“Ukraine Should Have Been Generous and Have Returned What Was Given” Eduard Limonov

Rodrigo Fernández EL PAIS

29 JUN 2014

Born in Russia and raised in Kharkiv, Ukraine today, he has participated in many European wars Eduard Limonov, until recently only known to a small circle in the West, is now a celebrity thanks to the book Limonov (Anagram) who dedicated Emmanuel Carrère. Born in Russia in 1943 with the name of Eduard Savenko and raised in Kharkiv, Ukraine today, Limonov is a writer and politician, who spent a significant part of his life in the United States and France. He returned to Moscow after the Soviet Union disappeared.

Curiously, Soviet emigre not returned to join the gravediggers of communism, but to augment the anti-reform side. Savenko became Limonov, and citric acid as explosive as a Granada (limonka in Russian slang). In 1993, he founded the National-Bolshevik Party, now banned, but continues to operate under the name of The Other Russia.

Delgado, glasses, goatee and mustache, does not give the impression of being what it is: a hard, a man of action, who has participated in supporting the Yugoslav wars Serbs in Abkhazia against Georgians in Transnistria Russian-speaking side. Receive a HOME in his apartment in central Moscow, while states that have detachments fighting in eastern Ukraine.

Question. Russia now dominate again Crimea …

Response.At last! 23 who said that Crimea was Russian land, populated by Russians ago. Kiev Ukraine inherited from the Soviet territory much that was not his, that he had been included for administrative convenience, or as Crimea Kharkov province. There I lived my early twenties and I know well: you could wander for days without hearing the Ukrainian. Three hundred years was part of Russia. The same is true of Donbas coal mines whose work has always been Russian. Ukraine in 1991, when he received this legacy, should have done an act of generosity and all have returned. The same has happened with Georgia, who left with a legacy that included Abkhazia, Adjara and South Ossetia. They created their little empires and were reluctant to give what is not theirs. But you have to return the dowry.

Q. Do you mean that Russia must regain its former empire?

A. My position is clear: Crimea and Donbas area are Russian lands. We think so and so.

Q. How do you see the situation in southeastern Ukraine?

R. Russians and Ukrainians live there, but these are not like Ukrainians living in the west. The first western Ukrainian regions were incorporated only in 1939 and the last in 1945. That is, they have not lived their whole story with us, lived with Austria-Hungary, with Poland. It is in these regions that has reached the ideology that dominates in Kiev and won the Euromaidán. From 1991 to 2014 the first Ukrainian ministers have been all about fraudsters, and crooks mercanchifles all. Donbas and Kharkov’s endured, but when they came to power Euromaidán thugs, when they saw these bracelets and baseball bats, their aggressiveness, the people of eastern Ukraine was frightened.

Q. How about the position of the Kremlin against the eastern Ukraine?

R. What happened in Kiev on 22 February was unexpected for everyone, including the Kremlin. Crimea reacted quickly, people wanted to be part of Russia and as soon as the opportunity presented is organized and conducted the referendum. Putin did not really want any of this; cornered him, he had no other choice.

Q. What future awaits the opposition? The little room I had seems to have lost.

A. Absolutely. My analysis did not like: the Liberals lost power in 2003 when they were without parliamentary representation, and in these 10 years have won the general hatred. They themselves have been buried, though their ranks have intellectuals have media. They had a lot of strength, but have squandered it all, everything went wrong. In 2011, when they took to the streets to 100,000 people, rather than dictate terms to the regime, signed agreements with him.

Q. And the left?

R. What elephant, the left corner is occupied by the Communist Party organization very harmful appropriated rather than when they are not communists, are impostors. As a result, other small leftist parties are doomed to lead a pitiful life.

Q. There is no future, then?

R. One possibility is that freedom comes to us from eastern Ukraine, the Ukrainian revolt. And we have hopes of becoming a mass party, long since we exist as an organization, but under this police state we have not achieved. We hope to achieve with the motto “divide and Confiscation” nationalize the fortunes of oligarchs-and-expel them, natural resources.

Q. What awaits Putin?

R. If we agree that the opposition goes through bad times, we can conclude that Putin expect a bright future.

Q. Do you agree with what he writes Carrère about you?

A. You know, I’m glad that this book has appeared, it is a great recognition, has been translated into twenty languages​​. I refused to criticize it, because it has created a myth about me; what made Carrère is better than receiving the Nobel, it’s like what happens to a writer who died 20 years ago and suddenly rediscovered. Success has been fantastic, only France has sold more than 600,000 copies of the book dedicated to me, this is very good for me. Like any other person, writer and politician, I aspire to be known. Carrère has won a lot of money, and even I got something for a film shoot Saverio Costanzo thinks, in Cannes bought the rights to the book. The winery is well known, it’s Bertolucci, so I hope that is good, although, of course, I will not be portrayed there, but the myth was created, but I fully understand that this is good for me.

 

Eduard Limonov (Russian: Эдуа́рд Лимо́нов, real name Eduard Veniaminovich Savenko, Russian: Эдуа́рд Вениами́нович Саве́нко; born 22 February 1943) is Russian writer and political dissident. Founder and former leader of the banned National Bolshevik Party. An opponent of Vladimir Putin, Limonov is one of the leaders of The Other Russia political bloc.sk