From a Dream to the Streets of Kiev

By Myroslava Antonovych
Sunday, December 5, 2004; Page B01
KYIV

Ever since my childhood, first in the Dnipropetrovsk region of eastern Ukraine and later in the Lviv region of the west, I have dreamed about a miracle -- although back then I did not realize what shape my dream might eventually take. My recurrent vision was of a time when all Ukrainians -- from the west and the east, from the north and the south -- would come together as a single nation.

For the past two weeks, I have been joining demonstrations in Kiev's Independence Square together with my students and colleagues, filled with optimism that my dream is at last becoming reality. Ukrainians from Kiev and Lviv, from Kharkiv and Odessa stand united in our opposition to acting Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovych and in our belief that the presidential election was rigged in his favor to prevent the election of the people's choice, Viktor Yushchenko. The people were determined not to leave the streets until the election was overturned, and we didn't. Now the Ukrainian Supreme Court has ordered a rerun of the second round. Everybody feels that we are privileged to play a role in this pivotal moment in our country's history. We dare to hope that we are witnessing the logical culmination of our country's 1,000-year struggle for true independence and unity.

To understand this feeling, you must first understand a little of our history of division. My country has been divided from the 9th century onward, both by outer enemies and inner traitors, so that until recently my dream seemed a mere mirage. Our periods of independence, such as that of the Ukrainian People's Republic from 1918-1919, were so short that people hardly had time to know what it meant. My mom used to tell me that when the Nazis occupied Lviv in 1941, it took them only days to smother independence, which had recently been proclaimed by Ukraine's nationalists. After that the Nazis started to arrest people and take them to Germany. Those very short periods of independence were never completely peaceful, so all the population's energy went into combating outside invaders. Little energy was left to build or even speculate about a common Ukrainian future.

For the first time in our history, Ukraine has now experienced 13 years of peace. Our rebirth began in 1991, when our parliament declared our country no longer part of the Soviet Union. Symbolically, the official name of our capital is now Kyiv, which is a close reflection of how we Ukrainians pronounce it, rather than Kiev, which is how it sounds in Russian.

Throughout those 13 years, a few oligarchs have robbed their own people by privatizing factories, all the time reassuring us that we are fortunate to be living in peace -- and we came to accept that as a significant achievement, because Ukrainians know full well that poverty is nothing in comparison with war. And the period of peace bore fruit. With the support of the international community and non-governmental organizations, we have begun to develop a civil society in Ukraine. As a result, hundreds of Ukrainian and international human rights organizations have worked actively and consistently to advocate human rights, freedom of the press and the rule of law here.

Having benefited from the Pylyp Orlyk Constitution of 1710 -- a Ukrainian document that was one of the first in the world to define standards of political and legal thought and to create a division of powers -- as well as the 1918 Constitution of the Ukrainian People's Republic, which established broad rights and liberties, Ukrainians were bound to be democratically minded. So it was only natural that we should rise in opposition last month when we realized that our right to choose our president in a free and fair election had been so rudely violated.

In truth, this uprising has turned out to be fabulous. Can you imagine being part of an uprising alive with the sunny smiles and sparkling eyes of those who rose in protest? Can you imagine young girls presenting flowers to soldiers as they stand with shields in front of the demonstrators? Can you believe that people have actually been giving food and warm clothes to supporters of Yanukovych who were brought into Kiev by special buses and trains?

From an article in the Washington Post Outlook section, December 6, 2004
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A34782-2004Dec4.html