Expanded edition of Grabowicz's history of Ukrainian literature launched in Kyiv (06/22/03)

Expanded edition of Grabowicz's history of Ukrainian literature launched in Kyiv

by Yuri Shevchuk

CAMBRIDGE, Mass. - On May 20, the Great Hall of the House of Artists in Kyiv saw a book launch of an expanded edition of George Grabowicz's book "Do Istorii Ukrainskoi Literatury" (Towards a History of Ukrainian Literature), recently printed in Ukrainian by Krytyka Press.

The first edition of Prof. Grabowicz's book appeared six years ago and was quickly sold out. Compared to the first edition, the new one is a considerably larger collection of his essays, articles and two self-contained monographs, published over the last 30 years and covering a period of 400 years, starting with the 16th century religious polemicist Ivan Vyshensky and ending with the last century.

Dr. Grabowicz is the Dmytro Cyzevskyj Professor of Ukrainian Literature at Harvard, and former director of the Harvard Ukrainian Research Institute. This summer he will be teaching the course "20th Century Ukrainian Literature: Rethinking the Canon."

Prof. Grabowicz is well-known in Ukraine not only as an influential literary critic but primarily as the founder and editor-in-chief of the journal Krytyka. Since its inception in 1997 Krytyka has become the primary forum of discussion for a new generation of Ukrainian literati, comparable in its intellectual trendsetting influence to the New York Review of Books or the Times Literary Supplement. Prof. Grabowicz has also established a highly successful and respected publishing enterprise under the same name.

The Kyiv book launch not only celebrated the publication of a new book, but also recognized the efforts of Prof. Grabowicz and many like-minded Ukrainian intellectuals to create in Ukraine a cultural identity that is openly oriented towards Western thought, that is independent and critical in its thinking, free from Soviet influences and purposefully Ukrainian it its self-vision.

The atmosphere of the event and the list of people present eloquently bespoke this goal and the importance of Prof. Grabowicz's book. In attendance were such frequent contributors to Krytyka as Myroslav Popovych, director of the Institute of Philosophy of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine, the literary critic Tamara Hundorova, the writers Maksym Strikha, Mykola Riabchuk and Oleksander Irvanets, as well as Dr. Martha Bohachevsky-Chomiak, director of the Fulbright Scholar Program in Ukraine.

Writing about the book launch in Ukrainske Slovo, Mr. Strikha notes that from the very start of his scholarly career Grabowicz has striven to demonstrate that classical Ukrainian literature can and should be re-read in a way that is different from how it has been traditionally interpreted within the "populist (narodnytskyi) canon."

Prof. Grabowicz has consistently argued that, for a very long time, Ukrainian literature has produced texts that by their artistic quality can well be compared with works of other literatures, including those of both close and distant neighbors. The trick is to give a new reading to these texts as well as the context within which they were written.

Many of the essays that constitute the new edition of Prof. Grabowicz's book were penned with the intention of provoking a debate. As Mr. Strikha notes, however, they were often received with silence on the part of the "literary establishment," or with disapprobation by those who still try to put ideology in the place of scholarship.

Prof. Grabowicz's book is an invitation to a long-overdue discussion on the most topical issues of Ukrainian literary criticism. In the opinion of Dr. Bohachevsky-Chomiak, "This collection is singularly suited for use in college and graduate courses. Grabowicz contextualizes some key issues in Ukrainian cultural life - relations of Ukraine with its geographical neighbors, studies that can be broadly placed within a Renaissance and a Reformation mold, and the emergence of a vernacular literature."

"Of special interest," she added, "is his new chapter on the lively literary and cultural life that erupted in the five-year period following the end of World War II in the refugee camps in Western Europe. These articles are fronted and followed by openly polemical approaches to the history of literature, cultural studies and literary criticism. This combination of articles - all lucid, well written, and carefully documented - should serve as a model for the budding scholar and for the seasoned critic on both sides of the ocean."

In his address on the occasion of the book launch, Viktor Yushchenko, former prime minister of Ukraine, member of Parliament, and leader of the Our Ukraine parliamentary faction, noted that "this book is, without exaggeration, a watershed event marking the process of appropriation and rethinking of our nation's cultural legacy, and of the state of the present literary process in Ukraine."

Mr. Yushchenko went on to say,' "I am confident that the publication of the new edition of your scholarly work will, as had previously been the case, give a powerful boost to theoretical and methodological discussions of the Ukrainian literary canon. In my opinion, this is important not only for scholarship but for the formation of our people's national identity, and for the evolution of their view of their own intellectual potential."

HURI plans to hold its own presentation of Prof. Grabowicz's book in the early autumn of this year.

| Home Page |