Dmytro Korchynsky
Enfant terrible of Ukrainian politics
Dmytro Korchynsky puzzles many observers inside and outside Ukraine. Just how right-wing or left-wing, nationalist or internationalist, Russophilic or Russophobic the guy really is. The answer, as classical Marxists liked to say, depends on the position of observer. He likes being a guinea pig for testing the most risky and experimental discourses more than he likes actual political power. On several occasions, he refused to pursue serious roles for himself and his comrades, in exchange for greater grassroots influence.
This text will use shortened excerpts from my translation of his book “War in the Crowd”, which I completed for Patria Publishing House one year ago. Although the book was supposed to come out in 2023, the publisher apparently still has printing issues, possibly related to the adult character of the book’s content (military activities, security service operations, political provocations, and so on). The book is designated as extremist material in the Russian Federation and is banned there. Considering that my native city is very much wanted by the Russian state at this very moment and the chances of me ending up in Siberian penal servitude are above zero, I wish to highlight the fact that this text was written in Ukraine by a citizen of Ukraine and was published on the servers of an American company. No import or export to the Russian Federation has occurred.
DK: When I was around 15, I walked across Odesa from the railroad station to the port. It was a sunny day and I remember it well. I saw a rude volume of Theophan Prokopovich and Hegel’s two-volumer “Philosophy of Religion”. I hesitated about what to buy and finally decided on Hegel. This purchase has determined my future life. I dived into Hegel as in a sea and was impressed. “Philosophy of Religion” is the most poetic part of his philosophy and the most interesting. Probably, I understood little at the time. But the way he handles the subject, the way he handles the words and phrase framework, disciplined my soul in a new way, strict way. I thought about the divine a lot since and concluded that God is a materialist. Even more – he’s a Voltairean. My life had its share of occasions when mystery laughed at me most shamelessly.
In the Soviet Union, Hegel was a required first step for those wishing to become CPSU ideologues. Hegel, then Marx, then Lenin. At the time "War in the Crowd" was published, he was already forgotten by mainstream Ukrainian philosophers, who fully internalized a neo-liberal desire for the minimalist managerial state. Hegel was already seen as an extremist statist, even if untouched by the flair of Bolshevik violence. Korchynsky’s choice to claim the Hegelian title meant he wanted a greater distance from the types he associated with during Perestroika - Sixtiers and CIA-adjacent human rights activists. The book was supposed to be the final accord in a symphony of Ukrainian nationalism as a self-sufficient ideology, the nature of which Korchynsky helped to define during his years as UNSO leader. The goddess Fortuna was not kind to this accord, and the whole intention was buried beneath the vibrant and corrosive influence of post-modernism. The man went on to form a lot of wildly different projects, the nature of which we shall try to track in this text.
In the Soviet Union, the guy was not more anti-Soviet than the average Soviet citizen. Probably even less. He read the illegal Maoist literature, knew the meaning of such term as revisionism, and shared the old-school socialist concern for the well-being of the lower classes. He was disgusted by the inability of Slavic peoples, Ukrainians and Russians alike, to stand up for themselves against clannish Caucasians. As he describes in the book, his first experience of direct action was organizing a Slavic rebellion against Caucasian bullies and hazers in the Soviet Army. Although largely unsuccessful, it gave him useful insights into the behavioral patterns of both Slavs and Caucasians.
His first major project, UNSO, was formed during the final days of the Soviet Union. Already used to glasnost and the ability to voice fairly right-wing opinions, central and western Ukrainians were spooked by the events of the short-lived Soviet coup attempt. I consider that coup to be a completely fake and completely controlled process of transferring the power to those CPSU members who took it upon themselves to partition the country and adopt a market economy. In the famous television broadcast of those days, Yeltsin boards a tank and says that he is being denied television access, even though the main Soviet channel in the main news program is broadcasting his very words. This was not apparent to those Ukrainians who formed self-defense units under Korchynsky's command, in anticipation of repressive actions from CPSU, which never materialized. The gang was already formed and ready for action however, and the opportunity to test themselves soon appeared - in a neighboring, freshly independent Moldova.
DK: Ukraine supported the Moldovans in a war between the Ukrainians of Transnistria and the Moldovans. When studying any episode of Ukrainian history, it is necessary to search for betrayal. That’s a key to understanding the situation. The history of a new Ukrainian state began with the betrayal of Transnistrian Ukrainians. The blockade was introduced. Later, when we were assuming positions near Cosnita and Cocieri, when we put a lot of energy into the restoration of pro-Ukrainian sympathies of the population, a main Ukrainian democrat appeared in Chișinău – former political prisoner Chornovil. While talking on a Moldovan TV channel “Mesengeru”, which is available in Transnistria, he said that the entire Ukraine supports Moldovans and Trasnistrians are separatists and scoundrels. Then he dared to repeat the same at a rally in Transnistrian Ribnita. He was almost torn apart. As Colonel Borovets says: “We jailed no innocents”. When talking at a rally in those days I said: “When you hear that the situation in Transnistria is complex, answer that it is in Ukraine the situation is complex, but we will simplify it!”.
In these words, we see a beginning of post-Soviet competition between liberal-adjacent civic nationalism and “volkish” ethnic irredentism. The latter will soon become adopted by the Kremlin as an acceptable tool of foreign policy, but at the time UNSO was presented with a choice between supporting the Slavs in a non-Slavic country together with Russians or spectating how Russians will do it alone. UNSO chose the former, gained combat experience, and spoils of the war, becoming a serious cossack-like unit that took part in many more conflicts of that turbulent decade. This time - mostly on the side of various anti-Russian elements. On the side of Georgian loyalists against pro-Russian Abkhaz separatists, and the side of Chechen separatists against the Russian state. Their loyalties in Yugoslavia were even more complex, as they supported Croats against Serbs, Serbs against Kosovars, and Bosniaks against Serbs and Croats. This web of inconsistencies reflects Korchynsky's and other UNSO militants’ views on how an independent Ukrainian ethnoreligious foreign policy should look - different enough from both the Kremlin and Pentagon. It is not clear to me whether they adopted irredentism as a result of their personal convictions or as a response to Kremlin's cocky attitude to the post-Soviet borders. Probably the latter. Not just because the whole rightist internationalism element was absent from their Perestroika-era thoughts, which were centered around Ukrainian cultural rights. But also because of one forgotten fact - we weren't directly transitioning from the USSR to the independent states. We were supposed to coexist in the Commonwealth of Independent States, which was originally envisioned as a lighter form of the USSR, its capitalist and liberal democratic version. It was supposed to give Moscow greater leverage over new states than it did in reality. Only after realizing the futility of such plans, the Yeltsin government began dictating its views to the neighbors from the position of power.
Regardless, after the dissolution of UNSO in 1997 and the publication of “War in the Crowd” in 1999, Korchynsky shifted to softly pro-Russian positions, gained his own TV program on one of the country's main channels, became known to a much wider audience and gained the favor of reigning President Leonid Kuchma.
DK: We were never present as a political party in the collective consciousness. We were perceived as something in between gypsies and Chechens. I was always accused of insufficient Ukrainian identity. No matter what face I wore, professional Ukrainians could smell sulfur when I approached. Once, serious doubts about the righteousness of Jesus visited bookworms and Pharisees. And indeed, He was not such a righteous man; He was the Son of God.
Since the declaration of independence and until 2014, Ukrainian Presidential battles were fought between the Western and Eastern candidates. Western candidates were usually favoring the rapid promotion of the Ukrainian language, liberal reforms, and EU and NATO accession. Eastern were mostly conservative, promised some kind of official status to the Russian language, and were Euroskeptic. Attempts to combine some of these elements to disrupt the pattern and increase the variety of choices were tried but without success. The young version of me favored NATO and the Russian language, which led to my alienation from the well-funded intelligentsia of both major camps. Korchynsky from the early days of Bratstvo was the opposite, trying to combine the Ukrainian language with Eurasianism. Interesting that most of his partners inside Russia were agreeing to use the non-Russified version of his name despite the rules of the Russian language.
Easterners won the first two rounds. The first President, CPSU apparatchik, and de-facto centrist Leonid Kravchuk was considered more pro-Russian than his liberal rival, aforementioned Viacheslav Chornovil. After not fulfilling any of his pro-Russian electoral promises, he remained one term President and was replaced by another Leonid - Kuchma. Who came to power with a more hardline pro-Russian program, which he also failed to fulfill. Kuchma won the re-election due to competing with the even greater pro-Russian candidate Petro Symonenko, against whom Kuchma’s own pro-Russianness seemed centrist and acceptable to all except hardline Russian irredentists. His plans to transfer the power to Viktor Yanukovych at the end of his second term resulted in the first Maidan, also known as the Orange Revolution. During these events, the main hero of this text worked as a pro-Yanukovych media killer, filming spicy “two minutes of hate” shorts aimed at lowering the ratings of pro-Western Yushchenko among the Ukrainophone electorate. Being a candidate in the 2004 Presidential elections, Korchynsky got 0,17% in the first round and encouraged his supporters to vote for Yanukovych in the second round.
DK: The Russian Orthodox Church had the biggest amount of parishes in Ukraine. More precisely, Ukrainian parishes constituted its biggest part. Metropolitan of Kyiv and Galicia Filaret ruled here for quite a number of years. He had a luxurious residence on Pushkinska Street in Kyiv and governed with a firm hand, causing the genuine childish hate of all clerics. He almost became of Patriarch of Moscow in the late 80s, but his open enemy Alexy was chosen instead of him. This is when Filaret understood that separatism is a way to salvation. His enemies, and all bishops were his enemies, called up a bishop’s council of Ukrainian parishes in Kharkiv. Filaret was deprived of rank and later unfrocked. He decided to fight. Filaret was still in control of the residence and St. Volodymyr’s Cathedral when he got the courage to approach me.
There are no reasons to doubt the sincerity of Korchynsky’s Abrahamic fundamentalism. There are many reasons to doubt his Orthodox fundamentalism. In the 90s, he supported all clerics ready to cut ties with Moscow. He encouraged heresies among clerics who already did so and was often finding them too conservative.
DK: I suggested Filaret to experiment with Albigensianism, but he disagreed. All the clerics are terrible conservatives.
Although it seems that his motives were mostly nationalist at the time, it is important to remember that Orthodox Christianity was considered a religion of elderly women at the time, with them constituting about 70% of regular church attendees in urban areas. The situation was slightly different in rural areas of Western Ukraine, where conflicts between the resurgent Greek Catholics and remaining Orthodox were not uncommon, and where young men often participated in them. Greek Catholics were usually winning these skirmishes. It is quite possible that his heretical positions were an attempt to attract that sort of young crowd that was put off by the traditional Orthodox ceremoniality.
To get a better understanding of his modern relationship with the state-approved Orthodox Church of Ukraine of Metropolitan Epiphanius I, I talked with a blogger Oleh Volodarsky. The man is in direct contact with the priests of that church and often films video interviews with them. In a personal correspondence with me and on the phone, he revealed the critical attitude of the priests to Korchynsky, Bratstvo, and adjacent organization Tradition and Order. He said that all their joint photos with the OCU priests are their own initiative and that OCU is in no way responsible for the content of these organizations. If true, this means that the actual relationship is not that different from the one Dugin has with the Russian Orthodox Church, the one I described in my previous text. Volodarsky discouraged me from attempts to befriend Bratstvo people and suggested I speak directly with OCU priests instead.
Let us fast-forward this tape a bit more and learn his 2024 positions. He is currently at the frontlines of the fight against the Ukrainian Orthodox Church (Moscow Patriarchate), with his people helping the SSU and police to seize as many of their parishes as possible and transfer them to OCU. Modern Bratstvo is pan-Abrahamic rather than strictly Orthodox. In theory, all monotheists are welcome except the followers of UOC, which he always calls UOC FSB, implying that it is a theological wing of FSB. In practice, all kinds of monotheists can be found there, except not only the UOC followers but also Orthodox Jews. Korchynsky continuously bashes Western liberals, whom he views as Manicheans, yet when it comes to America - he's on the side of the neo-con wing of the Republican party. Likes John McCain and dislikes Donald Trump. After 2022, he spends much more time with Ukrainian Protestants than ever before because of their more clearly manifested un-Russianness, even though they are considered the most LGBT-friendly type of Christians in the country. He also hates all types of neo-pagans and followers of Eastern traditional religions - called out Rishi Sunak for his Hinduist sympathies and dismissed the Chinese civilization as barbaric.
DK: Life can only be perceived as a ritual if there is a former familiarity with the ritual. Ritual’s sense is to start perceiving life as a ritual. Faith demands ritual. This means that you have what you believe in. Not “in what you believe in” but “what you believe in”. Faith is not the act of perceiving, not the act of simple attitude, but the act of creation. Verity is not discovered, it is created.
So, what this kind of guy could possibly seek among Russian and pro-Russian Eurasianists in the 00s? My guess is that he hoped to use the Orthodox faith as a safeguard against Russian invasion, offering his authority among Ukrainian nationalists as a bargaining chip. He also wanted to be responsible for diplomacy with Russia, trying to befriend the brightest out of Russophiles. Even when friendly with Dugin, he continuously warned that Russia wanted to occupy Crimea, as in this 2008 article. His usual modus operandi of the era was to write alarmist texts intended for Ukrainian nationalists, then go to Moscow to warn the locals there about the dangers of the Orange Revolution and evil CIA plots. When speaking to Belarusian oppositional fanzine in the same year, his adjutant of the time Oleksiy Seredyuk even claimed that they were co-founders of Eurasian Youth Union, although this information is not found anywhere in either official EYU memoirs or the literature of Russian liberal watchers of right-wing movements. Likely he exaggerated, as a last attempt to sway EYU away from their chosen anti-Ukrainian course. Like all Muscovites, Dugin was probably thinking solely about the Russian answer to Western liberalism, and indeed he could imagine EYU as a union of all non-Western nationalisms as Seredyuk claims. He might have changed his mind after witnessing the solid advantage Ukrainian grassroots activists have over Russian grassroots activists.
While in Russia, Korchynsky met with Putin’s chief strategist Vladislav Surkov and gave a lecture about techniques for repressing mass riots to “Nashi”, the Putinist Youth movement. He said to Surkov: "The genius of Americans lies in the fact that they understood: if you want a political result, you need to give free rein to the crazies. It is precisely the marginalized, the unhinged, and the blissful who drive the political process." Looks like the visit was covered up at the highest possible level, because when Duma MP Viktor Tyulkin tried to get explanations from FSB about the nature of visit, he only received a short dismissal stating that Korchynsky is not viewed as a criminal at the moment.
DK: It can be said that a nation is a universal community, which is determined by national consciousness and the desire of nation members to belong to it. This is difficult to formulate and difficult to get. And yet this hard-to-get thing exists and exceeds all human creations except social justice in the scale of consequences and the number of victims. If it kills – it exists. The nation is a paradox. The emergence of nations is paradoxical. Butcher of Ukrainian people Jeremi Wisniowiecki was probably the first carrier of Ukrainian national identity. He was building the Ukrainian nation of the Dnieper’s left bank, the only place where it was possible. His enemies discovered their own nationality no sooner than under Berestechko, two days before they were drowned in the swamp. The primary task of the key event of national genesis – Khmelnytsky uprising – was the destruction of a fetus of Wisniowiecki’s Ukrainian nation. The war of 1648-54 is listed as civil war in the Polish historiography. It was also a civil one for Ukrainians. A roughly equal number of Ukrainians fought on both sides. This became a national tradition in all subsequent wars, up to and including the Second World War. This was a liberation war only for Tatars. At least they fought only on one side. Tatars created a number of nations, including Ukrainians. We have to thank Tatars and Bolsheviks for everything strong, offensive, and promising we have. They were destroying our bodies and creating our souls. Khmelnytsky was paying Tatar Murza twice the amount he paid to the Cossack Colonel. And still, Khmelnytsky is the first national hero. Destruction is more constructive than creation. The nation has to kill someone to be born. In most cases – its own parents. All nations were built by scoundrels, there is not a single one built by saints.
Despite the Goverla incident, Korchynsky continued regular visits to Moscow until the end of 2012, when he warned the EYU rally crowd about the inevitable war in Ukraine and Russia. When push came to shove during the second Maidan one year later, not only did he switch sides and come in support of the new Orange Revolution he spent years condemning, but he actually encouraged his boys to use violence against pro-Yanukovych policemen. Although Ihor “Malyar”, the guy who was beating up policemen with metal chains was formally a member of NatCorps, he was supported by the Bratstvo people on this occasion, who were driving a bulldozer against policemen. Malyar never denied this fact and continuously confirms it in his numerous interviews, including this one. Since he is a genuine ultra-hardcore Neo-Nazi, this probably makes him the rightmost man who ever collaborated with Korchynsky, even if in a temporary fashion.
DK: I always paid a lot of attention to propaganda. Modern wars are weaponized political rallies. Their demonstrative aspect is no less important than the moment of weapon use. Propaganda only works when people walk up to their knees in propaganda. But when there is not enough money for that, scandal becomes a proletarian weapon. By the way, good scandal is not such an easy task. No one will notice it in our lands. The contradicting statement is likelier to surprise.
Ukrainian prosecutors opened a criminal case against Korchynsky for the Malyar affair, after which he briefly relocated to… Russia and Israel. This move led some Maidan activists to form a conspiracy theory that this radicalization was ordered by Russia to justify the Crimean occupation. Without Dmytro’s bulldozer and Malyar’s chain, the whole Maidan affair could have ended up in the same manner the first Orange Revolution ended - in the victory of Yushchenko 2.0. And as we know thanks to Seredyuk’s 2008 interview - Bratstvo people were not at all satisfied with remaining on backbenches during Yushchenko 1.0.
Dmytro’s evolution between 2014 and 2024 is not interesting to me because of its great dependence on geopolitical events of historical importance. I have described his current positions and that is enough I think. He has no political ambitions anymore, he will not become a dictator or President. Seems like he wants to concentrate on the promotion of the Ukrainian language among remaining Russophones while accepting the inevitability of liberal rule. A few more themes I’d like to cover here are his leftist elements and people who wish to become his successors.
DK: Once, I came across the memoirs of a Comintern agent Vladimirov, who was sent to the Special District of China in 1942-1943. The Chinese People's Army was in a pitiful state and was one of the weakest among the active forces, squeezed between the Kuomintang, independent militarists, and the Japanese. And during that time, which felt like final days, a discussion was unfolding within the party and the army about correcting literary styles. Long and exhausting meetings were held daily in party organizations and military units, where conformity of various leaders to the style was discussed. Self-criticism sessions were organized. Based on the results of these discussions, "purges" were carried out. What struck Vladimirov was that Mao took the correction of style more seriously than the military tasks. I didn't understand it either, but today, based on my own experience, I can affirm: if Mao had not conducted the "zhengfeng" (style correction), China would never have become communist. If Stalin had not carried out the "purge" in 1937, he would not have won the war. If it were not for the "Night of the Long Knives", Hitler would not have started the war. They understood that one cannot enter new situations with old people and under old abbreviations. They were creating new communities.
Bratstvo’s leftist elements were not only the consequence of their attempts to be relatable to Easterners but also of the partially Maoist beliefs of Korchynsky and his desire to attach some of the best Soviet attitudes (“our country is the greatest”) to independent Ukraine. He disliked the common Ukrainian desire to have a modest, small and unremarkable country minding its own business. Although nationalism and Christianity were obviously the core values, all the Mao-Fidel imagery could probably survive to this day if there was such thing as a radical Marxist music scene. In our timeline, music underground was mostly split between the punk anarchist scene, which was getting more and more homosexual, becoming increasingly unattractive to straight men. And radical racist metal scene, which united capable masculine men. In addition, it isn’t Korchynsky’s fault that the last smart generation of leftist philosophers was in the 1970s, being a byproduct of the Soviet Union’s existence in the first place.
While remaining NazBol, Bratstvo was still viewed as mostly right-wing. The radical communists of the time were still radical atheists. I had entryists from Svoboda but not Bratstvo in my own red bloc, and I am not aware of any migrants from the Communist Party to Bratstvo. Had I known Korchynsky at the time, I would suggested him to include Hugo Chavez in his deck. After all, PSUV is a Christian socialist party.
DK: Imagine yourself in Western Germany at the beginning of the 1970s. Totality is in your head, you’re surrounded by the millions of indifferent pigs, who aren’t interested in either you or your allusions to the Red Army. You’re a single human among the pigs. You see only pigs: one day, month, year, twenty years you walk among the pigs, the last men died in 1945, the next ones will appear only in thirty years and you won’t see them. There are just pigs and pig shit as the art subject and form, as the form of capital accumulation and political process. It is only natural that you will take the bomb and bring it to the mall. You will appeal to Satan. God created everything. Satan made it all interesting.
For seven years I have lived in the world he created. In 2021, I decided to learn what his closest people thought about me and how exactly are we going to dance from now on. Due to whatever reason Dmytro never visits Kharkiv (being satisfied with entertaining people solely in Kyiv, Lviv, and Odesa), so I met young and promising people from the new project which is partially his - Tradition and Order. For a few months, I was pestering them, meeting them in person after their rallies or online on Telegram, seeking the definition for myself. For a few months, they refused to give any. Then, as if inviting me personally, the organization’s leader Bohdan Khodakovsky added an interesting postscript to the announcement of his first open lecture in Kharkiv - “We are always ready for talks with interesting opponents”. When I actually came I got the impression that they thought I wouldn’t show up - average members became nervous. And even though I placed myself on the second row, being aware that the first row during such meetings is reserved for people who are known and respected within the organization, they called up the tallest and most muscular guy in the room and placed him directly in front of me, probably thinking I wish to stage a provocation. During the lecture itself, it appeared as if Bohdan spent no less than 1/4 of it speaking directly to me, with most listeners not being aware of it. He was telling what should I expect from others, how would he act in my place, provided tips and hints without ever calling me by my name, and answered a couple of my direct questions. Even the photos, made and published by their photographer on their Telegram channel, feature Bohdan looking directly at me and pointing directly at me. After a couple of days, he summed up the event, while refusing to namedrop me once again, and gave what looks like an official assessment:
Bohdan Khodakovsky: I watched Ukrainian liberals for a long time and noticed one pattern. A Ukrainian liberal is either a sellout or a complete idiot. Tertium non datur. Let’s take a look at leftists. It is possible to meet idealistic anarchists, socialists, or even communists among them. Our beliefs are opposite of theirs, but it is possible to have a meaningful discussion or to rearrange each other’s faces. This is not possible with liberals. They are either unable to connect two words, or rush to ban or to write a complaint for intolerant meme.
Have to say, I mostly liked these guys. They might be adjacent to the dreaded right of the right, the types with spiderweb tattoos who kill gypsies for sport (I might write about such types later this year, if this text gets popular enough), but from what I saw they civilize them, and utilize their worst impulses for the common good. Bohdan himself gives off a warrior-of-light vibe, very much unlike Korchynsky’s inherent dualism. I appreciate the offer to rumble, but even if I gathered a bunch of people foolish enough to get into fistfights with young cops and SSU workers, I’d direct them against the homophile rightists - Sergiy Filimonov, Sergiy Sternenko or Vitaly Ovcharenko.
DK: They still poison our souls, the bookworms and Pharisees. Their books are outdated, and Pharisaism is the fact that their schemes, their concepts can no longer describe anything. They said we were killers. But in reality, those soldiers who go into battle, terrorists, even criminals going to rob, have a psychology and a sense of sacrifice. They sacrifice themselves. The real killers with the psychology of killers are the police officer, the prosecutor, and the judge. They don't take risks. They kill while documenting their killings. There is nothing more abhorrent than state violence. When people talk about bureaucratic dictatorship, they imagine iron columns, a dictator in front of millions, Hitler, Stalin. Such things can only be dreamed of because, in reality, it is a forty-year-old lady overburdened with household responsibilities - a judge in a district court who sentences people to up to 12 years in cases that she is fundamentally unable to even comprehend physiologically.
For whatever good their sympathies did to me, I still pity that their best qualities are put to the service of the state and that they're so dependent on it that even providing an open serious assessment of me requires a greenlight from some important higher-up. Because of their unwillingness to engage me in media space, I am actually worse off than the homophile leftists they say they hate. If it wasn’t for me, KharkivPride leader Anna Sharyhina would never meet the British ambassador Melinda Simmons, because when we two founded the feminist studies in our city, my knowledge of all the feminist theory was vastly superior to hers. She is, however, always ready to perform the tasks set up for her by the donors, while I am a stubborn egoist. She gets denounced as a degenerate by the right and uses these occasions to solidify her position within the Ukrainian left. Perhaps I need to double down on degeneracy and I do have a few ideas on that account. But it does seem that even if gather a fully illegal mass rally tomorrow, Bohdan will still fail to mention me by name because I don’t have the backing of Melinda Simmons.
All these experiences led me to my final conclusion about who Korchynsky really is. He began as a romantic, charismatic, and idealistic man, surrounded by people with vastly lower aspirations. He managed to earn respect among Ukrainian Siloviki by being able to stand by his words, being able to connect metaphysics with genuine risk and personal responsibility. By now he is basically a secular high priest for Siloviki. And, possibly, an informal SSU chairman. Actual heads of SSU are getting appointed and dismissed, governments come and go, but he retains a clear view of the situation on the ground. While I am very much a fan of his charisma, I am not at all a fan of Siloviki as a caste. Soviet attitude to its Kshatriyas was pretty much perfect - they weren’t demonized as in modern America, nor were they pedestalized as in the Third Reich. This issue is the greatest obstacle to building any new hypothetical NazBol projects in Eastern Europe - because while warriors concede that for the nation or ethnicity to thrive its workers must have agency and wealth, they are never ready to share.
Coming up next:
Soviet Identity. People who self-identified as neither Russian nor Ukrainian but Soviet - myth or reality?
One movie analysis and one celebrity retrospective.
After these, you will have the ability to choose my next themes by voting in polls on my Twitter account.
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any word on when the book is coming out ?
Wow, you have translated a book for a publisher! My congratulation. It is a respectable deed.