What a Canonical Ukrainian Author Can Teach the Left About Aiding Ukraine
A novel by the Ukrainian writer Ivan Franko (1856–1916) offers instructive parallels to modern events, presented from the point of view of the author’s left-wing views.
A barbaric horde of murderers, robbers and rapists advances from the east, like a swarm of locusts, razing to the ground everything on its way, craving to conquer Europe and turn the Westerners into its slaves and vassals. But a small community, with the support of its neighbors, is able to push back and retaliate against the invaders.
No, this is not a modern scenario. These are the events from the 13th century as described in Zakhar Berkut, an 1882 novel by the Ukrainian writer Ivan Franko. One of his greatest works, it was translated into English as well as German, French, Spanish, and a number of other languages, and I would recommend it to those of the left who insist that the West should not aid Ukraine in its fight against Russia as this ostensibly contradicts the ideas and principles they stand for.
Granted, I have nothing to say to idolaters of Stalin and Mao as their revering another bloodthirsty dictator is not surprising at all. Rather, I appeal to the self-styled democratic socialists like the infamous German party Die Linke — unless, of course, their “democratic” label is a smoke screen to look more digestible and acceptable in the democratic society — as well as to other non-authoritarian left-wingers including some anarchists.
Ivan Franko, through his novel, might provide an object lesson on how helping Ukraine now — with weapons, protective gear, military training, and otherwise — can secure Europe’s future well-being.
One may learn from his biography that Franko was engaged politically in the Ukrainian national movement, but one needs to realize that many “nationalists” of the period — especially those that didn’t have their own nation state and were living under foreign rule (Franko, for that matter, was living in Western Ukraine which was part of the Austrian Empire) — were enamored with progressive socialist ideas. And the author of Zakhar Berkut was no exception, as can be witnessed in this and his other works.
Franko reveals his views already on the novel’s first pages: the reason of the people’s hardships and dire straits is self-centeredness and the lack of solidarity, cohesion and mutual aid both within and between communities.
As a contrast, he refers to medieval communities — which is an idealization, as many a historian would tell you, but a pardonable one for a work of fiction, — and tells a legend from 1241.
This was after the Mongolian horde led by Batu Khan invaded Kyivan Rus’, captured its capital, Kyiv, and started moving further west. One division turned towards the Carpathian Mountains in a hope to find a way to Hungary. For this, the Mongolians had to pass a narrow gorge near the village of Tukhlia.
And it is here, deep in the mountains — if you want to look it up on a map, then try to locate the town of Skole and the popular ski resort Slavske, and Tukhlia will be right between them, — that the drama takes place. The villagers aren’t going to wait for help from the ruler — in fact, they recognize no ruler, but prefer to self-organize and rely on democratic vote after having listened to everyone’s suggestions and advice of the community’s wise elders — like Zakhar Berkut, Tukhlia’s eldest inhabitant.
By employing ingenuity and, most importantly, the help of neighboring communities from both sides of the mountains — who realized that, were the Mongols to advance further, their own settlements and lives would have been in danger, and, besides, the dwellers of Tukhlia could reciprocate later, — the villagers bravely defeated the invaders despite being outnumbered many times over.
In the end, Ivan Franko, in the spirit of his age, wonders whether the days of solidarity and mutual aid will ever return.
The Russians are today’s Mongolians, Putin is Batu Khan, the whole of Ukraine is Tukhlia, and the West is those neighboring communities whose help may turn out to be the deciding factor in stopping and humiliating the horde.
Or does anyone think that Putin’s bloodthirst will be quenched if he gets Ukraine? Or maybe Europeans would prefer to deal with the Russians directly after they move further west? Will meekness and pacifism procure better treatment? That’s not how Russian logic and morals work.