Memoirs of a Ukrainian Fascist
Being an account of the social and political tribulations of Ukraine at the turn of the century and afterwards, as perceived by one of its citizens; played through various states of vanilla 1.3beta.
I
Where to begin?
As I’m staring at the first blank page on my decrepit typewriter, sitting in a dingy room in the slums of Odessa, it occurs to me that it all started in 1894; I was just a little boy then and understood little, but I can still remember the anxiety on my parents’ faces while the Battle of Ternopil waged in East Galicia, on those early summer days when I couldn’t perceive what could ever trouble anyone. But, contrary to my childish intuitions, no one in the country was left untroubled.
But that’s not right. The conditions that led to 1893/1894 began a generation earlier, in 1867, when the Ukrainian army marched deep into Austria, then much weakened by its war with Prussia, and almost made it to Vienna.
But that’s not right either. I guess if one wants to start at the beginning, he would have to go way back to 1836, when Ukraine was granted autonomy within the Russian Empire. It wasn’t a revolution. It was a gradual change that lasted decades, the kind of historical process that people barely notice until one looks at a history book and realizes just how different everything has become. The Grand Duchy of Ukraine was thus little more than a political offshoot of Russia, an attempt to strengthen the latter’s development through local governance. And for the first thirty years it was just that, but a well managed grand duchy all the same. New industries were established, literacy grew at a faster pace than in the rest of Russia and, even though Ukraine remained always in Russia’s sphere of influence and an unflinching ally, within twenty years it was widely regarded as a secondary power in its own right, and people elsewhere in Europe grew to respect it as a distinct entity.
Then came 1867. Austria was locked in a death struggle with Prussia and amid the turmoil the many ethnic Ukrainians of the eastern provinces of Austria yearned for unity with their motherland. Russia was eager to see Austria humiliated but, for diplomatic reasons and because it was already fighting in China, could not intervene directly. So it gave authorization to the Ukrainian grand duke to act as an independent ruler and invade Austria with his forces alone. That would later form the precedent for complete Ukrainian independence, but at that time nothing could overshadow the nationalistic exuberance of the Ukrainian people as they flocked into their conscript regiments and poured into Galicia en masse. The Austrian defences, already on the retreat from Prussian advances, could not stem the Ukrainian tide. With Prussian and Ukrainian troops closing in on Vienna, the latter agreed to cede East Galicia to Ukraine, a rich border region with a majority Ukrainian population.
Even now, people often speak of the national optimism following that victory, until it became overshadowed by other events. But back in those carefree decades, the Ukrainian people believed anything was possible and the grand dukes were personages of unassailable worship and authority. So it was that in the 1880s, after East Galicia had been fully integrated and the government had focused on raising a navy, Ukrainians engaged in colonialism in the East Indies. First Aceh was made a protectorate in 1883. Then we joined Russia in a war against the Ottoman Empire, while Austria was no longer counted among the great powers. After Aceh, Brunei joined the Ukrainian colonies in 1887 and, at around the same time, the grand duchy got in a war with China over Formosa. Though the island was won in 1890, it came at an ominous cost: our alliance with Russia. The latter had declared war on China first and had asked our grand duke for assistance. But he, wishing for some peace after the Brunei War, neglected to answer the call in time and only opportunistically dragged the country into a separate war a few months later, much to Russia’s chagrin.
The resulting crisis in confidence, at the higher level of the grand duchy’s policy makers, resulted in the institution of an elected parliament, to share responsibility. The first elections placed the Radical Faction in power, and it was allowed to govern for over a year, during which time the bourgeois reveled in low taxes and diminished governmental oversight of businesses; but the rising unemployment prompted the grand duke to appoint the more reactionary Nationalist Faction in power in 1892. The events of the next years would taint both those parties in the public consciousness, and leave them out of office for the next decades.
In the spring of 1893, the Ukrainian government, taunted into action by the Radical opposition, pushed in international circles for Ukraine to be recognized as one of the great powers of Europe. Their efforts were successful but left St. Petersburg bitter and Russian guarantees were lifted from Ukraine as a result.
Soon afterwards, Austria invaded.
The war lasted just over a year. Ukraine had only 32 brigades in its standing army, 6 of which were in the East Indies. Its Black Sea fleet was comprised of only three reasonably modern ironclad battleships (the ‘Kyiv’ Battle Fleet) and some steam transports. Its only other ships were stationed in Aceh, a squadron of old commerce raiders and some more steam transports. Meanwhile, the Austrian armies were well led, well supplied, and attacked across the front in a coordinated manner. Ukrainian generals, overly confident, scored some early victories, but they proved to be pyrrhic ones and soon Ukraine would be trying to pick up the pieces of its broken brigades, in a gradual retreat that would push the country to its limits.
The Battle of Ternopil, in June 1864, was the last great attempt to stop the enemy advance. Or at least that’s the story everyone chose to believe. The war would likely be lost even if we had won there. It was lost perhaps before it even started…
12 July 1894 was the day of the armistice, a day remembered by all Ukrainians as the day we had East Galicia taken away from us.
Up until then, East Galicia had been well integrated into the country and local capitalists, along with some government planning, had turned it into a very profitable industrial area, producing cement, steel, liquor and wine. Its loss was a great blow to the Ukrainian economy and prestige but even more than that: it was a blow to the people’s faith in the grand dukes.
I’m too young to remember those days clearly. I think I can remember running in open fields – we used to live in the country back then – and walking quietly around grownups whenever they were talking seriously. I didn’t like the look on their faces then, or the tone of their voice. Ah, the naïvety of childhood. And yet I think I was not more naïve than the adults who thought the country could stand up on its own against a vindictive great power...