CULTURE'S CONSEQUENCES: The Long, Slow Slog in Ukraine.
Revealing the Hidden Cultural Reasons Behind the Daily Headlines.
Now is not the time to despair. Though the political pundits are posting as if the news of the current stalemate in Ukraine is actually…well, news, a cultural - and not just political - interpretation of the Russian war against Ukraine could see the current military stalemate in Ukraine coming. It doesn’t take much math to figure that sooner or later Ukraine would get bogged down in a grinding war of attrition, fighting against a Russian military machine - creaky, mis-managed and out-dated as it is - that far out-numbers Ukraine’s military capacities. And, on top of that, it’s strength is now being threatened by feckless western political shenanigans. So, like most of the headlines, viewing the current situation in Ukraine through a political, economic or social policy lens doesn’t fully explain what’s going on, but if we look at the Russian invasion of Ukraine through a cultural lens, the picture comes into better focus. So let’s put those cultural glasses on:
Culturally, Ukraine was, always has been, is and will be, part of the West. Russia was, always has been, is and will be, neither West nor East, but uniquely something culturally in opposition to both. And therein lies an important (cultural) clue as to how this war will turn out. Of course, historically, there have been times when (parts of) Russia leaned westward and (parts of) Ukraine leaned Russian, and there have always been political, economic and social explanations for these historical events when they happened. Nevertheless, these events were never permanent, never stuck, and always temporary precisely because they were never the result of either country’s culture. And, because both cultures also share certain superficial similarities, like Slavic ethnic roots, Cyrillic languages, and Eastern Orthodox religions, it’s been all-too-easy for non-Ukrainians and non-Russians to view the two cultures as more similar than different, lending credence to solely non-cultural interpretations of the conflict. But Ukrainian and Russian culture, beyond these superficial similarities, are, in fact, very different, and even the similarities that they do share take different forms on both sides of the Russian/Ukrainian cultural divide.
Ukrainian culture is far more individualist, focused on individual rights and freedoms; Russian culture is far more collectivist, focused on collective stability at the expense of individual rights and freedoms. (Put another way, Ukrainian wars are mainly fought for freedom; Russian wars are mainly fought for stability). Ukrainian culture is more future-focused, animated by positivist, and increasingly multi-cultural, western values; Russian culture is more focused on re-claiming past glory (real or romanticized), fatalistic and easily animated by ethno-nationalist and autocratic tendencies. A culture’s art typically reflects major cultural themes, and Ukrainian art represents a uniquely un-Russian interpretation of the Slavic “soul”, with an emphasis on humanist enlightenment, sunshine (and humor!), as opposed to Russian art that often emphasizes cultural themes rooted in mysticism, inwardness and the inevitability of sacrifice. But the most striking difference between the two is the fact that Ukrainian culture has a clearly defined identity, while Russian culture, being neither western nor eastern, is defined precisely by its struggle to find an identity. Without a clear identity, and instead with an uncertain cultural center defined not so much by what it stands for or a particular set of values and ideals, but rather what it is not, Russia has historically looked to oppose itself against “others” in an effort to find itself. The result historically has often been a nation at war with its neighbors, fueled by aggressor-aggrievement resentment.
Unfortunately for Ukraine, it is an immediate neighbor to Russia, and coincidentally, rich with the kind of history and resources that Russia jealously covets. Ukraine’s repeated resistance to Russian domination insults Russian pride; its ability as “Russia’s breadbasket” to feed the Russian people, can, in the Russian mind, only mean that Ukrainians are really Russian, and not a separate people. Perhaps most infuriatingly, Ukraine’s historical role as the place where Christianity first entered the Slavic world presents an eternally inconvenient truth for Russia: that it was a Christian Ukraine that brought Eastern Orthodoxy to the pagan Rus. (Saints Methodius and Cyril in the eighth century A.D. first brought Christianity to Kiev, the Ukrainian capital, establishing Kiev as the base of Slavic Eastern Orthodoxy, not Moscow or Saint Petersburgh). These cultural differences are at the root of the sad, repetitive conflicts between Ukraine and Russia: an aggrieved Goliath projecting its cultural insecurities onto its neighbors, all too often resulting in war cast as as a redemption for perceived aggrievement.
There’s a whole lot of bad news in all this, but there’s also a big silver lining:
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