the professorship went to 28-year-old Mykhaylo Hrushevsky, one of a string of bright young Kievans who were making their way to Lviv. His agenda – establishing a historical basis for the Ukrainian identity – was clear right from the start. The ‘nation’, he told the audience at his inaugural lecture, was ‘the alpha and omega of historical discourse’, ‘the sole hero of history’. 21 His ten-volume History of Ukraine-Rus, published over the next several decades, did for Ukrainian history what Shevchenko had done for Ukrainian literature. Henceforth nobody, whatever else they might say about it, would be able to pretend it didn’t exist.
Despite the Ukrainians’ gains, relations with the Poles went from bad to worse. Students fought in the lecture-halls, and in 1908 the Polish governor of Galicia was assassinated in protest at continued vote-rigging. It is hard to imagine how the two sides could have been reconciled. Both saw Galicia as an integral part of a future nation-state. Poles called the province ‘Eastern Malopolska ’ or ‘Little Poland’; Ukrainians were already talking about it as a potentially independent ‘Western Ukraine’. In July 1914, during a massive Ukrainian rally in Lviv, news came through of the assassination of Archduke Ferdinand in Sarajevo. Here, in a war which was to destroy both the empires – Romanov and Hapsburg – which ruled them, Poles and Ukrainians each had their chance to turn dream into reality.
What Lviv was to Ukraine in the late nineteenth century, it was again in the closing years of the Soviet Union. It produced most of Ukraine’s dissidents and demonstrators, and the political party – Rukh – which led the movement for Ukrainian independence. Uncompromisingly Ukrainian (speak Russian on the street, and you will get some dirty looks), it still epitomises the enthusiastic sense of self of western Ukraine over the downbeat cynicism of Kiev, and the grim disillusion of places like Donetsk.
But now that it is no longer a political centre – on independence, politics moved to Kiev – the old city is having to learn new tricks. The first person I got to know well in Lviv was Oleh, a gangling youth full of political theory and burning ideals, deeply into the student movement. I took him to the Grand Hotel, a Western-owned outfit with real linen napkins, proper cutlery and fleets of nervous newly trained waiters. Oleh was nervous too – he’d never been anywhere like this before, and seven dollars was a terrifying amount of money to be spending on lunch. When we next met, gangling Oleh was transformed. He produced roses, chocolates: this time, he was taking me out to supper. We went to a newly opened café round the corner from his flat. Since we had seen each other last, he said, he had got into the printing trade. Here was a calendar his firm had produced – the butterflies had come out well, but he’d got the dates muddled, so they’d had to do a rerun. He was exporting Christmas cards to Austria and Hungary, and he’d worked out a nice little arrangement with the manager of a local bottling plant: Two hundred dollars for him; 100,000 labels for me.’ Things were going so well that he was even having to pay protection money – 25 per cent of profits – to local racketeers. Wasn’t that rather a lot? ‘No, because they don’t know how much profit we’re making.’ A girl who had been sitting in the lobby as we came in materialised in front of our table in a belly-dancer’s outfit, wiggling energetically. With a flourish, Oleh produced a wad of notes and stuck them in her bra. Not quite Sacher-Masoch, but getting there.
CHAPTER NINE
The Empire Explodes: Chernobyl
An unbreakable Union of freeborn Republics
Great Russia has welded forever to stand;
Created in struggle by will of the peoples,
United and mighty, our Soviet Land!
Hail to the Fatherland, free from oppression,
Bulwark of peoples in brotherhood strong!
The Party of Lenin, strength of
Despite the Ukrainians’ gains, relations with the Poles went from bad to worse. Students fought in the lecture-halls, and in 1908 the Polish governor of Galicia was assassinated in protest at continued vote-rigging. It is hard to imagine how the two sides could have been reconciled. Both saw Galicia as an integral part of a future nation-state. Poles called the province ‘Eastern Malopolska ’ or ‘Little Poland’; Ukrainians were already talking about it as a potentially independent ‘Western Ukraine’. In July 1914, during a massive Ukrainian rally in Lviv, news came through of the assassination of Archduke Ferdinand in Sarajevo. Here, in a war which was to destroy both the empires – Romanov and Hapsburg – which ruled them, Poles and Ukrainians each had their chance to turn dream into reality.
What Lviv was to Ukraine in the late nineteenth century, it was again in the closing years of the Soviet Union. It produced most of Ukraine’s dissidents and demonstrators, and the political party – Rukh – which led the movement for Ukrainian independence. Uncompromisingly Ukrainian (speak Russian on the street, and you will get some dirty looks), it still epitomises the enthusiastic sense of self of western Ukraine over the downbeat cynicism of Kiev, and the grim disillusion of places like Donetsk.
But now that it is no longer a political centre – on independence, politics moved to Kiev – the old city is having to learn new tricks. The first person I got to know well in Lviv was Oleh, a gangling youth full of political theory and burning ideals, deeply into the student movement. I took him to the Grand Hotel, a Western-owned outfit with real linen napkins, proper cutlery and fleets of nervous newly trained waiters. Oleh was nervous too – he’d never been anywhere like this before, and seven dollars was a terrifying amount of money to be spending on lunch. When we next met, gangling Oleh was transformed. He produced roses, chocolates: this time, he was taking me out to supper. We went to a newly opened café round the corner from his flat. Since we had seen each other last, he said, he had got into the printing trade. Here was a calendar his firm had produced – the butterflies had come out well, but he’d got the dates muddled, so they’d had to do a rerun. He was exporting Christmas cards to Austria and Hungary, and he’d worked out a nice little arrangement with the manager of a local bottling plant: Two hundred dollars for him; 100,000 labels for me.’ Things were going so well that he was even having to pay protection money – 25 per cent of profits – to local racketeers. Wasn’t that rather a lot? ‘No, because they don’t know how much profit we’re making.’ A girl who had been sitting in the lobby as we came in materialised in front of our table in a belly-dancer’s outfit, wiggling energetically. With a flourish, Oleh produced a wad of notes and stuck them in her bra. Not quite Sacher-Masoch, but getting there.
CHAPTER NINE
The Empire Explodes: Chernobyl
An unbreakable Union of freeborn Republics
Great Russia has welded forever to stand;
Created in struggle by will of the peoples,
United and mighty, our Soviet Land!
Hail to the Fatherland, free from oppression,
Bulwark of peoples in brotherhood strong!
The Party of Lenin, strength of
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