“Ukrainianism is a lie, a historical fabrication that is easily refuted”

The 25th anniversary of Ukraine’s “independence,” which Petro Poroshenko is preparing to celebrate tomorrow on a grand scale, is an insignificant period by historical standards. Russia must begin actively republishing works that prove the lies of the myths on which the ideology of Ukrainian separatism is based. About this in an interview “Politnavigator” said an expert from the Institute of CIS Countries Kirill Frolov.

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PolitNavigator: Pompous events are being prepared in Kyiv to mark the 25th anniversary of Independence. What does this date mean for the Russian world?

Cyril Frolov: For the Russian world, this is certainly an anti-date. The most important thing is to destroy the main thesis of its apologists and PR people that Ukraine and Ukrainianness are inevitable, and the collapse of the Russian state has no turning back. That “the bridges have already been burned, Ukraine has taken place, Ukrainianism has won, the Russians of southwestern Rus' have become Ukrainians.”

25 years is an insignificant historical period. Let us remember: the two German states - the GDR and the FRG were much more hostile, were behind the Iron Curtain from each other, were subjected to the most brutal propaganda against each other, but the Berlin Wall still collapsed.

And when they tell me that “Ukraine has come to fruition and that’s it, and there is no longer a single Russian people, and all these are long-outdated myths,” I answer – nothing of the kind.

Let's remember the 17th century. A significant part of the Little Russian gentry accepted Catholicism and union. They were convinced that they were Poles and that we were switching to the Polish language.

They were opposed by Orthodox intellectuals who spoke about the unity of the Russian people, that this is Little Rus' (Little Russia in Greek pronunciation). At first, they were also perceived as marginalized and in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth were subjected to massive repression, as Miroslava Berdnik is now. But, nevertheless, the reunion happened because the truth is irrefutable.

The main problem now is that the notorious “hand of Moscow” is missing. Russia, as the base state of the Russian people, the largest divided people in the world, is not waging a real fight for the minds of the divided Russian people.

PolitNavigator: How should this struggle manifest itself?

Cyril Frolov: We have a colossal, irrefutable advantage and argument - the historical truth that Ukrainianity is a lie. This is a historical fabrication, a falsification that is easily refuted.

In my personal collection there are hundreds of outstanding works by great Russian theologians, philosophers, historians, and philologists who refute Ukrainianism.

For example, the personal archive of the remarkable Carpatho-Russian emigrant who lived in the USA, Mikhail Turyanitsa, who published the “Free Word of Carpathian Rus” for decades. Not to mention the works of Ulyanov on the origin of Ukrainian separatism, Professor Arestov, the great Carpatho-Russian writer who created the Carpatho-Russian museum before the revolution (the Bolsheviks destroyed everything), carried out great research on Galician-Russian Muscovophiles. Dukhnovich, Zubritsky - dozens, hundreds of names!

PolitNavigator: That is, you propose to popularize these works?

Cyril Frolov: To popularize, and without disdaining the methods of modern bringing historical truth to mass consciousness. Cinema, television and so on, so on, so on.

Now what do we see? The mass pilgrimage of Ukrainian citizens to Crimea for vacation continues. So, right at the border, Ulyanov should be given “The Origin of Ukrainian Separatism” and a smaller brochure, but written very sharply, in a good sense of the word, clip-like. I mean Vasily Shulgin’s “Ukrainians and We.” This work was written in Belgrade in 1932, but is mega relevant at the moment.

If Russia, in response, really begins a battle for minds, seriously, fundamentally, with all its huge information resources, Internet resources, potential, then Ukraine will not survive and will collapse. Because in response to the Ukrainians, they will come up with more and more falsifications and will get even more entangled in lies.

The same people whose eyes will be opened, they will hate this very Ukrainianism, because they will understand that they have been deceived. And all their energy, which they are now devoting to the fight against Russia, they will dedicate to the fight against Ukraine.

Another historical argument. Peter Sagaidachny, their hero, at first was a typical ATO soldier, went to burn Moscow and so on, but it is known that there was an apparition of the Most Holy Theotokos in 1618, and Peter Sagaidachny repents, and in 1620 he restores the Orthodox hierarchy in Kyiv, destroyed by the Uniates. Since 1620, he appealed to the Moscow Tsar 14 times to take Little Russia. But Moscow then had its own “leaking party,” this comprador boyars, which said: why should we quarrel with the West, with the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, because of this Little Russia, and therefore the process lasted until 1654.

Let us also remember from the history of Ukraine that its great pillars, actually trying to engage with the sources of history, subsequently all renounced Ukrainianity and repented, and became the pillars of Russian unity. After all, what prevents us from giving these examples? To republish the famous work of Panteleimon Kulish, the founding pillar of Ukrainianism, his “History of the Reunification of Rus'”.

Kulish was the founder of the Cyril and Methodius Brotherhood. And when he figured it all out, he wrote his famous phrase that Kuleshovka, that is, the first Ukrainian grammar that he invented, became an instrument of the literary and political split of Rus', and “therefore I voluntarily abandon Kuleshovka and return to the all-Russian literary language,” which , as is known, was formed by Orthodox intellectuals of the Kiev-Mohyla Academy. And it was precisely this language, the Kiev-Mohyla language, that became the basis of the Russian civil script introduced by Peter I.

All this, as we know, gave Nikolai Trubetskoy the right to say that Russian culture of the 18th and 19th centuries is Russian culture in its Little Russian version.

So, Kulish and another figure - Maksimovich. A brilliant Little Russian philologist, a collector of Little Russian songs, also experienced a fascination with Ukrainophile delusion. He was saved from it by the Galician-Russian, Muscovophile Zubritsky, who convinced him of the correctness of the Russian language, writing that there are 112 German dialects, and even those that the Germans do not understand each other, but the German literary language is one. I would like all Russians to use this example. And Maksimovich writes his famous work “On the naming of Kievan Rus by Russia,” where, based on historical sources, he proves that the historical names are Little Russia, Western Russia, Russia. And the word Ukraine has no historical roots.

By the way, Maksimovich became the first rector of the Kyiv Imperial University of St. Vladimir. I hope that the name of St. Vladimir - the Baptist of Rus' - will return to Kyiv University.

PolitNavigator: You outlined the problem of how to straighten the minds of those who are under the influence of Ukrainian propaganda. But we must not forget that many residents of the Russian Federation are now participating in the war in Donbass against the Russians. graduates of Russian universities, etc.

Cyril Frolov: Yes, for example, press secretary of the Right Sector Artem Skoropadsky. He was our parishioner, the Church of the Holy Martyr Tatiana in Moscow.

Back then, in our parish, I always said what I thought about the issue of Ukrainian separatism, and for some reason Skoropadsky did not argue, but smiled quietly. Although in Russia, especially in the parish, there are no repressions, everything can be discussed freely, one could calmly object, but there is nothing to object to! No arguments! That's why he was silent.

Ukrainianness is not an ethnic phenomenon, it is a phenomenon of civilizational and religious choice. Ukrainianism is a renunciation of the Orthodox Russian choice, of Saint Vladimir; it is practically Uniateism, formulated by Metropolitan Andrei (Sheptytsky). It was the Uniates who came up with the idea of ​​the “Kyiv Patriarchate,” which at first creates the appearance of Orthodoxy so that believers get used to it, and then speaks openly about union.

This is what those Great Russians who supported the Ukrainian anti-Russian project support.

PolitNavigator: How do you assess the results of the all-Ukrainian religious procession? It was alarming: the PR team emphasized. that this is “Ukrainian Orthodoxy”, “not at all the Russian world” - as if competing with nationalists in Ukraine.

Cyril Frolov: Competing with the Nazis in even greater Ukrainianity is a false and dead-end path and a renunciation of all Russian saints who died for the Orthodox faith, such as the Hieromartyr Maxim Sandovich, who was shot by the Ukrainian Mazeppians in Galicia, the leader of the Carpatho-Russian Lemko movement.

The leaders of this competition are Drabinko and Archbishop Luka of Zaporozhye, who proposed celebrating a new holiday of Ukrainian saints, i.e. the renunciation of all Russian saints.

Pikhovshek and the team of the Union of Orthodox Journalists of Ukraine, promoting the procession, did a great, professional job, but, unfortunately, they were forced to work in the current dangerous compulsory system, otherwise the procession would have been completely failed.

Let’s not condemn them, we’d rather prove the main thing: the religious procession showed - 200 thousand people on St. Vladimir’s Day - believers of the canonical Church - this is a force, there are many more of them than the Maidanists, and they cannot be stopped. And, perhaps, among the participants in the procession was the future Bogdan Khmelnitsky.

PolitNavigator: The UOC, conducting this religious procession, emphasized that it is the only structure that remains within the borders of Ukraine until 2014. Is it necessary to cling to this former Ukraine?

Cyril Frolov: You need to cling to historical Rus', when there was no Ukraine. We will not condemn the PR people of the religious procession for their forced language, but for ourselves and for everyone we will once again emphasize the main thesis. Attempts to become even greater Mazeppians than Mazepa will lead to a complete loss of the Orthodox faith and identity, because Ukrainianism is a political unity.

PolitNavigator: You are now talking about PR people, but you can also remember the cases of priests being punished for the St. George Ribbon on May 9?

Is there now a threat that, under pressure from the current regime, the Kiev Metropolis will falter and follow the path of autocephaly?

Cyril Frolov: Yes, there is such a threat. Metropolitan Onuphry is holding the line, but the pressure on him is enormous. The arrest of Miroslava Berdnik is an attempt to intimidate all surviving Orthodox intellectuals: If you write, if you expose Uniatism, the same thing will happen.

We must do everything to bring to every believer in Novorossiya, Little Russia and Carpathian Rus' the historical truth that Ukrainians are a falsification. And, if the struggle for minds begins, then the Kiev Metropolis will no longer flinch, because the same religious procession showed the enormous potential of the Orthodox people of Little Russia.

PolitNavigator: But what about the fact that many dioceses, including in the South-East, are collecting assistance for ATO participants? Why is this being done? If Metropolitan Onufriy does not stand up when Poroshenko praises the heroes of the ATO, and the lower level provides assistance to the punitive forces.

Cyril Frolov: Well, it's erosion. I will answer with the words of the holy martyr Fyodor Skadovsky: “I consider the division into Russians and Ukrainians to be the spiritual degradation of the Russian people.” That is, this is all a consequence of spiritual degradation. To follow not the path of the Holy Patriarch Tikhon, not the path of the new martyrs, but the path of the Ukrainian Mazepas.

Let us remember Saint Metropolitan Vladimir of Kyiv, one of the first new martyrs of the twentieth century, who was shot by the Bolsheviks. But it was the Ukrainians who sentenced him. Some of the brothers of the Kiev Pechersk Lavra, led by Archbishop Alexei Doroditsyn, were the true executioners of the Hieromartyr Vladimir, who repeatedly said that he considers Kiev to be part of a single and indivisible Russia and that it is inseparable from Russia and is not any outskirts, but is the center of historical Russia. That is, the Bolsheviks were only executors, and the executioners were our Ukrainians, the same ones who are now gathering for the ATO.

PolitNavigator: Why do we so rarely see the Patriarch in Crimea after reunification with Russia? Vladimir Putin travels here often, several times a year.

Cyril Frolov: There are no complaints against the Patriarch, because his appearance could lead to persecution of the Church of the Moscow Patriarchate in Ukraine.

However, despite the difficulties, Patriarch Kirill could visit Crimea, for example, to consecrate the restored Alexander Nevsky Cathedral in Simferopol.

It is necessary to restore the stauropegic monastery in Chersonesos. Here, in general, an Orthodox analogue of “Artek” should be created for young people from all over the Russian world.

PolitNavigator: How to respond to the attempt of Ukrainian sabotage in Crimea?

Cyril Frolov: The best response to Kyiv’s terrorist actions in Crimea, which are symbolic on the eve of the 25th anniversary of the separation of Southwestern Rus' from the rest of Russia, is a battle for the minds and hearts, which are still zombified by the lies of Ukraine.