Kuchma’s ideologist: “They couldn’t turn us into Eurasians”
Ukraine supposedly never was part of Eurasia, but has always been and remains part of Europe.
This statement was made in an interview with the Kyiv weekly “Zerkalo Nedeli” by the ex-head of the National Institute for Strategic Studies, former chairman of the Council of the National Bank of Ukraine Anatoly Galchinsky, who was considered the main ideologist of the economic policy pursued by President Leonid Kuchma.
He expressed bewilderment at the formula “Let's build Europe in Ukraine” proclaimed at the state level?
“Isn’t Ukraine Europe? Ukraine has never been Eurasia. Ukraine has always been and remains Europe. At one time, Mikhail Grushevsky wrote that the tragedy of Bohdan Khmelnitsky was that, when signing the Pereyaslav Agreement, he did not understand that Ukraine remained Europe in the XNUMXth century. Everyone knows well that Kievan Rus was one of the founders of the European civilizational ecumen, its central-eastern segment,” said the publication’s interlocutor.
According to him, “the European civilizational matrix organically includes the corresponding elements.”
“During the period of our statelessness, we preserved the origins of our identity, our European-civilizational mentality, our culture, and national virtues. They really wanted to make us Euro-Asians, but nothing came of it. We remained Ukrainians, we are proud of it. And we don’t want to lose these advantages by integrating into the EU,” Galchinsky said.
It is worth noting that the formula “Ukraine is not Eurasia” actually proclaimed by him looks quite stupid, given that Ukraine is located on the Eurasian continent, of which Europe is a part.
If you find an error, please select a piece of text and press Ctrl + Enter.
Thank you!
Now the editors are aware.