The current wave of public protests could perhaps introduce a new long-lasting civic and pro-democracy movement in Ukraine. This movement could even influence the power elites to re-start reforms and integration with the EU. In order to be successful, the Euromaidan has to learn lessons of the Ukrainian civic movement of 2004, now called the ‘Maidan.’ The main lessons the Maidan taught us are peacefulness, promotion of solidarity, and re-integration of the country.

1. Peaceful protest. The Maidan did not give the ‘hawks’ from Kuchma's (Leonid Kuchma was Ukraine’s president from 1994 through 2004) administration the reasons for the use of force against the protesters in November 2004. It was the lack of violence that made the orange movement highly legitimate so that both internal and external players could not justify the use of force against it. From what we know today, President Kuchma was not keen on using violence against the Maidan. And this non-violent character of the protest movement gave Western leaders the legitimate moral ground to prevent the use of military force against civilians in Kyiv.
2. Solidarity. In 2004, the Maidan was a space of civil creativity in a depressed and atomized Ukrainian society. A common goal, the demand for honest count of votes was a smart, justified and unifying goal, capable of mobilizing Ukrainians for civil protests. The anti-Maidan, a civic movement to support Victor Yanukovych, appeared much later, as a reaction to the Maidan, and thus was late in influencing political processes.
   • Cultural solidarity. The Maidan was a zone of language tolerance, a place for cooperation between Ukrainian citizens with different cultural identities. In order to effectuate real changes in Ukraine, cooperation between Ukrainian-speaking and Russophone communities is very much needed. This tolerant cooperation must be repeated at the Euromaidan.
   • Generational solidarity. The Maidan was made possible by the cooperation of two generations, the generation of students and generation of those aged 30 to 45. Both groups invested their energy, creativity, social and financial resources to sustain a long-term protest against the authoritarian rule. Older generations were less involved in the Maidan movement. This partial exclusion resulted from mistakes of the orange movement in 2005. In order to avoid these mistakes and have better support from all generations of Ukrainian population, the Euromaidan should avoid exclusivist rhetoric and slogans.
   • Ideological neutrality. No political group or party managed to "own" the Maidan. The Maidan was a space of solidarity for citizens supporting the entire spectrum of political ideologies, except for radical left and right. This exclusion of the radicals succeeded partially due to civil instinct of the activists. Another part of this was the result of the communists’ inefficiency: immersed in political corruption, they were not able to promote ideas of social solidarity. Yet this situation was also produced Victor Yushchenko’s ability to exclude Oleh Tyhnybok and his radical right supporters from the orange movement. The current presence of the radical right group among the leaders of the Euromaidan can become a highly destructive factor for its success.
3. Country’s re-integration. The Maidan also presented an alternative to the separatist movements in Western and Eastern Ukraine. Neither declarations of the Oblast Councils in the Western Ukraine, nor the Congress of the Eastern Oblasts’ representatives in Siverdonetsk managed to outweigh the spirit of solidarity and justice of the Maidan. It remains a major challenge to the Euromaidan to become a centripetal alternative to all possible separatist movements. This can be achieved by presenting a perspective for Ukraine’s development to the frustrated Ukrainian citizenry. That is, the European perspective.

The Euromaidan has the potential to become a European alternative for the Eurasian authoritarianism. The fate of freedom in Eastern Europe depends on its success.

Head of association, Oleh Fylyk.