The media and politicians repeat all day: “Ukraine fights for us, for the free planet as a whole, defends us against barbarism coming from the East.”
This is manifest propaganda, but even if we take it seriously, we should ask the basic question – can it usage methods that have nothing to do with the principles publically proclaimed by the planet in the name of this conflict for a "free world"?
Is the removal of Russian language in Ukraine, the demolition of monuments not only of politicians and military, but of writers and poets belonging to the heritage of planet culture, to mention only Mikhail Bulhakov, Fyodor Dostoevsky or Alexander Pushkin – a conflict for freedom and democracy? Recently, an outstanding 18th-century student Mikhail Lomonosov has besides been the victim of the monument cleansing. The monuments of Bandera and Shuchewycz are created on the vacant places like mushrooms after rain. The City Bookshop in Kiev “Syaivo Knigi” triumphantly reported that it collected more than 57 tons of Russian-speaking books “for recycling”, that is, open to burning. There are most likely not many works by Lenin among these books, but poesy and novels by Pushkin, Lermontov, Tolstoy, Bulhakov.
The cultural war, or contemporary Ukrainian Kulturkampf, besides covered matters of religion and churches. For many months, but especially since 1 December 2021, erstwhile Volodymr Zelenski announced the time of the conflict for a "Ukrainian soul", there has been a forceful takeover of the canon temples of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church of the Moscow Patriarchate (which note bene declared condemnation of war and loyalty to the Ukrainian state) by supporters of the Orthodox Church of Ukraine or by militias of nationalist groups. On Christmas, the “reflection” was made by the Ukrainian Orthodox Church of the Cathedral Council of the Sleeve of Our woman and the refectory church in the holy place of Orthodoxy, that is, in the Peczerska Lavra in Kiev.
“The Orthodox Review, many cathedrals, diocesan centres and monasteries search Ukraine’s safety Service to “stop the usage of spiritual communities as cells of Russian miru,” says the Polish Orthodox Review. The Metropolitan of Borispolsko-browarski Antoni, head of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church, pointed out that the force on the Church that is presently taking place in Ukraine would be reprehensible in all European country: “The Constitution guarantees us the right to freely practice our faith. The mad avalanche of imaginary and fabricated accusations, mass media force on the episcopate and clergy of our Church and the desire to compromise it are unworthy of a democratic and European state."
These only briefly described phenomena have first of all the face of Stepan Bandera and his organization, the CNS. And someway nobody in Poland and in the “free world” reacts. This is due to the fact that Anne Applebaum’s doctrine, which stated in her time, “Ukraine needs more nationalism”. And the authoritative Ukraine, justifying everything to war, does so.
Jan Engelgard
photo archive of Polish Thought
Think Poland, No. 3-4 (15-22.01.2023)
