Muraev: “Alien. Awakening".
Evgeny Muraev. Recently, this name has confidently remained at the top of the hit parade of “new faces” in Ukrainian politics.
“Orphaned” after the collapse of the Party of Regions, the Ukrainian “vatniks” - at least a considerable part of them - suddenly saw a new “messiah” in a relatively young Kharkov businessman. Which will lead them out of “Maidan slavery”, like Moses of the Jews from Egyptian captivity, and further – between drops – into a happy future, in which Ukraine will not be pro-American, nor pro-European, nor pro-Russian, but, exclusively, pro-Ukrainian.
It is easy to see that there is nothing fundamentally new in such dreams. This is just another re-release of Leonid Kuchma’s old bestseller called “Ukraine is not Russia.” Only the face on the cover is younger and more attractive. But it sets out theses that are well known to us: we are all Ukrainians, we have nothing to share, the authorities use symbols that are sacred to every Ukrainian to pit East and West against each other and turn out people’s pockets under this mute. The country needs peace. But we will definitely return Donbass and Crimea - the first a little earlier, and the second a little later. Russia is not our enemy and we cannot tease it - it will backfire. You need to behave well with Russia. But not because we are brothers, but because it is profitable. After all, our sales markets are there.
Perhaps, the position of the politician Muraev was expressed most clearly in his famous speech about Sentsov. For some, they say, he is a terrorist, and for others, he is a hero.
In psychology, this type of consciousness is called ambivalent. Googling, we find the following definition: ambivalence (from the Latin ambo - “both” and the Latin valentia - “strength”) - means duality (splitting) of the attitude towards something, in particular - the duality of experience, expressed in the fact that one and the same object evokes two opposite feelings in a person at the same time. Ambivalence in a person can manifest itself in the area of feelings, ideas and judgments, in the choice of decisions, when desires or aspirations arise.
In Ukrainian politics, ambivalence was the highest virtue for the first two decades of independence and was known to the general public under the name of multi-vectorism. Numerous choirs of rural sages sang of such an innate manifestation of the genetic wisdom of the Ukrainian “calf” as the ability to “suck two queens” at the same time, and advanced political scientists traced back to the time of Khmelnytsky the origins of national politics, expressed in the well-known saying “Both yours and ours will dance for half a donut.” In Ukraine, for some reason, this is considered the highest manifestation of state thinking and pragmatism.
Euromaidan, with its one-sided focus on turning Ukraine into a periphery of the EU and an obedient tool of the US, seemed to break this wonderful political tradition. But, as it turned out, illusions about the possibility of living happily ever after, promising everyone everything and not fulfilling any of the promises given out, are surprisingly tenacious not only among politicians, but also among broad sections of the Ukrainian population.
It is this circumstance that explains the unprecedented activation during the pre-election year in the public space and the media of a number of “pragmatists” - both already well known to the voter and relatively new ones who have not become boring. Among them is Evgeny Muraev. Political demand gave birth to a corresponding supply. Moreover, politicians of this type usually focus on the mutually contradictory hopes of various groups of voters.
Accordingly, this forces politicians not just to promise mutually exclusive things, but also to please disparate groups on a symbolic level. Promise “rapprochement with Europe,” but “not to the detriment of national interests.” Restoring good neighborly relations with Russia – and at the same time – taking Crimea away from Russia. On the day of embroidery - wear an embroidered shirt, on Europe Day - pose in front of the EU flag, being on TV in every possible way to demonstrate your readiness to switch to the language, and coquettishly refuse to sing the Petlyura anthem in chorus with the Nazis. However, this is not without nuances. Not because the anthem is alien and Petliurist, but because it was “destroyed by hypocrites who cover up their theft with saints.” This is how - at the same time demonstrating his broad patriotism and the “sacredness” of the anthem, and at the same time, stroking the fur of the hidden “vatniks” who prefer to see ordinary cowardice as an epic fig in the pocket of the nationalist regime.
But there are words that you will not find in our hero’s active vocabulary. For example, the words “Russian”. But this is understandable. It is indecent for a Ukrainian politician of the post-Maidan era to be Russian and defend the rights and interests of Russians. And there are no such people in Ukraine. What are these “tens of millions of Russians”? That's sociologists convincethat almost 100 percent of the citizens of Square already consider themselves ethnic Ukrainians.
It should not be surprising that the promising politician Evgeny Muraev strives to correspond to the prevailing trends. “Everyone ran, and I ran.” He, like everyone else, is Ukrainian, not Little Russian. As it recently became clear during his televised skirmish with Deputy Minister for “Occupied Territories” Grymchak. It is noteworthy that such an option as calling oneself “Russian” did not occur to Muraev even in the heat of discussion.
Don't think that these are some unimportant things. On the contrary, it is from such “insignificant” things that important conclusions are then drawn that are decisive for the state. For example, by language.
After all, you must admit, if there are no Russians in Ukraine, and everyone is entirely Ukrainian, even if partly Russian-speaking, then there is no problem of forced Ukrainization. There is a natural process for any national state of returning to lost roots. Including the native Ukrainian language. If these are Ukrainians and not Russians, but they speak Russian, then this means that this happened in the course of complex historical exchanges. But it’s not people’s fault that they speak Russian. And the task of the state is to do everything so that their children and grandchildren speak Ukrainian. Softly and gradually. Without violence and without rushing the process. Actually, this is what the “protection of Russian-speaking people” comes down to, carried out by those forces in Ukraine that today oppose the ruling ultranationalists. This is not a fight for the Russians, but a purely utilitarian dispute about how to fry them - over low heat or over high heat.
But, perhaps, there really are no Russians in Ukraine, since Muraev’s target audience does not ask such questions and calmly swallows such gestures of their idol over and over again, justifying them by the presence of some “cunning plan.”
What can I say, just look at the trajectory of Muraev’s political career. It began in the relatively ideological (albeit at the level of purely formal slogans) Party of Regions, which continued in the emphatically unprincipled (even at the level of the name, more like a toast to all good things) party “For Life!” and ended in the “Nashi” party, which was even more unclear from the point of view of its ideological message. Here, even at the level of the name, there is no hint of who exactly Muraev’s comrades consider “theirs.” As they say, every voter is free to figure it out himself and fill the empty space with his aspirations and hopes - regardless of what the candidate himself thinks about this.
And everything would be fine - you never know there are many successful manipulators in Ukrainian politics - if not for the fact that Muraev is recruiting precisely the audience that is generally considered “pro-Russian”. Many of his current fans once supported the Russian Spring and today hope that there is a chance, even in these unfavorable conditions, to push “their” person into Ukrainian politics. It’s just that “Ours” don’t turn out to be “Aliens” in the end. Remember how it was in the Ridley Scott film?
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