Honchar's "Sobor" to be published in Ukrainian (12/28/86)

Honchar's "Sobor" to be published in Ukrainian

by Dr. Roman Solchanyk

Several recent developments in Ukrainian literature and the arts indicate that the liberalization of Russian cultural life that has been evident during the past year may be having something akin to a "fallout effect" in Ukraine. Although by no means as all-embracing as the changes in Moscow or Leningrad, there are signs that the relaxation of controls that has led some observers to speak of a cultural renaissance in the Soviet Union is having an impact in Kiev as well.

Hidden away in an otherwise mundane report about the literary works that the Dnipro publishing house intends to issue to commemorate the 70th anniversary of the October Revolution is the announcement that Oles Honchar's controversial novel "Sobor" (The Cathedral) will soon be available once again to Ukrainian readers. The work caused a political storm when it was first published in Ukraine in 1968 because of its criticism of the destruction of Ukrainian historical and cultural monuments. Mr. Honchar focuses on the issue of national identity and historical continuity as symbolized by an ancient Kozak cathedral that is threatened with destruction at the hands of an eager "cultural worker" in a small village in the industrial heartland of Ukraine. Interwoven with this main theme are other such issues as the philistinism of mindless Soviet bureaucrats and the ecological disasters that have resulted from the destructive drive for "progress" at all costs.

"Sobor" appeared at a time when members of the Ukrainian intelligentsia were raising similar issues in petitions addressed to party and government bodies that ultimately found their way into the samvydav. Simultaneously, in neighboring Czechoslovakia, the Prague Spring appeared to pose an internal threat in the form of a spillover of such "counterrevolutionary" notions as socialism with a human face.

Writing in Pravda on the eve of the Warsaw Pact invasion of Czechoslovakia, Oleksandr Botvyn, at that time first secretary of the Kiev City Party Committee, linked "Sobor" and the writings of other Ukrainian intellectuals with "'little theories' about the need for 'democratization' and 'liberalization' of socialism." A virulent campaign against Mr. Honchar was launched by the party leadership in Dnipropetrovske, the home base of Volodymyr Shcherbytsky, and was accompanied by arrests and persecution of "Ukrainian bourgeois nationalists." In retrospect, it appears that the "Sobor" affair was the first in a series of moves organized by the so-called Dnipropetrovske group with Mr. Shcherbytsky at its head to bring down the incumbent Ukrainian Party leader Petro Shelest.

Mr. Honchar himself never suffered personally because of his novel, although in May 1971, he relinquished his post as chairman of the Board of the Ukrainian Writers' Union. "Sobor," however, became an "unbook," and was not included in the six-volume collection of his works published in 1978-1979. Indeed, it was not even listed in the author's bibliography appended to the collected edition.

Then, earlier this year, references to the novel began to appear in articles by Ukrainian writers published in Kiev and Moscow. The well-known literary critic Mykola Zhulynsky referred to "Sobor" in an survey of Ukrainian prose writing that appeared in the January issue of the literary monthly Kyiv. Not long after, the poet Borys Oliynyk, writing in the Moscow journal Literaturnoye Obozrenie, hinted at the scandalous treatment that Mr. Honchar had suffered at the hands of stalwarts of political orthodoxy in the arts:

"Today, many, particularly the young, think that fate has always looked favorably on that illustrious master of the word Oles Honchar... But let us go back to the end of the 1960s. The all-Union reader is scarcely aware that Oles Honchar's novel 'Sobor' was published at that time, and that it was not received, to put it mildly, uniformly... Unfortunately, some of the retrogrades tried to obscure the clear and accurate strategy of the novel by adroit demagogy, attributing to it, in addition, various kinds of 'isms.'"

At the same time Sergei Baruzdin, chief editor of the Moscow literary monthly Druzhba Narodov, which specializes in the publication of non-Russian writers in Russian translation, announced on the pages of Kyiv that "Sobor" would appear, together with another of Mr. Honchar's works, in the first supplement this year to his journal.

Mr. Oliynyk used the forum of the Congress of Soviet Writers in Moscow to raise the "Sobor" issue once again, noting that the editors of Druzhba Narodov had struggled for 18 years to obtain permission for the novel's publication. The same point was made by Mr. Baruzdin in an interview in Literaturnaya Gazeta in July. Subsequently, at an open meeting of the Kiev writers' Party organization, the critic Vitaliy Koval referred to the "vulgar interpretation" that had been accorded Mr. Honchar's novel and demanded that those responsible be exposed: "Okay, let's name names. Let's recall and let's quote. Will we name the names of those who simply remained silent at the time, and whose conspiracy of silence visited so much damage upon all of literature."

The campaign to rehabilitate "Sobor" has been successful. The novel will appear in a new seven-volume collection of Mr. Honchar's works that will be published in time to coincide with the author's 70th birthday.

Return of a theater director

A recent issue of the Ukrainian cultural weekly Kultura i Zhyttia carried an article titled "Contact" that reported on a meeting between leading figures in the world of Ukrainian theater with the republican minister of culture, Yu. O. Olenenko. The meeting was called for "the purpose of discussing - in an open, honest, and constructive manner - a number of urgent problems and tasks facing theaters in the republic in the light of the party's requirements for increasing the effectiveness of the theaters' activities." Among the "leading figures" who attended the meeting, the newspaper named Les Taniuk, identifying him as the chief director of the Kiev Youth Theater.

The skepticism of readers who may have expressed some doubt as to the accuracy of this report would have been entirely justified. For the last 20 years or so, Mr. Taniuk has been in "exile" of sorts, living and working in Moscow. His return to Ukraine is a mild sensation.

In the early 1960s, Mr. Taniuk (born in 1938) was a young stage director whose talent was hardly disputed. A graduate of the Karpenko-Karyi Theater Institute in Kiev and a student of the famous Marian Krushelnytsky, he worked for a time with the T.H. Shevchenko Ukrainian Drama Theater in Kharkiv.

His association with the Ukrainian theater proved, however, to be short-lived. Mr. Taniuk's innovative style and inclination towards experimental techniques proved too much for the Ukrainian cultural establishment. Shunned by conservative theater directors, Mr. Taniuk was forced to "emigrate" to Moscow. Ivan Dzyuba, writing in late 1965, called attention to the Taniuk affair in connection with the dismal state of affairs in the Ukrainian theater in his now classic "Internationalism or Russification?"

"The situation in the Ukrainian theatre is almost catastrophic. The Franko Academic Drama Theater in Kiev is in a state of permanent helplessness and drabness, while at the same time the talented young director Les Taniuk was refused work until in the end he was forced to leave Ukraine. Now he works in Moscow, he is gladly invited to the best Moscow theaters, where productions he directs enjoy tremendous popularity."

Today, more than 20 years since these lines were written, the over-all situation looks more or less like it did then. The Ukrainian literary and cultural press, particularly during the past year, has been exceptionally forthright in its criticism of the Ukrainian theater, emphasizing the urgent need for a radical overhaul. Thus, at the above-mentioned meeting attended by Mr. Taniuk, the minister of culture explained that "the cardinal question" was the need to do everything possible with all speed to raise the ideological and artistic level of creativity. He noted that bad productions "have taken deep root in our practice...One sometimes gets the impression that some of our theaters stage productions only in order to meet output figures." An article in Literaturnaya Gazeta not so very long ago began with the following observation:

"The Ukrainian theater now finds itself in a difficult situation. This did not come about today or yesterday. There arises the legitimate question: Where were the Ukrainian writers, playwrights, and directors all this time? I do not hesitate to say that many of them worked and continue to work actively, but often their efforts have amounted to nothing."

The situation is at its worst among young people, where the theaters find it impossible to compete with the cinema. One sociological study conducted by an oblast theater revealed that in the age-group 15 to 30, average cinema attendances were 30 per year while the corresponding figure for theater attendances was slightly more than one per year. An indication of how serious the problems are may be gauged from the fact that last year the journal Kyiv instituted a special discussion of the topic "Youth and the Theater."

Ukraine is not, of course, the only place in the Soviet Union where theaters are playing to nearly empty houses. This is a conduct a union-wide experimental reorganization of the theater, in which six Ukrainian theaters will be taking part. Herein too, it seems, lies the explanation of how it was possible for Mr. Taniuk to return to Ukraine. The authorities continue to view the theater as a useful vehicle for "Communist upbringing"; but before it can perform this function it must have an audience. And this is something that Mr. Taniuk can deliver.

Indeed, judging by his plans for the Kiev Youth Theater, which he laid out in a recent interview in the journal Ukraina, the authorities may get more than they bargained for. Among other things, Mr. Taniuk intends to stage Lina Kostenko's "Marusya Churai" and Mr. Honchar's "Sobor." Ms. Kostenko is widely recognized as one of the finest contemporary Ukrainian poets. She was a central figure in the so-called "Sixties Group" ("Shestydesiatnyky"), a generation of young writers that came to the fore in the early 1960s, ultimately provided the stimulus for the cultural and national revival of post-Stalin Ukraine, and played an active role in the dissident ferment that followed in its wake. Ms. Kostenko's works were barred from publication for more than a decade.

Press grows bolder

The republication of "Sobor" and Mr. Taniuk's return to Ukraine are indicative of the changes that are under way in Ukrainian cultural life. There are others. Some poems by Vasyl Holoborodko, another member of the "Sixties Group" whose work has not been published for two decades, have now appeared in Ukraina. The weekly Literaturna Ukraina apparently has no qualms about discussing the ruinous effect of the tsarist edicts of 1721 and 1876 banning the Ukrainian language. And, finally, there is the following example of glasnost in action, taken from an article by the young writer Volodymyr Yavorivsky that appeared recently in Literaturnaya Gazeta:

"There was an ideological worker of high rank in Ukraine. I will not identify him for ethical considerations - he is no longer among the living. He worked as an oblast committee secretary responsible for ideology, [but] was removed: he didn't find a common language with the creative intelligentsia. Oh but what malice he harbored towards this same intelligentsia: Having remained in the background, to everyone's surprise he surfaced in an important leading post in the republic. And now, no, he didn't do the dirty work himself... For many years Honchar's 'Sobor', Ivanychuk's 'Malvy', and Stelmakh's 'Chotyry Brody' were rejected; a taboo was placed on the Ukrainian historical novel; 'Krynytsya dlya Sprahlykh' and 'Propavsha Hramota' never made it to the screen. Even the subscription edition of the works of the Ukrainian historian Dmytro Yavornytsky was hastily discontinued and the subscribers were refunded their money without explanation. The 'helpers' worked to the utmost, relying now on their personal tastes and rushing to anticipate the views of their patron."

The above is a damning indictment of almost 30 years of Soviet cultural policies in Ukraine. Is there more to come? Judging by the most recent issues of the Kiev press, the answer appears to be yes. However, as in the Khrushchev period, there is the everpresent danger that someone in the Kremlin will come to the obvious conclusion that the relaxation of ideological controls may lead to a situation where the risks exceed the benefits, particularly where the national question is at the heart of the matter.

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