FACES AND PLACES: The "grunts" carry us (07/12/98)

FACES AND PLACES

by Myron B. Kuropas

The "grunts" carry us

Having just attended a conference at the University of Illinois that focused on the theme "Ukrainian Western Diaspora: Achievements and Problems," I should be depressed. The conference concluded that, at present, our problems seem to be outweighing our achievements.

This is the second such conference I've attended in the last nine months. The Washington Group had a similar conclave last October. Their theme was: "We Can Do Better." The conclusion was clear: we should be doing better, but we're not.

So what's wrong? With all of the resources at our disposal, why is there so much hand-wringing regarding our future? Part of the problem, I believe, is our lack of interaction. Various subgroups within our society barely acknowledge each other, let alone communicate.

For purposes of this discussion, I have divided Ukrainian American into three subgroups: the academics, the business and professional people, and those who work in the trenches - the "grunts."

Academics can be divided into two groups: the community-subsidized scholars who labor at or are associated with Uk-rainian studies at Harvard, and the free-lance Ukrainian academics, those who are professors at various universities but do not rely on Ukrainian donations for their livelihood.

Assured sinecures by the generosity of our community, the Harvard academics live in their own little world, blissfully oblivious to the rest of us. Almost all of what they publish is for the benefit of a handful of other academics who can comprehend esoteric language known to but a select few.

Try reading Volume XIX of Harvard Ukrainian Studies, a 783-page tome devoted to "Rhetoric of the Medieval Slavic World." Three of the articles are written in Russian. Of the 36 articles in the volume, 25 are devoted to Muscovy. Michael Flier, who holds the Harvard Ukrainian language chair, penned an article titled "Filling in the Blanks: The Church of the Intercession and the Architectonics of Medieval Muscovite Ritual." Moshe Taube's contribution is titled "The 'Poem of the Soul' in the Laodicean Epistle."

Mimicking recent trends in academe, some of the articles have jazzed-up titles. David M. Goldfrank wrote "Who Put the Snake on the Icon and the Tollbooths on the Snake?" Our own Ihor Sevcenko authored "To Call a Spade a Spade, or the Etymology of Rogalije."

Call me a Philistine, but I don't think providing a forum for Russian studies is what our community had in mind when it contributed millions of hard-earned dollars to establish Ukrainian studies chairs at Harvard. Our people believed the major goal of Harvard Ukrainian studies was "to defend the good name of the Ukrainian people," as Dr. Omeljan Pritsak once explained to me.

Fortunately, not all of our academics fall into the arcane world of Harvard. Some of them are truly concerned with the future of our community even though, paradoxically, they are not dependent upon donations from our community for their professional livelihood. They collect data about our community, cite sources, and agree or disagree with prevailing theories and paradigms. They perform a valuable service because they can step back from our day-to-day affairs and survey our community from a relatively objective perspective. It is these scholars who attend the annual conference at the University of Illinois and who, in my opinion, contribute most to our welfare. They are intimately involved with us common folk.

Another tier within our community are the professional and business people who have established local societies of their own, the so-called "Ps and Bs." They come together for one of three principal reasons: socializing, professional networking and enlightenment. They are also worried about our future, as evidenced by the TWG conference last autumn and the upcoming New York/New Jersey Ps and Bs conference scheduled for this autumn.

Finally, there are our community activists. They contribute to our welfare on a daily basis, pastoring our parishes, teaching our children and maintaining our youth organizations. They are newspaper and magazine editors, secretaries of our fraternal branches, radio and TV program hosts, summer camp directors, resort staff, dance group and choir directors, heads of various church organizations (brotherhoods, sisterhoods, sodalities, etc.) and fund-raisers. They manage our credit unions and banks, organize picnics, bazaars and bake sales. They make varenyky to raise money to pay off the church mortgage and donate to various causes, including Harvard. Most are volunteers, the people in the trenches. It is these "grunts" who carry us. Without them, there would be no churches, no fraternals, no credit unions, no youth organizations, no summer camps, no newspapers, no Soyuzivka, no Harvard Ukrainian studies - in short, no community.

Do our activists worry about our future? Many do. But most are too busy volunteering their time maintaining our community to be actively seeking new solutions. This is unfortunate. They have much to contribute to the discussion before us.

Occasionally, one finds an overlap among the various tiers mentioned above. Some academics are grunts and some grunts are professionals. They, too, have much to contribute.

All three tiers need to start communicating and the best forum, I believe, is The Ukrainian Weekly. It is a widely read publication that reaches all corners of our society. The Ukrainian Weekly Editor-in-Chief Roma Hadzewycz, one of our leading grunt/professionals, has suggested a series of articles under the broad heading of "Towards the 21st Century: Community Dialogues Concerning Our Future in North America." A good beginning would be the publication of some of the papers presented at the University of Illinois conference on the Western diaspora. They are well-researched, concise, relevant and interesting to read.

Our community can no longer afford to remain divided among our ever-decreasing political, religious, social, academic, professional, fraternal and youth subghettoes. When Ukrainian America was a growing enterprise, competition among various segments was healthy because it kept everyone on their toes. Today, this is no longer the case. Today, there are too few activists around to make productive rivalry a viable option. Today, the playing field is no longer level.

Let the dialogue begin, but this time let's go beyond identifying the problem. Let's look at causes and solutions. Most important of all, let's all become grunts. Even Harvard academics can learn to paste varenyky, right?

Myron Kuropas' e-mail address is: mbkuropas@compuserve.com