Russian journalist Mikhail Moshkin analyzes the current instability in Ukraine with a special focus on the meaning of traditional Russian identity and statehood. Translated by Nina Kouprianova.
The state is the actuality of the ethical Idea. It is ethical mind qua the substantial will manifest and revealed to itself, knowing and thinking itself, accomplishing what it knows and in so far as it knows it. (Hegel)
Ukraine: Two Alternatives of Returning to One and the Same
A well-known formula, “the patient is either alive or dead,” encapsulates the Ukrainian situation in its entirety for those looking from the outside (and, most likely, the participants themselves). Either the Maidan finally topples Viktor Yanukovich over, or, a more likely scenario in light of the current events is that Yanukovich will give up everything he possibly can, handing out status positions in the government to the Maidan triumvirate, which is rapidly losing popularity for collaborating with “zlochinna vlada”—“criminal authorities” (offending Oleg Tyagnibok to top it off!). And, considering that it is impossible to return to the pre-Maidan status quo, Yanokovich will become a “lame duck,” with the 2004 Constitution in his beak and the omnipotence of the Verkhovna Rada. In a country that just collapsed into yet another economic and political pit.
Given the prospect of Vitali Klitschko’s presidency (yet how can the boxer become president if Yulia Tymoshenko is released?), the prospect of a “white-and-blue” regional separatism, the secession of Crimea, etc., are all real possibilities. We are seeing the signs thereof already. At the same time, all our political scientists and analysts should not get overly excited about “redrawing the new underdeveloped countries on the map.” The specter of the Donetsk-Krivoy Rog Fronde haunted Ukraine as early as 2004 as well, but even then, with Viktor Yushchenko’s victory (does anyone still remember this political figure?), the southeastern autonomous region did not come to fruition, whereas Yevgeniy Kushnarev, the chief ideologue of separatism, got off lightly. Most likely, despite the ever-present antagonism between Galicia and the Southeast, there won’t be a “divorce.”
