On the current literary and cultural situation in Ukraine:
discussion between Volodymyr Tsybulko and Yuriy Tarnawsky
Recently, two well-known figures of Ukrainian letters - Volodymy Tsybulko from Kyiv and Yuriy Tarnawsky from New York - exchanged thoughts on the current Ukrainian literary situation and the state of Ukrainian culture in the global context. The discussion was carried out in light of their perception that, after the euphoria of the early years of Ukrainian independence, with its hope of a speedy national revival and an enthusiastic cooperation between the mother country and the diaspora, came the disillusionment and gradual drifting apart of the two partners. The situation, they hold, is true of many fields, including literature.
Volodymyr Tsybulko is a poet, translator and essayist. He was born near Cherkasy and studied at the University of Kyiv and the Latvian State University. He resides in Kyiv and Lviv. His latest books of poems are "Majn Kajf " (2000) and "Angels in a Pyramid " (2001) - the latter a selection of his poetry in Yuriy Tarnawsky's English translation. He has collaborated as a lyricist on many rock albums and is known for the well-attended public readings of his own poetry. In 1995 he was a resident artist at the international writers' colony Ledig House in upstate New York. Mr. Tsybulko is active in the Our Ukraine movement and was an advisor on social affairs to Prime Minister Viktor Yushchenko.
Yuriy Tarnawsky is a bilingual Ukrainian American writer who resides near New York. He has written numerous books of poetry, drama and fiction, as well as many essays. He is a founding member of the New York Group and a member of the group of American avant-garde writers Fiction Collective. His latest publication is the three-volume set of his selected writings in Ukrainian "6x0," "Yikh Nemaye" and "Ne Znaiu" (1998-2000). He is an engineer and linguist by training and worked as a computer scientist at IBM; in 1993-1996 he was adjunct assistant professor of Ukrainian literature and culture at Columbia University. In 1998 he was also a resident artist at the Ledig House international writers' colony.
FIRST OF TWO PARTS
Tsybulko: For a long time now I've danced around the idea of this discussion but always some invisible force held me back - no, I wasn't quite ready yet, my thoughts and opinions still hadn't jelled, I wasn't asking the right questions and wasn't reaching the right conclusions, and so on, and so forth. But no matter how you cut it, there's no way of not concluding right now that our current cultural situation is more than sad. All the illusions we've had about the unity of Ukrainian culture have turned out to be wishful thinking and lies. The cultural ideologues in "the mother country" have such a primitive idea about the unitary nature of Ukrainian culture. The euphoria of independence has led to a befuddled way of thinking about what is "Ukrainian" and what is "culture."
I think that this has instilled a fundamentally false image in the mind of the Ukrainian "man in the street" about the nature and importance of Ukrainian culture in the context of that of the rest of the world. Perhaps we were wrong to adopt the methodology of politicians for our artistic goals. For us, the creative became the political. But the political became neither the creative, nor the cultural, nor the national. Yuriy Tarnawsky is a man of many cultures and languages and in addition a man of a continent called IBM - a person whose only ideology is writing. So where are we now? Why does this lost mother country of ours suddenly present you with such a staggering bill, you who has preserved the mother country in your soul and who makes himself every day for the benefit of the mother country while it doesn't bother even reading him?
Tarnawsky: I wish I could say I don't know why such a chasm has arisen between me and Ukraine. That's what I essentially did with the title of my volume of selected prose that has recently been published in Ukraine ("I Don't Know," Rodovid, 2000), in which I say in the notes that the name comes from the Beatles' song "I don't know why I say hello, you say good-bye." I then go on to explain that "That's the way it is between me and Ukraine - I greet her and she says to me 'Good-bye!' "
But it's not true. The title is rhetorical. I knew very well why I'm treated the way I am by Ukraine when I chose that name for the book and do so now. The reason is the chasm between what I am and what is current-day Ukraine. And I don't mean just the literary circles in Ukraine, people who should be my colleagues, but potential readers too, in other words all Ukrainians. There are, of course, exceptions to this, such as you and a few other individuals with whom I managed to strike up a friendship. But fact is that the difference between me and Ukraine is enormous.
Actually this doesn't mean that there's a chasm between me and Ukraine, but that there's a chasm within Ukraine itself because I'm just as much part of Ukraine as other Ukrainians. And I'm not the only one on this side of the chasm. There are many of us. Perhaps we're not as numerous as those on the other side, but when you look at Ukrainian culture, then, considering what's been accomplished during the last 50 years or so, a good part of it lies on "this side." (I'm speaking from my point of view.) You wouldn't hear anyone from those who are in command on "the other side" agreeing with this, but I've no doubt that, in a generation or two, assuming that Ukrainian culture survives that long, the contribution of the émigré Ukrainians (I'm beginning to hate the word "diaspora") will be recognized as being key, such that it changed fundamentally the face of Ukrainian culture and has made it the way it'll be at that time. Because if this weren't true, then what would be called Ukrainian culture then wouldn't be worthy of that name.
Let me do some personal complaining now. "I Don't Know" received only one review, in which the reviewer said that the book "has pretensions at being modern" and that it "stinks of mothballs." It contains, among other things, my novel "Roads," first written in 1956, which was the first in Ukrainian literature to be explicitly based on existentialist philosophy. It was received by critics when it came out as a new work in Ukrainian prose. (Ihor Kostetsky, Ukrainian writer and critic of the MUR period, called it the event of the year.) The book contains also excerpts from my seven books of English-language fiction, including the 1993 novel "Three Blondes and Death. " That novel received a number of some pretty good reviews in the American press. (One reviewer compared it to the skyscrapers of Mies van der Rohe and Walter Gropius which tower over the cottages of contemporary American fiction.) So if this book doesn't "stink" (a typical Soviet literary term) of mothballs and is considered modern in American literature, to call it outdated in a literature in which modernism is as poorly represented as Ukrainian, I think, to put it mildly, can hardly be taken seriously. But the review didn't stir anyone. Attempts to find another reviewer by editors who are favorably disposed to me turned out to be a failure.
The book has slid off into oblivion. Also, the publisher's attempts to put the book up as a candidate for the Shevchenko Prize led to nothing. First it was too early, then it was too late, and that was that. I don't claim that the book is deserving of a prize as prestigious as the Shevchenko Prize was conceived, but if you consider the candidates for it over the last dozen years or so, I don't think it would have brought shame to the list. The same happened to my long poem "U ra na. " (Everyone knows what's it about.) [Editor's note: "U ra na" (corrupted form of "Ukraina") is a book-length poem, first published in 1992, dealing with some of the painful aspects of Ukrainian history.] Something tells me all this has nothing to do with how I write but who I am.
So, who am I? Wherein lies the difference between me and "them." Obviously, first of all, in our respective backgrounds - what I was brought up on and what they. All my adult life I've fought to bring into Ukrainian literature those things that stirred me in the literatures by which I was surrounded - English, Spanish, German, French. It was first of all the principles of modernism, that is, radical newness, elimination of everything old, traditional, and introduction of deeply personal themes and tastes. In addition, it included certain styles and movements, such as French symbolism, surrealism, Hispanic poetry, existentialism, Theater of the Absurd, and finally what is commonly known as post-modernism, or collage, pastiche, playfulness (change of masques) and polystylism.
Although I value many things in Ukrainian literature, I don't think it had a significant influence on my writing. The same can be said about Russian literature, in spite of the fact that in my youth I voraciously read Dostoyevsky and to this day like and value Hohol. This is diametrically opposed to the literary processes in Ukraine. There the influences of Ukrainian and Russian literatures are enormous and those of modernism negligible. There are exceptions to this, to be sure, as for instance in the case of the poets of the Kyiv School and a few individuals here and there, but in general, I feel, I'm not too far off the mark.
So we're dealing here with literary foundations that are markedly distinct. What will be considered good and bad, interesting and boring, by me and "them" will necessarily be different. I find, for instance, Mikhail Bulgakov quite boring whereas "they" consider him a great master (regardless of the fact that he was a rabid anti-Ukrainian.)
But I think that the difference between me and "them" - is even deeper. What makes the chasm between us so great are many non-literary factors, such as the norms of human interaction, ethical principles, the concept of nationhood, and so forth. I have a hard time having a close relationship with many people I've met in Ukraine. It seems they're always watching if they can get something out of our relationship, even if it's not necessarily something material. And when there's no chance of getting something out of it, then the relationship is unnecessary. They're not interested in calling you up just to talk or writing a letter to find out how you're doing.
But I'm most bothered by the last factor - the notion of who's Ukrainian. You don't have to dig down deep to see that for Ukrainians in Ukraine the "diaspora" Ukrainians are something marginal, someone you may call Ukrainians but who aren't part of the "real" Ukraine. When the chips are down and you start counting, you leave them out. Look at the lists of names of writers (the same is true of all other forms of art) who take part in various international forums - anthologies, presentations and so forth. There you'll never find anyone from among us. "The mother country" thinks that Ukrainian culture is being built only there and everything else doesn't count. It's not part of Ukraine. And, what's even worse, so also think the diaspora critics. So, we're not noticed by either side. We're the invisible men. Neither we nor our books exist.
But sometimes this takes on harsher forms. Once, I remember, a literary colleague of mine from "that side" told me without any apparent reason: "You're an American." I was stunned. We never had had any confrontations before. It seems he just couldn't hold in any longer the anger at the fact he wasn't in my place. I've also had people tell me "We need the diaspora only so that it would give us money. As to what happens here, you stay out!"
But, I must admit, I haven't told all the truth. Lately, to my great surprise, there's been some interest in my writing among university students. A number of articles about my work have appeared in the press and there are a few candidate dissertations being written. [Editor's note: The candidate degree is a graduate-level degree prior to that of doctorate.] I am very heartened by this and it makes me hope that the chasm I've been talking about exists only between me and the older generation, the contemporary "elite," and that there's much more in common between me and the younger people.
Tsybulko: To re-evaluate the current literary and cultural situation in Ukraine we need a clearly defined set of principles. But, in reality, the frequent attempts to transplant one or another of the international "isms" to the Ukrainian soil have resulted either in a fraudulent product or have made no sense whatsoever. I remember one conference where two home-baked "experts" preached for over an hour about the nature of post-modernism until one of the foreign guests put them to shame by pointing out that post-modernism in the rest of the world meant something quite different from what they'd been saying. And these people were my contemporaries!
Tell me, Yurko, did we by any chance make a mistake in choosing what nation we were to be born in?
Tarnawsky: The illiteracy of the current Ukrainian literary "elite" is simply shocking. Just now, purely by chance, I read on the Internet an interview between a journalist and a young Ukrainian poet. The journalist asks what is free verse? Is it something halfway between poetry and prose? The poet explains that it's getting rid of "syllabo-tonicity" and is the influence of the Beat Generation. It seems that free verse is some rare, unheard-of wonder, but in reality probably some 99 percent of all poetry in the world is now being written in free verse. From the discussion it also seems to follow that the young poet has made a revolution in Ukrainian poetry, freeing it from "syllabo-tonicity." But in reality Mykola Vorobiyov, as he has told me, has some 4,000 poems written in free verse, everything Vasyl Holoborodko did was in free verse, [editor's note: Vorobiyov and Holoborodko are contemporary poets, members of the Kyiv School]; most of your poetry is in free verse; I have written more than 800 pages of free verse, and so forth, and so on... But suddenly it's been discovered in Ukraine and Ukrainian poetry is being freed of "syllabo-tonicity." Quite a trick, isn't it?
It so happens that I know personally this poet and we have spoken at length, and he has a book of mine or at least did have one at one time. "Influence of the Beat Generation" - yeah, sure. I suspect he has read 10 times more Ukrainian free verse poetry than American. And do you know how one recently published Ukrainian dictionary of literary terms defines free verse (contrasting it with vers libre!)? Here's how: "A verse which, in contrast with the canonical norms of syllabo-tonicity has a variable number of feet while retaining traditional rhyming and regular stress. The most widely used meter in free verse is iamb." I suspect that the authors have in mind vers libéré, which should be translated as "liberated" or "freed verse" because everyone should know that "free verse" and "vers libre" are the same thing, but if this is a definition of vers libéré, then it's highly original.
This dictionary, by the way, counts among surrealists Vasyl Barka and Oleh Zuyevsky (older diaspora poets), as well as Bohdan Rubchak and even Bohdan Boychuk (diaspora poets, members of the New York Group). And one of the self-anointed "living masters" has recently published an article in which he, in all seriousness, claims that return to tradition is one of the features of modernism! And such nonsense is being printed and no one objects to it. This is literature, but similar things take place in other fields. For instance, the "Ukrainian Dictionary of Linguistic Terms," published in 1985, includes Noam Chomsky among structuralists, whereas Chomsky all his life has fought against structuralism, promoting his rationalism/nativism. It's precisely because of Chomsky that structuralism has practically vanished from linguistics. It's so sad. What has happened to us? It seems that Ukrainian culture wasn't all that bad just a while back.
If I were asked to describe the current state of Ukrainian culture I'd call it "in the shadow of great pyramids." It's like Central America - huge monuments of once-great cultures loom over the landscape and under them the Creolized natives dig in the mud and dust together with the domesticated animals on which they feed, unaware of the structures towering over them.
As to post-modernism, it's a particularly difficult case. Ukrainians have embraced it as fervently as they had embraced Marxism/Leninism not too long ago, and everyone tries to be more post-modern than the next. But post-modernism for them is limited to Umberto Eco. I almost want to say, it's a pity this shallow commercial writer has been translated into Ukrainian. He should be read after a Sunday dinner, with a cup of coffee. Collage, pastiche, parody, playfulness, etc. can be used for serious purposes, not only for amusement. I also almost want to say the same thing about Johan Huisinga's "Homo Ludens" because everybody (or almost everybody) has concluded from the book that "playing" means being trivial, not serious. Homo ludens means that human beings use the strategy of gaming to survive. All true art is a game. This includes various folk customs and rites, including funeral ceremonies. Now that's a good example of playfulness, isn't it?
Personally, I'm convinced that what's called post-modernism in art in reality is the third phase of modernism, where the techniques mentioned above are used. But the essence of these post-modern works is the same as in classical modernism. The difference is that this technique has been adopted by a whole slew of commercial writers such as Eco, for their own, non-artistic goals because it's easily acceptable by unsophisticated readers. Take for instance James Joyce's "Ulysses" or Mayk Yohansen's "Travels." [editor's note: An experimental novel by the Ukrainian writer Yohansen, first published in 1928]. These are typically post-modernist works but they were written in the 1920s and the 1930s. But I have to admit that with criticism it's a different story. Post-structuralism does fundamentally differ from the preceding schools of criticism.
PART I
Copyright © The Ukrainian Weekly, April 13, 2003, No. 15, Vol. LXXI
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