HISTORY: Self-proclaimed Donetsk and Lugansk republics form ‘Novorossiya’ union

Archives—Given the accelerating events in Eastern Ukraine, we’re republishing this post giving details about the creation of the new ⁽¹⁾ Novorossya.
Originally Published: May 24, 2014

Representatives from eight south-eastern regions voting at the people's congress in Donetsk / screenshot from RUPTLY video

Representatives from eight south-eastern regions voting at the people’s congress in Donetsk. Those people are now under fierce attack by Kiev’s military, with the full support of the US/NATO interventionists. (Screenshot from RUPTLY vide 2.3K37425)

[T]he self-proclaimed Donetsk and Lugansk People’s Republics which recently held referenda on independence from Ukraine have declared the creation of Novorossiya union.

“We have signed a memorandum on the union,” Denis Pushilin, co-chairman of the Donetsk People’s Republic, told the media.

The new union will be called Novorossiya, said the people’s governor of the Donetsk Region, Pavel Gubarev.

He added that the document was signed in the city of Donetsk by Donetsk People’s Republic Prime Minister Aleksandr Borodai and the head of Lugansk People’s Republic Aleksey Karyakin.

People’s representatives from eight Ukrainian regions gathered for a congress in Donetsk on Saturday, a day ahead of scheduled countrywide presidential elections.

As a result of the congress, the south-eastern regions of Ukraine, where anti-government protests gained momentum, have announced the creation of a pro-federalization Popular Front socio-political coalition. The movement accepted a manifesto vowing self-determination and protection of people from “Nazi gangs’ terror.”

The coalition involves Odessa, Nikolaev, Dnepropetrovsk, Zaporozhye, Kharkov, Kherson, Donetsk and Lugansk Regions.

At the congress, all 145 delegates accepted the manifesto, which stresses that the Popular Front will consist of “everybody, who is ready to resist self-appointed Kiev authority, which started war against the people.”

The coalition vowed to protect innocent civilians from the “terror of Nazi gangs, financed by oligarchs and foreign security services.” It also pledges “a joint fight for people’s rights to a decent life.”

It says it has launched an investigative commission that will probe “crimes of Nazi-terrorists and their Kiev patrons”.

The coalition is calling for a boycott of the presidential election, which is scheduled to take place on Sunday, because “all major candidates” are “oligarchs, whom we have already seen in top positions, hence, robbery and terror would continue,” the manifesto said.

When it comes to a new Ukrainian constitution, the Popular Front demands that it guarantees“neutrality” and nonparticipation in military blocks as well as “political independence”, “mechanisms to stop corruption and massive poverty.”

The coalition also demands that the parliament consists of two chambers. At the same time, regions must be given “a right to autonomy” and “independent foreign-economic activity”.

In addition to that, regional governments must be given a right to “announce its territory de-militarized zones and also “ban political, social and religious organizations on its territory” in case they are considered a “threat” to the people.

The Popular Front wants two official languages in Ukraine – Ukrainian and Russian.

Lugansk and Donetsk People’s Republics earlier announced they will not participate in Ukraine’s presidential elections scheduled for May 25.

Select Comment

Jack Hamilton 26.05.2014 21:33

While the hypocritical US government declares all people should be allowed “self-determina tion”, this ONLY applies to those people the US needs to control by force as in the case of the Ukraine coup. God Bless the people of Ukraine…fight the good fight against the oppression of the US/EU/IMF!

APPENDIX
⁽¹⁾ Below we reproduce an excerpt from a piece published by The New Republic (TNR), elucidating the origins of the term “Novorossiya”. If the magazine sounds hostile toward the Donbass people and Russia, it’s because it is essentially an organ of the liberal corporatist media cabal, and just like the New York Times, while injecting its due dose of propaganda it has sufficient resources to produce elegant and polished copy from time to time. It’s worth recalling that TNR was originally a liberal magazine (founded in 1914) but it turned Zionist and rightwing/neocon after its acquisition by Martin Peretz (who enthusiastically supported Bush and the Iraq War, though later declared it regretted such stance). In recent years It has drifted once again toward the center-right imperialist agenda implemented by the Democratic Party’s DLC. (More on TNR’s origins here.)

Over the weekend, pro-Russian protesters rioted in the eastern Ukrainian cities of Donetsk, Luhansk, and Kharkov. They took over government buildings and arms caches, waving Russian flags and chanting things like “Novorossiya” (“New Russia”). Their aim: to declare independence from Ukraine and, perhaps, become federal provinces (oblasts) of Russia. Early Monday, separatists in Donetsk declared the creation of the “Donetsk People’s Republic” and set a referendum date for May 11. “If we’re impeded in holding a referendum, we will turn to Russia and ask them to move in their troops,” one separatist said.

The protests are almost certainly Kremlin-backed, part of Russia’s longstanding plan to “federalize” Ukraine, and to reassert control over the territory that used to be called Novorossiya. “The events in Donetsk, Luhansk and Kharkiv are coordinated from the same center,” the Kyiv Post reports. Crowds are singing the Russian national anthem in streets of eastern Ukraine; some call themselves the “anti-Maidan,” advocating for the creation of “the spiritually patriotic union” of Novorossiya. The Twitter account @NOVORUSSIA2014 gained thousands of followers over the weekend, and #RussianSpring and #AntiMaidan are trending.

Novorossiya is the name of the formerly Ottoman territory that Catherine the Great conquered in the Russo-Turkish Wars, which is now much of southern and eastern Ukraine. Led by Prince Grigory Potemkin, Russian forces colonized the land in the late 18th century and established the cities of Sevastopol, Simferopol, Tiraspol, and Odessa.

Catherine the Great conquers Novorossiya. Stefano Torelli’s The Allegory of Catherine the Great ‘s Victory over the Turks(1772)

The area became part of the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic, and the term “Novorossiya” resurfaced after the Soviet Union fell in 1991. In 1994, Transnistria, the breakaway state between Moldova and Ukraine, declaredthat it was “an inalienable part of the Russian state’s southern region, [which] also includes Crimea, Odessa oblast, and a number of other [Ukrainian] oblasts, [and is] known as Novorossiya.” When it looked like NATO might expand to include Ukraine in 2003, “some not entirely academic quarters in Moscow played with the idea of a major geopolitical redesign of the northern Black Sea area, under which southern Ukraine, from the Crimea to Odessa, would secede from Kiev and form a Moscow-friendly buffer state, ‘Novorossiya’—New Russia,” writes Dmitry Trenin, director of the Carnegie Moscow Center. Now, the swathe of land spanning from Transnistria to Donetsk is increasingly referred to by that name.

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HISTORY: Self-proclaimed Donetsk and Lugansk republics form ‘Novorossiya’ union

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Jack Hamilton 26.05.2014 21:33

Protesters in Eastern Ukraine Are Chanting “New Russia,” an Old Term That’s Back in Vogue

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