(Concluded from the previous issue)
There is yet another catastrophe, the ecological. There is perhaps no country that has not sustained its own environmental catastrophes, but our Chornobyl is referred to as one on a planetary scale. In this sense Ukraine is undeniably a victim. Some say that Chornobyl is what has made Ukraine known the world over, and even that Ukraine “gave the world Chornobyl,” but it was not Ukraine that gave the world Chornobyl. It was the then centralized Soviet government that imposed on Ukraine the Chornobyl nuclear power project precisely in the marshy soil of Polissia and equipped it with that imperfect power unit meant to produce not only so-called peaceful nuclear energy, but also weapons-grade plutonium, along with a complex of secret military projects in the thick of that forest. Then the inheritor of the Soviet Union left Ukraine one- on-one with this curse. Global or not, it is our national catastrophe, in which Ukraine lost vast territories and sustained heavy psychological traumas along with a devastating blow to the nation’s health.
Everyone has gotten used to the fact that this was a technologically- caused catastrophe. But it was also a manmade one, and it is man who was its agent and victim. No conclusions seem to have been drawn, and Ukraine still has no guarantee against the recurrence of something similar. The pompous closure of the Chornobyl nuclear power station proved to be hasty. Chornobyl remains a threat to the world. The idle station and its Sarcophagus containment structure devour astronomical sums, forcing Ukraine to permanently beg for loans. The political leadership of our independent country then uses these loans to globalize our catastrophe of dependence. We have had much said about overcoming the consequences of the nuclear accident, and now the emphasis is on minimizing them, but the consequences are becoming more and more maximized, accompanied by countless social, electricity generation, and financial problems.
However, I believe it worthwhile at this congress to discuss what directly relates to Ukrainian studies. Therefore, I will dwell on just one aspect of the Chornobyl disaster. The cultural one, as it is most often overlooked.
The Exclusion Zone is not just an area contaminated by radioactivity. It is a black hole sucking in a whole ethnic community with its onomastic attributes, language, history, customs, crafts, and arts, causing irreversible deformations in an ethnic psychology shaped over centuries. In fact, there are many ghost villages outside the Zone, remaining deserted, ruined, and overgrown with weeds — a bonanza for looters, a haven for criminals and the homeless. The scene is the same in Polissia, Narodychi, Ovruch, Korosten and other districts, even in Rivne oblast where they are planning to complete all those “compensating facilities” using the same obsolete technologies and the same methods of their utilization, but this time there will be no place to resettle the victims.
In a word, if we look at the ecological map of Ukraine, we can see how unforgivably naїve has been the inertial confidence of Ukrainians that their land remains one of embroidery and nightingales, of flowers and verdant groves. Our national anthem is called “Ukraine Has Not Yet Perished,” but our beloved Ukraine is dying before our very eyes. The Zone is spreading like gangrene to more and more territory. And with it is dying a whole unique archipelago of our ethnic culture. We lost innumerable villages and settlements, never properly studied by historians and ethnologists, when the so-called Sea of Kyiv [the Kyiv Reservoir] became a reality. Add here all those territories used as military proving grounds and consumed by the inferno of the Holodomor Famine-Genocide of 1933, followed by World War and Communist purges.
If whole regions of Ukraine are dying in this way, we could at least be making death masks.
In fact, that is precisely what has been done for a number of years by the Emergency Ministry’s Historical and Cultural Expedition. So when I am told that we have no elite, that we have a bad attitude, that our people are poor in spirit and stripped of their dignity, I always think of all those expedition people: Who are they? Ethnographers, historians, museum researchers, all devout and selfless enthusiasts, coming from Lviv, Kyiv, and Rivne. Half of them are women wearing combat fatigues, not always with respirators, struggling through the thick of the Chornobyl Forest, almost always on the verge of physical exhaustion, working throughout the year, in rain and snow, never giving in to fatigue or despair, determined to raise the image — albeit virtual — of Ukraine from the ruins.
True, few know about them and their mission. Their toil has never been properly acknowledged. Their exhibits, collected at the cost of their health, are stored in a manner that inspires doubt. The establishment of a Center for the Defense of Folk Culture was delayed unforgivably, given its importance as a venue to process the expedition’s findings and carry out studies of the contaminated and radiation-risk areas in order to take preventive measures. In any case, the expedition did take that death mask of the Zone. Its members did save everything they could. They have gathered almost seven thousand items, accumulated vast archives including priceless photos and video and audio tapes with eyewitness accounts provided by the local people and whose who have been resettled. Conferences and exhibits have been held and twenty or so books of interest to both experts and the general reading public have been published.
Yet, the cultural aspect has been either absent or mentioned fleetingly in all the hearings and documents on Chernobyl. It is symptomatic that it seems to have been overlooked as an object of scholarly observation by this congress. This is a pity, for the things that could have been said from this prestigious rostrum would be very helpful to that expedition, which has had to jump over a great many bureaucratic hurdles. Also, scholars would probably find important not only the understanding from a distance of the lost ethnic culture of Polissia, but also the unprecedented direct findings originating from a radiation-contaminated environment. Would it not be worthwhile to hear a paper on Polissia’s unique sites of folk culture, especially since the oldest wooden church there was destroyed in a fire, so that all we now have are the photos, measurements, and sketches, which the expedition managed to collect? Or one on the rare works of folk craftsmen rescued from the ruins, evidence of the age-old Polissia beekeeping tradition, along with the archives of schools, village councils, and military units?
Should we not draw up layouts of those cemeteries, now that villages in the Exclusion Zone are decaying, unable to withstand the ravages of time, some of them burned and buried, footpaths disappearing, overgrown with weeds, so that people who try to visit the graves of their dearly departed cannot find them? What about those hundreds of war memorials? Remember that [Soviet propaganda] motto, “No one is forgotten, nothing is forgotten?” Can we let all those graves and tombstones sink into the earth, plowed by wild boars, without copying the names of the fallen and recording them in a Book of Memory?
Our history is written with charcoal from the smoking ruins.
A paper, “Ukrainians Outside Ukraine,” was read at one of the IAUS congresses. What about the Polishchuks (Polissians) outside Polissia? Is this not also a relevant issue? The Polishchuks make up a special Ukrainian ethnic group, thoughtlessly dispersed and dissolved into our already leveled population. Was this not a crime against Ukraine? And are the other peoples — Belarusians, Jews, Poles, and Czechs inhabiting Ukraine’s borderlands for centuries — unworthy of attention? Or the fugitive Old Believers finding refuge in the thick of the forests?
Is it not time we paid attention to the phenomenon of Chornobyl journalism, dating from the newspaper Chornobylsky Visnyk [Chornobyl Herald] published in the epicenter of the catastrophe? This and other such periodicals marked an essentially new phase in journalism, journalistic photography, and chronicles of the Exclusion Zone. Those people are best described as atomic kamikazes, many of them already having passed away after contributing to the great cause of immortalizing the truth about those days.
A closer unbiased look at the Zone reveals a boundless domain for Ukrainian studies, including ethnic history, ethnic psychology, onomastics, and folklore — genuine folklore, stories, songs, and crafts you will never find anywhere else — that has been revived in the villages housing those resettled from Chornobyl and which take on new strength in their nostalgic folk songs and narratives.
I understand that this is an extreme approach to Ukrainian studies. Few would be willing to do any kind of research in the Zone. But assuming that some would (in fact, present at this congress are several members of the Chornobyl expedition), why not hold a round table with them and hear their singular experience in precisely this kind of extreme Ukrainian studies? I can assure you that you would never have this kind of experience anywhere else in the world. Is this topic less important than some trendy discourses?
Finally, I have to mention yet another disaster, that of interpersonal communication. With all peoples, the language is the principal means of such communication, but with us it is a factor of alienation. Thanks to the former empire and still for many people, it remains not an intellectual legacy of centuries, code of understanding, nor the first element of literature, but a sign of nationalism, separatism, the cause of conflicts and moral traumas.
We must state openly at the highest national level that in Ukraine we have an utterly abnormal situation, for any bias toward any ethnic group, any ethnic language large or small is a manifestation of fascism. Even if unconsciously so, this does not diminish the responsibility.
What we now face is not the use or nonuse of the Ukrainian language but of its very survival in the world. There have been similar situations in postcolonial countries, yet allowing such cynical discrimination, such undisguised chauvinism against the national language in that nation’s state, is unprecedented.
Here I must state openly that the cause of this disaster is not only crass chauvinism, but also the substantial number of Ukrainians, who, having lost their national identity and failing to become an organic part of Russian culture, come out as a conglomeration of some vague national/ethnic belonging, using among themselves that most primitive medium of communication, surzhyk. This is already a chronic disease of the nation. It cannot be cured by pills, handing monetary prizes at nationwide contests, or by the embalming fluid of pathos about national values. I have personally long relied on some medicinal herbs in hopes of restoring the genetic health of this nation. Today, I am convinced that such extrasensory powers do not help. We already need shock therapy.
For this reason I turned to the psycholinguistic experience of other nations. Let me quote from what the First Lady of Russia had to say (Izvestiya, October 27, 2000). I would describe this as a case study in one’s attitude to the mother tongue. Addressing an all-Russian conference, The Russian Language at the Turn of the Millennium, in St. Petersburg, Liudmila Putin declared, “The Russian language contains a resource for the development of Russia.” Quite true. But then it appears that the Ukrainian is “unsuitable” as the same type of resource for the development of Ukraine. Could this be the sole prerogative of the Russian language? The wife of the president of Russia emphasized that precisely the basis “of a common language achieves mutual understanding between those in power and the people, making it possible to talk about common values.” If we follow her logic, and it seems convincing, then this means that our authorities have no common valued with the Ukrainian people. Mrs. Putin also said that it was “necessary to assert, defend, and expand the lingual boundaries of the Russian world,” explaining that “this is defending and enhancing the national interests of Russia.” In this sense, the leaders of our state, being mostly Russian- speaking, is enhancing nothing but than “:the national interests of Russia.” That article in the Izvestiya was titled “Population: 288 Million.” We know that Russia’s populations is actually not quite half that, but it is based on the assertion that “288 million people consider Russian as their mother tongue today.” Russia regards them as its population. “The Russian language unites people in the Russian world, the community of individuals speaking and thinking in this language,” Mrs. Liudmila Putin continued, adding, and this leads to an interesting conclusion: “The frontiers of the Russian world follow the boundaries where Russian is actually used.”
The question arises, Where are the boundaries of the Ukrainian world, if the borders extend to Ukraine, especially in the corridors of power?
Of course, some will say that this is Mrs. Putin’s personal opinion, not evidence of expansionism or a national doctrine, just an offhand remark made by the First Lady of Russia. But then consider an international conference called Russian as the Language of International Communication in the CIS States recently held in St. Petersburg. The conference was well- represented, including “scholars, lawmakers, and ranking officials from former republics of the USSR.” I will offer a quote: “In the opinion of the conference participants, the Russian language today does more than represent a great communications value; it is also a factor of Russia’s foreign policy. Therefore, the sharp decrease in the space where Russian is spoken has an adverse effect on this country’s prestige.”
This is how we are supposed to understand that “great communications value” and its impact on a given country’s prestige. Among the conference participants were delegates from Ukraine, so it would be only natural to expect them to put this worthy linguistic experience to use in their own country.
“However, Serhiy Dorohuntsev, vice chairman of the Verkhovna Rada Committee on Science and Education, recognized that ‘Russian is being forced out from the educational space’ in his country. Mr. Dorohuntsev stated that ‘we are getting carried away with our independence.’” Look up Izvestiya for September 7, 2002. He further said that Russian “has a right to exist only on paper” [in Ukraine] and that even there its status is “equivocal.”
The article is called “In Defense of the Russian Language” and the subtitle reads, “Struggle for the Revival of the Great and Mighty [Russian Language] in the CIS Space.” I quote: “Conference participants worked out special recommendations for governments and parliaments. Lawmakers and officials are requested to legislatively expand the opportunities for Russian language use.”
There you have it. As we see, these recommendations and instructions are perfectly in conformance with what the First Lady of Russia said earlier. If so, one would be interested to hear the First Lady of Ukraine.
I happened to leaf through a geography textbook meant for Italian primary schools. The book contained concise data relating to every country, including Ukraine, Russia, and Belarus: area, population, climate, plant life, and national symbols. Everything was fine, different symbols, different national colors. Yet in the case of Russia, Belarus, and Ukraine, the language was the same: Russian. A misprint? No. Simply a statement reflecting the real dominant trend.
And so we have generations of Europeans growing up with precisely this idea about Ukraine. Therefore, diplomatic, cultural, and other exchanges can be exercised in Russian. As for Ukrainian, this language will eventually be discarded because it will no longer be needed. The more so that national seems a notion being tossed around far too freely. We have a national circus and a national soccer club [in Kyiv]. We also have “ national interests” to observe and “ national products.” We lose the true notion in this haze of terminology — and the reason is the amorphous concept of (Soviet) community.
From this flows the current status of Ukrainian literature. A full-fledged literature can exist only if written in a language used by everybody, not in one just barely alive. Where the readership is limited and exposed to discriminatory prejudices, literature itself becomes deaf and mute, giving way to pathogenesis, something we now witness. This is also leading to catastrophe where the living word is atrophied, where its symptoms are the weakness of Ukrainian publications compared to Russian ones, the decline of the lingual culture, and the migration of the Ukrainian intellect more and more to the Russian language press, the dumping of a jargon only recently considered taboo, demands for Russian to become an official language as arbitrarily decided by regional state administrations in the eastern regions of Ukraine; we witness the Ukrainian culture in general being openly ignored in a fashion not even camouflaged. Given this status, our language no longer be regarded as a resource of development. And the same is true of all those other visible and invisible crises and catastrophes, whether mentioned here or not.
It is a situation difficult to get out of, the more so that the third millennium is no time to set things up. There is already an alternative. It is time to ask the classical question, To be or not to be? We have entered what is best described as a transnational epoch and some regard it as a postnational one. Ukraine is lagging behind our dynamic times. The situation can be changed only by building a civil society — primarily by asserting a new way of thinking as the key factor of this transformation, so that the new Ukrainian is not shaped by the past, but becomes capable of shaping his/her own future.
I have mentioned difficult and painful things. Let those who are given to a modicum of thought will forgive me. Today we can no longer rely on our traditional hopes for the best, telling ourselves that things are bound to get better, somehow, that, of course, we have certain difficulties, but they are temporary, and that time is on our side.
God helps those who help themselves. The old adage is even truer now that our worst predictions have become bitter realities, and hostilities are underway in the biblical valleys, facing the world with its last alternatives.
