Farewell to the USSR from Lithuania and Ukraine Kyiv-Mohyla Academy Hosts Roundtable

Petras Vaitiekunas, Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of Lithuania to Ukraine

On November 8, National University of Kyiv-Mohyla Academy hosted a roundtable discussion titled “A Lithuanian and Ukrainian Farewell to the USSR”, on the aftermath of Soviet totalitarianism and the necessary measures to protect against a return to the past. The event was organized by the Center for Research of the Ukrainian Independence Movement, with support of the Embassy of the Republic of Lithuania in Ukraine.

The event was organized with the partnership collaboration of Kyiv-Mohyla Academy School of Political Analysis, National University Kyiv-Mohyla Academy, Ivan Franko National University of Lviv, Center of Legal and Political Research “Sim”, and media partners: TBi Television, Internet Publication Istorychna Pravda, Kraina Journal, Gazeta Po-Ukrainsky, Ukraine Incognita, Gazeta.ua.

Participants included speakers from Lithuania and from Ukraine. Lithuanian issues were presented by Dalia Kuodyte, Director of the Lithuanian Centre for Research of Genocide and Resistance, Ronaldas Racinskas – Executive Director of the Commission to Assess the Crimes of the Soviet and Nazi Occupation Regimes in Lithuania, Ruta Trimoniene –Representative of the Memorial Research Center Department of Genocide and Resistance of Lithuania.

Ukrainian speakers included Volodymyr Viatrovych – Director of the Research Council of the Centre of the Ukrainian Liberation Movement, Olexij Haran – Research Director of the National University of Kyiv-Mohyla Academy School of Political Analysis, Ivan Patryliak – Docent of the National Taras Shevchenko University of Kyiv, Vakhtang Kipiani – Editor of the internet publication “Istorychna Pravda”, Ruslan Zabilyj – Director of the National Museum “Lonskyj Prison”.

Participants spoke of a shared historical narrative - the massive blank spots of history that were known to the people who suffered but were continuously systematically concealed from the general population and the rest of the world.

Access to materials in state archives after the fall of the Soviet Union provided researchers and historians with documentation that was discussed at the joint Ukrainian-Lithuanian roundtable.

Participants provided devastating data on the number of deaths - numbers intentionally covered up by Soviet governments. The following data provided illustrated the magnitude of human cost: approximately one million Lithuanians, which constituted 1/3 of the country’s entire population, were killed or deported to hard labor camps from 1940 until 1953; 16-17 million Ukrainians were killed between 1917 and 1956, and 10 million were deported to hard labor or concentration camps, which totaled almost half of the nation’s population.

But statistics do not portray the full impact of these genocidal policies. In both countries, in addition to the severe curtailment of demographic development, the social and political consequences on the two nations continue until the present day. Implementation of the Soviet policy of wiping out nationalities and national identity impacted on the psychological and political development of the nation. Fear, distrust, isolation, corruption and hopelessness became the way for self-preservation and eventually the norm.

Even in this day, there has been no accounting for moral responsibility for the crimes committed. The disclosures of the past brought to light pieces of history, but they have still not resulted in transparent historical accountability.

At the opening of the roundtable, Petras Vaitiekunas, Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of Lithuania to Ukraine said, “I have a dream, that the people of the former Soviet Camp gather together and build a Museum of Stalin’s Victims jointly, just like the Holocaust Museum there is in the West”.