Watching the fighting in Ukraine, like many people I am reminded of Bismarck’s famous dictum that every modern nation state is born in blood and iron. Ukraine is now a country which through its heroism and sacrifice is establishing itself as a sovereign, independent European nation . In this, it closely resembles Ireland’s own moment of change 106 years ago, the Easter Rising, our own moment of blood and iron.
The idea of Irish independence had existed for centuries, and, as in Ukraine, the 19th century saw a Romantic nationalist and cultural revival. This came to fruition at Easter 1916 when a small group of poets, teachers and trade unionists declared a sovereign, independent Republic on the entire island of Ireland, free of all bonds with our neighbour Britain. In 1917, an independent republic of Ukraine came into being, but was soon swallowed up by its giant Soviet neighbour.
As we know, the Rising was not universally welcomed by the ordinary citizens of Dublin. For eight hundred years, Ireland and Britain were tightly intertwined in terms of history, culture, language and family, as are Russia and Ukraine. Many Dublin families had members, like my great grandfather and grandfather, fighting for the British in France. Others believed that the limited form of independence called Home Rule would eventually be granted. In Joyce’s Ulysses the extreme nationalist known as the Citizen is a figure of ridicule.
Self-sacrifice
James Connolly was convinced the British would not attack Dublin, one-time second city of the British empire. But when the rebellion started they had no qualms about using artillery to reduce the centre of an English-speaking city to rubble, any more than Russia has refrained from attacking Ukrainian cities. With the brutal execution of the leaders, things changed. People who had little interest in politics, who had previously mocked the extreme nationalists, were moved by their heroism and self-sacrifice, and furious at the brutality of the British. As Yeats said, all was ‘. . . changed, changed utterly: A terrible beauty is born.’ That terrible beauty was the modern Irish nation state.
The new Irish state would, like Ukraine, be ethno-natonalist, and like all nationalist narratives, it required great simplifications and omissions. Our blessing and curse is that we are an island, so physical borders seem obvious. It is not the same in Eastern Europe, where ethnicity and language rather than geography is key. The cities of Lviv and Odesa, names now familiar from TV news, are good examples. In Lviv, now often referred to as the cultural capital of Ukraine, Ukrainians were a tiny minority in a city dominated by Jews and Poles. In 1945, 144, 000 Poles were deported. In Odesa, Jews and Russians also vastly outnumbered Ukrainians. But in spite of this, Russian-speakers in what is now Kharkiv have sided with Ukraine, as has their president, a man of Jewish descent and a native Russian-speaker who was once mocked for his dodgy Ukrainian language skills. The new Ukraine has come into being.
But after the 1916 moment, comes the 1922 one. This year we commemorate the Treaty signed with Britain in 1922, which ended the War of Independence. When some of the Irish leaders sat down to negotiate the Treaty, the blood and horror of the previous eight years was fresh in their minds. They had lost comrades and family members and they had few illusions about the British, after the numerous atrocities committed by their forces against Irish civilians and combatants.
Short of ideal
The Treaty fell far short of the ideal Republic which people had been fighting and dying for since 1916. Not only was the country partitioned, with the northern region allowed to secede and join together with the neighbouring state, there was no question of full independence or sovereignty. We would agree to become a self-governing dominion within the community known as the British Empire. In addition, for its own security, our neighbour would retain control of a number of Irish ports, thus precluding us from entering into any kind of military alliance. These were the terms of the Treaty offered, and if we refused, the British prime minster Lloyd George, though some claim he was bluffing, promised us ‘immediate and terrible war’, which we avoided and which Ukraine is now experiencing.
Michael Collins embraced the Treaty, saying that what we had won ‘was not the freedom that all nations desire and develop to, but the freedom to achieve it.’ Achieving that freedom would be a long and painful process. As with Ukraine and Russia, it is hard to completely sever economic, cultural and family bonds which have developed over centuries. In many ways, independence did not change them. A hundred years later, despite the ongoing open wound of Northern Ireland, the relations between the two nations are, despite Brexit, are strong.
Whatever kind of deal to end the bloodshed is eventually thrashed out between Russia and Ukraine, it will be messy and painful, and may involve terrible compromises with regard to territory and sovereignty. But Ukraine’s heroism has established its right to be a sovereign, independent nation. Ireland’s experience shows it may not happen tomorrow or even a century later. But in Ukraine too, a terrible beauty has been born.
Michael O’Loughlin is a writer and poet