"Freedom and Democracy". Towards the future we deserve
Ukrayinska Pravda publishes essays by the finalists of the European Union in Ukraine project "10 years of Euromaidan. How European values determined the path of Ukraine"
When I grab my coffee at a local coffee shop in my neighborhood daily, I always see a tenderly placed double flag on the cashier's desk. Half of it is the Ukrainian flag, and the other half is the EU one. It is tiny but is there every day. This flag reminds me of the path Ukrainians have chosen – the path of a free democratic state that is an equal part of the big European family.
One will be stunned when looking around Ukrainian cities today. Those reminders of a long-awaited EU future are everywhere. After the Revolution of Dignity in 2014, this became common in Ukraine. Now, the EU has finally become the only vector for the future, not one of the many. This was when Ukraine's EU membership transformed from a delusional prospect to a substantial desire and aim for generations ahead.
Starting from a group of people on Maidan Nezalezhnosti who went there disagreeing with President Yanukovych's refusal to sign the long-awaited Association Agreement with the European Union in November 2013, a new EU-aimed future movement covered the Ukrainian regions like a warm veil on a frigid autumn night. When talking to people who witnessed Euromaidan in its early days, most would never have imagined what it would develop into. They went into the streets as the government crossed the fate of their country's future. None of them thought they would become part of the colorful pages of school history textbooks. Also, not many imagined that the winter of 2014 was only Ukraine's first winter in flames out of many ahead.
When I think of the European Union's values, two always stand out and are written in big capital letters in my head. Freedom and Democracy. Most people who went into the streets 10 years ago keep fighting for these core European values that coincide with those Ukrainians have in their genetic code. For many, their lives became the price they gave while defending the democratic future of Ukraine and its right to exist.
As nothing comes alone, the start of this vast pro-European wave in Ukraine came together with the wave of cruelty that has been accumulating for decades from Ukraine's most giant eastern neighbor. Russia's occupation of the Crimean Peninsula and the start of the war in Donbas made it clear to many Ukrainians that Russia is not a brother or friend as it was posed in the Ukrainian stand for decades. Russia's war in Ukraine shows in practice the sound of European values and how important the decade-long fight Ukraine is going through. Today, people know exactly what the alternative is to being part of the European Union for Ukraine and how much we don't want it.
It is hard to name a feeling similar to the one I feel when standing in the middle of Maidan Nezalezhnosti. I close my eyes, and the sounds of the always-busy, wide Khreshchatyk disappear immediately. I sense a bitter mix of bliss and pain accompanying Ukraine on its way to the European future. I feel how every value promoted in the European Union has been forming a new Ukrainian mentality for the last decade, how many of those values are rooted here now with blood and thus can never be compromised anymore. When I close my eyes, standing in the middle of a place where my nation's history has been written since the early days of independence, I feel how much my country deserves to be an EU member state.
When reflecting on how Euromaidan determined the path of Ukraine, I think a lot about how paramount it is that people in the streets of Kyiv and other Ukrainian cities already had achievements in 2014, including the resignation of the pro-Russian government of Yanukovych. Like in the 2004 Orange Revolution, the Revolution of Dignity became another proof to Ukrainians how much we can achieve when unitedly fighting for the future. We know how challenging the fight we stepped in 10 years ago is, but we also know that nothing is impossible when defending your existence.
Today, as we mark the 10-year anniversary of Euromaidan, the European Union opened accession negotiations with Ukraine. What may have seemed like a Christmas present from Brussels is, in reality, a fruit of the hard work of those dedicated to serving the Ukrainian nation and leading it toward a European future for years now. Today, we are as responsible as ever to those who laid down their lives for the free future of a country with European values. Our task is to lead the nation with dignity through the pages of a book with a happy ending, which the brave people began to write on that cloudy day in November 2013.
Yelyzaveta Khodorovska