The dialogue between Oxana Pachliowska and an outstanding Italian Slavist of global renown, Sante Graciotti, in the previous issues of The Day marked the beginning of a series of interviews with famous Ukrainists from Europe. Graciotti has made a great contribution to freeing Eastern European countries from the ghosts of totalitarianism.
The year 2009 is the year of Nikolai Gogol (Mykola Hohol). On top of the celebration of his birth anniversary, it looks like a celebration of his return to Ukraine. What does his tragic genius want to tell us? What message did he leave for us? Why can’t we decode it fully? Russian film director Vladimir Bortko has transformed the novel Taras Bulba into an anti-Polish, anti-Ukrainian, anti-Jewish, and anti-Muslim film. Polish film director Jerzy Hoffman has turned an anti-Ukrainian novel Ogniem i mieczem (With Fire and Sword) by Henryk Sienkiewicz into an epopee of a civil war between two fraternal peoples that will meet at some point in the future. What has to be done in order to bring Gogol out of imperial interpretation schemes? Perhaps an interpretation should be offered that would bring forth Ukrainian (and European!) matrix of his works?
“Gogol is a very complicated figure to decode, because he is a combination of many souls, and every soul is made of many layers, and they all together are in a constant evolution process. That is why it is not surprising that so many contradictory things and things unrelated with each other have been said about Gogol. Gogol was, or it is better to say, is, a universal genius who has something to say to a universal person. We have to treat him with respect: we should serve him and not make him serve us. And only then, as it usually happens when you meet an outstanding person, we will be able to assess his rich writings and his message.
“It is believed that Aleksandr Pushkin after reading Gogol’s Revizor (The Inspector-General) said: ‘What a sad Russia!’ In fact, we can say: ‘What a sad world!’ having in mind Revizor. It is true to say that in Gogol’s works we can see the entire world: the author speaks about the world, the human being, and you. Gogol uses this piece of the world, the way the world of Russian provinces was at that time, as seen through the eyes cleared by the great distance and thus distanced from historical reality, and creates a picture of people’s life in an ethic and psychological manner that far surpasses the local traditions.
“Perhaps Gogol fooled himself about the value of his works when he said that he could write about Russia only if he was some place far from it, for example, in Rome. The reason why he could clearly imagine the personalities of his characters in Rome was because he could see them compared or contrasted with people in the streets. I remember how he fell in love with the type of a Roman from Trastevere (part of Rome), because he found in him some features of a natural and proud Cossack from his land.
“I am firmly convinced that I am right in saying that we have to differentiate two planes in Gogol as a person and Gogol as a writer, which were activated in him for the most part asynchronously. It secured him against falling into mental disarray. These were the utopia planes in which he described and embodied the world the way he saw it (and scourged it, laughing) against the background of the ideal humankind of his dreams; and the ideology plane to which he escaped when he ran out of his creative resources, thus choosing a safe place in the form of a soothing world of traditional religion and sovereign tsarism that guaranteed nearly timeless perpetuation of the ideal Russian state. Vybrannye mesta iz perepiski s druziami (Selected Passages from Correspondence with Friends), which Gogol considered to be the most elated work of his life, was, in fact, a document that proved his submission to the reigning ideology. But even this document contains some impressive passages that offer a glimpse at the light of utopia and the features of a prophet.
“I like the contrast that emerges from a comparison of two opposite interpretations of Gogol’s novel Taras Bulba and Sienkiewicz’s With Fire and Sword respectively by Bortko, a Russian, and Hoffman, a Pole. These two interpretations show the difference in attitudes that Russians and Poles toward historical Ukraine and at the same time make one seriously consider the expressed ideas. In my opinion, the differences I see between Gogol the dreamer (this is what I call utopia) and Gogol the thinker (this is what I refer to as ideology) are important for art. Gogol the dreamer is real as both an artist and a person. He is an incurable Ukrainian, even while in Russia. This Gogol is truly devoted to the living Evangelic Christianity (this is where his vision of Martha and Mary in Selected Passages comes from) that raises above the oppressive scene of divided churches.”
In what direction are Slavic studies developing now? In your opinion, what are the greatest dangers for this discipline and what are its strong points? How do you picture its future? How do you view the prospects for multidisciplinary and comparative trends? How does the political situation influence the discipline? Your colleague and wife, Professor Emanuela Sgambati launched Belarusian studies in the absence of any favorable conditions. Today it looks like such courage and intellectual interest risk running into political barriers. Do you think it will be possible to realize to the full extent your highly intellectual and noble vision of the comprehensive study of the entire Slavic world?
“I expressed my conception of Slavic studies in a series of research papers that have been printed, some of them even recently. This is more of cluster of disciplines, rather than one particular disciple. … It is the knowledge of the Slavic world in all its dimensions and linguistic and literary aspects.
“As an old philologist, I have always insisted on the need to preserve the connection between different Slavic disciplines, perhaps via such a comprehensive discipline as Slavic philology. However, it has to be done, above all, through the consciousness of that old and still existing Slavic unity, which I mentioned earlier. Sectoral division of these studies made it possible to deepen the knowledge of the Slavic world, especially in linguistics, literary studies, textual criticism, theory and practice of texts publishing, genealogy, and esthetic criticism.
“However, this division has at the same time weakened interest in the old common matrix from which all the Slavs and all the Slavic people originated. It caused a twofold negative result. The first one was specialization, which eventually made communication difficult across the disciplines. The second one is the diminished interest in diachrony, typical for most new disciplines, which had rid the scholars of the historical dimension without which it is impossible to comprehend even the present time.
“On the other hand, Slavic studies with an emphasis on the common Slavic roots and linguistic and cultural heritage could be extremely useful in making the transition from lecture halls to life. They could, in particular, serve to overcome the multiple barriers that are hurting, and sometimes cutting to the quick, the Slavic world.
“Returning to the topic of education and your question about the university, I have to say that, unfortunately, the situation with Slavic studies in Italy, and not only in Italy, is not very good due to structural transformations that threaten the very operation of universities. These transformations exhibit a tendency to organization based not on naturally composed curricula, but on the demands of industries and consumption. In this situation, what is awaiting Belarusian, which does not produce any bread, or Ukrainian, which produces but a little bread, not to mention Serbian and Croatian (the little bread they deliver often turns out to be poisoned)?
“We are living at the time of a historical turn. The future depends on the consciousness and knowledge of people who look far ahead and keep working, maintaining their faith in the things they have long believed in and trusting in the vital power of man, who will turn evil into good (or discover tomorrow that what seemed to be evil is, in fact, good) and will be reborn after a true or apparent demise.”
What is your advice on strengthening Ukrainian studies in Europe? What possible initiatives and strategies could be constructive for this process in view of the economic and structural problems that Italian and other European universities are experiencing?
“The future of Ukrainian studies revolves, in my opinion (although I am no prophet), on the realization of the need to provide mutual assistance and seek alliances. Everything has to become an object of study: language, literature, secular and religious culture, folklore, music, economy, politics, the past, the future, Ukraine in the European and Eastern European perspective, Ukraine in the Eurasian perspective, and Ukraine in the world perspective.
“I was the godfather of Ukrainian studies in Italy, and several years ago I succeeded in laying the foundation for the first department of Ukrainian studies in Italy, in Rome. … But when I think about the excellent level of scholarly integration that has been reached in the years after the fall of the ‘Berlin wall’ with Ukraine (Kyiv – Lviv) and Poland (Warsaw – Krakow – Lublin), I am aware that our forces and the obtained results are insufficient, even if we sum up all we have done in a number of Italian universities and at the conferences in Rome, Milan, Venice, Florence, Udine, and other cities. Add to this everything we have obtained owing to scholarly and friendly contacts with such outstanding personalities as Omelian Pritsak, Ihor Shevchenko, and Borys Gudziak and everything that was initiated through a series of Italian-Ukrainian symposiums and sporadic cooperation between researchers and research institutions involved in this process.
“Unfortunately, an important academic forum, the Giorgio Cini Foundation, is no longer involved – it closed its activities along this line in 2002. Perhaps the biggest problem is forming a new generation of Italian scholars, because there is plenty of work to be done in Italy. I mean, for example, the possibility of and the need for cooperation between the University of Rome, the Ukrainian Catholic University in Rome, and other religious Ukrainian collegiums in the Eternal City. Rome’s archives have much to say about Ukraine’s past and Ukraine-Italy relations. In a word, we have huge material for joint research and projects.”
Europe does not always understand the problems of its Eastern neighbors. What can often be observed is a gap between the “high knowledge” in academic institutions, which, however, has no bearing on political decisions, and the haste and superficiality in the approaches adopted by European bureaucrats and multiplied by the mass media. These people do not have the slightest consideration for a number of historical determining factors in the evolution of the Slavic world. In your opinion, will it be possible to build more effective communication mechanisms between “old” and “new” Europe? Will the nations of Eastern Europe finally succeed in finding the necessary balance between their identities and the common European self-identification? Will we see the emergence of a Europe that truly breathes with “both lungs,” or will this nice metaphor remain a dream of highbrow intellectuals? Do you believe in the birth (or revival?) of a Europe that would be more than an economic euro zone – a civilization that would live on the authentic culture of values and ethical principles propounded by you and other “noble fathers” of Europe?
“’High knowledge’ is not at all interested in being limited to academic institutions. Its space is not an ivory tower but a secluded cell surrounded by emptiness that is caused by the decline of humanitarian knowledge, the philosophical thought, loss of love for active mental solitude after the long reign (which will continue) of ‘homo oeconomicus,’ ‘the economic man,’ in the world in which the estranging civilization of images is achieving the greatest success. In other words, a common task for intellectuals is to form a layer of specialists who are able to secure the best dissemination of this knowledge via appropriate channels, targeting the widest spectrum of recipients.
“However, entire society has to contribute to this undertaking – from state agencies (and states) to civic society institutions interested in the citizens’ intellectual growth and dissemination of knowledge, publishing houses inclined to implement projects that combine economic and societal benefits, and, finally, educated donors capable of providing financial sponsorship.
“It is natural and easy, but inefficient, to tell others what they should do. A lot more honest approach is to point out to ourselves what goals should top priority for Europe within its present borders. The most important goal is, and I believe you will agree, to find means of communication that would permit the two Europes to find a language to speak and enable a dialogue between them.
“I love utopia, because it is the greatest achievement that such a paradoxical creature as man is capable of. Of all utopias the one I love the most is the utopia of, to use your term, ‘highbrow’ intellectuals – the utopia of Europe breathing with ‘both lungs.’ This formula used by Pope John Paul II, who strove to unite the two Europes, was born of an expression used by the Russian poet Vyacheslav Ivanov. Depicting his experience of conversion from Orthodoxy into Catholicism, he said he did not want to let go of the Orthodox tradition. Only then, he confessed, did he breathe with both lungs, so to say.
“The late Olivier Clement, a great Orthodox thinker, breathed with both of his lungs, because he merged in himself the experience of an Orthodox man … and that of an intellectually shaped Western man. Just like Averintsev, he was a champion of ecumenical dialogue. In memory of Ivanov and Clement – two intellectuals of diverse origin who rose above the borders owing to the ‘utopian’ dream they shared – I would like to say that I hope that these two Europes – above, all the Europes of faith and culture – will strive to follow and will always follow in this pathway.”
