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1 New generation and subjectivities
The section begins by discussing the conditions for young people’s political transformation in the years preceding Ukrainian Independence. During the late 1980s, Communist Ukraine was undergoing social and political change as a result of Mikhail Gorbachev’s policies of perestroika and glasnost, which will be discussed further below. These reforms had an effect on university students and their rejection of official student organizations set up by the Communist Party such as Komsomol. Students in Komsomol were “encouraged” to join as members and were presented with “authoritative discourse” (Yurchak, 2006, pp. 80–1). The purpose of these youth organizations was to mobilize young people “…for implementation of party politics, education, and training people in the spirit of communism” (Taylor, 2006, p. 25). The subversive action of one university student was influenced amidst these social changes. I am providing a description of his experience as an example to highlight the important role of alternative student associations and the strengthening of an opposition culture in the region of Western Ukraine. The student’s narrative represents one account of many that I interviewed with similar experiences. It was for this reason that I chose to highlight it to more clearly illustrate the democratization processes occurring from within the State universities during a period of transition in the Soviet Union. The student actions described towards establishing alternative youth organizations mattered in their effects of empowering young people in opposition to the Marxist ideologies connected with the Komsomol organization. New youth associations such as the Student Brotherhood, introduced below, provided an alternative space, a Christian context, for students to transform politically and to create networks between new association groups. The network of these young people would be activated in the period of the 1990 student hunger strikes in Kyiv. The students tied to this student movement were also members of youth organizations that emerged in this period. The young people in the movement would also later reappear as civic activists in support of democratic change in the protests examined in the book following Ukrainian independence.
Ivan Franko National University of Lviv
This section will focus on the activities of a new generation and take a closer look into their founding of new youth organizations and their impact on challenging the control of the Ukrainian Communist Party’s in universities. To take an example of how student associations were created as an alternative to official groups, we will look at a case for analysis. This one considers Taras Dubko’s experience. In 1989, Dubko was a student at Ivan Franko National University of Lviv. He was a founding member of Student Brotherhood in his department at the university. He and his friends were already members of the larger Student Brotherhood in Lviv and wanted to create a Christian association in his faculty of mathematics and mechanics. He was attracted to the Student Brotherhood since it promoted itself “…as an alternative to all official student organizations at that time in the department” (author’s interview, Taras Dubko, March 17, 2009). Dubko and others wanted to establish the Student Brotherhood as an official organization of the university and not an underground movement. In order to do so, Dubko and his friends went to the Dean and made a declaration about the existence of the Student Brotherhood association at their faculty. He recalled that the Dean of Students was open-minded and also understood the risks involved with a youth movement, especially during a period of time when the KGB was still operating in the USSR (Ibid., 2009).
Student Brotherhood functioned as a political group, and Dubko had participated in creating its structure at the university. To illustrate political activities, one example of the group’s initiative was a public protest against the study of philosophy, which, at their university, was Marxism. The group convinced their Dean to cancel a philosophy class for second year students. The assistant to the Dean also agreed and the class was no longer considered a required course. The students staged similar actions to remove another class called Scientific Communism from the list of required classes, and over time it was no longer offered. The students also organized other larger protests in direct opposition to Komsomol. The primary reason for Dubko and other students’ participation in Student Brotherhood was the organization’s positioning as an alternative to Komsomol. As an act of protest against their membership in this official organization, Dubko and his friends held a public protest event to turn in their [Komsomol] membership cards. This event signaled a change in students’ behavior displayed in overt acts of withdrawing from the official youth organization. Afterwards, Dubko remembered being approached by older members of Komsomol and receiving encouragement from them to apply the students’ energy towards reviving the organization. Dubko explained his inner response to their request, which was conveyed in his words, “we believed this is not our mission to revive Komsomol. Other institutions should be instituted” (Ibid., 2009).
This period of time was active with protests and strikes in Lviv. A few events were organized to oppose the referendum to preserve the USSR. Dubko also spoke about efforts by the authorities to silence the activists and the effect of these efforts to serve as an impetus that motivated more students to attend the strikes. In Student Brotherhood at his university, Dubko said that the students were quite independent to organize activities of protests. Students there did not need the university’s approval for their actions. The students exercised independence from the university and the Communist Party. A good example that further demonstrated this change of mindset was a spontaneous music festival event organized by young people. Dubko and his friends from Student Brotherhood attended the second event of Chervona Ruta in Zaporizhia. It was promoted as an alternative to the official music contest of the Communist Party. At this event, Dubko got inspired by the young people’s creativity expressed in the event, which produced for him a feeling that new consciousness was possible for students. Dubko attended the festival as “a way of opposing, a way of affirming that is there is some kind of new reality” (Ibid., 2009). Students like Dubko experienced a form of shared solidarity in this alternative music event. It was a symbolic period of transformation on the part of young people who were expressing their freedom in culture as an outlet to reject Communism.
1990
On 20–21 February 1990, Ukrainian university students organized a series of political strikes against the government authorities to put forth demands for education grants, a suspension of military education, the removal of Komsomol from education institutions, and an end to student repression. This anti-government movement took shape under the auspices of a congress in Lviv from 23–25 February 1990. At this congress, the students launched the Confederation of Student Organizations of Ukraine, “an umbrella group” that brought together for cooperation the Ukraine Students’ Union and Student Brotherhood, a fraternity for students. The participants of the congress created a radical platform to vocalize support for the development of a student movement in Ukraine to build pressure for the closure of the Komsomol. The student movement promoted the use of national symbols to raise the national consciousness of young people. Student Brotherhood and Ukrainian Students’ Union officially merged on 30–31 March 1991 into a single entity, the Union of Ukrainian Students (Kuzio and Wilson, 1994, p. 146; Emeran, 2011, p. 41). On 26–27 May 1990, a second inaugural congress was organized by the youth wing of Ukrainian Helsinki Union (UHU) and The Association of Independent Ukrainian Youth (SNUM) in Ivano Frankivsk. In attendance were 205 delegates and 2,000 representatives. This congress erupted in disputes between its radicals and moderate members, with the former separating in order to form the SNUM-nationalists and the Ukrainian Nationalist Union (UNU) six months later. Both groups joined Ukrainian Inter-Party Assembly and took control as the other groups departed. SNUM was a political civic youth group, described as an alternative to Komsomol, which worked toward Ukrainian independence (Kuzio and Wilson, 1994, pp. 146–7). Another group established at this time was Plast, a scouting organization, which previously existed in pre-war Western Ukraine and persisted as an organization outside of Ukraine’s border until independence. On 16 December 1989, Plast launched its inaugural congress (Kuzio and Wilson, 1994, p. 147).
Lviv Student Brotherhood and Kyiv’s Ukrainian Students’ Union, a total of 150 students, organized hunger strikes in Kyiv from 2–16 October 1990. The students put forth demands for the Prime Minister Masol’s resignation, new parliamentary elections representing multiple parties, military service only in Ukraine, the nationalization of the property of CPU and Komsomol, and an opposition to Union Treaty with Moscow. The authorities grew aware of their activities when the hunger strikes were initiated. Ukrainian Student Union’s Kyiv branch had received the public’s support during the occupation of Kyiv’s central Square of the October Revolution (renamed by the opposition as Independence Square) and staged hunger strikes in October 1990 (Revolution on the Granite). The students’ political activity attracted the attention of the Communist Party’s hardliners who did not seek to appease the students; rather they followed a strategy of force to remove them. Cultural figures, democrats, and Kyiv’s members of city council responded in support of the students. Even Ministry of Internal Affairs, General Nedryhailo set up meetings with the students on strike and gave them assurances of police support and protection against their forced dispersal (Kuzio and Wilson, 1994, p. 161; Emeran, 2011, pp. 42–3). Student efforts to mobilize were assisted by invitations to address parliament and media coverage. The ability of students to disrupt the “political deadlock” was marked by an address of their leader, Oles Donii, to Ukrainian parliament and on television. He made pleas to urge students to go on strike and to occupy university buildings. Later that evening, in solidarity, the students from Kyiv University occupied the main building on its campus and “raised a blue and yellow flag over it” (author’s interview, Gusak, 2008, Kyiv; Emeran, 2011, p. 43).
The political problem of student strikes and their consolidation of public support was the subject of a closed meeting of the CPU. Documents from the CPU reported that the Party had realized that by not negotiating with the students, they had “lost an important battle” (author’s interview, Gusak, 2008, Kyiv; Emeran, 2011, p. 44). In hindsight, the authorities missed their opportunity to negotiate that may have prevented the students from “…mobiliz [ing] mass public support” (Nahaylo, 1999, p. 315; Emeran, 2011, p. 45). As for the student activists, they were successful in getting most of their demands met, except for Parliament’s dissolution. Overall, student activists felt that the Communist Party betrayed them when the student movement was at its peak. Students expressed that they might have had an opportunity to change the Communist elite system into a new one. Overall, this realization of a partial defeat continued to disappoint them years later (author’s interview, Gusak, 2008, Kyiv). As summarized by Markian Rushchyshyn, a supporter of the revolution:
We did not reach what we needed. We did not bring new quality to the politic at that time. We just had a small victory. We passed our victory to people who cannot manage. Then our gains disappeared. On the other hand, without this revolution, I can say for certain that we would not have the result of independence for Ukraine. With this revolution [on the Granite] we forced people out of their fear into creating something out of Moscow’s putsch. People already knew that there were forces that want independence for Ukraine. They could decide to connect to them or to help them. But showed them that young people are 100 percent for the independence of Ukraine. There is no other way for development of Ukraine.
(author’s interview, Rushchyshyn, 2009, Lviv; Emeran, 2011, p. 44)
A knowledge of this history of youth as an opposition force was important to understanding the processes that led former students from the 1990 student hunger strikes to reemerge as leaders in the “Ukraine without Kuchma” protest. This campaign of protest was structured into four main groups. One group was represented by Volodymyr Cherymyrs, Yuriy Lutsenko, and Mykailo Svystovych. A second group was led by Viacheslav Kyrylenko, a leader in the youth wing of political party Ukrainian People’s Party, which was called “Youth Party of Ukraine.” A third group was coordinated by Oles Donii with the political party “Bativshchyna” of Yulia Tymoshenko. The last was made up of a political party named “Party of Reforms and Order,” which included Vladyslav Kaskiv with his Freedom of Choice Coalition of Ukrainian NGOs. This last group was composed of mobilized students in the “All Ukrainian Public Resistance Committee for Truth.” All the meetings of the Committee “For Truth” were held in the offices of “Party of Reforms and Order.” Lastly, the leaders of these groups were former students who had participated in the 1990 student hunger strikes in Kyiv (author’s interview, Kryvdyk, 2008, Kyiv).
New generation activists
The actors that I traced in the first wave of protests (2000–2001) were veteran activists from the 1990 student hunger strikes (“Revolution on Granite”) in Kyiv (“Lenin Square” later renamed “Independence Square” after the fall of the Soviet Union). The activists were products of the era of glasnost and Perestroika that shaped their lived experiences. During that period, some young people got mobilized in political activism and were supporters of a political opposition for Ukrainian Independence. The period of glasnost produced in Ukraine a revival of ethno and civic nationalism (Hrycak, 1997). The latter, civic nationalism, was also a cultural phenomenon, as Hrycak explained, in the Ukrainian youth subcultures, that involved the rejection of a Soviet identity and appropriation of Western identity. Civic and political actors such as Rukh activists (the People’s Movement of Ukraine for Reconstruction, established in 1989) were involved in the process of redefining Ukrainian culture by employing strategies that “…imperceptibly co-opted institutionally organized activities targeting young people” (Hrycak, 1997, p. 65). Their protest actions were “high-risk” since they involved the “subversion of official frames and adoption of Western youth culture” in the era of glasnost (Hrycak, 1997, p. 65).
Following Ukraine’s independence, young people’s subjectivity continued to be connected to Western culture. This was evident in young people’s lived experiences, including, as Hrycak found, their attendance in large numbers at a national festival “Vyvykh-92” held in Lviv, Ukraine in 1992. This festival was unique, as Hrycak described, for its “inversion of rituals” that applied strategies of subversion, satire, and parodies in its cultural performances. To illustrate, featured at that event was a popular rock opera, “The Chrysler Imperial,” that expressed a subjectivity, which was non-conformist and favored Western popular music culture. It was a transformational experience for young people. As Hrycak explained, “through its use of rock music and inversion of historical narratives, this festival self-consciously sought to lead young people to question the official establishment that had organized the city’s previous youth festivals and other public celebrations” (Hrycak, 1997, p. 67). High attendance at this event suggested that the cultural performances resonated with the subjectivities of young Ukrainians. Subjectivity, in the example presented, was framed in terms of resistance, and followed the dimensions of the alter-globalization activists whom, as Pleyers described, “…construct themselves as actors through performances and lived experience” (Pleyers, 2010, p. 35). In Ukraine, cultural performances with a political message were one method for activists to publicly express their subjectivity and “…their opposition to myth, conformism, and homogeneity” displayed in official, public events (Hrycak, 1997, p. 79). For the Ukrainian activist, cultural performance as a mode of political action, in association with alter-activism practices, mattered because it “represent[ed] a call for personal freedom against the logics of power” (Pleyers, 2010, p. 37). This sense of autonomy to mount an opposition against the regime would be experienced differently by a new post-Soviet generation of young activists in the next protest.
In 2001, young people (from the 1990s student hunger strikes) stood up to actively mobilize a new generation of students to protest against the death of a popular journalist in the “For Truth” Committee (within the larger “Ukraine without Kuchma” protest movement). Among these activists, as Kuzio described, “young people and students participated in the ‘Ukraine without Kuchma’ movement and the ‘For Truth’ civic group that grew out of Kuchmagate.’ Many of the young leaders of both of these groups were well-known activists from the 1990–1991 student movement…” (Kuzio, 2002). The repeat activism of young people can be explained by a generational theoretical approach that argued “dramatic social changes experience[d] by individuals during their formative years will exert long-lasting effects on their political dispositions” (Nikolayenko, 2007, p. 175). The young newcomers were recruited to protest because they “…dreamt and worked towards living in a ‘normal’ European country” (Kuzio, 2006b, p. 374). Young people participated in the “tent city protests” and pickets, as described by Diuk, with the objective of removing the president (Diuk, 2012, p. 51). Young activists lived in tent camps that signified “new spaces of experiences” for “actors to live according to their own principles, to knit different social relations and to express their subjectivity” (Pleyers, 2010, p. 37). This was visible in the protest movement where “the tent city [had] become the center of the ‘Ukraine Without Kuchma’ movement with hundreds of Ukrainians gathering in and around the tents daily to debate or simply gawk” (Woronowycz, 2001). The atmosphere of friendship and mutual understanding in tent camps was depicted in the film The Faces of Protest. The protesters were filmed dancing, singing songs, and sharing a cup of tea. The festive nature of protests and tent cities was ephemeral, but it also provided, as Pleyers said, a logic of action in its organization of “…daily life, a social centre… [that became] spaces where alternative practices are tried out and lived” (Pleyers, 2010, p. 39). Nonviolence as a key concept of social change was adopted as a principle of organization for the movement, and reflected the subjectivity of the activists. Unfortunately, their vision of non-violence was unsustainable, as Wilson explained, because of the more radical factions in the group that advocated for violence as a protest tactic, resulting in the failure of the protests (Wilson, 2009, p. 338). While the protests did not produce regime change as the activists had hoped, they did leave a mark on young people’s subjectivity. Kuzio described the transformational process as “…a profound change did take place in people’s hearts and minds” (Kuzio, 2006b, p. 374). The effect was radicalization, the “Ukraine without Kuchma” protests developed “a hard core of young activists and dedicated civil society volunteers, reduced apathy among young people, and helped conv...
