2022.03.02 乌克兰英雄的简史

shiyi18

EYEWITNESS
A brief history of Ukrainian heroes
The country used to lack national myths. Now they’re everywhere



Mar 2nd 2022
BY ANDREY KURKOV

Before the war Ukrainian teenagers liked to text each other photos of Russian rappers. Now the image circulating on their phones is of a faceless man in a helmet, the so-called “ghost of Kyiv”. This legend was born on the second day of the Russian invasion. An unknown pilot was said to be patrolling the skies over Kyiv in an old Soviet mig-29. As of Tuesday morning, he had supposedly shot down at least ten Russian fighter jets. Though the ministry of defence has insisted the spectral ace is real, corroborating evidence is scarce – some videos purportedly showing him in action turned out to be culled from computer games.

Other memes are flowing back and forth: the soldiers on Snake Island who responded to a warship’s call to surrender by telling the Russians to “go fuck yourselves”; Vitaly Skakun, the sapper who volunteered to mine the bridge to Genichesk as a column of Russian tanks approached and got blown up in the process (the Russian army still captured the city). Even the president, Volodymyr Zelensky, has become cooler than St Petersburg grime with his defiant videos on social media.

Since it gained independence in 1991, Ukraine has struggled to find heroes around whom to build a national myth. The ones that history has passed down to us don’t quite work, for various reasons. But the past few days have generated dozens. There is something fitting about the fact that the most romantic of them, the ghost pilot, may not even be real. If these heroes didn’t exist we’d have to invent them. Right now it feels like courage is all that stands between us and total obliteration.





I’m not a soldier. When I did national service in the army I was a prison guard. I can dig trenches but I’m over 60. I know my front is the information war. Nonetheless, I have to stay in Ukraine. And people like Skakun, the sapper, make me think I don’t have to run. They give me a sense of safety, even though they’re fighting far away from me. They help me feel that Ukraine will stand.

Many of the plinths in Kyiv where people might look for patriotic inspiration are occupied by figures who now seem obscure, divisive or unloved. Ukraine’s difficulty in finding national heroes reflects its chequered past. We are a multi-ethnic, multi-linguistic society that various great powers have tussled over – the Polish-Lithuanian commonwealth, the Tsarist empire, the Nazis. What one part of the country sees as bravery another might see as treachery or oppression. Ukrainians don’t like having anything imposed on them, least of all heroes.

True, few people have anything against the national poet, Taras Shevchenko. But he was exiled by the Tsarist imperial police in the 19th century for his patriotic verses, and victims rarely make good heroes, especially for a people at war.





The Soviets tried to make Bogdan Khmelnytsky into a national figure. This 17th-century Cossack army leader was a useful symbol for the Kremlin: he famously invited the Russians into the country, formally asking the tsar in 1654 to help him fight the Poles. Soon afterwards, the tsar banned the Cossack army and the Ukrainian territories lost their independence. A monument to Khmelnytsky stands in the centre of Kyiv’s old city on Sofiyskaya Square, right next to my house. It hasn’t been vandalised since Ukraine declared independence from the Soviet Union in 1991. But nobody brings flowers to it either. It does not help that his supporters killed thousands of Ukrainian Jews, whom they accused of being in league with Poland.

Right now it feels like courage is all that stands between us and total obliteration

The most controversial Ukrainian “hero” is Stepan Bandera, an ultra-nationalist who welcomed the Nazis to Ukraine in 1941 because he wanted to rid the country of communists. His obsession with Ukrainian independence eventually led the Nazis to send him to a concentration camp, where he spent most of the war. Afterwards he settled in Munich and was assassinated by a kgb agent in 1959. Many Ukrainians appreciate his dedication to the country’s independence (some volunteer forces now fighting Putin have re-christened Molotov cocktails “Bandera smoothies”). Others remain appalled by the violence his followers committed.

More recent attempts at national myth-making have been no more successful. For a brief moment Viktor Yushchenko looked like he might have the right ingredients. When he stood against the Kremlin’s candidate, Viktor Yanukovich, in elections in 2004, he was poisoned and left permanently disfigured. The ensuing wave of outrage became known as the “Orange Revolution”, which prompted a re-run of the vote. After Yushchenko was elected president, however, he was only too ready to compromise with the old order.





The Maidan uprising in 2014 might have produced someone better. A military pilot and captain in the Ukrainian army, Nadezhda Savchenko, was taken prisoner by the Russians who put her on trial in Moscow, where she swore at the judge and refused to recognise the court’s authority. She became a member of parliament upon her release, yet was a perplexing political figure, at times advocating friendship with Donbas separatists. Some thought the Russians had turned her. Today she is completely forgotten.

Will there be statues of Zelensky one day? Will people visit them? Perhaps we will no longer be stuck in Ukraine’s endless cycle of heroes turned anti-heroes. Since 1991 Ukraine has been an independent country for the first time since Khmelnytsky’s heyday in the 17th century. Our people value that independence above all else.

I’m not a soldier. Heroes like the sapper make me feel I don’t have to run

Even many who don’t like Zelensky’s government or Ukraine’s political system are willing to fight for it rather than see Ukraine crushed by an outside power. If this war’s heroes do things that later tarnish their reputations, the sheer bravery of these days will live on. I think people will remember the name of the sapper, Vitaly Skakun. We will build a new national identity around him.■

Andrey Kurkov is a Ukrainian writer. His most recent novel is “Grey Bees” (Deep Vellum/MacLehose Press)

PHOTOGRAPHS: RON HAVIV / VII



眼见为实
乌克兰英雄的简史
这个国家曾经缺乏民族神话。现在它们无处不在



2022年3月2日
作者：Andrey Kurkov


战前，乌克兰青少年喜欢给对方发俄罗斯说唱歌手的照片。现在，他们手机上流传的图像是一个戴着头盔的无脸男人，即所谓的 "基辅幽灵"。这个传说是在俄罗斯入侵的第二天诞生的。据说一位不知名的飞行员驾驶着一架老式苏联米格-29在基辅上空巡逻。截至周二上午，据说他已经击落了至少10架俄罗斯战斗机。尽管国防部坚持认为这个幽灵般的王牌是真实的，但确凿的证据很少--一些据称显示他在行动中的视频被证明是从电脑游戏中摘取的。

其他的备忘录也在来回流传：在蛇岛的士兵对军舰的投降号召做出回应，告诉俄罗斯人 "去死吧"；当俄罗斯坦克纵队接近时，工兵维塔利-斯卡昆自愿在杰尼切斯克的桥上布雷，并在此过程中被炸死（俄罗斯军队仍然占领了该市）。即使是总统沃洛基米尔-泽伦斯基(Volodymyr Zelensky)，也因其在社交媒体上的挑衅视频而变得比圣彼得堡的污垢更酷。

自1991年获得独立以来，乌克兰一直在努力寻找英雄，围绕他们建立一个民族神话。由于各种原因，历史传给我们的那些英雄并不完全有效。但在过去的几天里，已经产生了几十个。其中最浪漫的幽灵飞行员甚至可能不是真实存在的，这一点很合适。如果这些英雄不存在，我们就必须发明他们。现在，我们感觉勇气是我们与彻底毁灭之间的唯一障碍。









我不是一个士兵。当我在军队服役时，我是一名狱警。我可以挖战壕，但我已经60多岁了。我知道我的战线是信息战。尽管如此，我还是要留在乌克兰。而像工兵Skakun这样的人，让我觉得我不需要逃跑。他们给我一种安全感，尽管他们在离我很远的地方作战。他们让我觉得乌克兰会站起来。

在基辅，人们可能会寻找爱国主义灵感的许多基座都被那些现在看起来晦涩难懂、存在分歧或不受欢迎的人物占据。乌克兰在寻找民族英雄方面的困难反映了其不稳定的过去。我们是一个多民族、多语言的社会，各种大国都曾为之争斗过--波兰-立陶宛联邦、沙皇帝国、纳粹。这个国家的一部分人认为是勇敢的，另一部分人可能认为是背叛或压迫。乌克兰人不喜欢有任何东西强加给他们，尤其是英雄。

的确，很少有人反对民族诗人塔拉斯-舍甫琴科。但他在19世纪因其爱国诗篇而被沙皇帝国警察流放，而受害者很少成为好的英雄，特别是对一个处于战争中的民族来说。









苏联人试图将波格丹-赫梅利尼茨基打造成一个民族人物。这位17世纪的哥萨克军队领袖是克里姆林宫的一个有用的象征：他著名地邀请俄罗斯人进入该国，在1654年正式请求沙皇帮助他打击波兰人。此后不久，沙皇禁止了哥萨克军队，乌克兰领土失去了独立。赫梅利尼茨基的纪念碑矗立在基辅老城中心的索菲亚广场上，就在我家旁边。自1991年乌克兰宣布从苏联独立以来，它没有被破坏过。但也没有人给它带去鲜花。他的支持者杀害了数以千计的乌克兰犹太人，他们指责这些人与波兰结盟，这并没有什么帮助。

眼下，感觉勇气是我们与彻底湮灭之间的唯一障碍

最有争议的乌克兰 "英雄 "是斯捷潘-班德拉（Stepan Bandera），他是一个极端的民族主义者，在1941年欢迎纳粹进入乌克兰，因为他想摆脱这个国家的共产主义者。他对乌克兰独立的痴迷最终导致纳粹将他送入集中营，他在那里度过了战争的大部分时间。此后，他在慕尼黑定居，并于1959年被一名公斤级特工暗杀。许多乌克兰人赞赏他对国家独立的奉献精神（现在与普京作战的一些志愿部队将莫洛托夫鸡尾酒重新命名为 "班德拉冰沙"）。其他人则对他的追随者所实施的暴力感到震惊。

最近的国家神话制造尝试也没有更成功。维克多-尤先科(Viktor Yushchenko)曾有一个短暂的时刻，看起来他可能拥有正确的成分。当他在2004年的选举中与克里姆林宫的候选人维克多-亚努科维奇(Viktor Yanukovich)竞争时，他被毒死并留下了永久的毁容。随之而来的愤怒浪潮被称为 "橙色革命"，这促使了投票的重新进行。然而，尤先科当选总统后，他非常愿意与旧秩序妥协。









2014年的Maidan起义可能会产生更好的人选。乌克兰军队的一名军事飞行员和上尉娜杰日达-萨夫琴科（Nadezhda Savchenko）被俄罗斯人俘虏，在莫斯科受审，她向法官发誓并拒绝承认法院的权威。她获释后成为议会成员，但却是一个令人困惑的政治人物，有时主张与顿巴斯分离主义分子建立友谊。有人认为俄罗斯人策反了她。今天，她已被完全遗忘。

有一天会有泽伦斯基的雕像吗？人们会去参观它们吗？也许我们将不再陷于乌克兰无休止的英雄变反英雄的循环。自1991年以来，乌克兰自17世纪赫梅利尼茨基的全盛时期以来首次成为一个独立国家。我们的人民把这种独立看得比什么都重要。

我不是一个士兵。像工兵这样的英雄让我觉得我不用跑了

即使许多不喜欢泽伦斯基的政府或乌克兰的政治制度的人也愿意为它而战，而不是看到乌克兰被一个外部势力压垮。如果这场战争的英雄们所做的事情后来玷污了他们的名誉，那么这些天的纯粹勇敢将永存。我想人们会记住工兵维塔利-斯卡昆的名字。我们将围绕他建立一个新的民族身份。

安德烈-库尔科夫是一名乌克兰作家。他最近的小说是《灰蜂》（Deep Vellum/MacLehose出版社）。

照片：Ron HAVIV/VII