contents
Russia has been at war with Ukraine for seven weeks. But the conflict between Russians and Ukrainians is much older – and it runs very deep, as Ukrainian author Jurko Prochasko says.
Yurko Prochasko is one of the most important Ukrainian intellectuals. He is not only a writer, translator and Germanist, but also a psychoanalyst. Regarding Russia’s actions against Ukraine, he says: “This is the logic of an imaginary rapist who first tries to convince the victim that he needs to be loved. If this says I don’t love you and doesn’t want to connect with you, then he tries to make love by force.”
Russia’s war of aggression as a brutal attack – with psychological factors as a fire accelerator. The Russian leadership, Prochasko diagnoses, suffers from a malignant narcissism. The Russians, or “Great Russians” as Prochasko calls them, reacted with anger to the Ukrainian rejection. “They have absolutely no idea why we are immune to all the seductions of that imperial greatness they are obsessed with – and that infuriates them.”
Putin’s Russia reacts offended
Prochasko is convinced that this is a highly offensive factor: “The fact that they came and offered us participation in this size and that we politely declined it.” Russia, the empire, does not understand Ukraine. This is also due to the huge differences between the two peoples. As an important feature of the Ukrainian self-image, Prochasko identifies “that we regard everything that is here as our own. We built it, it means something to us, it belongs to us. And we are ready to defend that.”
Legend:
Jurko Prochasko, now 51 years old, was studying German at the University of Lviv (pictured) when the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991 and Ukraine became independent.
imago images
Ukraine is therefore a nation of citoyens, of citizens. Russia, on the other hand, remains deeply shaped by its imperial-authoritarian tradition. He explains it like this: “Many Russians do not understand whether their country is theirs or Putin’s – and whether it is theirs or the tsar’s.”
Prochasko’s approach explains why Ukrainians are so brave in defending their country. And also why the Russian troops are reacting with such cruel anger that the Ukrainians are not surrendering. The dead civilians of Bucha and bombed Mariupol are victims of anger.
An empire tries to keep its former colony with itself.
In 1991 the Soviet Union collapsed and Ukraine became independent. Ukrainians finally had their own state after living for centuries under Polish, Austrian and Russian rule.
That is why he sees the current war as a colonial war – similar to what happened when the British empire collapsed and was bloody. “What is happening here now is also a typical colonial war. An empire tries to keep its former colony with itself.”
Ukraine feels part of the West
Ukraine has long since broken away from Moscow. Not even a bridging function between East and West is still an option for the country. “It has long been decided for us that we belong to the West and we have finally had enough of the role of a bridge.” President Vladimir Putin has repeatedly claimed that Russians and Ukrainians are one people. Then he went to war in Ukraine.
What a terrible arrogance of a ruler who wants to force his neighbors into a fraternal unity that does not exist, and who with his hubris destroys all ties between peoples. Prochasko says: “Supposedly 71 percent support Putin and feel no shame, but pride in this war. I don’t even have hatred for these enemies, these Great Russians, but something much, much worse: contempt.”