In an article published on June 12, 2007, in The Day, Larysa Ivshyna touched upon the important topic of the current Ukrainian elite or, as Galician intellectuals used to say, the ruling stratum. I especially liked her witty joke that the low cultural level of the current public discourse and bizarre political turning points in Ukraine result from the staff-placement policy of the former ruling party. Unfortunately, this statement is largely true. Ukraine is still in thrall to poor placement decisions, and it has not yet made a frank examination of the scars it still bears from the totalitarian system.
Communist Party totalitarianism did not fill a void in Ukraine — it was deeply rooted in the old soil. That is why it is so difficult to combat totalitarian vestiges in our life — both in Ukraine and in the so-called diaspora community. It should be remembered that the diaspora society is just a fraction of the descendants of those who came from Ukraine. A considerable part of the so-called Western diaspora, especially young people in the US, has nothing to do with the organizations that seek to represent them in Ukraine. Ukraine in turn has not yet begun “gathering” her children scattered all over the world.
But in the meantime, before genuine activity on the part of a full-fledged Ukrainian community sets in, those of us who, in one way or another, follow or even actively participate in Ukraine’s scholarly and cultural life ought to recall one of the main characteristics of totalitarianism, namely, the atomization of the individual.
This phrase was coined by Hannah Arendt. Here it refers to the individual who is divorced from his own environment and brainwashed ad nauseam by the Russian intelligentsia and its Western observers. State control of public discourse dissuades from civic activism even young people who never experienced a ‘Leninist subbotnik’ (day of volunteer work).
However, atomization has seeped into the Ukrainian social body deeper even than the decline of charitable work. Lack of opportunities for free and active discourse, a need to present one’s thoughts, one way or another, in a customary or coercive environment, and the quotidian fear that our heritage is in danger, is not conducive to the development of an open society. And this is standing in the way of uninhibited communication.
Another manifestation of atomization is the need to express one’s thoughts by shouting. We are afraid of not being heard or, what is more likely, of being robbed of our voice.
We feel this most painfully when we note the absence of friendly criticism, the kind of criticism that fosters the development of your own personal opinion in a friendly dispute with individuals who have other views. This kind of criticism is friendly because it permits various forms of expression and different ways of interpreting things. It accepts a different vision of something that you have known for years, draws a wider circle of individuals into the debate, and encourages unwilling individuals to take an interest in the issue.
In the past few months, scholars have gratified Ukrainian readers by publishing new works dedicated to the traditional giants of Ukrainian culture: two publications on Ivan Franko by Tamara Hundorova, an analysis of the evolution of young Franko’s views by Yaroslav Hrytsak, and a book about Lesia Ukrainka by Oksana Zabuzhko. More than a year ago Ola Hnatiuk published a Ukrainian translation (from the Polish) of Farewell to the Empire, which focuses on the works of Yurii Andrukhovych, among other things. These three books — by Hrytsak, Zabuzhko, and Hnatiuk — deliberately go beyond the limits of their topics and raise questions that go far afield of literary criticism.
A number of Ukrainian publishers have issued Ukrainian monographs and translations. Two of them, Krytyka and Dukh i Litera, recently won a high-profile prize in Poland. Meanwhile, the annual Publishers’ Forum in Lviv, launched by Lesia Koval, graphically illustrates the development of Ukraine’s publishing industry. These scholarly books are sure to come under criticism in Knyzhnyk Review, Suchasnist, Krytyka, or Slovo i Chas. Who knows? There may even be reviews in the press. I expect that Hrytsak will be accused of simplifying Franko, although her book focuses on his earlier years; Zabuzhko, of attacking Lina Kostenko, Hryhorii Hrabovych, and Oles Honchar; and Hnatiuk, of excessive praise for Andrukhovych. Hundorova will be told that we knew Franko, in contrast to her and her Franko whom we did not know, and so on. Such interpretations will be another indicator of the atomization of Ukrainians.
It would be good to examine another issue: how do we form heroes, what are we pinning our political hopes on, why is the second generation of Ukrainian writers and scholars writing its own version of “Ukraine in the Light of European Culture,” why do we know Pushkin better than Franko, why are Ukrainian men (and women) too lazy to study the role of women in society (beyond the hackneyed idea of guardian of the hearth)? Is it not time, after all, to discuss the deep-rooted causes behind the collapse of the Soviet Union, which are now being transformed into a crisis in contemporary Ukraine? These are just a few of the topics discussed in the books that I mentioned very selectively.
In responding to Ivshyva’s bon mot, I say that we will have to wait for the next volume of The Day’s Library Series, so that at least universities will launch a debate, not just a discourse — not just a debate for the elites but a comprehensible one that will resemble not a fleeting summer thunderstorm but a spring rain that waters the soil and freshens the air.
