TOGETHER TO THE FUTURE OR NATIONALISM WITHOUT RESSENTIMENT

A modest by its scale but an essential by its symbolic meaning action was held on August 18. On this day Ukrainian and Polish nationalists mutually commemorated the victims of ethnic conflict of the Second World War times. The Ukrainian nationalists (representatives of the Azov movement) laid flowers at the memorial to Poles, who died in 1943 in the village Pavlivka in the Volyn region. The representatives of Polish nationalists movement have held a similar action, during which they commemorated the Ukrainians, who died in 1945 in the village of Piskorowice in Podkarpacky region.

In this way the Ukrainian and Polish nationalists have shown their readiness to build the future together rather than continue to focus on the painful pages of the past. Both Ukrainians and Poles have their own heroes and victims, but this would be extremely unwise to sacrifice our future in the name of the past.

In fact the tragedy behind the Ukrainian-Polish confrontation of 40's has much deeper sense because there was almost no way to avoid it (the conflict). Under these conditions the most logical would be complete cessation of disputes on "who was more guilty" with further mutual public asking for forgiveness; after that we will be able to turn this page and begin to work together for the good of our nations and whole Europe.

For a long time the nationalists in both our countries have been stood aside the Polish-Ukrainian dialogue, and this was a strategic mistake, which, given today's order of things, has be fixed as quickly as possible. After rejecting the principles of extreme national particularism and selfishness (which has already been completely discredited by history itself) exactly the nationalists have to offer a roadmap to the future to both the nations.

The Ukrainian part of the mutual action, conducted by the Azov movement, in particular casts the light on a significant problem which is inherent to a certain segment of Ukrainian society - the problem of ressentiment (this problem is also inherent to some parts of Polish society, but in a slightly different perspective). Certainly, there are cases when ressentiment can be justified, but now it does more harm than good. Instead of thinking about the implementation of far-reaching plans, thousands of Ukrainian patriots are continuing to act in terms of opposition to the "historical enemies."

Therefore, the mutual commemoration action on August 18 is important not only in terms of Ukrainian-Polish consolidation, but also in the plane of mental therapy of Ukrainian society. After all, the first and the second are interrelated things. The Ukrainian-Polish consolidation is an important step in the Intermarium creation. The Intermarium - is a geopolitical alliance, which will provide a great posibility for Ukraine to gain truly national, self-sufficient and imperial features. So the key for the nation is to create such polithical elites, which wouldn't be overloaded with ressentiment. We hope that the process of formation of such elites, which are acutely aware the narrower needs of national life as well as today's realities in both the European and global scales, has been already launched indeed.

by Igor Zagrebelny