“The backbone of a nation is history that is fully absorbed”

“I try to follow articles in The Day’s columns ‘History and I’ and ‘Ucraina Incognita’ because as a professional historian (I have been teaching and researching history in the higher school for 20 years) I use them in my own work. I really appreciate the newspaper’s book- publishing project and think it is supremely important to bring a scholarly vision of our past to the general public,” said Vitaliy Masnenko, Pro-Rector of Bohdan Khmelnytsky Cherkasy National University, responding to our New Year’s questionnaire. The Day has a lot of highly-respected and loyal readers like this everywhere, and they constantly send in articles, responses, and letters. They are, after all, the co-creators of The Day. Well aware that nothing strengthens relations so much as a personal visit, we recently paid a visit to Cherkasy University, where three years ago our editor-in-chief Larysa Ivshyna presented Ucraina Incognita, the first book in the publication series. Since then this educational institution has shown unflagging interest in our publications, while students of the Philology Faculty, especially the Departments of Journalism and Publishing/Editing, do internships at our Master Classes in Journalism, a school that also has undergraduates from Ostroh Academy, and Zaporizhzhia and Dnipropetrovsk Universities.

The presentation of five books from The Day’s Library series — Ucraina Incognita, Dvi Rusi, Wars and Peace, Day and Eternity of James Mace, and The Apocrypha of Klara Gudzyk — attracted students from the Faculties of Philology and History, Law and Philosophy, lecturers, editors, and journalists working in various local newspapers. Contrary to the widely-held view that such functions are usually attended by liberal arts academics, ours also drew technicians from the Cherkasy Institute of Fire Fighting. The book launch, opened by Rector Volodymyr Polishchuk, took the form of a lively dialogue. The students, professors, and journalists asked many interesting and burning questions, so it would have been unfair simply to award the five-book sets to those who asked the three best questions, as we usually do. As consolation prizes, we presented a few novelties and the newspaper’s electronic version for 1996-1999. Later more letters with questions came to us via the Internet. “I wanted to ask some questions during the meeting, but there was no time left for the last row, where I was sitting,” wrote Nazar Lavrinenko, a lecturer at the Department of Ukrainian History. Naturally, this will appear on the pages of our newspaper, as well as the article on Maksym Zalizniak sent by Mr. Lavrinenko. This is one of the ways that The Day acquires new readers and contributors.

Below we present the most interesting remarks, questions that won prizes, and some impressions.

Larysa IVSHYNA, editor-in-chief, Den/The Day:

“Our library series, which was launched in 2002, numbers five books. The first publication, Ucraina Incognita, is an attempt to present the kind of history that contemporary people need, not the history that resides in archives. When these people find themselves in the company of other Europeans, they are aware of their origin and know their heroes. The book begins with the article ‘Every Ukrainian Must Visit Chyhyryn at Least Once in His Lifetime.’ This is why there is a special place in my heart for the Cherkasy region. Wherever I go, I always talk about this land.

The next book in our series, Dvi Rusi, deals with Ukrainian-Russian relations from the 11th-12th centuries, the times of Kyivan Rus’ and the Muscovite Tsardom, until the end of the 20th century. These relations are very complicated and dramatic, and occasionally still acute. Our far-flung country has very different interpretations of the acuteness of historical problems. For example, the east and center painfully react to disputes with Russia, whereas the western part of Ukraine, especially Volyn, demonstrates a similar attitude to historical relations with the Poles, the subject of our third publication Wars and Peace.

The fourth book in our series, Day and Eternity of James Mace, is a collection of materials about the American scholar and reminiscences about him. Dr. James Mace was a researcher of the Holodomor in Ukraine. In the late 1980s he and Robert Conquest, the author of the famous book The Harvest of Sorrow, reported to the US Congress that the famine in Ukraine was a planned act of genocide. His numerous studies include the unique, multi-volume publication Oral History Project of the Commission on the Ukraine Famine (Washington, D.C., 1990), an eyewitness account of that tragedy. The book has not been translated yet into Ukrainian or republished in this country. In the early 1990s Dr. Mace moved to Kyiv, where he worked as a consultant to the English Digest of The Day between 1997 and 2004. Continuing to research this subject in Ukraine, he received no concrete support from the state. A political struggle is still being waged around this issue. Last year the victims of the Holodomor and political repressions were commemorated on a qualitatively different level than in previous years. Our newspaper has long broached the problems of what Mace calls our “post-genocidal society.” To a certain degree, our book about James Mace is optimistic. When we were working on it, we wanted it to be a warning and an effective instrument for preserving memory rather than reopening old wounds. In the early to mid-20th century Europe and America talked much about democracy, but nobody even noticed the ten million people who starved to death in Ukraine. The harsh reality is that every nation must care about its own survival.

The latest book to appear in our series is The Apocrypha of Klara Gudzyk. Ms. Gudzyk has a deep knowledge of art and speaks several Western European and Slavic languages. Her articles in Den are read by such prominent scholars as Ivan Dziuba, Mykola Zhulynsky, Stanislav Kulchytsky, and Myroslav Popovych, who say that she is quite a phenomenon. No other Ukrainian journalist writes so profoundly and knowledgeably on church problems. It should not come as any surprise that she was granted a private audience with Pope John Paul II. I consider Klara Gudzyk a star of Ukrainian journalism. Unfortunately, our idea of a star is often very far from the standard. The omnipresent ‘pop culture’ is spoiling the public’s taste. Breaking through all this rubbish to reach genuine values and fine journalism is possible with books like Ms. Gudzyk’s.

“We should know our own history, for this is the backbone of a nation and the foundation of its claims to a place in the world. Those who have no identity and are devoid of prospects will at best be a workforce market. Life is competitive. We must remember this if we want to fit in with a different global order.”

Volodymyr POLISHCHUK, Rector, Cherkasy University:

“Not long ago President Yushchenko proposed the idea to create an Institute of National Memory. The fourth of five books in a series devoted to rehabilitated history is about to be issued in the Cherkasy region. This volume contains data on approximately half of the victims of political repressions in our region (19,000 people out of a total of 36,000, according to the regional branch of the Security Service of Ukraine). Research has also been done on the Holodomor, including some at our university. We intend to open a Cherkasy regional branch of the Institute of National Memory, and we will be coordinating our activities with Kyiv. Initially, we thought that this cooperation would develop the other way around — from the capital to the regions. Ms. Ivshyna, do you have more complete information on the implementation of the president’s idea?”

L.I.: “By all accounts, the regions-to-the-capital direction seems to be more viable.

“The unfortunate thing is that back in 1994, when James Mace was addressing a meeting of the Union of Ukrainian Writers, he emphasized that we really need an Institute of Genocide. Although this idea was fully endorsed in speeches, it was never implemented. Our book about Mace reveals for the first time a letter that Oles Honchar wrote to James, in which the writer hopes that the newly created institution will serve great historical truth.

“I have often noticed that ideas are expressed, but I cannot understand why we are so bad at putting them into practice. If everything remains on the level of words, then huge doubts about the sincerity of these words start creeping in. Our country has yet to see the publication of a multi-volume history of eyewitness accounts by the victims of political repressions. There must be access to this knowledge, because if no one provides it to young people, it will remain only a narrow research subject.

“We need an Institute of National Memory not just because our neighbors have one. Incidentally, in Poland such projects are supported by the state. Meanwhile, in Russia, with all its attributes of a modern superpower, policy priorities in the field of history are being actively discussed. The Ukrainian philosopher Serhiy Krymsky, one of the brightest minds of today, has noted that what really matters now is not so much competition for natural resources as a fierce struggle for a place in history. What can I add to this? The world map shows examples of many unrealized projects. Just look at the African continent and see how many noble intentions ended in fiasco. Some countries have taken their place, while others have failed. This has a direct bearing on national memory and the Institute of National Memory.”

Nazar VIVCHARYK, 3rd-year undergraduate, Faculty of Philology:

“You wrote in the foreword to the book Dvi Rusi that ‘today Ukrainians need history no less or perhaps even more than contemporary politics.’ That was in 2003. Many events have cropped up in Ukrainian-Russian relations since the book was published. Do you still maintain this view?”

L.I.: “An acquaintance of mine, a woman journalist who had worked at Vyacheslav Chornovil’s newspaper Chas and then went abroad and occasionally returns for visits, once asked me after reading Dvi Rusi whether I occasionally read what I write. She meant what happens to thoughts that are expressed at a specific time. In the foreword that you mention I wrote (about a year before the Orange Revolution) that Ukraine could help Russia by making a firm decision to be a European state. I am convinced that all the events that unfolded later showed that we truly have quite a few different ideas about values. And the gas dispute, for which Ukrainians are, of course, also partly responsible, is clearly an attempt to revert to the way such problems were solved in the historical past. In my view, not all of us have answered the question: why do we, close neighbors, sometimes reject each other so brutally? The answer is because our country has not yet learned the ABCs of historical memory! The Day once carried an article about why Volodymyr Vynnychenko is now sparking more interest than Symon Petliura, which triggered a stormy reaction. This question can be posed to a well-educated audience. But if you go out on the streets of Cherkasy and ask a dozen passers-by, you will see that this issue, although extremely important, is of little consequence to many people. And, really, why did so many people hate Petliura so much? And why do many Russians still regard him, together with Mazepa and other Ukrainians, as someone who only deserves curses, insults, and labels?”

Serhiy SHAMARA, doctoral student, Department of Ukrainian History: “I often travel to various regions and see that some of them are in the grip of an identity crisis. You can encounter not only Russophiles but also people who still consider themselves Soviets. Oddly enough, there are quite a few young people among them. This can obviously lead to separatist tendencies. What is your take on this?”

L.I.: “The failure of the national project leads first and foremost to separatist tendencies.

“People don’t want to identify themselves with losers! There is only a limited number of people who, despite misfortune, troubles, humiliation, and shame, are staunch enough to call themselves Ukrainians. In the foreword to Ucraina Incognita I recall a story my mother once told me. She said that in our village in Volyn there were a lot of people who were gung-ho Catholics under the Poles, and during Soviet rule they became gung-ho communists. This is a tendency that exists in every society. So the real problem is that Ukrainians have so far failed to break the ranks, so to speak, of mediocre politicians to allow top-notch politicians, who can ensure a high quality of furthering the Ukrainian cause, to come to the fore. But this is the No. 1 task! A state-sponsored humanitarian and information program should also be one of these important tasks. We have been losing information space for a long time. I think this is linked to the problem of separatism. When I visited Donetsk University, I saw that many young people would like to be different and have other challenges to respond to, but they do not always have a chance to do this. They would ask questions that, in my opinion, need not be asked if the state pursued a sound information policy. I am pleased that several TV channels launched history- related projects last year. Look: this country is already fifteen years old, but we are only now beginning to talk about Mykola Sadovsky and Maria Zankovetska.”