FACES AND PLACES: Follow your bliss: Harvard revisited (09/20/98)

FACES AND PLACES

by Myron B. Kuropas

Follow your bliss: Harvard revisited

I appreciate the responses to my brief critique of Harvard Ukrainian studies programs by Drs. Roman Szporluk, James Clem and Lubomyr Hajda, and Messrs. Peter Bylen and Peter Jacyk. As Mr. Jacyk points out, "constructive criticism is very healthy and leads to self-improvement."

Let me state at the outset that I have the highest regard for Prof. Szporluk, an academic who has often defended the Ukrainian name in the press. I also have no quarrel with the Harvard summer program. My son Stefko attended a few years back and benefited greatly. I have presented lectures there on two occasions and enjoyed it tremendously.

While I respect Dr. Hajda's views, I am somewhat disappointed with his tone. He accused me of leveling "gratuitous, unsubstantiated and unfair charges" against the HURI. He also wrote that my criticism was "a gross disservice" to our community because I was "seeking non-existent enemies."

I could reply in kind, but I won't. Instead, let me pose some questions.

Why is it that the two most important books published about Ukraine in the past 30 years - Orest Subtelny's "Ukraine: A History" and Paul Robert Magocsi's "A History of Ukraine" - were not published by the HURI? Dr. Subtelny is Harvard's first Ph.D. in Ukrainian studies and Dr. Magocsi was associated with the HURI as a post-doctoral student. One would think that our professors at Harvard would have been first in line to publish these two monumental works.

Dr. Hajda suggests that the HURI truly is sensitive to the needs of our community. If that is so, why is it that Harvard academics have remained blissfully silent during our community's long battle with Soviet disinformation regarding Ukrainian relationships with the Nazis? Isn't that one of our greatest needs? Aren't we entitled to know the whole truth? Couldn't the HURI have sponsored a conference or a publication on the topic "Ukraine During World War II?"

Not only did HURI not offer assistance during this continuing community crisis, its first director may actually have hurt our cause. During a Ukrainian-Jewish conference in 1983, Prof. Omeljan Pritsak mentioned that he had thought about organizing "a Ukrainian Legion" of thousands of Ukrainian students to fight for Israel. He believed, in his own words, that "it was very important to show to the world, and first of all to our Jewish friends, that there are some Ukrainians who believe that they have to pay for their sins with their own blood." What is that all about?

In addition to combating our "ugly Ukrainian" image, the next most important issue within our community is our future. Why hasn't Harvard addressed this problem? The last time the HURI produced anything on our immigration was in 1986 when "Ethnicity and National Identity: Demography and Socioeconomic Characteristics of Persons with Ukrainian Mother Tongue in the United States" (edited by Oleh Wolowyna) appeared. Before that it was "The Ukrainian Experience in the United States: A Symposium," a 185-page monograph that appeared in 1979. I contributed to that volume and if memory serves, I had a difficult time convincing the editor to drop "the" from references to Ukraine in my article. I won, but all other articles in the publication used "the Ukraine," a long-time HURI preference.

Let's compare the HURI's record in this regard with that of the Canadian Institute of Ukrainian Studies. By 1990, the CIUS had published a total of 17 separate monographs on Ukrainian Canadians, including "The Ukrainian Religious Experience: Tradition and the Canadian Cultural Context"; "Loyalties in Conflict: Ukrainians in Canada During the Great War"; "Visible Symbols: Cultural Expression Among Canada's Ukrainians"; "Changing Realities: Social Trends Among Ukrainian Canadians" and "Recollections About the Life of the First Ukrainian Settlers in Canada." The CIUS has published a host of other books on Ukraine as well, including "Ukraine During World War II: History and Its Aftermath" in 1986.

A final question: If one of the responsibilities of an institution of higher learning is to place its graduates with other institutions, why have no graduates and post-graduates in Ukrainian history ever been placed at American universities? Prof. Subtelny, Frank Sysyn, Zenon Kohut and Prof. Magocsi are all at Canadian universities. James Mace is in Ukraine. Although their work in Canada and Ukraine is important, we need scholars of their caliber at prestigious U.S. universities.

I don't buy the argument advanced by Dr. Ihor Sevcenko as early as 1982 that "pure scholarship" is "our best political weapon" and that in developed societies there is a fundamental division of labor between those who engage in "pure" scholarship and those who pursue political activity. In the words of Bohdan Vitvitsky (The Ukrainian Weekly, September 2, 1982), "it is a huge mistake to think that first-rate scholarship has anything to do with some type of mythical purity." Dr. Vitvitsky pointed out that people like Henry Kissinger, Zbigniew Brzezinski and thousands of others often circulate among academia, the private sector and government, without in any way sullying their credentials.

There are a host of other issues I could mention relating to Harvard - the shabby Millennium of Christianity in Rus'-Ukraine booklets that were little more than reprints from other journals; the conflict between the HURI and the American Association for Ukrainian Studies; and George Grabowicz, who himself warrants an entire article, to mention but a few - but I'll save all that for another time.

I was one of the Harvard Ukrainian Research Institute's earliest supporters. I even traveled to various cities to raise money for the cause in 1977. Like many other Ukrainian Americans, I have slowly become disillusioned.

All of this can be remedied, however, if the following steps are taken; 1) the HURI needs to establish a visible advisory board of Ukrainian Americans, representative of a cross-section of the community; 2) members of the board should be willing to not only offer advice but to raise money as well; 3) donors to Harvard should clearly specify the way in which they wish to have their money spent ... he who pays the piper calls the tune; 4) Prof. Szporluk should visit various Ukrainian American communities and outline his plans for the future, not for our approval necessarily, but for our edification. Given its incredible support in the past, our community deserves nothing less!

Myron Kuropas' e-mail address is: [email protected]

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