The Ukrainian Trident as a symbol of “the future free Russia” – this is how one of the most influential Russian émigré organizations, the National Labor Union (NLU), tried to present it in the middle of the 20th century. This little-known page of history was told about in a paper for Kyiv Post by Yuriy Shapoval, DSc in History, Chief research fellow at the I.F. Kuras Institute of Political and Ethnic Studies of the NAS of Ukraine.
As the researcher notes, back in 1936, the leaders of the NLU decided to use the Trident against the background of the Russian white-blue-red flag as its emblem. The organization's ideologists claimed that this sign was not a Ukrainian national symbol, but rather an allegedly "all-Russian" heritage of Kyivan Rus.
The author of the paper emphasizes that this approach was based on the imperial concept, arguing that the heritage of Kyivan Rus was considered exclusively Russian. At the same time, NLU sympathizers practically ignored the fact that back in 1918 the Trident was officially approved as the state emblem of the Ukrainian People's Republic and became one of the key symbols of the Ukrainian liberation movement.
According to Yuriy Shapoval, the use of the Trident by the Russian organization provoked a sharp reaction from Ukrainian émigré circles, who viewed it as an attempt to appropriate Ukrainian historical and national heritage. Protests raged for decades, but the NLU never gave up its symbol.
The researcher believes that this story is one of the early examples of attempts to appropriate Ukrainian historical symbols through a narrative of a “common” or “all-Russian” heritage of Kyivan Rus – the approach that remains a component of Russian historical politics today.
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