Folktale aspects of the Ukrainian policy (a foreigner’ opinion)
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2015
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irk-123456789-1152602017-03-31T03:02:31Z Folktale aspects of the Ukrainian policy (a foreigner’ opinion) Gruszewska, S. 2015 Article Folktale aspects of the Ukrainian policy (a foreigner’ opinion) / S/ Gruszewska // Социология: теория, методы, маркетинг. — 2015. — № 2. — С. 197-205. — Бібліогр.: 9 назв. — англ. 1563-4426 http://dspace.nbuv.gov.ua/handle/123456789/115260 316.2 en Социология: теория, методы, маркетинг Iнститут соціології НАН України |
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Gruszewska, S. Folktale aspects of the Ukrainian policy (a foreigner’ opinion) Социология: теория, методы, маркетинг |
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Gruszewska, S. |
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Folktale aspects of the Ukrainian policy (a foreigner’ opinion) |
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Folktale aspects of the Ukrainian policy (a foreigner’ opinion) |
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Folktale aspects of the Ukrainian policy (a foreigner’ opinion) |
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Folktale aspects of the Ukrainian policy (a foreigner’ opinion) |
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Folktale aspects of the Ukrainian policy (a foreigner’ opinion) |
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folktale aspects of the ukrainian policy (a foreigner’ opinion) |
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Folktale aspects of the Ukrainian policy (a foreigner’ opinion) / S/ Gruszewska // Социология: теория, методы, маркетинг. — 2015. — № 2. — С. 197-205. — Бібліогр.: 9 назв. — англ. |
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Социология: теория, методы, маркетинг |
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AT gruszewskas folktaleaspectsoftheukrainianpolicyaforeigneropinion |
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2025-07-08T08:29:43Z |
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Slawomira Gruszewska
Folk tale as pects of the Ukrai nian pol icy
SLAWOMIRA GRUSZEWSKA,UDC 316.2
Doc tor habilitatus in Phi los o phy, Pro fes sor at the
Uni ver sity of Szczecin, Po land
Folktale aspects of the Ukrainian policy
(a foreigner’s opinion)
Ab stract
The pa per deals with folk tale nar ra tives of po lit i cal life in Ukraine. The au thor shows
their place in the post-So viet my tholo gised con scious ness and dem on strates the re la -
tion ship be tween ar chaic as pects of such con scious ness and au thor i tar ian or to ta l i tar -
ian po lit i cal prac tices. She de fines evo lu tion ary ten den cies of the above- men tioned
nar ra tives and proves the fact of their de struc tion un der the cur rent po lit i cal sit u a tion
in Ukraine in the context of total de-mythologisation.
Keywords: nar ra tive, folk tale model of Be ing, Trick ster, the Dragon Fighter Hero, es -
cha to log i cal myth, de-mythologisation
For a long time I have been in tently ob serv ing the pro cesses oc cur ring in the
socio-po lit i cal life of Ukraine. This is the coun try where I have passed through
my “uni ver si ties”, where I ma tured as a spe cial ist in the area of so cial psy chol ogy.
How ever, be sides per sonal rea sons for such rapt at ten tion, there is a purely po lit i -
cal rea son which is con sists in the Pol ish-Ukrai nian re la tions at the pres ent stage.
As is known, in spite of cer tain trou bles in the past, his tor i cal fates of these coun -
tries are closely con nected. Po land is look ing at the pro cesses in Ukraine as at its
com par a tively re cent post-so cial ist past. Po land ap pears as an im age of Ukraine’s
fu ture (I hope rather near) and as a lob by ist of its fur ther ad vance to wards
Euro-At lan tic struc tures. More over, these coun tries are united by their com mon
at ti tude to wards Rus sian ag gres sion and Po land’s readi ness to help Ukraine in
the re pulse to this ag gres sion.
All these (prob a bly ob vi ous) con sid er ations ex plain the ne ces sity of trac ing
the main ten den cies in the evo lu tion of Ukrai nian po lit i cal sys tem and pol icy as
such. How ever, the main prob lem through which I am go ing to ex am ine some as -
Со ци о ло гия: те о рия, ме то ды, мар ке тинг, 2015, 2 197
pects of the above-men tioned ten den cies is an nounced in the header of this pa per.
So, be fore I state this prob lem I would like to ex plain in brief the rea sons for the -
matic lo cal isa tion. Gen er ally, the prob lem of so cial my thol ogy is so “gran di ose”
that it is im pos si ble to dis cuss it within one ar ti cle. We shall us only note in this
re gard that the foun da tions of any so ci ety can not be free of cer tain myth o log i cal
strat i fi ca tions. For ex am ple, the idea of a “uni ver sal his tory” is a va ri ety of my -
tholo gised historiosophy, but socio-po lit i cal ex pe ri ence of West ern civili sa tion
as well as Eurocentrism as a type of ide ol ogy were based on this idea.
A lot of mythologemes are con tained in the ba sic prin ci ples of the West ern
socio-po lit i cal life, al though it is, in Max Weber’s opin ion, the space of “ra tio nal -
ity” [Weber, 1994]. We will not ana lyse these mythologemes in de tail now but
try to ex plain why the weight of folk tale va ri et ies in so cial my thol ogy of the west -
ern-type so ci et ies is much less than in the au thor i tar ian or to tal i tar ian ones. The
point is that the so cial my thol o gies in Eu rope and in the West ern world as a
whole have their roots in the En light en ment phi los o phy and may be sup ported
by “meta phys ics”, while au thor i tar ian or to tal i tar ian sys tems re ject the En light -
en ment pos tu lates and plunge into myth o log i cal ar cha ism. There fore, their
myth o log i cal ba sis ap pears in the form of re an i mated and mod i fied cos mic, es cha -
to log i cal myths or those re lated to an agrar ian cal en dar, etc.
The im ages of pol i ti cians, which should cor re late with these nar ra tives, are
also trans formed in ac cor dance with these myths (which in turn oversaturate
col lec tive con scious ness). In con trast to West ern rep re sen ta tives of high-level
au thor i ties, the state lead ers of the above-mentioned sys tems gov ern a coun try
up to the end of their life. Thus, they are as so ci ated with the Leader or Chief. The
gen eral type of re la tion ship be tween him and the masses was clearly ana lysed by
Slavoj Žižek (Zhizhek) who has dem on strated that the Chief and the Masses are
in re la tion ship that can be char ac ter ised as a mu tual “le git i ma tion”, i.e., the
Leader ap peals to the masses with the mes sage “I im ple ment your will”, and the
masses (the Pub lic, Na tion or Class) do not ex ist with out help of fe tish is tic rep re -
sen ta tion of this au thor ity by the Party or its Leader [Žižek, 1999: p. 147].
Ac cord ing to Max Weber’s ter mi nol ogy, such type of power-hold ing re la -
tions be longs to the “char is matic” ones. He con trasted them both with tra di -
tional (be lief in the sa cred or der of old tra di tions) and ra tio nal ones (be lief in the
in dis pens abil ity of le gal es tab lish ment in the form of bu reau cratic in sti tu tions).
In com par i son with these types of power the char is matic reign ing pro vides for
per sonal de vo tion, go ing be yond the lim its of the or di nary one, caused by the
pres ence of sa cred tal ent or val our of a cer tain per son and trust in the or der which
was found or es tab lished by this per son [Žižek, 1999: p. 569].
Therewith, it should be noted that not all varieties of political folklore are
based on the archaic myth, i. e., political folklore is more extensive than its
fabulous substrate. For example, a well-known Polish researcher of political
folklore Wojciech Łysiak thinks that any form of “political extremum”, being the
most effective form of political folklore, appears as a basis for political folklore.
Łysiak analyses folklorisation of such political figures as Władysław Gomułka,
Joseph Stalin, Edward Gierek, general Wojciech Jaruzelski, Urban and Sivák in
the Poles’ consciousness. But it is not evident from his analysis that such folklo -
198 Со ци о ло гия: те о рия, ме то ды, мар ке тинг, 2015, 2
Slawomira Gruszewska
risation occurs on the Polish ground in the cradle of the archaic myth, which
takes place in the lands of the former USSR.
One does not have to look far for ex am ples of such ar chaic mythologisation of
the Leader im age. Like a Chief in ar chaic tribes the to tal i tar ian Leader has a di -
rect re la tion to the cos mic pro cesses. Pro pa gan dis tic verses of the Sta lin ep och
have left an in ter est ing ev i dence of such “cosmologisation” of the Leader im age:
The sun is shin ing brighter
Now on the Earth,
It might have vis ited Sta lin
In his Kremlin Pal ace!
These lines may be in ter preted as a va ri ety of lit er ary met a phor, while the
state ments of North Ko rean ide olo gists that the death of Kim Jong-il has evoked
the sor row of na ture it self, that the Sun has di min ished its light as a to ken of such
grief, that a gla cier near the Leader’s na tive vil lage has bro ken up and a stork
which un timely flew to Ko rea to share this cos mic sor row has died of cold are far
from be ing fig ures of speech, but are sin cere be liefs of col lec tive con scious ness.
When ad duc ing such ex am ples, we prac ti cally ap proach the prob lem of folk tale
model of Be ing and pol i ti cians as char ac ters of the above-men tioned type of nar -
ra tive. First of all, the mat ter con cerns func tions of the Dragon Fighter Hero and
Trick ster as two ma jor types of such char ac ters, which are of ten united into one.
Thus, a Leader / Chief and pol i ti cian in gen eral within the frame work of myth o -
log i cal co or di nates turns into the “ac tor” in a two fold sense of the word — the “ac -
tor” as a fig ure and the “ac tor” as a hyp o crite of po lit i cal thea tre, who re in car nates
into his role.
As early as the mid-1990’s Levon Abrahamian, the Rus sian re searcher who
had writ ten a rather scan dal ous ar ti cle “Le nin as a Trick ster” [Abrahamian, 2005:
p. 68–88] dis cussed very suc cess fully the myth o log i cal-folklorical model of Be -
ing. He noted in this ar ti cle that in the post-So viet Rus sia a myth be comes “po lit -
i cal re al ity”, which gives birth to spe cial “myth o log i cal lead ers”. In the au thor’s
opin ion, these pe ri ods co in cide as a rule with the ep ochs of rev o lu tions, “Time of
Trou bles”, tran si tion pe ri ods, etc. On the ba sis of these ob ser va tions we can in di -
cate the ne ces sity of found ing such sci en tific dis ci pline as a “po lit i cal folklo -
ristics”, or “study of po lit i cal polklore”, which would in ves ti gate func tions, roles
and myth o log i cal im ages. With the help of these im ages pol i ti cians try to “build
them selves” into myth o log i cal nar ra tives which are en coded in the col lec tive
mem ory of a so ci ety’s mem bers.
In other words, the above dis ci pline would con sider the ac tual po lit i cal
strug gle as a strug gle of “fic tional an tag o nists”; it would see in this strug gle an
end less movie where a Hero gains a vic tory over Mon sters, gets trea sures pro -
tected by ghosts and mon sters (power, ma te rial re sources, vir tual “peo ple’s wel -
fare”, or hap pi ness for fu ture gen er a tions may play the role of such trea sures). For
ex am ple, one of the most pop u lar char ac ters of the thea tre of po lit i cal folk lore, as
we men tioned be fore, is Trick ster, whose the most gen eral char ac ter is tic is a cer -
tain “me dium po si tion on the scale”, i.e., he is am biv a lent, he “com mits both good
and evil deeds”, em body ing “po lar prop er ties of twin broth ers” [Berezkin, 2007:
p. 285]. El e ments of a car ni val and buf foon ery may be an out ward trait of his be -
hav iour, though it is not nec es sary. Tak ing into con sid er ation the fact that his
Со ци о ло гия: те о рия, ме то ды, мар ке тинг, 2015, 2 199
Folk tale as pects of the Ukrai nian pol icy
Twin may be pre sented by a “folk loric fool”, a true Trick ster need not cor re spond
these clichés. (A fig ure of Nikita Khrush chev may serve as an ex am ple of the
“folk loric fool”. How ever, he was not able to be come a true Trick ster; case in
point is only in his im age in the col lec tive con scious ness).
Thus, the ba sic sign of a Trick ster is rather the aim at a trick (that fol lows
from et y mol ogy) than avail abil ity of ex te rior at trib utes, but the trick should be
suc cess ful. Hence it should be noted that trick ster is a suc cess ful char ac ter, his
fail ures are, as a rule, tem po rary and fleet ing! A clas sic ex am ple of a trick -
ster-pol i ti cian is the fig ure of Le nin, and we com pletely agree with Levon
Abrahamian in this case. El e ments of be hav iour typ i cal of a trick ster are also ob -
served in the fig ure of Sta lin, whose im age (de spite the wide spread idea) is not to -
tally de prived of the sce nario of “po lit i cal trickstership”; it is dis tin guished by
car ni val fea tures, that is clearly de fined in the works by Vladi mir Kormer
[Kormer, 2009: p. 125]. How ever, Sta lin ex tends con sid er ably the myth o log i cal
com po nent of his own im age, pre tend ing to the role of the “ma gi cian-in-chief”
who is able to trans form re al ity in ac cor dance with his Plan. When clar i fy ing this
idea, a con tem po rary re searcher Michail Weiskopf states that Sta lin also as pired
to ex er cise con trol over nat u ral phe nom ena. The ex am ple of such socio-nat u ral
phe nom e non was the “re cord har vest” that also could be achieved (within so cial
imag i na tion) thanks to magic abil i ties of the leader-tzar. This theme was de ve -
loped by J. Frazer in his clas si cal works.
Sta lin’s treat ment of his po lit i cal op po nents (or “en e mies of the peo ple”) is an
in ter est ing as pect of en tire cosmologisation of so cial con scious ness. The au thor
(M.Weiskopf) in ter prets them in the light of sym bols pres ent in the agrar ian cal -
en dar. There he notes, in par tic u lar: “Taken at an an gle of the sym bols re lated to
an agrar ian cal en dar, his (Sta lin’s) bat tles with op po si tion as if il lus trate the fight
be tween Spring and Win ter, fre quently de scribed in folk lore and rep re sented re -
spec tively as cheer ful youth and se nil ity crawl ing in the dusk” [Weiskopf, 2002:
p. 327]. Agrar ian mo tifs also come to light in other my tholo gised in ter pre ta tions
of so cial phe nom ena as sum ing re ally gro tesque forms in to day’s com pre hen sion.
For ex am ple, how can one ana lyse such a phe nom e non as “the ku laks”, us ing such
a sym bol ism? That is as fol lows: “As is the cus tom, the chthonic evil spirit wakes
up in spring, to gether with all the na ture. At the be gin ning of 1928 Sta lin an -
nounces that ‘the ku lak’ sprouts out of soil like all seeds” [Weiskopf, 2002: p. 340].
The above-men tioned agrar ian my thol ogy, or “veg e ta tive forms of the per -
cep tion of life” ap pears in the main as a pro jec tions not only to neg a tive so cial
phe nom ena (that is “en e mies of the peo ple”) but also to the life of so ci ety as a
whole: “Ba si cally, life in the So viet Un ion rep re sents some kind of con tin u ous
cir cu la tion of cad res which rise from the earth and, pass ing through their sa cral
con cen tra tion, come back to its depths in or der to give place to their im proved
suc ces sors” [Weiskopf, 2002: p. 341].
The theme of to tal mythologisation of so cial con scious ness and po lit i cal life
in Sta lin’s ep och is rather in ter est ing, but we can not de vote so much at ten tion to
it. Be fore pass ing on to il lus tra tions of sim i lar pro cesses in Ukraine let us note
that the fur ther So viet and Rus sian his tory is also rich in myth o log i cal com po -
nents, al though de prived of its to tal and all-em brac ing char ac ter. As it was pre vi -
ously men tioned, Nikita Khrush chev tried to re pro duce the fea tures typ i cal of a
200 Со ци о ло гия: те о рия, ме то ды, мар ке тинг, 2015, 2
Slawomira Gruszewska
trick ster. Later they were suc cess fully in her ited by Boris Yeltsin. The im age of
Belarusian leader Aleksandr Lukashenko has un doubt edly such fea tures (they
were in di cated by a Pol ish re searcher Jan Prokopiuk in terms of a wider con text
of the folklorisation of this im age) [Prokopiuk, 2001; p. 37–47]. The cur rent pres -
i dent of Rus sia Vladi mir Putin, in the frame work of the Rus sian es cha to log i cal
myth, has as sumed the role of the Dragon Fighter Hero, who is fight ing now a days
with the chthonic forces per son i fied by the United States, Ukrai nian fas cists,
“Jews-Banderaists”, etc. Thus, the ex am ple of Rus sia clearly dem on strates how
dan ger ous can be the to tal mythologisation of so cial con scious ness and what cat -
a strophic con se quences can it lead to. But the cur rent Rus sian re al ity is rather a
sep a rate theme, that is why we re turn to Ukrai nian realias.
In my opin ion, the fic ti tious plot about Power in Ukraine started from the
move ment “Ukraine with out Kuchma” and rested upon the fol low ing mytho -
logemes:
1. Myth about theft. This myth started its life in the USSR in the last years of
“peres troika” (re struc tur ing) pe riod and ob tained the name of the “lum pen myth
about Power” (this term was first pro posed by O.V. Chernyshov and sup ported
by S.Yu. Nekliudov, a well-known spe cial ist in the study of folk lore). The mat ter
con cerns, first of all, the theft of the ma te rial wel fare from pop u la tion; the Au -
thor i ties (Power) and bu reau cracy as its vis i ble em bodi ment ap pear in the role of
thieves. Tak ing into con sid er ation the pre con di tion of uni ver sal ity of this
mytho logeme in all the ter ri tory of the for mer USSR, we can say that the Op po si -
tion pro ject in Ukraine was ex clu sively based on this myth, trans formed into the
the sis about the “gang sters’ power”. This the sis en joyed a great suc cess dur ing the
pres i den tial cam paign of 2004.
2. Myth about a “false Tzar” and the fu ture Dragon Fighter Hero. In ad di -
tion to the myth about theft, col lec tive con scious ness fed on the myth about the
Res cuer who gives back the sto len wel fare, as it is in the nar ra tives about the
Hero. Ev i dently, they bore in mind not only a purely “ma te rial” as pect of the sto -
len wel fare but also its sym bolic as pects. In par tic u lar, there was a mo tif of the
“sto len coun try” as a Bride sto len by the false Groom, that is the “gang sters’
Power” as Koshchei, the lord of “the Dark King dom”.
Leonid Kuchma was an ideal fig ure for the role of such Koshchei (I re peat
that we rather say about the char ac ter of the so cial myth o log i cal nar ra tive than
about the real pol i ti cian). The move ment “Ukraine with out Kuchma” is the best
ev i dence of such folklorisation of the socio-po lit i cal life, think ing about so cial
ren o va tion in the sym bols of the cos mic-cal en dar cy cle of na ture. Thus, in the
frame work of such think ing pro test ac tions co in cide with the rites of ban ish ment
of Win ter and in vi ta tion of Spring. Sim i lar ac tions took place in the sit u a tion of
so-called “pub lic trial” on Kuchma dur ing Shrovetide, when a straw man which
per son i fied Kuchma was burnt like it was in the rite of burn ing the straw fig ure
sym bol is ing Death / Win ter.
3. Es cha to log i cal myth and folk uto pia about the ad vent of the “King dom
of Good”. At last, the mes si anic ex pec ta tions could not help but rest on the es -
cha to log i cal myth about the fi nal duel with the Forces of Evil and tran si tion to
the King dom of Good and Jus tice, to the myth o log i cal Golden Age. In the con -
Со ци о ло гия: те о рия, ме то ды, мар ке тинг, 2015, 2 201
Folk tale as pects of the Ukrai nian pol icy
text of this es cha to log i cal ex pec ta tion col lec tive con scious ness waited for the ad -
vent of the Fairytale Hero who would per form his Dragon-Fight ing mis sion.
These ex pec ta tions were “ma teri al ised” in the fig ure of Vic tor Yushchenko
(how ever, a short time later he dem on strated ab so lute dis cor dance with this
role). But in the pe riod of Maidan-2004 he could man age this role, while Yulia
Tymoshenko played the part of a “smart Bride”, aban don ing the role of the Vir gin
War rior (Jeanne d’Arc).
In the above con text, we can in ter pret “Maidan-2004” as Uto pia of the real -
ised “Golden Age”, as cel e bra tion of ex pe ri enc ing “communitas” state and car ni -
val “mille nar ian lib er a tion” where the anti-struc tural, ab surd or i gin was con -
trasted with se ri ous ness of the Struc ture, which was dem on strated in clas si cal
works by Vic tor Turner [Turner, 1983]. Mille nar ian sym bol ism of the Maidan re -
veals it self in the fact that the lat ter was con gre gated al most un ex pect edly and
so cial trans for ma tion was in stan ta neous (which cor re sponds com pletely to the
ty po logi cal char ac ter is tics of mille nar ian con scious ness pre sented by Igor Kon, a
well-known re searcher of the mille nar ian myth). This in stan ta neous tran si tion
from the “aeon of Evil” to the “aeon of Good” was fa voured to a cer tain ex tent by
col lec tive mes si anic ex pec ta tions, their pro jec tions to the fig ure of V. Yushchen -
ko. Such moods have made to per ceive all the events as a Mir a cle granted by
Higher Forces (this pe cu liar ity was also noted in I. Kon’s typology, as a mi rac u -
lous ness of the “communitas” state).
Be sides the gen eral “myth o log i cal frame” of so cial think ing in Ukraine of
that pe riod and Maidan-2004 as its high est man i fes ta tion, there were also con -
crete, real fig ures which acted in Ukraine; col lec tive con scious ness iden ti fied
them with myth o log i cal char ac ters. Yulia Tymoshenko, who had sev eral myth o -
log i cal masks-im ages, was the bright est among these fig ures. But Trick ster,
which could sim ply take the im age of the Dragon Fighter Hero un der cer tain
con di tions, was un doubt edly a dom i nat ing one. (We have al ready pointed out
that “au then tic” fic tional Trick ster some times per forms this func tion). Just this
fea ture makes it pos si ble to com pare Yulia Tymoshenko of that pe riod to Le nin,
as her fault find ers did it.
For ex am ple, reali sa tion of the fact that no laws work in his tory de ter mines
the hate of any Trick ster against “twad dle” and prop a ga tion of the “cult of ac -
tion”. Just so, Tymoshenko ad vo cated Le nin’s prin ci ple “Let us en gage in a scuf -
fle, and we shall see when the time co mes”, prop a gated a ne ces sity to start some -
thing im me di ately and al ways “seize an op por tu nity” (Le nin said “The 24th is too
early, but the 26th will be late”, and Tymoshenko’s per ma nent re frain is “Ev ery -
thing is be ing de cided to day, some thing must be done”). They both also had an
abil ity for “di a lec ti cal com bi na tion of the in com pat i ble”, e.g., com bi na tion of the
“right” and the “left” in Tymoshenko’s party pro ject and ac cen tu at ing one or an -
other com po nent de pend ing upon de mands of the time. For ex am ple, she an -
nounced: “We are cen tre-left ists!” but a bit later her party was in te grated into
cen tre-right ist and con ser va tive Eu ro pean Peo ple’s Party. We can give lots of
examples of such be hav iour which is typ i cal of a trick ster, but lack of place does
not give us such an op por tu nity.
Note only that be sides the above-men tioned at trib utes of a po lit i cal trick -
ster, his es sen tial fea ture is the so-called “Kulturträgermission”, or aim at “chang -
202 Со ци о ло гия: те о рия, ме то ды, мар ке тинг, 2015, 2
Slawomira Gruszewska
ing the world” and real is ing the “uto pia of jus tice”. In this con text Tymoshenko’s
in ter est in problematics of jus tice, be ing rather of al most cos mic than of in sti tu -
tional char ac ter, is sig nif i cant. Thus, in the con text of this “dis trib u tive uto pia”,
Tymoshenko’s slo gan “Jus tice ex ists, and it is worth fight ing for” looks rather
nat u ral. (It is known that Tymoshenko’s ap peal to ad dress the prob lem of jus tice
was qual i fied by politologists as a man i fes ta tion of pop u lism. But one can make
such con clu sions only if ig nor ing the myth o log i cal com po nent of the “Tymo -
shenko’s pro ject” and how it is com pre hended in col lec tive con scious ness). How -
ever, while al low ing for the trick ster “nu cleus” of her im age as a peo ple’s pol i ti -
cian, who acts with out re gard for con ven tional rules and, us ing some tricks,
solves in stan ta neously and mi rac u lously all so cial prob lems, the above-men -
tioned pop u lism ac quires ab so lutely other sym bolic at trib utes.
Con clu sions
I have very briefly de scribed some myth o log i cal and folk tale as pects of pol icy
in Ukraine and, par tially, in Rus sia. What con clu sions can we make in the light of
this (too in com plete) anal y sis and our ini tial the sis that the folk tale model of Be -
ing and such po lit i cal prac tices mainly take place in au thor i tar ian and to tal i tar -
ian sys tems or in the so-called “tran si tion so ci et ies”, that is in those ones where
so cial and le gal in sti tu tions do not work; thus, all so cial hopes and ex pec ta tions
are en trusted to the myth o log i cal pro jects and my tholo gised po lit i cal fig ures?
First of all, the fact that the ex am ple of pres ent-day Rus sia, where the vi o lent
mythologisation of the im age of Putin and all Rus sian pol icy oc curs, un am big u -
ously con firms our the sis. Here we can also add as an ex am ple the fig ure of
Aleksandr Lukashenko who, as pre vi ously noted, re mains not only the last dic ta -
tor in Eu rope but also the last Trick ster in the post-So viet space. So, we can
emphasise once more that true de moc ra ti sa tion is im pos si ble with out de- mytho -
logisation of col lec tive and po lit i cal con scious ness, and I agree in this re spect
with Pol ish re searcher Joanna Lepperiada who con sid ers po lit i cal folklorisation
as “a threat to de moc racy” any way [Lepperiada, 2006: p. 58–72].
And how can we eval u ate po lit i cal pro cesses in Ukraine, i. e., in the coun try
where the sec ond Maidan has hap pened, in the coun try that dreams of in te gra -
tion into Eu ro pean Un ion? From our view point, these pro cesses lead to wards the
suc ces sive de-mythologisation of its po lit i cal field and, de spite all the com pli ca -
tions, we can es ti mate them rather pos i tively. In our opin ion, these pro cesses be -
gan dur ing the rule of Viktor Yanukovych who was elected due to the chronic
tired ness of mille nar ian il lu sions and mass dis ap point ment in the first Maidan.
He fa voured to a great ex tent the de-mythologisation of so cial con scious ness
him self, be cause he had built an overtly criminalised sys tem with out any “clear -
ance” for my tholo gised ideas, since ev ery thing was ab so lutely clear.
The im pris on ment of Yulia Tymoshenko has shown that her for mer im age of
Trick ster / the Dragon Fighter Hero and Mother-Pa tron ess un der went es sen tial
trans for ma tions, since the bla tant in jus tice of her pun ish ment did not cause a
new Maidan where at least 2–3 thou sand peo ple might have con gre gated. This
fact meant not only and not so much a dis ap point ment in her fig ure as the pro cess
of de-mythologisation of the foun da tions of so cial con scious ness. As a re sult of
these pro cesses, we can note that the sec ond Maidan was de prived of any fea tures
Со ци о ло гия: те о рия, ме то ды, мар ке тинг, 2015, 2 203
Folk tale as pects of the Ukrai nian pol icy
of myth o log i cal mille nar ian hol i day, but looked like a re volt aimed at the re moval
of Yanukovych from power. In other words, Maidan-2014 was more “tech no -
logic” and se vere in char ac ter, which was con firmed by nu mer ous vic tims among
pro test par tic i pants.
It is sig nif i cant that pol i ti cians which came to power af ter Maidan, in con -
trast to Yushchenko and Tymoshenko of 2004, be gan act ing in al ready de-my -
tholo gised field. None of them was iden ti fied with the folk tale char ac ter, there
were no mes si anic ex pec ta tions en trusted to any of them, and dis con tent with
some of them did not reach the level of ideas about cur rent rul ers as rep re sen ta -
tives of any cos mic or uni ver sal Evil. Sim i larly, there were no my tholo gised ideas
con cern ing lead ers of the op po si tion which, as we re mem ber, stood on the ros -
trum and con trolled the pro cess. The ideas about the Dragon Fighter Hero were
not pro jected to none of them, even to Volodymyr Klychko, who, though not for a
long time, em bod ied ex pec ta tions of Maidan par tic i pants as a char is matic leader,
but has not man aged to play this role.
The re turn of Yulia Tymoshenko, who went to Maidan im me di ately af ter her
re lease from prison, was also sig nif i cant. This re turn was not tri um phal, her
speech was fre quently in ter rupted, it was ev i dent that the feed back, which she
per son ally ex pected, has failed. It was as a re sult of de-mythologisation of so cial
con scious ness, as we stated be fore. Strictly fol low ing the logic of this pro cess,
Tymoshenko did not ap pear as a Trick ster, or fic ti tious Hero-Lib er a tor, or
Mother-Pa tron ess but as a pol i ti cian who had suf fered un fairly from the sys tem.
And that is all. One should un der stand only in this sense that her time (or the
time of “folk tale pol icy”) is up. The new times have come, and their ten den cies are
to be com pre hended.
The sig nif i cance of the above-de scribed pro cesses can be traced us ing the ex -
am ple of the war with Rus sian ag gres sors and lo cal sep a rat ists in the East of
Ukraine, which may be in ter preted not only as a war of po lit i cal pro jects, but also
as an op po si tion of two “mod els of Be ing”: es cha to log i cal model (“Rus sian
World” and “the Sa cred War with the West”), which is char ac ter is tic of folk -
tales, and de-my tholo gised one (in its frame work the war waged by Ukrai nian
Army for in de pend ence is rough and prag matic in char ac ter, be ing de prived of
con no ta tions of “the last duel”). The avail abil ity of such model may be con firmed
with met a phors used by the ATO (Anti-Ter ror ist Op er a tion) par tic i pants to
iden tify them selves. For ex am ple, the self-name “cy borgs” in vented by de fend ers
of Donetsk air port is gen er ally known. Ob vi ously, this name is bor rowed from
mass-me dia se man tics or Hol ly wood block bust ers and has no con cern with the
ar chaic sym bol ism of fairy tales.
More over, such names have cer tainly iron i cal con no ta tions, there fore they
are close to the “com mon sense”. Such a nick name as “the Bloody Pas tor”, which
was “awarded” to Oleksandr Turchynov, a for mer act ing Pres i dent of Ukraine
and the cur rent Sec re tary of the Na tional Se cu rity and De fence Coun cil, is also
the sign of iron i cal dis tanc ing. It is char ac ter is tic that Turchynov plays up to this
iron i cal self-name with plea sure, which is is also a sign of de cons truc tion of folk -
tale socio-po lit i cal myth in the Ukrai nian po lit i cal space.
Surely, po lit i cal re al ity of Ukraine is much more com pli cated than, for ex am -
ple, in Po land, where col lec tive con scious ness was not so much per me ated with
ar chaic ar che types, that is why the pro cess of its de-mythologisation oc curr ed
204 Со ци о ло гия: те о рия, ме то ды, мар ке тинг, 2015, 2
Slawomira Gruszewska
rel a tively quickly. But in my opin ion this pro cess is ir re vers ible and serves as
proof of the fact that the Ukrai nian na tion is ma tur ing in wardly, get ting rid of the
in fan tile com plexes of “sovok”1 and Post-So viet Man and mov ing to wards the
Eu ro pean fu ture.
Ref er ences
Abrahamian L. Le nin kak trikster (Le nin as a Trick ster) // Sovremennaia rossiiskaia
mifologiia (Mod ern Rus sian My thol ogy). — Mos cow: RGGU (Rus sian State Uni ver sity for
the Hu man i ties). — 288 p.
Berezkin Yu.Ye. Mify zaseliaiut Ameriku. Areal’noie raspredelenie folklornykh motivov i
rannie migratsii v Novyi Svet (Myths In habit Amer ica. Ar eal Dis tri bu tion of Folk loric Mo tifs
and Early Mi gra tions to the New World). — Mos cow: OGI (Joint Hu man i ties Press), 2007. —
360 p.
Kormer V. Dvoinoie soznanie intelligentsii i psevdokul’tura (The Dual Con scious ness of
the In tel li gen tsia and Pseudo-Cul ture) / V. Kormer. — Mos cow: Prog ress-Traditsiia (Pro g -
ress- Tra di tion), 2009. — 326 p.
Leperiada J.G. Folklor polityczny czy zagrożenie dla demokracji? / J.G. Leperiada //
Wyrazić niewyrażalne. Jêzykoznawstwo. — Łódź: AHE, 2006. — P. 58–72.
Prokopiuk J. Folklorystyczny wizerunek Aleksandra Łukaszenki / J. Prokopiuk // Lite -
ratura Ludowa. — 2001/2. — P. 37–47.
Turner V. Simvol i rit ual (Sym bol and Rite) / V. Turner. — Mos cow: Nauka (Sci ence),
1983. — 185 p.
Weber M. Izbrannoie. Obraz obshchestva (Selected Works. Image of Society) / M.
Weber. — Moscow: Jurist, 1994. — 724 p.
Weiskopf M. Pisatel’ Sta lin (The Writer Sta lin) / M. Weiskopf. — Мoscow: Novoie
literaturnoie obozrenie (The New Lit er ary Re view), 2002. — 384 p.
Žižek S. Vozvyshennyi ob’yekt ideologii (The Sub lime Ob ject of Ide ol ogy) / S. Žižek. —
Mos cow: Khudozhestvennyi zhurnal (Art Jour nal), 1999. — 236 p.
Trans lated by Olga Maksymenko, Tetiana Piskunova
Со ци о ло гия: те о рия, ме то ды, мар ке тинг, 2015, 2 205
Folk tale as pects of the Ukrai nian pol icy
1 “Sovok” is a term in post-Soviet slang derived from the word “Soviet”. It is a sarcastic and
critical reference to people with an ideology that was widely promoted by the socialist
governments of the Eastern bloc.
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