FACES AND PLACES: We need to be in their face! (01/17/93)

FACES AND PLACES

by Myron B. Kuropas

We need to be in their face!

I occasionally receive correspondence and comments from people I respect who take exception either to my views or to my approach, or both.

Recent articles of mine that caused some consternation regarding manner and style were the two regarding Stephen Budiansky and other mavens who malign Ukraine.

One Ukrainian American suggested a less confrontational strategy with our critics. Scholars who respond with facts and dispassionate documentation, she believes, are more persuasive and produce a longer-lasting impact than those who resort to a more frontal approach.

Another Ukrainian American suggested that attacking our detractors, "particularly in a public forum normally produces the opposite results and cause the individual to 'dig in' his/her heels rather than be disproved in his/her theory...A major portion of the strategy of the Ukrainian community," he argues, "should include a campaign to keep the news media informed of the 'where and why' rather than parrying off misinterpreted writings."

These are valid, good-faith concerns and, if instinct serves, they are probably shared by others.

A few years ago, I might have agreed. Since then, however, I have reviewed the negative impact vile and reprehensible attacks have had on our community during the past 50 years. I've also studied how our community reacted to the hatemongers. I've concluded that if anything, we've been too gentle.

If there was ever a community in America that has tried to remain subdued and moderate in the face of foul and baseless assaults, it has been the Ukrainian community. For years we hardly reacted to defamatory articles and statements preferring, instead, to take the high road.

We've supported prestigious university presses that have been churning out books on Ukraine and Ukrainians since the 1940s. Articles by reputable Ukrainian scholars in refereed scholarly journals both here and abroad have multiplied since the 1950s. Our community has consistently encouraged non-Ukrainian scholars such as Clarence Manning, O.J. Fredriksen, James Mace, Robert Conquest and others in their efforts to inform about the where and why of Ukraine and Ukrainians. We have also raised millions of dollars to establish three chairs of Ukrainian studies at Harvard University because, we were told, only then could our good name be "properly defended." Has anything changed?

Abraham Brumberg trashed our Ukrainian scholars in his recent New York Review article, not with reasoned arguments but with vitriol.

Ukraine and Ukrainians are still suspect in the so-called scholarly community. Today many non-Ukrainian researchers shy away from being too understanding of Ukrainian aspirations for fear of being labeled "nationalistic" by the Russophiles who dominate Slavic studies in America. Ask yourself: Why is it that our most promising young historians must move to Canada before their talents are recognized?

The reality is that Ukraine and Ukrainians have been politically incorrect in America for a hundred years. And today, when the radical left is becoming even more entrenched in academe, we are less likely to get a fair hearing. I remember a time, long, long ago, when university professors enjoyed the give and take of honest, vigorously argued, amply documented, debate. Today, it's different. Many of today's tenured "professors" don't give a fig for facts. Their minds are closed. And no amount of documentation, reason or expository eloquence makes one bit of difference.

The same, I'm afraid, is true of many of our media moguls, especially those who have yet to seriously examine the ethnic mythology of their communal past. How is it that Mr. Budiansky knows so much about Bohdan Khmelnytsky? Did he learn about this obscure 17th century leader through extensive research? Or did he first hear about the hetman from his communal teacher who never tired of comparing Bohdan Khmelnytsky to Adolf Hitler?

I spent almost a year with the style editor of U.S. News & World Report trying to convince him to drop "the" from Ukraine. I provided documentation. I was friendly, kind, gentle. I even sent him a free subscription to The Ukrainian Weekly. Did it do any good? Absolutely not! A week before events in Ukraine forced his magazine to change, this man wrote an op-ed piece arguing that the protestations of "Ukrainian nationalists," notwithstanding, U.S. News and World Report would retain "the."

Despite our best efforts to remain unflappable, to be reasonable, to publish, to inform, to plead for a more balanced approach, our detractors have misrepresented and defamed us with impunity for years. Those days are gone. Our community is on record, first with the Demjanjuk case and since then with other, similar episodes of bigotry and hatred. From now on, we fight back. We've been too nice, too long.

The Ukrainian Embassy in Washington, D.C., is also on record. In a perspicacious and forceful letter to U.S. News & World Report, Ukraine's ambassador made it clear that his office will also be monitoring Ukraine-bashing. What joy!

This is not to say that we should abandon the detached, academic approach. We still need, now more than ever, the good offices of courageous professors like Frank Sysyn who, unlike some of our gutless wonders at Harvard, are willing to take a stand for the truth.

We also need articulate spokespersons who can write persuasive letters to people of good will, people who are merely mis- or uninformed.

When it comes to dialoguing with hatemongering jungle fighters like Messrs. Budiansky and Brumberg, however - people who will never be converted because their malevolent bigotry is bone deep - wearing a cap and gown won't work.

The Ukrainian American community may not have convinced Mr. Budiansky or Mr. Zuckerman, his editor, of a thing. But we did get their attention. And who knows? Perhaps the next time they decide to kick Ukrainians around for no good reason they'll give it a second thought.

If not, we'll be back. In their face!

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