A press conference organized by the Ukrainian Journalist Solidarity Association on December 6 presented the book Taras Shevchenko the Werewolf by Oles Buzyna, writer and journalist. His new work had caused a scandal in Ukraine long before coming off the presses (see The Day, No. 31). Interviewed by Interfax Ukraine, Mr. Buzyna stressed that he has “no intention to become a professional ‘Shevchenko expert,’” adding that he wants to write “historical novels” and conduct “historical studies.” He further stated that his book “is not a commercial but ideological project,” meant to become “an indicator of the degree of freedom of Ukrainian society.” Mr. Buzyna admitted that he is not among the devotees of Shevchenko’s literary heritage, emphasizing that, in his eyes, “the fact that Taras Shevchenko was chosen as a symbol of Ukraine is a great tragedy for Ukraine,” because he considers this symbol “depressive.”
His publisher, Oleksandr Moiseyenko, also present at the news conference, did not specify the number of copies printed, saying only that it is “quite insignificant.” As he put it, printing the book was a pilot project meant to gauge the Ukrainian reader’s interest in the subject. If it proves big enough, the edition will have a larger press run.
Invited by The Day, the very fact of the book’s presentation was discussed by writers, directors of the Zeleny Pes (Green Dog) Producer Agency Dmytro and Vitaly Kapranov, as well as by Roman Kostrytsia, journalist with the newspaper Ukrayina.ru.
Roman KOSTRYTSIA (Ukrayina.ru ):
Ukraine cannot boast a single socially topical and massively read writer. This man is in social demand, as evidenced by the fact that Buzyna’s book sells at 25 hryvnias at book stands, two times the price of books written by popular authors in former Soviet republics and the West and with better typography. So when we hear that Ukrainian literature is not popular with our readers, the reason is very simple: we do not have many books interesting enough for those readers. Dmytro Korchynsky, quoted by The Day , believes that public response to Buzyna’s book (including physical assaults) is evidence of a healthy nation. I would say that this health is evidenced more the very appearance of books like Buzyna’s. The British are well aware of Sir Walter Scott’s financial machinations, or of Oscar Wilde’s homosexual antics with young compatriots; the French are not ashamed to discuss Victor Hugo’s sexual habits or those of Andre Gide and Marcel Proust. No one in Paris would physically assault a journalist writing about Louis Celine, founder of contemporary literary French, as a collaborationist and anti-Semite who was even sentenced. No one would, simply because all this is true and is not kept secret; also because the struggle against the sacralization of people, albeit outstanding personalities, took place there two hundred years ago.
Dmytro and Vitaly KAPRANOV, directors of the Green Dog Producer Agency:
Oles Buzyna wrote nothing new in his book. We found an excellent quote from Vissarion Belinsky [Russia’s most prominent radical literary critic of the nineteenth century] in which the “frantic Vissarion” (as contemporaries often referred to him) briefly relates Buzyna’s plot. In a letter to Pavel Annenkov [Russian literary critic and memoirist (1813-87)], dated 1847, he wrote: “You will recall my trustful friend (i.e., Mikhail Bakunin — Auth.) telling me that he believes Shevchenko to be a decent and fine person. Belief works miracles, making people from donkeys and monkeys, meaning that Shevchenko might perhaps be turned into a martyr of freedom. Yet common sense makes one see in Shevchenko a jackass, fool, and scoundrel, and on top of all that a hardened drunk who loves the horilka [Ukrainian for vodka] and khokhol [Russian colloquial, often offensive, for Ukrainian] patriotism. This khokhol radical wrote two lampoons about His and Her Royal Majesties (in fact, the “lampoons” were Taras Shevchenko’s poem Dream — Auth.). Shevchenko was sent to the Caucasus as a soldier. I am not sorry for him; if I were the judge I would pass an equally severe sentence. I loath such liberals. Another khokhol liberal son of a bitch named Kulish (what a beastly name!) published his version of the history of Little Russia [as Ukraine was known at the time] in the so- called magazine Zvezdochka [The Little Star]... published by Ishimov for children; in part, he claims that Little Russia will either withdraw from Russia or die. See what all that liberal brainless scum is doing? Oh, I hate the khokhols! Plain stupid, all of them, posing as liberals to have enough dumplings with fatback...” In other words, one does not have to write a big book to express such sentiments. It is all brief and to the point. It also sums up everything one finds in Buzyna’s latest work. His book is like a Mantoux test for our people. If people rough him up every time they see him, if he discovers his royalty for the book is not enough to pay for medical treatment, it will mean that we have taken shape as a nation. If not, we have no historical prospects.
