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gious, educational, scientific, and political activities and no mention that these fields were reserved for men and not a place for women. Centuries later we find women in the Church Brotherhoods that formed such an impor tant link in the preservation of national consciousness between medieval and modern times. And in our cen tury, when there was that brief moment of independ ence in 1918, the right to vote was granted to both men and women, with no objections raised. Because Ukrainian women all through history were not kept in isolation but were actively engaged in the affairs of their country, this World Congress of the Fed eration of Ukrainian Women’s Organizations does not limit itself to strictly feminist topics in its program, but addresses essential issues of the Ukrainian community. And the important issue in the Ukrainian community at this time is the millennium of Christianization. It is a time to analyze the meaning of being Ukrainian from a broad perspective, that of being a member of the world community. We look back in history and, with a shock, we realize that perhaps that 19th century Russian minister who said that “there ought not to be a Ukraine,” was right. By all historical logic, there should not be any Ukrain ians left by now. From the time of the Tartars in the 13th century, followed not only by disorganization, but also by depopulation of the Kievan State, through centuries of foreign occupations with their intense assimilatory policies, it is a historical wonder that there are still Ukrainians left. That there are some fifty million who identify themselves as Ukrainians, is a testimony to the strength and uniqueness of their spirit. The strength comes from Christian spirituality; the identity from the Ukrainian language. Today, as never before, these sources of Ukrainian existence are threa tened with extinction. Both the Ukrainian Orthodox Church and the Ukrainian Catholic Church are out lawed in Ukraine. The existing Russian Orthodox Church has always served as an instrument of russification, an ethnocidal instrument. The language policies in the Soviet Union more subtly carry on the tradition of the 19th century czarist methods, i.e., a policy of russifica tion. In Ukraine it is reaching epidemic proportions. Glasnost’ is silent on this issue. Biologically, Ukrainians will survive, as did Eturscans or Khozars; it would be difficult to annihilate fifty million people. But biological survival in itself does not consti tute human survival. To be human means to be deter mined historically and culturally. And yet today it almost seems as if there existed a world-wide conspiracy to disinherit Ukrainians of their rightful historical and cul tural heritage. As if it were not enough that treasures of Ukrainian art — icons, mosaics, manuscripts, some taken as recently as in the 1930’s when historical churches were dynamited in Kiev and elsewhere but artworks were saved — are exhibited in the museums of Moscow and Leningrad as Russian art, their very history is being taken away from the Ukrainians. There is nothing in the historical sources to support the claim that in medieval times there was one nation that later separated into three groups, the Ukrainians, Russians and Byelorus sians which, according to Russians and Soviets, should be united again. On the contrary, at the time of Volo- dymyr the Great the population of the land under his rule was heterogenous and included both Slavic and non-Slavic people, especially in the north. In time they coalesced into those three groups. The Slavic roots are common to all Slavic nations — Polish, Croatian, Czech, Ukrainian, and others — not only to Ukrainians and Rus sians. What Ukraine and Russia had in common in those times was the dynasty. Yet in the West nobody claims that France should be a part of Germany because once it was under the rule of Charlemagne, or that Holland should be because of language similarity. Why, then, is it that Ukraine is denied historical determination? It is obvious why the Russians and Soviets are interested in supporting historical confusion; it is less comprehensi ble in the case of the rest of the world, and especially the Western democratic countries. With the level of awareness of holocausts and ethnocides that is preval ent in the West today, we still read of Kiev, Russia, and Chernobyl in the southern province of Russia, and Rus sian Prince Vladimir, that is, Volodymyrthe Great. Such support of the Russian-Soviet policies of historical falsi fication and russification can be termed nothing short of an act of ethnocide. But why? Mankind benefits from cultural diversity, for each culture presents new avenues for human creativity, for life appreciation, for self-realization as human beings. If there were no more Ukrainians, the whole world would be poorer for it. And yet, today, as never before, such a threat exists. The civilized world has a list of endangered species —of birds, and trees, and animals, and fish, and insects whose existence is threatened, and there is a strong commitment to protect and preserve them. Why is Ukraine not on the world’s list of endangered species? A thousand and more years of history, a unique culture, a human spirit that carried the people through the roughest times in history, are these less important than an insect? The fate of Ukraine should not be a concern only of Ukrainians. It should be on the conscience of the whole world. We, Ukrainians, know that survival is possible only if there is freedom, and that is why we are so grateful to our adoptive countries where there is freedom. We are speaking of the survival of the human spirit, and to be human is to be free. To be free is to have choices, for only then the creative spirit of human beings can realize itself. It is our historical experience that only at the times of national freedom, the hights of cultural achie vements were reached. The memory of those times has sustained us in the past; the hope for such freedom strengthens us for the future. ’НАШЕ ЖИТТЯ”, СІЧЕНЬ 1988 21
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