I was told that the piece had reverberations. Some waves were aimed at me personally, mostly from certain “representatives of the intelligentsia” who thought it possible to intrude into my private life, which is additional evidence that some allegations made in the Territory were not totally unjustified. Of course, I expected such reaction from certain half-baked Ukrainians. Hence my new project and its title “Putting It Differently,” has the stress on “Differently.” If someone thinks that dissent is not necessary (and is even harmful) in today’s Ukraine, I will say congratulations, you are 100% ready to return to the bright Bolshevik future. But I have no desire to go back.
I also expected that some of my readers would be outraged, especially those like that Radio Ayatollah who “advertised” my humble writings all over the Land of the Faithful and pronounced sentence on me a la Salmon Rushdie, echoed eagerly by a choir of female zealots from among the latter-day Galician Army. Yes, I seem to have expected it.
However, I did not expect such disastrous misunderstanding, that self-apparent things could still require additional explanations. And nor could I expect that “Dr. Ivan Franko” would step in, as though during a spiritualist seance, publicly branding me in an open letter to a local newspaper (Incidentally, my “Last Territory” was reprinted by the Communist Prykarpatska Pravda and official Halychyna, each using it for their own speculative purposes). But I will leave “Dr. Ivan Franko” to the mediums and their projectors.
In view of all this, there are certain explanations I have to make.
“The Last Territory” is part of a considerably larger text relating to the problem of (more precisely, doubts on) postmodernism in Ukrainian literature. This is a very special topic and of little interest to the average Galician middlebrow, thank God! Yet the part originally carried by The Day takes an especially sharp approach and is clearly controversial. In the first place, there is the author’s own debate with himself. On the other hand, it is a burlesque aimed at some long-standing opponents from, say, “anti-European” and “anti-Galician” positions.
Beginning in 1992, when I first started to travel and visit Western Europe, I have now and then appeared with features dealing with Ukraine’s geopolitical situation. Their topics could be summed up as “Ukraine and Europe,” “Ukraine’s Quest,” “The Chance for a Different Ukraine,” “Halychyna as Ukraine’s Chance in Central Europe,” etc. Almost everything I have written in this vein has appeared in print, including about a hundred articles published by Den’. I mention this not out of pride but to stress that I have been able to publish on such topics, and the reader has had ample time to familiarize themselves with my views, style, and techniques. I mean that after eight years of this labor of Sisyphus I could expect not to be taught an old truism about Europe, the way Halychyna did: “Europe was and remains the most tolerant, cultured, and civilized part of the planet and we must try to approach its level...”
Right, we certainly should. But in reality we are putting an increasing distance between it and ourselves. What a shame that people who believe they are members of the intelligentsia should be content listening to all those radio preachers and stuff transmitted from Verkhovna Rada. And that any paradoxical ways of seeking the truth should remain incomprehensible and alien to them; that people in Halychyna are losing their inherent trait, the most precious in Europe: their ability to laugh at themselves. If they do, any regime, even the current one, can easily turn them into a bunch of fools.
There are countless reasons for my bitterness. But I also have good news: I really do love Halychyna, stupid as it is, for it is my Last Territory. Those capable of understanding this have long done so. For the benefit of the rest I will recite something from our hooligan youth: “Persons with obvious signs of feeble-mindedness will not be admitted to the entertainment.”






