Frank Furedi The Road to Ukraine De Gruyter Disruptions Volume 2 Frank Furedi The Road to Ukraine How the West Lost its Way ISBN (Paperback) 978-3-11-099694-4 ISBN (Hardcover) 978-3-11-099562-6 e-ISBN (PDF) 978-3-11-098154-4 e-ISBN (EPUB) 978-3-11-098175-9 ISSN 2748-9086 Library of Congress Control Number: 2022940543 Bibliographic information published by the Deutsche Nationalbibliothek The Deutsche Nationalbibliothek lists this publication in the Deutsche Nationalbibliografie; detailed bibliographic data are available on the Internet at http://dnb.dnb.de. © 2022 Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin/Boston Cover image: Fabio Ballasina / unsplash.com Printing and binding: CPI books GmbH, Leck www.degruyter.com Acknowledgements Onthe14March2022Igaveapublicpresentationatameetingorganisedbythe Academyof Ideas in Londonon the war in Ukraine andthe broaderissues sur- roundingit.Thediscussionledtoalivelydebate,onethatstimulatedmetolook into matters further. Had it not been for the comments and criticism made by people at this meeting, I would have never written this book. I am grateful to them for forcing me to develop my thoughts. Tight deadlines are difficult to meet. It was only because of close collaboration with my wife Ann Furedi, son, Jacob Furedi and friends Norman Lewis and D.J. Nolan that the text could see the light of day.They criticised and commented on the text and edited and sub-editedit.Ioweadebtofgratitudetotheirgenerousintellectualandediting contribution. Menaggio, Lombardy, 1 June 2022 https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110981544-001 Preface Itis29March,2022, andit hasbeen fiveweekssinceRussia invaded Ukraine.I am standing in frontof an old, imposingbuilding in the middle of a small his- toriccity,onethat myHungarianparentsreferredto asMunkács.Nowitispart UkraineandgoesbythetitleofMukachevo.ThecityisintheZakarpattiaOblast, inWesternUkraine.Thetracesofthepastculturesandethniccommunitiesthat inhabitedthisplaceareeverywhere:atypednoticeinfrontofaRomanCatholic Church provides information regarding the hours and days of the week when mass isgiven in Ukrainian, Hungarian and Slovakian. MostpeopleItalktoarefarmoreinterestedincomplainingaboutthetraffic and the large number of cars that have entered their city since the outbreak of thewarthanaboutRussia’sinvasionoftheircountry.Itappearsthatthousands of Ukrainians from Kyiv and parts of Western Ukraine have decided to drive to the city and stay put until the outcome of this conflict is decided. ‘As long as there is hope,we are going to stay in Ukraine,’ one lawyer from Kyiv tells me. ‘Wedon’twanttobecomerefugees.’Alocalwomandescribestheairraidsirens that pierce through the night and how many of her friends with children have decided to make their way to the Hungarian border.With a voice of quiet defi- ance, she tells me that despite the air raid sirens, ‘I am staying – this is my home!’ Munkács/Mukachevohasalwaysbeenonthefrontlinesofchangeinthere- gion. In the early part of the 20th century, it was part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, but after the First World War, the allies decided to hand the region overtoCzechoslovakia.InNovember1938,inthewakeofthepartitioningofCze- choslovakia,itwasawardedtoHungary.In1944,theSovietRedArmyoccupied theregion.Forabriefperiod,theSovietUnionhandeditbacktoCzechoslovakia before taking direct possession of it in 1945.The same year, the Kremlin ceded Munkács/Mukachevo to the Ukraine Soviet Socialist Republic, which is now known as Ukraine. DuringtheinterwaryearsMunkács/MukachevowasoftenreferredtoasLit- tle Jerusalem. Almost fifty per cent of its population was Jewish and it became thecentreofJudaiccultureintheTrans-CarpathianregionofwhatwasthenCze- choslovakia. By this time there were 30 synagogues serving the heterogeneous Jewish community. But this community was destroyed during the Holocaust andthere areonlyahandful of Jews left in the city¹. A memorialto the victims  Seehttps://blogs.timesofisrael.com/ukraine-on-my-mind-though-i-am-not-ukrainian. https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110981544-002 VIII Preface oftheHolocaustatthesiteofthecity’slong-gonecentralsynagogueisoneofthe few reminders of this tragic past. OnereasonwhyItravelledtoUkrainewastofindouthowaregionthathas seen so many occupying powers come and go was responding to the latest threat,thistimeposedbytheinvadingarmyofRussia.Postersonbillboardsde- picting heroic Ukrainian soldiers indicate that this region is still part of a long tragicdrama,whoseoriginsgobacktoatleastthe20thcentury.Atacommunity centre,wherevolunteerreliefworkersarehandingoutsecond-handclothesand foodtothelongqueueofwearyrefugees,amiddle-agedwoman,speakinggood English,asksmeiftheycanreallycountontheWest.SinceIamnotsurewhatto say,IhesitateandbeforeIcanformulatemyanswer,shegivesan‘Iknewit’look. InthedramaofMunkácsmyownfamilyfiguresasbitplayers.Ineverhada chancetomeetortalktomygrandfather,FerencTaub,ortomymother’sbrother, Imre.DuringtheFirstWorldWar,mygrandfatherservedintheHungarianarmy and fought on the Italian front. He was delighted when illness forced his early return to civilian life in early 1916. He believed that this war was an entirely pointless one, one that did not serve his nation’s interest. Unfortunately, the war did not end for him or my family in 1916. He was taken away in 1944 and forced into a slave labour battalion.When he, along withmyUncleImre,frozetodeathsomewherenotfarfromthecity,theSecond World War was about to reach the final phase of armed conflict.Were he alive today, I suspect he would not be surprised to discover that a durable regime of peace continues to elude the region. In The First World War: Still No End In Sight, I suggested that many of the difficult existential questions that emerged before and during this conflict still remain unresolved². Unlike many commentators who claimed that, with the end of the Cold War, the long war that began in 1914 has finally concluded, I maintained that its legacy continues to influence the contemporary world and find new expressions. The predicament facing Ukraine indicates that the con- flicts unleashed during the Great War have not yet exhaustedthemselves. ItwasduringtheFirstWorldWarthatUkrainiannationalismbecameamass movement.Until then, any aspiration for the establishment of an independent nation was thwarted by the division of the territory that would eventually be- comeUkrainebetweentheRussianEmpiretotheeastandtheAustro-Hungarian Empiretothewest.ThecollapseoftheseempiresduringtheGreatWarprovided the leaders of the Ukrainian nationalists with an opportunity to seize the mo- ment and establish an independent nation-state.  Furedi,F.(2014)TheFirstWorldWar:StillNoEndInSight,BloomsburyPress:London. Preface IX Yetdespitegainingmomentumandexpandingitsinfluenceamongthepeo- pleoftheregion,Ukrainiannationalistsfailedtorealisetheirobjective.Instead, thecollapseoftheempireswasfollowedbytheoccupationoftheterritoryofto- day’sUkrainebytheSovietUnionandPoland.Throughouttheinterwareramost of present-day Ukraine came to be ruled by these twonations.At various times western Ukraine was ruled by Poland, Romania and Czechoslovakia. In a formal sense Ukraine acquired a geographical existence in 1918 in the territory ruled by the Soviet Union. As one study of Ukraine’s history explains, ‘under Soviet rule,Ukraine possessed all of the nominal trappings of sovereign statehood,mostnotably,afullsetofrepublicaninstitutions,likeallotherSoviet republics’.However,‘inrealitytheUkrainianSovietSocialistRepublicwasonly a hollow institutional caricature of a sovereign state’³.With the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, Ukraine finally had an opportunity to break free from theKremlin anddeclareitsindependence.However,assubsequentevents indi- cated,itwaseasiertobreakfreefromadisintegratingSovietEmpirethanitwas to break from the legacy of the past. Russia invaded Ukraine in 2014 and suc- ceeded in annexing Crimea and occupied a large chunk of territory on the other side of its border with eastern Ukraine. ThegeographicaldivisionsimposedontheterritoryofUkrainebycompeting powersandtheculturaltensionsbetweenRussianand Ukrainian-speakingciti- zensmadeitdifficulttoestablishacoherentsenseofnationalidentity.Whatone historiancalls‘competing“grandnarrativesofthepast”’haveretainedadegree of salience.⁴ In such circumstances Moscow could projectitself as the defender oftheRussian-speakingminorityinUkraine.Inthisway,Russiaattemptedtoen- surethatitretainedadegreeofinfluenceovertheconductofUkraine’sdomestic affairs. Russia’sdecisiontoinvadeUkraineinFebruary2022wasmotivatedbyava- rietyofdifferentfactorswhichremainasubjectoflivelycontroversy.Atthetime ofwriting,itisstillfarfromclearhowthiswarwillend.But,lookingatthemap today–withRussianforcesoccupyingpartsofeasternandsouthernUkraine–it bears anuncanny resemblancetohow itlookedin 1914 whenthis territory was partitionedbytwodecliningempires.Itfeelsasifthecurrentsituationisacon- tinuation of the one that burst on the scene in 1914. Theaimofthisbookistoremindreadersthat,contrarytotheprejudicethat history has ended,we remain under the spell of the past.This is a lesson that  SeeWolczuk,K.(2001)ThemouldingofUkraine:theconstitutionalpoliticsofstateformation, CentralEuropeanUniversityPress:Budapest.https://books.openedition.org/ceup/1739?lang=en.  vonHagen,M.(1995)‘DoesUkraineHaveaHistory?’,SlavicReview,vol.54,p.667. X Preface westernculturalandpoliticalinfluencershavechosentodisregard,whichiswhy theyweresounabletounderstandthechainofeventsthatledtotheinvasionof Ukraine. ThewarthatbrokeoutinFebruary2022isnolongerjustaboutthefutureof Ukraine. It erupted at a time of great global upheaval following the trauma caused by the outbreak of a deadly pandemic. It also coincided with the emer- gence of an economic nationalism that threatened to exacerbate problems caused by shortages of natural resources and the unravelling of supply chains. Ukraine has become an involuntary conduit through which these global issues are experienced – a warning that neither our peace nor our security can be taken for granted. Oneoftheaimsofthisbookistoexplainthattheproblemsthatconfrontus are not only the invading armies of Russia but also the historical illiteracy and moralconfusionoftheWest.Thedangeristhat,unwittingly,Westernleaders’re- sponsetothisinvasioncouldleadthecrisisinUkraineintoaslowdansemaca- brethatenvelopsthewholeworld.ThesubtitleofthisbookisHowTheWestLost ItsWay,areferencetothelossofdirectionthatisintimatelylinkedtothefailure ofWesternsocietytotakeseriouslyitshistoricallegacy.Therelativeabsenceofa consciousnessofhistorydeprivedtheWestoftheguidancenecessaryforengag- ingwithnewexperiences.ThewarinUkraineprovidesanimportantopportunity for the West to finally learn that it has to come to terms with the past. Some of my friends and colleagues have warned me that I am taking a big risk by writing this book while the war is going on and before we know of its final outcome. My reply to them – to paraphrase Graham Greene – is that this is a‘story which has no beginningor end’.