EDITORIAL: Ukrainian studies (02/07/93)

EDITORIAL

Ukrainian studies

"The world has changed. Have you kept up?" asks an advertisement for New York University.

"If you're not current, you-re history," states a promo for Current History, a monthly on world affairs.

Yes, there is a new world order - the signs are all around us. And, the Sovietologists in vogue yesterday are today scrambling to find their niche, with many authoring books on "post-Soviet" something or other. Some try to pretend they are experts on the CIS (which, for a while at least, some could portray as more or less a continuation of the USSR), and others claim to be knowledgeable about the nations that have now emerged as independent states on the great Eurasian land mass.

But the fact is the field of Sovietology was, to a large extent, so Russocentric that most Sovietologists knew next to nothing about any republics other than Russia. Now they face a starkly different reality - one for which they are ill-prepared. Indeed, many would simply have preferred to see the USSR survive. (So much easier, you see, to deal with one entity, with one central authority.)

Among those who were ill-prepared were officials of the Bush administration. According to New York Times columnist William Safire (appearing recently on the "MacNeil-Lehrer Newshour"), the greatest foreign policy failure of that administration was its total misreading of the situation in the USSR. After all, Mr. Safire noted, this was the president who, days before the failed coup attempt in Moscow, traveled to Kyyiv and told Ukrainians to forget about independence and remain part of the Soviet Union.

All the focus then was on Russia and Gorbachev, much as it now is on Russia and Yeltsin. And, thus far, the Clinton administration has taken no real stand on developments in "the former USSR." However, as best we can tell, the Clinton administration has indicated a continuation of the Bush administration policy toward Russia et al. (Yes, the reference always is to Russia and "the others.")

To be sure, it doesn't help when respected newspapers like The New York Times argue that the U.S. government should not grant security guarantees to Ukraine, lest Russia become offended.

And so, can we assume the same experts will be consulted, and the same advice will be needed? One hopes not, for surely now is the time for a complete reassessment of policy toward the independent states located on former Soviet territory. The place to start, of course, is at institutions of higher learning, for they produce foreign affairs experts, policy-makers and opinion leaders of tomorrow who will not be burdened by the political thinking of the past.

To its credit, Columbia University's Harriman Institute has seen the light and has decided to devote attention to successor states of the USSR instead of focusing on Russia alone as was done in the past. Furthermore, the institute has decided that creation of a Ukrainian studies program is a priority. Prof. Alexander Motyl recently told The Weekly that the institute will have to raise additional monies to make Ukrainian studies and nationalities programs a permanent offering.

At Harvard, where three chairs of Ukrainian studies exist, there are new programs geared toward helping journalists, businesspeople, government officials and others become acquainted with Ukraine past and present. Among these is an intensive program of study lasting one week. (More on that in upcoming issues of The Weekly.)

At the University of Illinois, the Foundation for Ukrainian Studies is looking toward the future. It has founded a post-doctoral fellowship in modern Ukrainian history as a first step toward establishing a second center of Ukrainian studies in the U.S. The foundation has already begun a fund-raising campaign.

All the foregoing are hopeful signs that Ukraine will indeed take its place as a focus of serious study and research that ultimately will be reflected in an enhanced position for Ukraine in the world arena.

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