Cossack Gold: History, Myth, and the Dream of Prosperity in the Age of Post-Soviet Transition

Abstract

In July 1990, a Ukrainian legislator gained worldwide notoriety by claiming that the Bank of England owed sixteen trillion pounds sterling.1 This sum was the interest that had presumably accumulated over 270 years on a barrel of allegedly sent to England by an eighteenth-century Ukrainian Cossack leader, Pavlo Polubotok. Ukraine claims its barrel of gold, read a front-page headline of the Financial Times.2 The Ukrainian ambassador to the United Nations, Hennadii Udovenko, announced at a press conference in Geneva that [was] not a and that was serious about reclaiming its gold.3 The news created a stir in Ukraine. Various journalists promptly revealed more details of the legendary story. It went back to 1723, to the time shortly before tsar Peter I arrested and imprisoned the Cossack het'man4 Pavlo Polubotok for defending Ukraine's autonomous rights and privileges. The fabulously rich Cossack chieftain soon died in prison in St. Petersburg. However, Polubotok's great wealth and traditional popularity in gave rise to the legend that he had deposited a massive amount of in an English bank. In July-August 1990, the initial journalistic accounts narrated the legend as a matter-of-fact truth. It appeared that, before his arrest, Polubotok deposited 200,000 (or 500,000 or 1,000,000) rubles in the Bank of England (or the East India Company Bank, Lloyd's Bank or one of the trade companies). The barrel (alternately two or several barrels) of was (were) transported to England via the northern Russian port of Arkhangelsk by three young Cossacks and their elderly servant. One of the young Cossacks was said to be Polubotok's own son, Iakiv. The envoys deposited the in an account earning 4 (2.5, 7.5) per cent per year, and the total sum by 1990 amounted to 16 trillion (16 billion, 16.5 trillion) pounds or US $29 trillion. This sum (16 trillion pounds) was six times the US gross national product, so that if the were ever to be returned to and divided equally among Ukraine's 52 million citizens, each would receive US $500,000 or 38 kilograms of gold. But the depositor supposedly specified that the money might be withdrawn only by Polubotok's descendant living in a Ukraine.5 The sensational news instantly made Polubotok's name dear to millions of Ukrainians who, at their homes and in public transport, discussed both their previously suppressed glorious Cossack heritage and the forthcoming distribution of gold. Nevertheless, the rush soon ended. Although the Ukrainian Foreign Ministry and the Bank of England took the case seriously, no documents confirming the deposit were found. Even today, there is no proof that the actually existed. However, a micro-investigation of the refurbished legend ofPolubotok's gold and its subsequent reflection and reinterpretation in Ukrainian political and cultural discourse may offer us new insights into the ideological transformations in the former Soviet republics.6 I. In the years immediately leading to the Soviet Union's collapse in August 1991, the problematic character of old foundational values became a major theme of public discourse in Soviet republics. The nation-states in making witnessed fierce public debates about the reformability of the obsolete command economy and the struggling Soviet model of federation. The democratic opposition advocated the alternative Western way to a modernity presumably signified by nation-states, a free market economy, and political freedoms. After the August putsch of 1991, the republican elites promptly stole the thunder by adopting this vague program and subsequently leading the post-Soviet nations into a protracted and discouraging transition period. As Soviet values were first debated and then deconstructed during the late 1980s and early 1990s, two powerful new strands emerged in the public discourse of the republics experiencing transformation into successor states. …