is, I am for the history to be as deep as possible, so that we know it perfectly, understand it and use it in order to feel calm and free today in this our present day.

There is no chance in Muscovy. I see that Yanina wants to continue here. And Alexander also wants to continue. I will make a short remark, just.

Let's make Russia Muscovy and small again. This is one. And secondly, the word coat of arms from the German RB means heritage. History is heritage.

Yanina, if if about me, I literally have a few words. I think that Volodymyr is really right about all this. We need to consolidate and scale it.

And now viewers are watching us who, perhaps, accidentally got to this program, but have children. want to have children and their background, just like mine, for example, it is totally Russian-speaking, Russian-focused. After all, most of the people who studied with me at school, they went to work and develop Moscow.

Including me, I studied at the Fizmat gymnasium, and now they work at the mine and missile factories, and that's all sad. But in our families, uh, we have the opportunity to raise children in such a way that sitting here on the Maidan, I don't know, in 50 years, if we all live to see it, well, let's say in 20, we will already be able to understand who those people are who have something to pass on.

All our experience is both negative and positive, and they will definitely appreciate it, scale it and be real Ukrainians. So please take care of your children, speak to them in Ukrainian, tell them them, who we are.

Tell us about this huge journey that we have traveled. How many people died so that we could sit here on the Maidan now and this was our land, and not us as guests. If you don't want to be guests, then make sure that your children feel like masters here, both mentally, ideologically, and linguistically.

If I may, just one more word. You know, specifically preparing for our conversation today, I took with me a little book by my very great friend Igor Hyrych, Igor Borisovich Hyrych, who wrote, well, among other things, because he writes a lot of books, a lot of roses, and he is a fairly famous historian. Yes, he wrote how Ukraine became Ukrainian.

I simply advise all those who respond to Yanina's call to simply read this book. It is small, but there is, uh, a bunch of Ukrainian political and cultural figures who really made Ukraine Ukrainian. And if we If we know these people, we will never turn from this Ukrainian path.

Therefore, dear friends, let us read, learn, do not forget our history and we will be far from the last in Europe. What you have just said concerns either the future or the more ancient past, which not all of us know, or do not know in part, or are only discovering.

We quite often live in the present, and this is also normal. And in general, if we ask about ancient past history, then we can, well, in my experience, remember who voted for whom, how they did not vote in the elections, voted correctly or voted incorrectly. And why did we make this or that choice? And what was there? 5 years ago or 10 years ago.

This is already a huge memory. And to remember what happened 10 years ago. And cause-and-effect relationships, which it would also be desirable to remember. Therefore, here is my question, I would like us to talk a little about what is possible with important, very specific things, decisions, some events that from our recent history they do not have a completely correct assessment in our society.

And maybe it was something cool and actually became an impetus for development, and we assessed it or could not assess it enough this way or that way. But that is, this moment is important.

Or maybe we misinterpret ourselves as a nation, some of our features that would, well, be worth demythologizing. Oleksandr, here is a very short but clear example.

We are not a nation of victims. An absolute propaganda myth has been imposed on us that we are victims. How is this myth debunked? Yes, there were difficult pages in history, extremely difficult.

There was a famine, there was the extermination of the Ukrainian intelligentsia, the Ukrainian army 100 years ago, we lost millions of people, even now we do not know how many. In World War II we were without a state.

But you understand that when they tell us that we are victims, we subconsciously say: "We will not win, because we are victims." Well, a person who cannot win, a person who is poor and receives money, cannot become rich. Will not spend it.

We are not a victim, because I always say: "What is the largest country in Europe?" Ukraine. Ukraine. What natural borders are there in Ukraine inside? The Dnieper divides the Nafiya.

The Carpathians divide. Our ancestors thousands of years ago connected kilometers of Dnieper water administratively, politically, economically, without mobile phones, emails, the Internet. Our ancestors leaned against the Carpathians and passed them through the Carpathians.

Our ancestors leaned against the marshes of the Polissya, into the Carpathian steppe and became two feet on both seas. And who is the victim here? What kind of nation is this? Yes, there were periods of fatigue and burnout, but we rebuilt again.

We are not such a state in size, even like neighboring Slavic nations. Slovakia, the Czech Republic, Serbia, Montenegro, even Bulgaria and Poland are smaller than us. So who is this nation the victim that it pushed on us? And this is the biggest myth, which I always talk about and from this I pass the floor to my colleagues.

I'm Nina. Yes, a social contract. I believe that we don't have a social contract. There are individual events that say that we have, well, a very strong civil society. And today, Tetyana, you mentioned the protests that were against the curtailment of the anti-corruption program and the activities of the SAP and NABU.

Independence. Yes. Independence. Yes. And this independence could have been lost if it weren't for civil society. And we a priori came together and demonstrated that our values ​​are components of a social contract.

I must have talked about this once with Dmytro Kolepa, with the former Minister of Foreign Affairs. He said that I would like my position and, in principle, that of government officials to be such a quintessence of the interaction between the government and civil society.

In our country, it manifests itself fragmentarily, when the government does something shamefully wrong. In general, it is a rather separate mechanism.

And this formed social contract, which would be presented by one of the representatives of the authorities to a huge audience and we would implement it en masse in schools, universities, on television, there is a television marathon. For a second, how many channels, what they talk about, it is not clear what.

And this social contract, it would move, because everyone would know what the rules are. These are the rules known in European countries. It is all quite established.

Even in Poland, our neighbors, the rules are known. We do not have this social contract, because sometimes even those people, I know a few of them, who go to protests, then get in the car, pick up the phone and agree on something so that someone will decide. This is the lack of implementation of the social contract and a person must understand the double standards that we often do not fix in ourselves.

Yes. And this is the problem. I think it is worth working on this. Mr. Volodymyr, I will take up Yanina's idea about the social contract. There is really a group of people working on this contract now.

There are specialists who they consult, they write a project. I think that I have not revealed any secret. I think that it will be ready soon.

In any case, if this idea is very correct, Yanina, you are absolutely right, we need to have, well, some code of conduct, if you like, but not for individual groups, but for society as a whole. And then it will be easier for us to look at the future and see ourselves in this and the future, and the present.

But, you know, despite the fact that we always try to present ourselves as best as possible, but still, in my opinion, what you, Ms. Tetyana, asked about what is hindering us, it seems to me to be two things.

The first thing is that we are very able to adapt very quickly. Well, unfortunately, this trait, our national trait, it gives both positive moments. Mr.

Oleksandr, will not let me lie, like Yanina, that it is precisely this ability to somehow weave even into a negative format, it gives us the opportunity to survive and and and to hold on, that is, not to lose our national roots. On the other hand, it very quickly deforms some members of our society and makes them, in fact, quasi-Ukrainians.

Then there are Khokhlo, Maloros, and all this other pleiad of those who And what's the difference? You understand? And this what's the difference, it has repeatedly played very, very, very, well, such, you know, sad, uh, games with us in history. So, after all, even though we really know how to adapt correctly, after all, this herbet of national identity, it must be one hundred percent with us.

If it is not there, then, you know, there can be movements both to the left and to the right. And we need to cultivate this backbone in ourselves despite the Russian language, despite the Russian education there, and so on, because otherwise we will not be able to do this. And the voting process, Tanya.

So we have gone through so many revolutions and still the values ​​that voice the background, which certain people have who come to certain positions. Look at the parliament now.

We elected them. These are democratic elections, sir, this is a very important story. We are very cool going out to the Maidan to fight against. And then this story begins with continuity, with the impossibility of completing reforms, with a mandate to support or with the forces that we would like.

Yes, but I can literally add one more word to the second feature, which, it seems to me, is inherent, unfortunately, not only to Ukrainians. Corruption is a global phenomenon and here we are not inventing anything new.

But, uh, tolerance, as our first president said, to corruption, it is really shameful. And it seems to me that in this, in the context of this social contract, which you are not talking about, we need to clearly and clearly and many times, probably again and again, emphasize that if you are not easy to this phenomenon, then you should not hope for any success in society and including yourself, because if society is corrupt, then, unfortunately, it will not be the way we want to build it. And I really want The Social Contract also provides for a social tax.

which are absent in Ukraine. I will give an example to those who can. They dug up Oleg Olzhych's father, Oleksandr Oles, a stonecutter abroad. Yeah.

Because the grave has not been paid for. Is there a family in Ukraine that can pay €100-150 to protect the grave once every five years? I think it is a lot. Maybe a family can pay € 100-150 for the grave every year.

This is a social contract and a social tax. There are no patrons, because our ancestors are the elites who understood that in addition to the state tax, the blood tax, they have a tax for the people, for the state, a social tax. It does not exist now.

I want to ask about historical propaganda and counter-propaganda. I think this is important, so which we would really like, I personally would like to live like that. As you say, Mr.

Volodymyr, as if Muscovy does not exist. And if you don't look back, it will soon cease to exist. Ms. Tatyana, well, let's be, let's be, let's be objective, look objectively into the future.

We are adults, we will sort it out like children. But no, but not at this moment. Therefore, as long as it exists and as long as Putin tells everyone there, even those who occasionally come to him, the conditional tacker Carlson and that Lenin invented Ukraine and so on, these narratives exist somewhere there. And how aggressive, I don't know, or what is the right word to choose here, should Ukrainian counter-propaganda be in this sense? Is it possible to choose a word again? But I have a question for you.

Well, are there other ways to somehow work with what has already been established in the minds of many audiences around the world? Yanino, maybe in your experience. And I am a mother of two teenagers.

I can tell you about the formation of a historical context in their heads. These are three components. This is school, this is family and this is media.

Well, in other words, the phone from which they draw information. Well, because children are brought up in nationalistic traits, we certainly produce for them, push them to watch this or that content. But even those who are like-minded with us now, and we are here, the team that you see, and the guests, and the team that is here, we are like-minded.

We should not forget that we live in a bubble, outside of which, believe me, there is a huge problem of those who will come to even well-educated, correctly educated children and tell them about a different historical context. A vivid example.

My son has a friend, a close, Russian-speaking Russian-speaking family. They have lived here on Khreshchatyk, by the way, for many years. Two generations.

A Russian-speaking family, ah, in in principle, quite moderate, I would say, before the start of a full-scale war. And the views on friendship with Russia.

We need to be smarter, more cunning and work with them. They can give us something. Well, in short, such a short-sighted story. remain Russian-speaking and say that you are telling me about the historical victories of Ukrainians, about the hetmans, about the first constitution, about what Orlyk talked about, how the Europeans used it.

And you name me what globally great war Ukraine itself would have won. Well, my son starts telling me something about some battles. He: "Well, that's global.

They don't talk about it anywhere. "Notice". The world is silent about this. That is, we need to instill, forgive this word, in the minds of our young generation a historical discourse using phones, using the media, using schools and using parents. Historical channels, YouTube channels.

Well, we work on YouTube and know our colleagues. These are channels that have not only developed recently, they have simply become an outpost in the rating of curiosity of Ukrainians of a certain target audience, not young people, unfortunately. But there are 25-year-olds there who actively donate and watch.

This did not happen before the full-scale invasion. That is, Ukrainians consciously began to be interested in who we are in general, what we are, what to cling to, and what wars were there and what we did there, and how we were formed. They are starting to do tests on us for their identification, well, genetic, that is, who my ancestors were, how they were formed, and maybe they killed someone and maybe they made someone a Russian.

That is, they are starting to doubt and look, search, search. That's good. It needs to be reinforced, I'll sum it up, media-wise. Even then, I want to ask everyone two questions very briefly, maybe in a flash, but they seem very important to me.

Is it still possible to build a pro-Russian state in Ukraine? Let's imagine that there is a pause in the war or some kind of truce. Political forces come and say: "Let's be friends, make peace," as Yanina says, "Well, let's have such a strong neighbor, we will somehow try there so that they never attack us again " or something else.

Is that still possible? Mr. Volodymyr? Well, you know, I'm not saying the Russia that exists for the time being, because we even call our center, which is called the Center for the Study of Russia, the Russia that exists for the time being in order to give just such a, you know, perspective of where we should go. There will be no Russia, there will be no Russia in a very short historical perspective, because it is eating itself up from the inside.

Well, so to think that this is this construction that is there will remain in the place of present-day Russia, will be able to be a world center of power, I would not. This does not mean at all that we should forget that it still exists, that it still does things that we, well, do not like, that are tragic for us.

And here, it seems to me, in addition to what Yanina says about the family, about, uh, so to speak, what is around, about the school there and so on, and so on, there should still be a very clear and tough state policy. I think that a lot of useful things are being done in this regard now, although, of course, not everything.

By the way, after our conversation, I will probably talk separately with Mr. Oleksandr about how we should protect ourselves not only from the East, but also from the West. Well, look at what Hungary is doing today.

Hungary Hungary us, then it may not be from Hungary, but from Orban. Well, well, you know, unfortunately, uh, The thesis of Greater Hungary, it is playing in Hungarian minds no less than in Russian ones. So, why should we remember that Hungary committed crimes of the ghetto during World War II, and they, as we know, have no statute of limitations? Isn't this also a struggle for our European future, forcing the current licks of Moscow to play to their balalaika and so on.

That is, I would combine two things here: social, family, educational and state. If we do this together, then, excuse me, none of these Moscow propaganda mongrels will pose any threat to us. I will be brief, I will be brief.

Mm, I think that it is impossible, well, that is, a revenge of pro-Russian forces is impossible, but I think that they will mimic those who are against Putin, against aggression, against war. I emphasize, against Putin.

That is, they can even to speak about it openly, but then they will turn into such werewolves in those who will bend the line. This is a kind of, well, not quite, probably, a correct comparison, but this is the Georgian scenario fragmentarily, which may appear.

And we need to beware of this and very carefully and meticulously before the elections, and they will someday be, read the lists, the background and analyze the possible cause-and-effect relationship and ask questions about people's views and so on and so on. To study what is really inside a person, how he thinks.

Alexander, perhaps I want to say that now we have such a period when history as a whole, the humanitarian complex, should be interdisciplinary, history, philosophy, religious studies should unite and become powerful not in a defensive, yes, war, not in a maneuverable one, and this war is ideological, it is attrition. Who will the world believe that we were really created by Lenin? Are we our own state? Yes.

Are my two really great-grandfathers are buried in Vienna in Krakow, that they are Russian soldiers? Is this a multinational army and each nation has formed in this history? This is about different things. Well, soon we will celebrate the 80th anniversary of the end of World War II, September 2.

And here too, where is the place of Ukraine. That is, what for, that we must form powerful blows and not be in its base to expect some new propaganda blow against us, but on the contrary to attack. And this is what the Ukrainian Institute of National Remembrance is doing and will be doing, including.

We must be on the cutting edge of the attack. And you know that any house was broken through with a sharp point and it's time to attack. Oleksandr Alforov, head of the Institute of National Remembrance, major in the reserve of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, journalist and blogger Yanina Sokolova and diplomat Volodymyr Ogryzko.

Thank you to everyone who was here today. This was a special project of the Public, in which we talk about the fundamental things that define us as a state and a nation: language, culture, history, society and army. [music].