Lost Ukrainian senses

Ukrainian senses have been lost to a large extent – at least at the level of mass consciousness. Now, 50 years after the Ukrainian philosopher Mykola Shlemkevych made an in-depth study of Ukrainian man who wondered all over the world, it is just the right time to speak about the lost Ukrainian senses, the remnants of which are continuously being washed away and diluted before our very eyes.

What is perhaps one of the most successful attempts to look into the essence of the ongoing processes is Outside Asiope (2007), a ground-breaking work by Roman Kis, a Lviv-based expert in culture studies. The book says in no uncertain terms: there can be no such thing as Ukrainian culture and nation as long as Ukrainians are unable to revive the creation and proliferation of their own Ukrainian senses. But what are they? The author notes that it is not at all about traditional nativistic senses: naturally, they should also occupy a proper place in the consciousness of Ukrainians, but the senses that can really play a leading role in the making of a nation are those that correspond to the realities of present-day (above all, urban) life. Also important is independent interpretation of foreign cultural items instead of borrowing cut-and-dried cliches from abroad, as is usually the case now.

These reflections are, in fact, on the question what national senses are and how they function at the level of individual and national awareness. But it would be perhaps right to begin this from afar – with a brief example from my own experience. This example is not unique; just the contrary, it is illustrative and, after all, very common for a large number of Ukrainians educated on the basis of the Russian, or mostly Russian, language and culture. I think many have thought, as I have before, that a text read in Russian sometimes seems to be far richer, brighter and, I would say, more clear-cut in terms of meaning, than a text read in Ukrainian.

And the point is not at all in the language and its lexical potential, which everybody can easily see by comparing, for example, a Russian and a Ukrainian translation of any foreign source. The Ukrainian translation can even surpass the Russian one in terms of the means of expression and other stylistic techniques, but the Russian text will still seem, for some reason, to be “tastier,” “more precise,” and one that has deeper semantic shades, halftones, and connotations.

What is the matter if the point is not in the much-hyped richness of the “great and powerful” Russian language and the mythical poorness of melodious Ukrainian? Here we are dealing with such things as concepts and the conceptual sphere of the national language and, therefore, to define their nature, we must resort to somewhat dry theoretical reasoning.

In very broad terms, a concept is a set of senses, notions, ideas, associations, sensations, recollections, etc., which instantly come up in the mind of a human when the latter comes across one word or another. Depending on the situation and context, this set can change every time, assuming some and losing other meanings, so it is never known for sure which sense will emerge (or, to quote a metaphorical dictum of the Russian researcher S. Askoldov, flower like a bud) at a concrete instance in the mind of a concrete individual.

In other words, a concept does not emerge from the word itself; it directly depends on the individual experience of every individual: the deeper and richer this experience is, the deeper and richer the associations and senses will be in their mind. The semantic wealth (or paucity) of the concept therefore fully depends on the individual’s educational level, profession, likings, age, and gender. For example, the word “day” potentially comprises a lot of concepts: a religious (Christian) person may recall that God created light on the first day or that there will be the Doomsday; an astronomer will rather associate The Day with the rotation of Earth around its axis; some children may think: “Hurrah, my birthday is just round the corner!” and the readers of our newspaper are likely to remember the latter.

The full set of all concepts that may emerge, at least potentially, in the consciousness of an individual constitutes their conceptual sphere, which is strictly individual. If one has never read or heard of, say, Lesia Ukrainka’s Forest Song, they will never conjure up this concept, no matter how many times they may repeat this word combination.

But what role does a certain language play in the birth of concepts, and what is the conceptual sphere of a national language?

The role of a language is decisive in that it helps a concept to be born in one’s mind. Senses as such exist above the concrete linguistic forms of expression, i.e., it is clear to everyone what, for example, “(town’s) square” is, no matter if we call it “maidan” (in Ukrainian), “ploshchad” (in Russian), or “square.” However, the emergence (unfurling) of a concept in consciousness depends, as a rule, on the language in which the word has been expressed.

For example, the word “maidan” may prompt a Ukrainian to conjure up an extremely rich concept that will comprise a wide range of meanings – from Pavlo Tychyna’s poem “There’s a revolution going on in the church maidan…” to the Orange Revolution. The Russian word “ploshchad” will evoke an entirely different concept, e.g., Moscow’s Krasnasya Ploshchad – Red Square – and all that is associated with it. The English “square” will perhaps remind one of Britain.

Likewise, a Ukrainian will certainly associate the word “zapovit” (testament) with Taras Shevchenko’s well-known poem, while the Russian word “zavet” is almost unlikely to call up this kind of association. Therefore, depending on the language individuals use, they potentially associate themselves with the culture based on this language and, on the other hand, distance themselves from the senses connected with other languages.

The same applies to the translated texts: the more works have been translated into a certain language, the more powerful the latter is as far as the creation of rich concepts is concerned. For example, like many other Ukrainian children, I used to read Andersen’s fairy tales in Russian translation, and I always picture one of his well-known characters – the brave tin soldier – exactly as he is called in Russian. Hence, if I ever come across the word “stoykiy” (brave) applied to some character in a Russian text, it is very likely that I will call up an association with the same Andersenian soldier, whereas, coming across the word “stiikyi” in a Ukrainian text, I will be rather unlikely to see this association.

Likewise, if I have read the Bible or Mark Twain’s books in Russian, the word “nishchiy” (beggar, pauper) may well conjure up a prince or even “blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven,” while the Ukrainian “zhebrak” (beggar) will perhaps remain in its literal meaning unless I begin to ponder its position on purpose.

This is actually the source for the ostensible dullness of a Ukrainian text in comparison with a Russian one, which was discussed above: for an individual educated on the basis of the Russian, or predominantly Russian, language and culture – just because he or she was immersed deeper in the Russian language’s conceptual sphere, – almost every Russian word will inevitably evoke a concept that is more or less rich in sense, while Ukrainian words may still remain dry contextual meanings.

Therefore, from a formal standpoint, the conceptual sphere of a national language is an aggregate of all the possible senses that can emerge in the mind of the people who are bearers of a certain language (and, in broader terms, culture). It is quite obvious that, like in the case of an individual conceptual sphere, the richer the national culture (above all, literature, oral folklore, fine arts, cinema, etc.), the richer the national language’s conceptual sphere. Therefore, in terms of its essence the conceptual sphere of a national language is what may be called the strongest foundation for national culture.

As I have said above, the language only helps a concept to be born in mind, but if there have been no national senses there before, they cannot, naturally, emerge from nowhere. Suppose you say “red and black” in Ukrainian and recall at this moment a novel by Stendhal, which will display, after all, our good learnedness, particularly in the field of world literature. However, suppose you fail, at the same time, to recall the Ukrainian song Two Colors and the UPA’s Ours Is the Red-Black Flag. This will be ample proof of the fact that even such symbols, which are crucial from the standpoint of Ukrainian culture and history, find very little response in society and are, in fact, in a miserable condition. The same applies, for example, to the world “zemlia” (earth) – some will associate it with, say, the Soviet-time song Zemlia v illuminatore (Earth in the Porthole), although this could remind them of the movie Zemlia (The Earth) by Oleksandr Dovzhenko.

So the conceptual sphere of a national language entirely depends on the state of national memory and the presence of national senses in mass consciousness. Naturally, if national culture does not exist as a fact of mass consciousness, we can still say that it still exists in a way, but this kind of existence amounts to national self-oblivion. This should be called the dilution and washing away of Ukrainian senses proper, as it was said at the beginning of the article. Yet, as is known, nature abhors a vacuum – the adoption of an alien, instead of one’s own, conceptual sphere should be regarded as complete ruination of the national conceptual sphere and, hence, national culture.

On the whole, in spite of the changeability and instability of individual conceptual spheres, the conceptual sphere of a national language is durable and long-lasting. Really drastic changes in it can only be caused by the brutal longtime intervention of a foreign power, but the consequences of this intervention – if it has really occurred – may be either irreversible (mass-scale loss of national memory in the broadest sense) or such that require the frantic efforts of many generations to be reversed. Therefore, to wipe out (or at least to critically deplete) the national conceptual sphere, it is sufficient to squeeze out the proper national senses in the course of a few centuries (in practice, to minimize the knowledge of national culture, history, folk traditions, etc. and narrow the circle of national language usage, particularly as far as publication of foreign literature is concerned), replace them with foreign senses, and convince the populace that the latter are their own and irreplaceable ones.

Unfortunately, there have been frequent and long-lasting periods in Ukrainian history of such intervention (on the part of a certain external force). It is all the more sad that even now, after 18 years of independence, the Ukrainian conceptual sphere continues to be ruined and deformed, leaving only some isolated remnants on the level of mass consciousness.

The overall conclusion that can be made from what has been said above is not, after all, very original: what can protect (and completely revive in the future) the Ukrainian conceptual sphere (Ukrainian senses proper) is solely the creation of a single information space on the basis of the Ukrainian language, the expansion of the spheres of its usage, translation of foreign literature, development of culture in a broad sense, etc. Obviously, every individual has the right to use the language he or she prefer, but one should be fully aware that only by speaking Ukrainian will Ukrainians be able to preserve their own original culture and eventually rediscover themselves. Ukrainians, speak Ukrainian!

Serhii Stukanov is member of the Ostroh Youth Club of Free Youth Intellectual Exchange, Donetsk.