How to make a fairy tale come true
It seems that the discussion about culture, its relations with the state and society has come to an end. Its consequence was social network support for Anatoly Matviychuk’s candidacy for the Ukraine’s Minister of Culture post. Now we have to ensure that this nomination acquires formal features and still works.
Thanking for the trust, the initiator of the discussion essentially brings up a new topic for discussion — the topic of the national elite. This is really an extremely relevant topic. After all, the state of the elite actually depends not only on the replacement of government officials, but also on systemic structural changes, without which Ukraine’s progress is simply impossible.
The text below is a kind of response to Anatoly Matviychuk’s “Thank you for your trust!”, which we published on the Ukraïna Journal website. In my text, I expressed, one might say, a far-fetched idea of a concession for Ukraine, which is, perhaps, almost the only opportunity to implement the Ukrainocentric development strategy of Ukraine. I hope my readers will understand and appreciate not only the text, but also the subtext.
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How little does it take for a person to be happy, and therefore to start making plans, what he/she would do, having achieved his/her dream… Yesterday, I wholeheartedly supported Anatoly Matviychuk’s candidacy for the Minister of Culture position, and if it were my will, I would appoint him to this position, since I really do not see a more worthy candidate. The only question is how to do it, where to get such powers.
Having the DNA of several royal dynasties in my blood, I could claim the status of a sovereign (especially since even Oleksiy Arestovych adopted the idea of the monarchy in Ukraine “revival”), but I do not want to become a monarch, as I know well the historical experience of Rus’ princes and kings.
What I would do is to take Ukraine into a concession for ten years. For this purpose, I have a company registered in the USA “Ukraïna, Inc” (Ukraïna, Incorporated), which some naïve Ukrainian segment of social media users often confuse with a state called “Ukraine”, shouting: “Look! Ukraine is registered in the USA as a corporation.”
Having acquired in this way the right to govern Ukraine as a state, I will appoint A. Matviychuk to the department (ministry) of culture, since, I repeat, I really do not see a more worthy candidate. As the president of the corporation, I promise you that having led the culture, Matviychuk will not sulk like O. Tkachenko or his ilk and will not spoil the work of the industry entrusted to him, as Ivan Dzyuba of blessed memory once did.
I will also find worthy people for the department of information policy, education and science, national security and defense, etc. We will find worthy people for the economy, finance, development of territories…
The first thing that my appointed people will do is the Ukrainization of Ukraine. To do this, they will reread my articles and notes with a pencil or marker, combined in the collection “Ukrainization of Ukraine as a fact and factor of systemic changes: Collection of articles and notes. — Washington, 2019. — 230 p..” (in Ukrainian).
They will involve such activists as Larysa Nitsoi, Iryna Farion and many others, who are making a lot of fuss in vain, to work in this field — let them roll up their sleeves and get down to real work.
Their most important task will be the creation of the Ukrainization of Ukraine Movement, and it can be headed by the young and energetic Andriy Smoliy, who, with tens of thousands of his followers, is already talking about “Ukrainian Ukraine”, but will not engage in real work in society.
We will find Ukrainocentric educators and scholars who are able to push Vasyl Kremen and a herd of his students and followers of the Communist Party-Soviet hardening from the educational and scientific trough, who can not stop in any way raising their god to Ukrainian universities honorary doctors.
After getting rid of Kremen, the educational society “Znannia” (“Knowledge”) will breathe in the fresh air of change and actively participate in the process of Ukrainization of Ukraine. And after him, the “Prosvita” society will send Pavlo Movchan to his well-deserved thirty-plus years of inactivity and will work on Ukrainianization in the same way that the real “Prosvita” once worked.
As an alternative option for Ukrainization of enlightenment, and through enlightenment, education, and therefore culture, we put forward the idea of the Ukrainian University as a network of Ukrainian studies universities, schools, courses, lectures, seminars and other forms.
Education and enlightenment will begin to become Ukrainized, and culture will come to life, the fate of which A. Matviychuk is so concerned.
For a deeper understanding of mistakes and learning the lessons of independent Ukraine, my nominees, together with their subordinates, will study the articles in my collection “Vyacheslav Chornovil as a phenomenon of Ukrainian history and politics: A collection of articles and notes. — Washington, 2019. — 201 p..”
Understanding the experience of sovereign, independent Ukraine, as I see it, is impossible without a stick. No one wants to learn lessons so as not to repeat mistakes now and in the future.
The second thing that my appointed people will do is to create a Ukrainian-centric mass media system. For this, they and their subordinates will have to study with a pencil or marker a collection of my articles “Ukrainocentrism, journalism and the mass media system: A collection of articles and notes. — Washington, 2020. — 449 p..”
I also have someone to put in this section from among those who cry over the difficult fate of Ukrainian journalism and mass media, but do not want or cannot do real things, because “it requires a lot of money.” They do not understand that big money comes where people start doing something.
I will not name names. Half or at least a third of my friends and all of them are in the group “Students and colleagues of Volodymyr Ivanenko” on Facebook.
The third is national security and defense of Ukraine. This is something that should be in the first place in wartime, but, in my opinion, the national security and defense of Ukraine is a problem that cannot be solved outside the context of the Ukrainization of Ukraine in general and the Ukrainization of Ukraine’s information space in particular.
What I write about in the articles included in the collection “Budapest Format: A Collection of Articles and Notes. — Washington, 2020. — 294 p..” Looking from the side, in connection with the full-scale invasion of the Russian Federation in Ukraine, the Norman format with its meetings in Minsk was replaced by the Budapest format already yesterday.
It does not. The coalition of the countries of the world (Ramstein), which came to help Ukraine to successfully resist Russian aggression, was led by the countries that signed the Budapest Memorandum — the USA, Great Britain and France.
Now we are talking about security guarantees for Ukraine after the expulsion of Russia from the occupied territories of Ukraine. It is clear that if, as a result of this war, the Russian Empire does not fall apart, the complete and final victory of Ukraine will be illusory, because the threat from Muscovy will remain.
Therefore, the idea put forward by me in the above-mentioned collection, which, surprisingly, no one else voiced, is particularly relevant. We are talking about Helsinki-2, that is, about the revision and renewal of the Treaty on Security and Cooperation in Europe and throughout the world.
Unfortunately, no one in Ukraine heard this hint that Ukraine would take such an initiative. Even the late Yevhenii Marchuk and his associates were not interested in this topic. A couple of years ago, I voiced this idea at a debate held in the US Congress, and the participants welcomed it, but unfortunately, no one is discussing it.
Recently, I made another attempt to push the idea of initiating Helsinki-2 into the international information space through the mouth of the current president of Ukraine, V. Zelenskyi. One of the main consultants of the National Institute for Strategic Studies promised to help me with this. Let’s see what will come of this…
The idea of restoring the Ukrainian Cossacks as the backbone of Ukrainian society is connected to the topic of national security and defense of Ukraine. Therefore, I would sit a separate group of people who are fond of Cossacks with a pencil or marker to study my articles included in the collection “Transformation Mission of the Ukrainian Cossacks: Articles, Notes – Washington: Publishing House Ukraine Inc. — 2021. — 210 p.”.
What was called the Territorial Defense during the current war, it would probably be more appropriate to form it as the Cossacks. This is very important, as it would contribute to the revival of Cossack traditions and customs and would shape the Cossacks as the backbone of Ukrainian society and as the driving force of systemic structural changes.
I hope the name change will happen sooner or later. In the meantime, it would be appropriate to form the All-Ukrainian Cossack Hand as a public-political association, in the bowels of which a couple or three qualitatively new Ukrainian-centric ideological parties will be born, which will be ready to come to the parliament and initiate systemic structural changes.
Actually, I reveal the idea of systemic structural changes in the articles included in the collection “Systemic changes — a perspective for Ukraine: A collection of articles and notes. — Washington, 2020. — 393 p..” This is the collection that will be read with a pencil or marker by those who have already been discussed above, and those who will be discussed further.
At one time, I put forward the idea not only of creating Movements, but also of uniting these Movements into the All-Ukrainian Front of Systemic Changes, without such a uniting of Ukrainian-centric organizations for the implementation of systemic structural changes.
When I wrote the articles that were included in the collection “World Ukrainianism — the driving force of systemic changes in Ukraine: Collection of articles and notes. — Washington, 2020. — 309 p.”, I focused my attention on combining the efforts of society in Ukraine and the Ukrainian diaspora (Ukrainians living on ethnic lands in neighboring countries and the Ukrainian diaspora).
As a result of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, millions of Ukrainian citizens found themselves outside Ukraine as refugees, increasing, and for a long time, the power of the Ukrainian diaspora. Naturally, this strengthens the relevance of what I said in the articles of the above collection, as well as the urgency of creating the World Ukrainian Movement, the Organizational Committee of which I head.
We are very confused by the fact that on the crest of the wave of refugees into the Ukrainian diaspora, which was historically Ukrainian-centric and Ukrainian-speaking, the “Russian peace” reached out. Part of this “fifth wave” are also bloggers who fled the war in Ukraine, who raise really painful issues on their YouTube channels, but who hang out exclusively in the Russian information space. One of the most active of these is Denys Yelysevych from Kyiv, who now lives in Miami (Florida). In the older Russian-speaking diaspora (people from Ukraine), Sergei Lyubarskyi (California) was unexpectedly active and somewhat aggressive. These bloggers involuntarily add water to the mill of the “fifth column”, which in Ukraine is carried along with the Ukrainian-indifferent (if not to say – Ukrainian-oriented) “fifth project” (for details, see: “FIFTH COLUMN”, “FIFTH WAVE”, “FIFTH PROJECT”…).
Ukrainian-speaking activists who formally position themselves as Ukrainian-centric, but who are historically associated with anti-Ukrainian forces, have also appeared in the Western diaspora. One of them is Nazar Mukhachov, who took control of the diaspora mass media in the Ukrainian community in Chicago.
All this must be reoriented to the benefit of Ukraine and the Ukrainian cause. This is all culture, starting with the minimally narrowed understanding and ending with the maximally expanded interpretation of this concept.
And here we come to the topic to which A. Matviychuk turned our attention from culture – elites. It is obvious that Matviychuk fills the concept of the elite with the meaning suggested by the presence in the topic of culture, that is, with the intellectual elite in mind.
The articles in which I discussed this topic were compiled into the collection “Intellectual elite of Ukraine as a problem: Articles, notes. — Washington: Publishing House Ukraine Inc. — 2022. — 729 p.,” and this is another collection that I will force myself to read with a pencil or marker. Because until we deal with this elite, it is useless to hope for any positive changes, any progress.
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Concession is not a type of dictatorship. This is, first of all, business. So, we are talking about a purely business approach and, to a large extent, something similar to the presidency of Donald Trump, who, as president, tried to run the United States the way he used to run the “Trump Organization” (or “Trump Organization”).
The Trump Organization is the official name of a group of about 500 business structures, the sole or main owner of which is Donald Trump. About 250 of these organizations use the Trump name. The organization was founded in 1927 by Donald Trump’s paternal grandmother, Elizabeth Christ Trump, and his father, Fred Trump, as E. Trump & Son.
A concession, as Wikipedia explains, is an agreement on the transfer of natural resources, enterprises, other economic objects belonging to the state or territorial community for temporary use by other states, foreign companies, and private individuals.
Ten years of the concession agreement, I think, is enough to bring Ukrainian society to its senses, to raise the level of its national consciousness and civic maturity (responsibility), to launch qualitatively new processes of nation-building and state-building, and thus to prepare everything necessary for the convening of the Constituent Assembly, which will choose the optimal social system/order for Ukraine, adopt the new Constitution of Ukraine and launch the process of forming a new system of governance.
Today, I do not see a better option, and I am morally ready to take on such a burden. Are you ready?
Volodymyr Ivanenko
July 23, 2023
Dr. Volodymyr Ivanenko | Др. Володимир Іваненко 