NEWS AND VIEWS

The comical, the idiotic and the obscene: Khrushchev's grand-daughter on Ukraine

by Dr. Bohdan Vitvitsky

It is no mean feat to manage to be comical, idiotic and obscene within the span of a mere paragraph and a half, but Nina Khrushcheva, Nikita's grand-daughter and a lecturer at New York area colleges, apparently is no run-of-the mill talent.

In a recent newspaper article mostly about Russia that was picked up on the Internet, she opined as follows:

"But some other countries sloughing off the skin of communism are only too ready to adopt a new history - even one based on fancy and invention - to suit current needs.

"Ukraine provides an example of this. Does Ukraine have a history? Well, the place certainly does, but is the place a country? Ukraine means, literally, 'on the edge.' It is more a frontier than a region, let alone a country. So it is well suited to an invented history - and who better to supply it than a Ukrainian diaspora eager to boost the land of their forefathers? It may be no accident that independent Ukraine's first history textbook was written in Toronto, not Kiev."

I will begin with the comical. Let me see if I have this right. It's the Russians who think that Kyivan Rus' history is a part of "their" history (early Americans were much more directly and in much greater numbers as well as much more recently descended from the British than Muscovites were from Kyivan Rus', yet no sane American thinks that early British history is a part of American history), and it's the Russians who think that they had nothing to do with the atrocities visited upon Ukraine in the 20th century, but it's the Ukrainians who invent history?

Now to the idiotic. To begin, wasn't there some guy named Hrushevsky who "invented" 10-volumes of history about some frontier a while back, or did this just escape the attention of such a knowledgeable academic as the above article's writer? But as to her point directly, yes, it is somewhat odd that the two most recently written histories of Ukraine were written by scholars at Canadian universities. But is that because Ukraine's history is a project of invention undertaken by the Ukrainian diaspora, or is it because grand-daddy Nikita, along with his murderous-thug colleagues, killed all of those in Ukraine who under normal circumstances would have been able to write such histories, and is it also because they destroyed all of the Ukrainian institutions that would have facilitated such projects?

Lastly, we come to the obscene. In the last century alone, millions of Ukrainians have been murdered by the Russo-Soviets because the existence of those nationally conscious Ukrainians was inconsistent with the "Ukrainians never existed, don't exist and won't exist" genocidal fantasy so tenaciously held by our "brothers" up north. And now Ms. Khrushcheva reveals that she subscribes to the very same "Ukrainians don't exist" fantasy.

That attitude resulted in mass murders of Ukrainians in the first half of the 20th century, but individual murders have continued until recently.

Thus, for example, the folk singer and poet Volodymyr Ivasiuk, a poor confused man who thought he was a poet of a nation named Ukraine rather than realizing that he was the poet of a frontier, found himself hanging from a tree in 1979 as penance for his confusion.

Vasyl Stus, a similarly confused man who thought he was a poet of a nation named Ukraine rather than realizing that he was the poet of a frontier, died in the Gulag in 1986, likewise as penance for his confusion.

And just two years ago in Lviv, yet another poor confused man, this time the singer Ihor Bilozir, died at the hands of a couple of Ms. Khrushcheva's countrymen because Bilozir foolishly thought it was OK to sing Ukrainian songs in Ukraine.

Those of us fortunate enough to call the United States or Canada home, particularly those of us whose parents or grandparents lived under the Soviets and/or the Nazis, understand better than most how precious an open society with free speech is. But even here there are limits, imposed not by law, but by the boundaries of propriety. Where the expression of certain kinds of views has historically been a part of criminal actions, such expressions are beyond the pale. Thus, you cannot make genuinely anti-Semitic remarks without consequence. You cannot make racist or even racially insensitive remarks without consequences. And this is doubly so if you are somehow associated, whether by national, regional or political origin or affiliation, with those who committed the crimes or atrocities at issue.

If Ms. Khrushcheva's grandfather and countrymen had not murdered millions of Ukrainians, her views could simply be considered harmlessly crackpot. If there were at least a smidgen of recognition among Russians - as there has been for a long time among the Germans regarding crimes against the Jews - that the actions of Russians vis-à-vis Ukrainians have been criminal - but there seems to be none whatsoever - then Ms. Khrushcheva's comments might simply be offensive, but not dangerously obscene.

But because her comments do represent mainstream Russian thinking, and because views such as hers have historically been central to the mindset that has led to crimes against humanity being committed by Russians against Ukrainians, the public expression of such views is obscene, dangerously so.

Bohdan Vitvitsky is a lawyer, writer and lecturer who holds a Ph.D. in philosophy and is a long-time contributor to The Ukrainian Weekly.

Copyright © The Ukrainian Weekly, March 30, 2003, No. 13, Vol. LXXI

| Home Page |