Debts are uncomfortable, especially debts of gratitude. When we owe others too much, it can be difficult for us to express our gratitude. If we are not prone to reflection, we can minimize our debt or simply forget about it. If we value ourselves highly, we may ignore a debt owed to someone we consider less important. In the worst case, we can resent the people who helped us and put them in a negative light, so as not to feel that we are also vulnerable people who sometimes need a helping hand.
Americans (and many others) in a huge debt to the Ukrainians for their resistance to Russian aggression. For a number of reasons, it is difficult for us to admit this. To do this, we need to find words. Seven of them can help: security, freedom, democracy, courage, pluralism, resilience and generosity.
Perhaps the most important and most unrecognized duty is this security. Ukrainian resistance to Russia has significantly reduced the likelihood of a major armed conflict in other countries, and therefore the likelihood of a nuclear war.
Before the start of this war, one of the scenarios for a major conventional conflict with a nuclear risk was a Russian invasion of one of the NATO countries. The resistance of Ukraine revealed the weak points of the Russian armed forces and destroyed a significant part of the Russian combat potential. Thanks to Ukraine, this scenario has become much less likely than a year ago, and will remain unlikely in the coming years.
The main scenario of the global conflict in the 21st century was considered to be the Sino-American confrontation over Taiwan. As a result of Ukrainian resistance, Beijing sees the difficulties it will have to deal with in an offensive against Taiwan. The core of what most analysts thought was most likely (or even inevitable) scenario of a major war is essentially eliminated.
Perhaps the most important and most unrecognized responsibility is safety
It is almost impossible for Americans to realize this duty. In the daily press coverage of events, our attention is drawn to headlines that make us feel threatened or suggest that the war is somehow about us. This can prevent us from seeing the big picture.
American policymakers and security analysts are literally stunned by the fact that another country can do so much for our security using methods that we ourselves could not apply. Ukraine reduced the risk of war with Russia from the position of simple self-defense. Ukraine reduced the threat of war with China by not entering into a confrontation with it and, even more, by maintaining good relations with it. None of this was available to Americans. And yet the consequence of this was an increase in the level of security of the Americans.
For me personally, this is the biggest duty freedom. We Americans use this word quite often, but sometimes we lose track of what it really means. Over the past thirty-odd years, we have gotten into a very bad habit of thinking that freedom is something that is given to us by more powerful forces, such as capitalism. This is simply not true, and believing it makes us less free. “The whole history of the progress of human liberty,” said Frederick Douglass, “shows that all the concessions which have been made to its great demands have been born of earnest struggle.” Freedom will always depend on somewhat risky efforts against more powerful forces. In other words, freedom will always depend on an ethical commitment to another, better world, and will always suffer if we believe that this world will do the work for us.
Having decided to resist the invasion for the sake of freedom, the Ukrainians reminded us of this. And at the same time, they offered us many interesting thoughts about what freedom can be. Volodymyr Zelenskyi, for example, expresses an interesting opinion that freedom and security, as a rule, work together. During this entire war, talking with Ukrainians, I was impressed by the fact that they define freedom as a positive project, as a way of existence in the world, as the wealth of the future. Freedom means not only victory over the Russians; it means creating a better and more interesting life and a better and more interesting country.
It is hard not to notice what Ukrainians have done to protect the idea of democracy. After all, this war is about that. Vladimir Putin represents the practice of 21st century managed or fake democracy, in which the oligarchy maintains the appearance and rhetoric of democracy because it has no alternative, but at the same time accumulates wealth and power and prevents any meaningful participation in political life. The Russian system relies on a TV show that convinces Russians that everyone else is just as corrupt and therefore they should love their own Russian corruption because it is Russian.
But what if everyone is not equally corrupt? What if there is Ukraine next door, in which elections are really free and in which unexpected people can come to power? All of this must be made unthinkable by hate speech directed at Ukrainians and by the war that has been going on since 2014, including a full-scale Russian invasion.
His goal was to physically eliminate the legitimate Ukrainian government, as well as the leaders of Ukrainian civil society, and thereby turn Ukraine into a kind of Russian hinterland.
The spontaneous resistance to this on the part of such a huge number of Ukrainians, which the Russian political and media elites cannot understand, is based on the simple idea that the citizens of Ukraine should elect their leaders. Ukrainian democracy has many problems, and during the war it changed because of the need to fight. But Ukrainians defend the basic concept of self-government, and they do it at the cost of huge costs for themselves. They are doing this at a time when authoritarianism seemed to be gaining ground all over the world. For all who care about democracy, this is a huge responsibility.
In all this, Ukrainians set an unmistakable example of courage. In the “Republic” Plato called the courage of Socrates one of the virtues of the city. I can’t help but think of that when I recall Zelenskyi’s decision to stay in Kyiv, even though almost everyone outside of Ukraine expected him to flee. Safety alone (us) sometimes depends on the courage of others (Ukrainians). Freedom of will always requires courage: as Pericles said, “freedom definitely belongs only to those who have the courage to defend it.” And the same applies to democracy. This is an inherently bold aspiration, as more powerful oligarchic forces will always oppose it, and our less noble inner voices will always urge us to submit and conform. His courage, as he himself says, was «representative”: he knew that this was what his people expected of him, and he did it.
Who were these people? Zelensky, who represents the national minority of Ukraine (he is Jewish), was elected by 73% of the population. This shows the pluralism that is necessary for Ukraine and the Ukrainian resistance. Apologists of dictators (and there are many such in the US) tend to argue that only uniformity will bring efficiency, especially in wartime. This is certainly the approach that Russia brought to the war: uniformity of command, uniformity of ideology, and a bloody and criminal attempt to homogenize the occupied Ukrainian territories, which is tantamount to genocide.
Meanwhile, the Ukrainians resisted in a completely different way. When the government talks about the liberation of Crimea, it emphasizes the rights of its native inhabitants, the Crimean Tatars. In many ways, the success of Ukrainians on the battlefield depends on a heterogeneous and self-confident civil society, capable of supporting soldiers and serving where the central government is weak. The Ukrainian armed forces give local commanders a lot of freedom of action. These armed forces operate in two languages, Ukrainian and Russian, and are gender diverse. (and sexual orientation). The Ukrainian armed forces, unlike the Russian ones (and many others), also represent a variety of social strata. Interestingly, research shows that diversity in groups tends to lead to better decision-making. Russian propagandists see deviance in all these manifestations of diversity. But the lesson seems to be that respect for dignity leads to better results, particularly on the battlefield.
It is easy for me to write about these debts. It will only last a moment. But they accumulated for a long time. The Ukrainians demonstrated extraordinary stability. The decision to resist at the outset, decisive though it was, must be followed by the same decision again and again, hour after hour, day after day, shelling after shelling, bombing after bombing, missile attack after missile attack, drone strike after strike drone Ukraine is a country in which most of the population was forced to leave their homes, in which entire cities were destroyed, in which millions of people are currently deprived of access to electricity and water. Winter is approaching, and Ukrainians continue to resist.
Everything that the rest of us will gain from the Ukrainian resistance—in terms of security, freedom, democracy, courage, pluralism—depends on this ability to endure. Given the way we Americans process information and emotions—quickly and greedily, immediately switching to the next source—this element of our duty to Ukrainians will be the most difficult to assess. The Russian poet Mayakovsky in his anti-imperialist poem “A Debt to Ukraine” asks: “Do you know the Ukrainian night?” And he answers: “No, you don’t know the Ukrainian night.” Here the sky is black with smoke.” We do not know the Ukrainian night. But we owe Ukraine a huge debt for this stability.
Ukrainians tend to confuse our ability to appreciate all these debts with their own generosity. I was in Ukraine and back before the war started, and it’s a long trip, even if it was under the most favorable circumstances. When Ukrainian colleagues travel back, they never seem to forget to bring gifts for the Americans they meet (especially for their children). There is a simple dignity in this: despite the war, signs of attention are still important. But this desire to bring back an object of some significance, preserving it on the arduous two-day journey from a war-torn country, makes me feel a deeper discomfort: we Americans are not even in the habit of bringing gifts to our hosts, let alone in the habit of appreciating them— can i be thankful enough
I was thinking about this a week ago at Carnegie Hall while listening to an American Christmas carol «The Carol of the Bells”. Every year since I was a child, it has amazed me how it stands out from all the other seasonal tunes as a single song of mesmerizing beauty. And there is a reason why it seems somewhat different: in fact, it is a Ukrainian melody – an arrangement by a Ukrainian composer (Mykola Leontovych) of an old polyphonic folk song.
The song has been adopted by our culture with new English words about bells, which are beautiful in their own way and retain the feel-good spirit of the original. The Ukrainian song is not about Christmas at all, it cannot be, because it belongs to pre-Christian traditions. This song is about spring, about auspicious signs brought by animals, about true love and future prosperity. This is a song of affirmation and encouragement. Its very name — “Schedryk” — speaks of generosity and abundance.
«Shchedryk” was performed at Carnegie Hall in October 1921 by Ukrainian musicians who sought support for the Ukrainian Republic, which was in danger. The Ukrainian composer Leontovych, who created it, was killed by the Bolshevik secret police earlier that year. Much of what is now Ukraine would shortly thereafter become part of the Soviet Union. The song was Americanized in 1936, shortly after the great famine in Soviet Ukraine, just at the beginning of the large-scale Stalinist terror. Its origins were forgotten, as was Ukraine in general.
The Ukrainian children’s choir that came to New York to perform this song came with a gift. It was their very appearance and performance. She gently reminded us of our appropriation of the song, but she reminded us without offense, only with generosity. When the song was performed as an encore, with alternating Ukrainian and American lyrics, Ukrainians and Americans in the hall cried together, although for different reasons, and they were bright tears.
I wrote this two years ago, now I’ve added something, of course. And I believe that now, when this year is coming to an end, when the holidays are approaching, the recognition of our moral and existential duty to Ukraine is becoming more and more urgent.
Translation NV
Published with permission of the author. First printed on snyder.substack.com
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