In spite of the shock the whole world is experiencing observing the current events in Ukraine, many writers and scientists have predicted it long before the catastrophe.
Recently I read a science fiction novel by Gleb Bobrov "The Age of the Stillborn” published in 2009. Is it really a fiction?.. When I check my news feed about events in Ukraine, I cannot help feeling that I continue reading the novel: Bobrov, a Luhansk resident, describes the war between Novorossiya, in the novel called "Eastern Little Russia", and Ukraine.
Some details are strikingly similar to the real events. In a recent interview Bobrov regretted that events are developing according to the scenario predicted. Besides his book, quite a few others have been published on the topic in recent years: fiction and non-fiction.
Certainly, a knowledgeable person could have predicted all this. In the current Ukrainian crisis many can sense intuitively what Lev Gumilev described in his theories of ethnogenesis. Incidentally, in a suggestive coincidence, the DPR Prime Minister Alexander Borodai is a son of Yuri Borodai, a friend and a follower of Gumilev. Some of Gumilev's theses help us understand what is happening around us now and especially in the Ukraine.
“The most difficult moments in the ethnos history and therefore people comprising it are changes of the ethnogenesis phase, so called phase transitions. The phase transition is always a deep crisis", the scientist said. This is one of the fundamental theses of his Passionary Theory of Ethnogenesis.
According to Gumilev, an ethnos, above all, is a pattern in behavior that distinguishes it from other ethnoses as in the "us and them" relation. Changes in the level of passionarity between phase transitions in the ethnos history cause a part of the ethnos to change its stereotypes. Then comes a split of the ethnic field our ethnos is living through today. It materialized in 1991 with the collapse of the Soviet Union. Today we are reaping fruits of it and not only in Ukraine.
But there is a factor supporting a relative integrity of the Eastern Slavic populace. According to Gumilev, it is Orthodoxy: not only the Orthodox faith by itself, but also the Orthodox culture. It kept the Russian ethnos from a breakup in XIII and XVII centuries and may keep it intact today.
- Baptism gave our ancestors the highest freedom - the freedom to choose between good and evil while the victory of Orthodoxy gave Russia a thousand-year history, Gumilev said.
However, in 1595, under pressure of Polish authorities and Jesuits, the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Uniate Church was formed. It punched a terrible hole in the Russian ethnic field. Converted to Uniates, Orthodox quickly lost their sense of belonging to the Russian world. They turned to the West, who took them, but not without making a face. The Russian super-ethnos never got along with the European super-ethnos.
The Russian transition to Catholicism spawned ethnic tensions. I can say for myself that I experience a kind of cognitive dissonance when I think of my ancestors on the mother's line, who were Russian nobility and who converted to Catholicism sometime in the XVII century becoming Polish Szlachta. However, this dissonance becomes far less intense when I think of my grandmother's return to Orthodoxy.
Another thesis of the Passionary Theory of Ethnogenesis is the complementarity: negative, positive or neutral. It describes the attitude of different ethnic groups to each other.
Lev Gumilev wrote:
- You know that there is no complementarity between Poles and Ukrainians, in other words the complementarity is negative. From our perspective, these Ukrainians, especially Western, seemed very similar to the Poles. But they hated each other!
Elsewhere the scientist wrote:
- At the time (the XVII century - Ed.) the whole Orthodox population of Poland called itself Russian, while the word "Ukrainian" simply referred to a resident of outskirts. At the same time Russians living in the Russian State were clearly separated from Russians in Poland and were called "Rossiyskie". This difference is an example of a typical persistence of affinity to the common super-ethnos.
The Orthodox were constantly discriminated in the Polish Lithuanian Commonwealth by the Catholic Church, the Polish Szlachta and their Jew representatives. This led to bloody Cossack uprisings against the crown and at the end to Ukraine's accession to the Moscow State.
- It would be hard to believe, Lev Nikolaevich writes, that illiterate Ukrainian Cossacks or Belarusian peasants understood theological differences between Orthodoxy and Catholicism. None of them has been interested in such differences. For most, a certain religion served primarily as an indicator of belonging to a well-defined group - "us".
Therefore, all of the following: annual visits of the Patriarch of Moscow and All Russia to the Ukraine (even though this year's visit was cancelled because of the war), the fight against the autocephaly of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church, Patriarch Kirill's concept of the Russian world and the Russian civilization (His Holiness is well familiar with Gumilev's works) help to overcome the divide of the ethnic field. And that is why Ukrainian Nazis and our enemies from abroad refer to these concepts with such hatred.
As Gumilev explains the mechanism of this unity, the common single super-ethnic identity of Russia and Ukraine is of a primary importance: the mass support of the kin belonging to the same faith. Rational plans of intelligent and determined power seekers have been shattered by this universal sense of unity as waves break on cliffs. Two akin ethnoses, Russian and Ukrainian, have united not because of the political situation, but to the contrary, in defiance of it. The people's will or their unwillingness consistently crashed political initiatives not fitting the logic of ethnogenesis.
The indecisiveness, which can be considered on one hand as a painful search for national identity and on the other as a betrayal of your ethnicity, has continued until Mazepa, and then, during Catherine, up to the final integration of Ukraine into the Russian Empire. It continues today. Only the number of former Russians calling themselves Ukrainians, who are drawn by the West, is now greater. This led to the cause of today's conflict – the ethnic chimera, a phenomenon which Gumilev characterizes as follows:
- When two different (ethnic - Ed.) rhythms are superimposed, it might lead to a cacophony, perceived by people as something unnatural, rightfully so. But then people start to dislike the environment they live in geographically, seek a logically explainable way out and justify their hatred of the such uncomfortable world.
At the ethnos level this is often manifested in the riots and wars, sometimes terribly cruel, as can be demonstrated on the example of massacres in Volhynia in 1943 when Ukrainian nationalists from the OUN (Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists) killed tens of thousands of ethnic Poles and not only them.
Not all chimeras produce anti-systems, but in Ukraine they did, as always, under various guises but with the same core - the desire to destroy and kill. According to Lev Gumilev:
- Like vampires, anti-systems take the passionarity out of the ethnos. Their goal is not a creation, that is, the system development, to the contrary it's the system simplification, that is, the transition of the living matter first into stagnant, then into amorphous, so it can be annihilated by advocates of the anti-system.
The Uniate Church was the first anti-system in Ukraine, and up till now it retains its negative potential. Even in the Vatican it is regarded with suspicion. Supported by the Uniates OUN members committed terrible crimes during and after the Great Patriotic War. Now another typical anti-system, "Right Sector" follows them.
We should not forget the role of the communist government tried to create an entity, called "the Russian people." This is the same as the "American nation" - a chimera. The episode from Soviet history with the transfer of the Crimea and Novorossiya to Ukraine was just one of the manifestations of this policy.
Gumilev believed that the Ukrainian ethnos consists of nine sub-ethnoses, varying by their habitat, the time of inclusion in the Ukraine, and even by the ethnic substrate. They are Bukovina, Podolia, Polesia, Crimea, Novorossiya, Slobozhanschyna, Transcarpathia, Galicia and Severskaya land. Crimea, Novorossiya and Slobozhanschina are located on the border of the Great Russian and Ukrainian ethnoses. The population of Severskaya land originally was not Slavic. In addition, Gumilev believed that Torkil tribes have participated in Ukrainian ethnogenesis. Speaking of Transcarpathia and Galicia - they are a special case. Undeniably such complex ethnogenesis had an impact on the fate of the ethnos. And then there were external influences, or "zigzags of the history”, as the scientist says:
- It would be ridiculous to deny that human ideas, work and activities have an effect on the history, sometimes very strong, creating unintended turns or “zigzags” in the course of historical processes. But the level of human impact on the history is not as great as commonly believed, because at the population level, the history is not regulated by conscious social impulses, instead it is regulated by the biosphere of passionarity impulses. Figuratively speaking, we can, like mindlessly playing children move hands of the clock of the history, but we cannot wind up the clock. Politicians play the role of such arrogant children. At their will they move clock hands from 3 pm to 12 o'clock at night, and then they look terribly surprised: "Why the night did not come and why workers did not go to sleep?"
It looks like the scientist was absolutely right. Out of the same book was the desire of Polish magnates to convert Russian Cossacks into obedient slaves, or Russian liberals to join the "common European home", or the current Ukrainian authorities and a large part of the society to become "Europe". The principle of "us and them" works in spite of the political map of the world. Take Transcarpathia.
In this area, several different peoples coexist - Rusyns, Hungarians, Poles. In the USSR and in the modern Ukraine, Transcarpathian Rusyns have been considered as an ethnic group of Ukrainians. But most of them consider themselves Russian and fight for national self-determination, even though during last 23 years, authorities of the "independent" Ukraine widely used repressions against them and tried to forcibly ukrainize them.
Of course, today there are many more "Ukrainians". But a lot of those calling themselves "Ukrainians" in a citizen sense, remain Russian, speaking Russian language and following Russian stereotypes in behavior. They are present not only in the fighting South East, but also throughout the country. However, they are not evenly distributed. In the west of the country, there are many more "responsible Nazis”.
Now they have seized the power in the country and dragging it to the EU. But Lev Gumilev warned:
- Joining of two super- ethnoses as such is not possible. What is possible is to separate some ethnoses and to attach them to another super-ethnos... But it would be a great mistake to think that the result of the construction of a "common European home" will be a mutual celebration of universal human values.
So it is, as evidenced by the ferocity of hostilities in Novorossiya. The militia, as a whole, treats soldiers of the Ukrainian army humanely, but they do not spare National Guard, or as they put it, "Nazgady" (Nazi Skunks) - fighters of irregular troops, consisting mainly of nationalistic Zapadentsy. Most of the atrocities blamed on the Ukrainian side, are conducted by these units. It is more than an ethnic clash, it is a struggle of two super-ethnoses with a sharply negative complementarity.
Moreover, this hatred is supported from the outside, especially by the United States, which is now the leader of the West super-ethnos.
- There is only one, proven by many centuries method, to incite hatred in any country, Lev Gumilev says. - To do this, a completely negative meaning is attached to the natural contrast between "us” and “them". The differences between representatives of different peoples are brought to the point of absurdity: "WE are the people," but "THEY are not the people." This dehumanization comes with a standard set of propaganda images - the villain, the torturer, the rapist and so on. It is impossible to incite hatred without creating an image of "the enemy."
This is what we hear from today's Ukraine: "Who's not jumping, that's Moskal!", "Hang Moskals!" "They plotted famine, forcibly russified us, shot down Malaysian Boeing, sent Strelkov with his tanks..." For "responsible” Ukrainians, Russian and Russian-speaking are no longer brothers and "Quilted Jackets" and "Colorados" (derogatory terms for Russians – Ed.) are all drunks, degenerates and pathological killers not to regret about, and - glory to Ukraine!
- Any process of ethnogenesis can be forcibly torn off from outside - the scientist warned, and help us God to heed this warning...
In addition, Gumilev fiercely denied any kind of nationalism:
- It is not enough to say that any nationalism is blind. We must strongly denounce its malicious nature and its insidious methods of psychological manipulation. Clearly, Stalinist policies and mistakes of the stagnation period affected national relations as any other aspect of life. But let's not close our eyes on the fact that today there are groups of people who are interested in continuing ethnic tensions and who for their gain are ready to encroach upon the holy of holies – people friendship.
This was said in 1992. But how relevant it is today!
On the other hand, according to the Passionary Theory of Ethnogenesis, the ethnos is weakened by a decline of passionarity people. The fracture phase that was experienced by Russian super-ethnos – a sequence of revolutions, wars and repressive campaigns - greatly thinned the passionarity force. Nevertheless the activity of a new generation of passionarity people is already noticeable.
One evidence of this is the uprising in Novorossiya against the seizure of power in the country by an anti-system. Regardless of the propaganda in Ukrainian media, there are much less Russian and other volunteers there than locals who took up their arms. Gumilev described the mechanism of such confrontation:
- The signs of passionarity in the ethnogenesis drift across the country from the center to outskirts. As a result, in the final phase of ethnogenesis the passionarity of outskirts of the ethnic area is always higher than the passionarity of its historic center. Mechanics of the process are simple: energetic people who seek a relief from the scrutiny of their superiors and gain more of their own space, leave the capital and go to explore new lands.
It seems that that is exactly what happened in the Ukraine, the outskirts of the Russian super-ethnos. With the beginning of the uprising passionarity people from other ethnoses that make up the Eurasian populace, primarily the Great Russian, joined. We must not forget that they are opposed with passionarity people as well, from an anti-system and with reversed moral principles. Only the God knows who will be the winner. Clearly, now in Novorossiya the fate of the Russian super-ethnos is being decided.
Lev Gumilev warned:
- We must first understand traditional boundaries of time and space for our ethnic community and clearly understand where there are “us”, and where there are “them”. Otherwise, we cannot maintain the ethno-social integrity, which was created by our ancestors during the great Princes and Czars of Moscow and St. Petersburg Emperors. If we can keep this integrity, we will be able to restore the tradition of tolerance and respect for lives of people close to us. Then, all of these peoples will remain undivided.
To conclude, the passionarity ethnogenesis theory is applicable when explaining the events in the Ukraine. Of course, other factors come in play - geopolitical, economic, social. But at the core of the historical events and its "zigzags" is the nature of ethnic processes.
Reference
Passionarity people - people who put up a certain ideal above the instinct of self-preservation and leading the rest of the ethnic group. Passionarity people are born, not made.
For the Russian (then East Slavic) super-ethnos the first split of ethnic field occurred almost at a time of its birth from the passionary impulse of the XIII century, when the world of ancient Russia was torn between Lithuania and the Mongols. It was then when Great Russian, Little Russian and Belarusian ethnicities united under Russian super-ethnos found themselves in an alien environment. The relationship between them were not always brotherly, even though all of them called themselves Russian. It is sufficient to recall that the Belarusians killed wounded Russians after the Battle of Kulikovo and in Russia there was a song about Zaporozhian Cossacks during the Time of Troubles: "Zaporozhi - enemies."
The principality of Galicia-Volhynia was trying to secede from the Russian world at the time of the collapse of the Eastern Slavic community. Since then, Galicia has not been a part of Russia until 1939, when the Soviet Union annexed it. Nevertheless, many Galicians defended their right to speak "on the proper Muscovite language" and the right to be called Russians. During the First World War, the Austrians perpetrated an ethnocide, shooting thousands of pro-Russian Galicians and forcing them into concentration camps.
The modern “Ukrainian nation” originates from here. Several scientists-nationalists, in fact chimera individuals, manipulated by the Austrian intelligence, have been rewriting the history of Ukrainian-Russian relations, creating artificial and ludicrous “Ridna Mova” (Ukrainian “native” language) out of familiar Ukrainian dialect of Russian language close to Belarusian.
They knew before it happened.
Peter the Great:
"These people are exceedingly clever and exceedingly cunning: like a work-loving bee, they give the Russian State the best “honey” for the brain and the best “wax” for education, but it also has a sting.
Fyodor Dostoevsky:
"With liberation they will start a new life, I repeat, eliciting pledge and protection of their freedom in Europe, from England and Germany, for example, and even though Russia will be in concert with European powers, they will do it seeking protection from Russia.
First, certainly they will say to themselves or announce out loud and convince themselves that they do not owe any gratitude to Russia. On the contrary, they will believe they barely escaped the power loving Russia.
Perhaps for a century or more, they will constantly tremble for their freedom before the power loving Russia; they will crouch down in front of the European states, will slander Russia, gossip about and plot against her.
Particularly pleasing to the liberated Slavs will be announcements to the whole world about how they are highly educated tribes capable of the highest European culture while Russia is a barbaric country, a dark northern colossus, not even with pure Slavic blood, a persecutor and hater of the European civilization. Initially, they will establish constitutional governance, parliament, ministers, speakers and speeches and will feel delighted and comforted by that”.
John Mearsheimer:
"Relations between Russia and Ukraine have developed in such a way that both countries are ready to clash because of security issues. Great powers that have common long undefended border, often engage in confrontation due to security issues. Russia and Ukraine can overcome this dynamic and co-exist in harmony, but that would be a very unusual development"
Samuel Huntington:
"Ukraine is a split country with two different cultures. The fault line between civilizations that separates the West from the Orthodox, runs right through its center for several centuries. At various times in the past the western Ukraine was part of Poland, Lithuania and the Austro-Hungarian Empire. A significant part of the population are adherents of the Uniate Church, which follows the Orthodox rituals but recognizes the authority of the Pope.
Historically, Western Ukrainians speak Ukrainian and are very nationalistic in their views. The population of Eastern Ukraine, on the other hand, is for the most part Orthodox, and speaks Russian... The differences between Eastern and Western Ukraine appear in the views of their people. For example, in late 1992, one-third of Russians in Western Ukraine stated that they suffered because of anti-Russian actions, while in Kiev, that proportion was 10 percent."
Author: Pavel Vinogradov
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