Orest SUBTELNY:"I am happy that Ukraine has finally become a legitimate object of study" 

Yet, critics have had various opinions of the book. Some have called Subtelny's work an intellectual revolution, while others have claimed that he wrote some sort of fairy-tale account of Ukrainian history.

Subtelny looked cheerful and energetic at his meeting with The Day's reporters. He willingly shared every impression from his hard work on his History. At the same time, he was trying to make sense of what is happening in Ukraine today, since now he is working on a chapter dealing with contemporary Ukrainian history.

What is Ukrainian history? Do we need any new myths and heroes today? How will our today's life go down in the history of the country? Will it go down only as full of corruption, lack of morality, and lost opportunities? Will we, Ukrainians, be able to take advantage of the analogies from our past and avert the sad fate of the Hetman state of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries?

By publishing this interview with Orest Subtelny, we would also like to invite our readers to express their views on the issues that became subject of a heated discussion with the well-known historian.

Q.: Although you were born into a Ukrainian family, you have spent all your life outside Ukraine. You have studied in Europe and in the United States, and now you live in Canada. What made you to go into Ukrainian history?

A.: The Ukrainian history textbooks by Doroshenko and Hrushevsky among others used by our Diaspora are wonderful books, but they were written long ago. This is why it was not difficult to write something new. The works of Soviet historians also created a gap. In this respect, I was lucky because there was no need to write something extraordinary, one just had to produce a good-quality book. Yet, some people warned me that it was too early to take up Ukrainian history and that I had to wait a while and research many things.

Q.: Why did they think it was too early?

A.: For a long time, we had no access to your archives, and respected Western scholars thought we shouldn't dare write a history without using the archives.

Q.: How did Ukraine accept your version of its history?

A.: I proposed printing the textbook in Ukraine back in 1990, and that was relatively early. Back then, Ukraine simply didn't know how to treat the book. First I had to submit the manuscript to the Institute of History. They looked at it and hesitated. Later they decided that if some authoritative scholar from the Institute would write a foreword (Stanislav Kulchytsky did so) to the book and if the Institute would insist on publication, then we could go ahead with it. I must give credit to Prof. Kulchytsky for doing a good job since it was not easy at the time. Our order was also unexpected for the Lybid publishing house - I brought my manuscript there on August 19, 1991, the day of the coup. Yes, it was on that very day that the fate of my publication was decided, and you can only imagine what the people at the publishing house thought of me. But one thing was clear: new countries had appeared, and histories of those countries and their nations had to be written. To some extent, circumstance played a role in my work. But only to some extent, for I was quite persistent in my decision to take up Ukrainian history.

Q.: Where does this persistence come from? Is it how you were brought up by your parents?

A.: One of my professors used to say that I am persistent by nature, but that was not the only reason. I felt a need for a new book because I was not happy with the literature on Ukrainian history used by the Diaspora.

Q.: And what is in fact history of Ukraine?

A.: It is a history of a stateless nation. As a rule, histories have always been associated with states and political centers. There have been times when kings commissioned histories, which were written in education institutions and universities. Ukraine had nothing of that kind. Instead, the history of a poorly defined, indistinct, obscure object was told. And even now we still face a thorny problem of how to correctly make use of use of this object.

Q.: When you were working in the archives, what kind of impressions did you get of certain periods in our history? What kind of emotions did you experience from what you were researching? Did you fling around your manuscripts, pace the room, or maybe smoke a cigarette?

A.: I had written my dissertation on Pylyp Orlyk, so I knew the seventeenth and eighteenth century period quite well. I had obtained Orlyk's five-volume diary, and I obtained a good understanding of him and his time. But I would not claim that I have a full understanding of the princely era. I collected the views of many people, tried to assess them, but still failed to get a secure feel for the period. However, no matter what historical period I would research, I have never been overtaken by some, say, horrific emotions. The main thing I have always been interested in is how people react to certain circumstances. Secondly, I have always been impressed by how interesting Ukrainian history is, especially compared to the Canadian or American past. However, for Ukrainians themselves those were difficult times.

I was depressed studying the communist era. I remember coming to Kyiv in 1979, seeing your life and thinking that it's just hopeless: total oppression, political, national, and cultural. Perhaps this affected me when I was writing about that period in my book. So you are right: there were things that struck me. Take the Civil War for example, and the gross errors the Ukrainian politicians of that time committed. I have often reflected on whether it all had to happen that way and not some other.

Q.: Did such emotional reactions interfere with your objectivity as a historian?

A.: We were taught that historians should not be emotional. However, I felt that my emotions helped me in a way. I come from the Ukrainian Diaspora, and my parents nurtured my feelings associated with Ukraine. In fact, this emotional connection became an impetus for me to write the History. While researching Ukrainian history, I also had the goal of understanding who I am. As a historian, I was on one side, and as a Ukrainian on the other.

Q.: When was this feeling most acute?

A.: When I was studying the period of the 1917 revolution. Back then, the critical issue was whether society was ready for modernization. Despite all my good feelings for, say, Hrushevsky or Vynnychenko, I sensed they did not fully realize that the real issue was modernization, whereas others (Skrypnyk, for instance) understood it better.

Q.: And what about Skoropadsky?

A.: Skoropadsky personifies conservatism. Yet, he had a better understanding of what a state is than did Vynnychenko, Hrushevsky, and other democrats.

Q.: The analogies of that period prove one can declare good intentions and things turn out quite the opposite. We experienced it during the years when Ukrainian statehood was being established, and it still remains a problem. This is why many people have serious concerns that the intentions stated by our present politicians to modernize society at the end of this century could run into a Red wall.

A.: I think not. I believe the world is too small. It is impossible for the world to modernize and Ukraine to remain where it is now. Perhaps, it will be more painful and slow, but there is no way Ukraine can isolate itself from Poland, Hungary, Russia, the Baltic countries, or Turkey.

Q.: Did it ever occur to you that the modernized world needs non-modernized countries? There is Immanuel Wallerstein's theory about the core, periphery, semi-periphery, and about countries interested in retaining this kind of structure, in fact, in keeping other countries underdeveloped.

A.: This theory refers to the colonial era, which, I think, has already ended. No doubt, there are countries not interested in Ukraine's rapid development. The United States is probably not very eager to see Ukraine develop its industry or sell weapons. Still, the development of Ukraine is difficult to stop. You have a high level of education. This is not the Third World. Look how quickly your computer specialists, once they have moved to the US, find excellent jobs and get promoted to prestigious positions.

This will be nothing new to you, but the essence of your problems is that you are expecting revolutionary changes without a revolution. There was no revolution, and you want a market and a democracy. Yes, the empire has collapsed, but it did so in an extraordinary way. For whenever an empire disintegrates, the imperial elite goes with it as well. However, your bureaucracy has stayed. This is not typical but a real paradox. It is a unique phenomenon that the world has never seen before.

 Q.: Our days, the post-1991 period in Ukraine, is often compared with the Ruin of the late seventeenth century. How appropriate do you think this analogy is?

A.: Let's keep in mind that Ukraine has had virtually no statehood. Bohdan Khmelnytsky did not build a Ukrainian state, and external factors always had a major impact on Ukraine. Whatever was happening in Ukraine always depended on Turkey, Poland, or Russia. At present, it is internal political forces that play a decisive role, and this is the principal difference. The word "ruin" itself is an eloquent word, but one should be careful using it.
You have a state, but you got it without struggle, without myths, without heroes and... without enemies. In a sense, it is all conventional, of course, but let's remember that every state first mentions its heroes and then its enemies in its history textbooks.

Q.: In your view, what kind of qualities should a modern hero or, to be more specific, an ideal Ukrainian president, possess in current historical conditions? What kind of person should it be compared to our former leaders or leaders of other countries?

A.: First and foremost, a leader must have a moral right to be a leader, he must be committed to promoting statehood. In terms of qualities, it should be an extraordinary person, or at least a person that could develop into someone extraordinary, some kind of myth...

Q.: Someone like Tomas Masaryk?

A.: Right, and also Kemal AtatЯrk, George Washington, or Jozef Pilsudski. There have been many such statesmen.

Q.: But must struggle always come first?

A.: Absolutely, for only struggle molds courageous characters. And when average people see that somebody became a leader simply by taking advantage of the situation, that person is not a leader for them at all.

Q.: However, struggle is going on in Ukraine as well. Society is becoming very segmented, and, in fact, just like in the perestroika years, it remains in the state of a civil cold war. A third of the population is oriented toward Russia, another third to the West with its market economies, and the remainder is not oriented toward anything at all.

A.: It is good that there is a certain conflict of ideas, although for the most part it is the kind of conflict that breeds tension rather than heroes. Who can be a hero here? A leftist? A true hero must be a hero for all.

Q.: The concept of struggle itself is also being modernized. What is the hero's task? To unite the nation? To win a place in the world for Ukraine as a country that has to make itself known?

A.: No doubt, this is what people expect. They want someone capable of enforcing the rule of law in the country or of making Ukrainian products competitive abroad. This kind of person could become a guide, a hero of a new type. Whoever solves the economic problem in Ukraine will automatically become a hero. However, I do not think it will take only one person to do it because this is a very complex issue involving many different factors.

Q.: Still, one person can set the tone for society and raise the plank high enough to bring out the power in people. So many people in Ukraine have tried to take up business and offer society their energy and services, but they have not succeeded. This is why today we need a person who would say that we should start our reforms from a different direction: from free competition, certain moral standards, and the government's compliance with those standards. In this country, we have grown a wild hybrid pseudo-reform, which deforms morality. The essence of this little playhouse being erected in Ukraine is not what we expect of reform. When the West demands more speedy and radical reform, our people say, "It's bad enough for us as it is. And whenever you say 'faster,' it means 'still worse' for us."

A.: The popular Western saying, "Why can't a woman be like a man?", reflects their attitude to Ukraine. They are not fully ready to accept the special features of your development, or, rather, they cannot understand them at all.

Q.: And what do you think is the difference between us and other nations?

A.: It stems from your history, from what you have gone through for the last seven decades and before then for centuries. No Western country has experienced anything of the kind. Yet, even in the West people are starting to realize now that they should not expect changes to occur quickly in Ukraine. What is seven years of independence: already seven years or only seven years?

Q.: Are you aware that when talking about us, you use the word "you", and you refer to the West as "they"? Where is your own place between "you" and "them"?

A.: I am a classical example of the Diaspora, neither here nor there. This is my personal problem, and not so much of my parents' since they were certain that they were Ukrainians. I grew up in the West knowing that I come from here. And here, I feel I come from there. This is typical phenomenon of a political ОmigrО.

Q.: Now you are working on a chapter dealing with contemporary Ukrainian history. How is your work going?

A.: Very hard. It is the most difficult section of the book. I have to get a thorough understanding of what is happening here. The chapter will cover appearance of independent Ukraine and its secession from the Soviet Union and Russia. I think Ukraine handled it brilliantly and bloodlessly. The CIA was predicting bloodshed here from the first year of independence. Breaking away from Russia was always a complex historical issue. Belarus failed to do it, but Ukraine managed to. Now the world has come to understand the geopolitical significance of Ukraine, albeit with assistance of such figures as Brzezinski. You will remember that the United States had never paid attention to Ukraine before, but now it's taking a close look at this country.

The second part of the chapter deals with building an independent Ukrainian state. Here, a lot of things appear problematic. Leonid Kravchuk's agreement with the old elite to leave them in their positions provided they recognize independent Ukraine is a key issue. I am trying to figure out if it could have happened differently. Perhaps, there was no other choice, but this is a separate topic for discussion. Another problem is your inherent resistance to reforms. In a way, it would be surprising if there was no resistance at all. Unlike Poland, Hungary, or Czechoslovakia, Ukraine had no past experience of a market or democracy. This is why all this has to take more time here, has to be more difficult.

Q.: You're right in remarking that the current situation in Ukraine flows from what happened earlier. But on the other hand, new people have replaced part of the old elite in power, and the only aspect of new market relations they all seem to have mastered is how to privatize the government and administrative structure. Everything else on the way to market environment and reform has come to a halt. The crux of the problem is that what needs to be done is not to the advantage of those in a position to do it. This is the principal dysfunctionality of Ukrainian leaders. In addition, some of them simply do not know how to do things any differently.

A.: Another enormous problem in Ukraine is also corruption and the demoralization of society. While working on these issues, I asked myself if these phenomena are inherited from the past (there is corruption everywhere), or if the new situation created the conditions for corruption. I have not found an answer to this question yet.

Q.: The problem in Ukraine is that its government is affected not only by corruption but also by a certain clan structure. Your book has a pessimistic note in it regarding the seventies: after the removal of Shelest, the Dnipropetrovsk clan led by Shcherbytsky came to power. In fact, that clan is still there today. Do you think that some Ukrainian problems are related to the fact that the same Dnipropetrovsk clan is still in power?

A.: In the seventies, the clan made some gains for Ukraine. During the Shcherbytsky period, it elevated Ukraine to the position of the second most important republic after Russia.

Q.: But was it the accomplishment of the clan or rather of one person who was able to fight for something in Moscow?

A.: Yes, there was a positive element in it. And the negative thing is that the clan has stayed and actually rules in Ukraine now. If we look for analogies, it reminds me of the colonels in the Cossack leadership. They were registered Cossacks who belonged to the Polish establishment and blocked reforms along with any attempts to democratize society. They never thought of Ukraine as a state and cared only about their own corporativistic interests. Sometimes Lazarenko and others remind me of the colonels of that period.

Q.: We all know what happened to the Hetman state. Ukraine today also has people in power who are actually concerned only with their own or corporative interests. If we draw an analogy with the Cossacks, could contemporary independent Ukraine experience a similar fate?

A.: We can indeed trace an analogy here. Back then state power was private property. I think this is the case now, too.

Q.: Some kind of quasi-feudal society, in which economic prosperity is based on proximity to power rather than on economic activity?
A.: Yes, it is precisely the proximity to power that provides money, but money does not provide power. This is very dangerous. It will be possible to change the situation only if small, rather than big, business develops.

Q.: What do you think about the idea that Ukraine will be able to recover only when people are given a chance to do business legally?

A.: You need to make things - books, cars, television sets, whatever.

Q.: Beer!

A.: Oh yes, and your beer is quite good.

Q.: This is about the only thing Ukraine has of its own, plus Kyiv Dynamo.

A.: You see, in soccer you also have only one team. You should have five or six of them - some kind of a league like they have in Italy. Everything looks somehow artificial. I look at Ukrainians now and feel that if they were given a chance, they would indeed be able to make a revolution. When I was coming here, I expected to see grim faces and sad looks. Instead, I sense liveliness in people, maybe because I have mostly walked along Khreshchatyk. If I had gone to the regions, I might get a different impression.

Q.: Sovietologists in the West have claimed that Ukraine and the Ukrainian nation were made up by historians like James Mace and you.

A.: You know, it is an old tradition. Ukrainians have been made up for 300 years already. First it was the Austrians who did it, followed by the Germans and the Poles. There is a view that if Lenin had not created the union republics, you would have never gained national identity. Lenin established the republics in order for the Soviet Union to exist, but the Soviet Union fell apart because it was made up of republics. Western Sovietologists have been greatly discredited - they have still not been forgiven their failure to predict very serious processes. At the November 1991 Congress of the American Association for the Advancement of Slavic Studies attended by the most prominent scholars in the field, the discussion focused exclusively on main political and economic issues, and there was no mention whatsoever of the national problem. Prof. Jerry Hough said in the plenary session the nationality problem was simply not important, that Gorbachev was in full control, including of the nationalities, and if there were some separatist trends, it was only because he supported them. Then, all of a sudden, you had independent states. In terms of statistics, it looked like this: some 2000 dissertations on Soviet studies were written in the 1980s, of which 45-50% left out aspects of nationality altogether.

The focus of attention at the time was Central Asia because of the significant demographic changes taking place there. However, there were Baltic, Belarusian, and Ukrainian Diasporas in the West, who repeatedly raised the national issue. Due to such a serious lapse, the concepts of Sovietology do not appear too convincing anymore. The world has experienced enormous changes, and I think it is great that now research on Ukraine is done not only by people of Ukrainian descent. A very interesting group of scholars has been formed in Germany, Great Britain, and France. Ukraine has become a legitimate object of study.

Q.: You attended the last Rukh Congress. Since in its time this organization was a catalyst of national processes, what did you think of it and its leader this time?

A.: Briefly speaking, I was very disappointed with the personality cult. There are so many problems and opportunities; this party could do many useful things. Instead, they are concentrating their efforts on something totally inappropriate. It is very, very disheartening.

Q.: Whenever we wrote on this issue in The Day, Mr. Chornovil would always interpret our publications as personal criticism of him, which also indicates that there is something wrong with such a seemingly democratic institution as Rukh. Why are the interests of average Rukh members who believe in a democratic Ukraine being ignored? Rukh was the main force on the Right side of the political spectrum, which should have become a new driving force at the moment. And what do we see instead? Who can realistically replace Rukh? And who should we count on to build a democratic state?

A.: We have just mentioned the serious problem of private ownership of the power structures in this country. In the case of Rukh, the party is becoming private property. Younger Rukh members are trying to do something, but I cannot say they have answers to all the questions.

Q.: But do they have ideals?

A.: They certainly do! And every party should recruit young people.

Q.: It is really a problem of generational change. Shortly before this meeting, we received an e-mail message from a web-site reader in New York, who linked the Chornovil problem to the issue of nurturing young people, personalities, and those heroes we just talked about. More than 1000 young gifted Ukrainians have recently gone to the United States to study, and nobody knows if they will come back. It is not Ukraine but American businesses like Wall Street firms, Microsoft, and other well-known companies that are already reaping the benefits from their talents.

A.: True, many people are leaving Ukraine now. But let's talk about something more optimistic.

Q.: We'll feel more optimistic when we look at things with realistic eyes and talk about them frankly.

A.: Ukrainians are strong people. They have endured all kinds of hardships. When I look at Americans or Canadians, I think they wouldn't have been able to survive so much. Even though I live in Canada now, I feel emotionally attached to Ukrainians.

Q.: So you will never try to write a history of Canada.

A.: Never.

Q.: What country's history would you like to research?

A.: For example, some aspects of Russia's history, as well as Poland's.

Q.: Our attitude to the controversial issues in Ukraine's relationship with Russia has still not been researched or formulated in our public conscience. This is true both of the period when Ukraine was not a country yet and of the time during which we have been trying to become one. What most critical aspects of this attitude have you already pinpointed and what needs to be studied further?

A.: Very curious is the Little-Russianism, so much discussed in The Day. How did it develop historically? Does a Ukrainian nation exist with respect to Russia? Or perhaps those who claim that it doesn't have a good point there? Why do Ukrainians so easily adopt the Russian language and mentality?

Q.: Why?

A.: Russians and Ukrainians have so much in common - culture, language, religion. Given such great similarity, Ukrainians should have become Russians, but they didn't. At least, not all of them. I still cannot comprehend how this nation has survived when all preconditions were in place for it to disappear. And now, when the nation is fully-fledged, it gravitates to others. These are paradoxes of both the Ukrainian and Russian identities. There are few such analogies in the world. Part of the reason for it is the lack of statehood. When there was no state, Ukraine has not clearly differentiated itself from Russia.

I would be also very interested in studying the imperial complex from the standpoint of Russians. I am not ready to criticize it, but I would like to get a better understanding of how it evolved, what shapes it has taken, where it has played a constructive or a negative role, and how it has affected Ukrainians. I want to know for sure what kind of people Pogodin, Aksakov, and others really were. However, imperial concepts were developed not only by intellectuals but also by governors general from Potemkin to Kaufman, as well as by Russian businessmen.

Q.: When we say that Ukraine needs contemporary myths, do you think that there may be no single Ukrainian historical figure that we feel close to? One can replace Lenin statues with Hrushevsky statues in every city, but what will it change if people remain indifferent to them? What does a Hrushevsky statue mean to people? Is he a hero or a bourgeois nationalist now?

A.: The problem is that monuments are erected in Ukraine by people who are despised by the population. Wages and pensions are not paid, but monuments are erected.

Q.: And Khreshchatyk renovated.

A.: Or the St. Michael's Golden Domed Cathedral for that matter. You should understand that the era of monuments is gone. We live in modern society where schools teach a skeptical attitude toward everything. This is a different time, and Ukraine is behind others in this respect.

Q.: How can we make a modern history of the Ukrainian state if there is no consensus in society with regard to its shared national self-identity? Are we to continue dodging each drop of rain?

A.: How can you reach a consensus if even some of your People's Deputies are not ready to take an oath on the Constitution of Ukraine? Where else in the world can you see such things happening?

Q.: The Diaspora welcomed the 1991 events in Ukraine with great enthusiasm. Now their thrill seems to be quickly giving way to disillusionment.

A.: One of the problems with the Diaspora is that it has never been fully familiar with the situation in Ukraine to begin with, and hence it does not understand the current situation either. Perhaps, if more Canadians had access to The Day, it would help a lot.

Q.: Frankly speaking, sometimes we are surprised by what Diaspora people read. Life has so many more facets to it. On the other hand, our paper is available on the Internet, and it also comes out in English. But is there demand for it?

A.: There is demand for The Day in English. You know, assimilation has had its effect on Ukrainian Canadians as well, although there may be new Ukrainian language readers from the fourth wave of immigration. There are about 10,000 of them in Toronto alone.

Q.: Yes, we receive messages from them regularly. But the reason why we are asking about attitudes within the Diaspora is because the wave of disappointment among ethnic Ukrainians living abroad can result in the world community losing any interest in Ukraine as such. As a state, we send out very little good news at the moment. What are your latest impressions of Ukraine?

A.: I have positive impressions. I have met with some politicians on this trip. I must say they do not have this naive faith in quick changes anymore. They have grown more sophisticated. Not most politicians, but a portion of them. Although some still speak Russian, they already think in terms of Ukraine.

As for your newspaper, I would like to say that I really enjoy reading The Day, and this is not meant as a compliment. One of the reasons for that is your openness and clear style, since many Ukrainian newspapers have a tradition of beating about the bush.

Q.: We have serious apprehension that soon we might be the only Ukrainian newspaper left that speaks openly about things.