Europe: the only way for Ukraine
Oxana Pachlovska wins the Taras Shevchenko Prize
From its sources The Day has learned that in the fourth, most quarrelsome round of the Shevchenko Prize Committee’s vote, 15 out of 18 members voted for conferring Ukraine’s main national award on the writer and cultural expert Oxana Pachlovska for her book Ave, Europa! What remains is the formality of signing the edict. [Den carried this article on Feb. 18, 2010 — Ed.] The editors would like to extend their heartfelt greetings to our regular contributor and friend of old standing. This is also a happy event for the Ukrainian public. This newspaper has repeatedly stressed that the individual efforts of personalities like Pachlovska are as effective as those of entire research centers.
Says Shevchenko Committee Chairman Mykola Zhulynsky: “I believe this year’s laureates are spectacular personalities. I’m especially happy to see Oxana Pachlovska among them, considering that she is our colleague at the Institute of Literature. She is truly worthy of this award. This lady possesses profound intellect, dedication, and an unwavering desire to comprehend Ukraine’s current condition and its prospects… There is her strong inner need to be present among her people. Her book Ave, Europa! is a significant [cultural] event.”
Oxana Pachlovska had this to tell The Day on the phone from Rome:
“I’m in a state of a complicated dialog with myself. I’ve never learned to measure work against reward. This prize is very special, not an abstract formula, considering that it was named after the great poet. My first emotion was gratitude to all who consider my book Ave, Europa! worthy of this award. Above all, I would like to thank all these people for paying attention to the main theme of this book. Sad but true, considering recent [political] events, Ukraine has once again been cast dramatically away from its European prospects. Our history, destiny, and conscience demand even more that we believe in these prospects, because this is the only way for Ukraine if we want to see it as a civilized and dignified country.
“My second emotion — in this avalanche-like process of devaluation of values that’s underway in a post-Soviet society (I mean not only Ukraine) there have been repeated attempts to get Shevchenko involved, trying to force him into this or that Procrustean bed, let alone the chauvinistic hullabaloo over his name in past couple of years. Naturally, mediocre persons feel ill at ease standing next to geniuses. Nevertheless, we will have to re-read Shevchenko to understand what happened yesterday and what’s happening today. We need to discover that a poet, whom the Russian empire feared so much he was forbidden to write and paint while in exile, could see from that steppe a new Ukraine and new Europe. At the time, Shevchenko was in Europe among the most radical champions of freedom for every individual and every people, from Finland to the Caucasus, from Asian countries to Moldova to Bohemia to Poland. Freedom is a basic value of European civilization.
“And so this award that bears Shevchenko’s name is not so much a prize as a moral imperative, a degree of responsibility toward the eternity of this poet, who placed his verse on guard over the nation. At the time, this nation appeared to have been uprooted. Shevchenko wrote, ‘I will not go to Ukraine… Little Russia is all that’s left there.’ Just a few words, but that’s a diagnosis. Thanks to his verse, Little Russia turned into Ukraine and all those ‘little mute slaves’ became free people. Shevchenko also warned that freedom had never been won once and for all in Ukrainian history. He is our Virgil and together with him we’re stepping into another Circle of Hell, but it will be with him that we will find the way out in the end. This is what will happen. The poet’s words ‘struggle, and ye shall overcome’ are the key to our future.”
Zhulynsky told The Day that among this year’s Shevchenko laureates are writer Halyna Putiak, poet Dmytro Ivanov, actor Bohdan Kozak, journalist Mykhailo Andrusiak, artists Kost Lavro and Viktor Kovtun, folk craftsman Stepan Hanzha, artist and icon collector Mykola Babak in creative collaboration with art critic Oleksandr Naideny. The awarding ceremony will take place at the National Opera of Ukraine on March 9.
