Kyiv conference marks 50 years of Kultura (06/22/97)

Kyiv conference marks 50 years of Kultura

by Roman Woronowycz
Kyiv Press Bureau

KYIV - Scholars from Ukraine, Poland, the United States, France, Canada and Germany gathered in Kyiv on June 5-7 to celebrate 50 years since the initial publication of the magazine Kultura.

The academics paid tribute to the magazine, published first in 1947 in Paris by Polish expatriate Jerzy Giedroyc, with a Polish-Ukrainian symposium on intellectual, cultural and political relations between the two neighboring countries.

The magazine has been credited with fostering liberal values in Polish cultural life, for coalescing intellectual political opposition to the Polish Communist regime and for helping redefine Poland's relations with Ukraine.

It was Kultura also that first published the book "Rostriliane Vidrodzhennia" (1959), which influenced many of the Ukrainian literary and political movement of the 1960s known as the "Shestydesiatnyky."

While the academicians in Kyiv discussed topics such as "The Place and Role of Intellectuals in Contemporary Ukraine," and "Ukraine and Poland: A History of Inter-Ethnic and Cultural Relations," an undertow of commentary on the magazine's influence on postwar Ukrainian-Polish relations flowed through the various presentations and discussions.

At a press conference afterwards, the decidedly non-conformist magazine was recognized here by Volodymyr Polokhalo, editor of the Ukrainian scholarly magazine Political Questions, as the publication that gave impetus to the development of the Polish intellectual dissident movement that along with the anti-government, democratic trade union Solidarnosc (Solidarity) eventually toppled Communist rule in Poland. "The magazine helped to nurture the dissident movement through the dialogue that it created," he explained.

Prof. Roman Szporluk, director of Harvard University's Ukrainian Research Institute and the catalyst for the scholarly conference, asserted that Kultura was the first Polish publication that recognized Ukraine's long contentious border with Poland and the need for closer relations between the two countries.

In an interview with The Ukrainian Weekly last summer he said, "It terribly upset the Polish diaspora around 1949-1950, when [Kultura] publicly declared itself in favor of recognizing that Lviv should remain with Ukraine, that Polish-Ukrainian borders should be accepted, and that it is in the interest of Poland to have an independent Ukraine."

Among the noted academic figures who spoke at the conference were Adam Michnik, a leader of the Polish dissident movement; Ivan Dzyuba, the former Soviet-era dissident and later Ukraine's minister of culture; Ivan Drach, the Ukrainian poet and politician; Harvard Ukrainian Research Institute Prof. George Grabowicz; and writer Solomea Pavlychko.

The experts discussed a wide array of subjects, including contemporary literary movements in Poland and Ukraine, the role of journalists in overcoming negative stereotypes, and the role of Poland and Ukraine in revamped European structures.

Some who attended feared the conference would disintegrate into petty bickering, that a consensus on Polish-Ukrainian relations could never be reached given the discord and friction in relations between the two countries over the years.

But the conference's oldest invited guest, Bohdan Osadczuk, professor emeritus of the Free University of Berlin and a longtime collaborator of Kultura, said the dialogue was constructive. "We achieved our aim here," he explained. "That is, some people said that it would not happen, that there would be a Polish viewpoint and a Ukrainian viewpoint, and they would not converge."

He also noted the recently signed concord between Poland and Ukraine, which he said "lays the moral foundation for Polish-Ukrainian relations to strengthen," but emphasized that "the original foundation came from the magazine Kultura."

Prof. Szporluk said the program was principally developed by Ukrainian academicians and sponsored by organizations from several countries, including the International Renaissance Foundation in Kyiv, the Stefan Batory Foundation in Warsaw and the Harvard Ukrainian Studies Fund in the United States. He called the conference "without precedence, in part because no government structures participated or supported it."

He also said the successful effort was evidence of a budding civil society in Ukraine. "If you want to develop a civil society you must be able to initiate these things without government support," explained Prof. Szporluk.

Although many of the recognized academic experts on Ukrainian-Polish relations were in attendance in Kyiv, one person was not. Mr. Giedroyc, who is 91 today and living in Paris, could not attend due to his advanced years. However, the symposium sent the Kultura editor a greeting, thanking him for his non-conformist magazine.

Mr. Giedroyc was enormously thrilled, said Prof. Szporluk. "This conference was more meaningful than any medal or honor could be," he explained.

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