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A recent event that I’m sure fully counts as culture war is the official removal in Odessa of the monument to the city’s founders, mainly Catherine the Great. The justification, which is rather easy to predict, is that Catherine was a perpetrator of Moskal imperialism who repressed Ukrainian patriots (supposedly they already existed back then), committed cultural genocide and erased Ukrainian nationhood (which obviously we’re also supposed to believe existed back then). There isn’t much to comment on this, I think (though I’ll again point out that Odessa would never have existed in the first place without Catherine), but an educated redditor was eager to point out* the curious fact that the removed monument is actually a replica erected in 2007, largely as a response to the events of the so-called Orange Revolution, as the original was removed (and supposedly destroyed) by the Soviets in 1920. So yes, it was originally removed as an imperialist relic, by powers that the Ukrainian authorities claim later perpetrated genocide specifically against Ukrainians because they were Ukrainians i.e. it was an incident between opposing factions of Ukraine deniers. This is where we’re at, which actually doesn’t surprise me that much because I believe we’ve been in a clown world for a long time.
*https://old.reddit.com/r/europe/comments/zyccgk/catherine_the_great_statue_taken_down_in_odesa/
I am mildly interested in how the quest for Ukrainian nation building will develop my lifetime. Right now they manage to co-opt two very opposing sets of political and philosophical schools, largely due to wartime mobilisation censorship and patriotism. On the one hand the Ukrainian identity is being based on 19th/early 20th century style blood and soil rhetoric. The defenders of white Christian (even pagan) Europe against eastern orc hordes. Unspoiled real Slavs against the crypto-Tatar Muscovites. Real European Christians unlike those Eastern Orthodox peasants. On the other hand their only hope for national survival in this day and age is to tightly integrate with the “GAE”. So the Ukrainian army puts up EU flags in newly reconquered territories. Their parliament is busy rushing through gay agenda bills. Their politicians are making deals with Blackrock and learning the ropes of the WEF circuit.
But when the war ends these two stories cannot coexist for long. You cannot arm neo-nazi battalions while going through the EU integration process. You cannot outright ban one of the largest churches as well as the linguistic communities in your country and try to enter the Schengen area. It’s not for nothing that half the EU funded ads targeted to my demographic on social media has some visible minorities (ie blacks) posing as proud Europeans. The nationalist Ukrainian state, if it ever stops being such a poor corrupt shithole and enters the EU, will have to cope with millions of African/South Asian/Middle Eastern immigrants as well as the European Court of Human Rights rulings which will not tolerate the blood and soil rhetoric in practice. It’s ridiculous contradictions all over and makes me profoundly sad that so many young brave people are dying for a political project doomed to fail if it ever succeeds.
Something has to give in at some point. I don’t know what but I am not very hopeful about the results.
At one time, the Baltic countries joined the EU and became part of the "GAE". And they have deprived a third of their population of the right to vote on the basis of ethnicity. So I don't think that Ukraine will have problems with neo-Nazis.
Migrants go to Germany, France, Sweden - rich socialist states. Even Poland has a negative emigration balance in the EU. Probably Ukraine will never have to deal with mass migration from Africa.
From a demographic point of view, it is much more interesting how a country with one of the lowest fertility in the world and a population of less than 40 million people will exist after at least 10 million people left it. (Most of which are women and most of them will not return). This will probably be the biggest gender imbalance in history. Will Ukraine declare itself the first incel state? Will it provoke insanely high levels of crime and suicide? It will be interesting to watch.
None of the Baltic countries has "deprived a third of their population of the right to vote on the basis of ethnicity", this assuredly referring to stateless post-Soviet citizens in Estonia and Latvia (not Lithuania, incidentally). Currently ca 9-10 % of Latvian and 7-8 % of Estonian population has the non-citizen status; this was not based on ethnicity but on the basis of becoming resident in these countries during Soviet occupation times (in other words, people descending from Estonian or Latvian Russian minorities that had existed there before the Soviet occupation gained citizenship among the others). Of course the noncitizen numbers were larger in the past decades, but many of them have been naturalized since.
That still definitely sounds to me like something the EU would never tolerate against any other ethnic group. You would likely get jail time in Germany for even championing stripping new comers of their citizenship.
Again, it wasn't done against one ethnic group. The group of stateless citizens included Ukrainians, Azeris etc. in addition to Russians.
Estonia and Latvia did this under rather special circumstances. In the Baltic countries, the historical view - with justification - is that the countries were illegally occupied in 1940-1991, with the legal state continuity instead being carried by the exile governments abroad. The fall of Soviet Union then meant the end of occupation; in this view, nobody was stripped of the Estonian/Latvian citizenship, since legally the newcomers had never even held it, as no citizenship application had been processed by a legitimate government in those countries.
Of course, this did lead to a fair mess regarding the status of the noncitizens and the fact that Lithuania solved this issue differently despite a similar history to other Baltic countries complicates things, but it's still important to remember what the legal justification for all of this is, insofar as Estonia and Latvia view the issue.
This sounds rather like an Isolated Demand for Leniency. Any government who really dislikes their previous government can declare the preceding regime illegitimate/illegal and then do whatever the hell they want with people who became resident in the intervening times? I think not. If the Trumpists came out with rock-solid evidence that the election really WAS stolen, tomorrow, and subsequently Trump'24 (or '23) nullifies all citizenships granted since Jan 2020, do you think the Blue Tribe is just going to sit there nodding "This is legit because it's what the Baltics did" as X million mostly-Mexican-"Americans" get repatriated to Guadalajara?
Because I think they'd raise merry hell.
"Disparate impact = discrimination" and all that.
Besides, where exactly is the evidence that the Baltic referenda in '45 on joining the USSR were rigged? If that's their basis for yelling "illegal government" then I think they need better evidence.
Is there any indicator that they were unique in being not rigged?
From quick look 1940 vote (after Russia invaded central Europe together with Nazi Germany) was blatantly rigged ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/People%27s_Parliament - Lithuania supposedly had 99.2% communist vote with 95.5% turnout, Estonia 92.2% and 81.6%, Latvia 97.6% and 94.7% )
Referendum in Poland run by USSR at that time was clearly falsified.
Why on Earth you would assume that USSR run elections in conquered country were not blatantly rigged?
(I admit that I have not found sources how 1945 were run or even good mention of them, but if Russians have not falsified them - then I would be really surprised)
Being invaded is quite good evidence.
Needing to falsify elections is also a good hint.
Repeated protests that in 1991 were not crushed even by running over protestors with tanks are also quite good evidence.
People declaring independence as soon as Russia lost its power and trying to get away from it is also a good hint.
If previous government was result as invasion by oppressive regime, blatantly oppressed people and independence had clear support - then surely you can do this.
I don't think any Baltic countries ran referendums of elections in 1945.
Looking at the election in Estonia in 1940, electing the parliament that rushed through the annexation:
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