LETTERS TO THE EDITOR (08/21/05)

LETTERS TO THE EDITOR

Kuzio, Deychakiwsky analysis right on point

Dear Editor:

The analysis on U.S.-Ukraine related activities by Taras Kuzio and Orest Deychakiwsky is right on point and comes at a time when Ukrainian community organizations are in disarray. It is a valuable contribution to the community in its critical need to understand its changing role after Ukraine's independence. Because of the lack of analysis and leadership in this area there is a crisis of identity and purpose.

The key community organizations need to define their mandate and goals. The reason that there is so much infighting now at the local community institutions and organizations is because status politics are more important than real politics. Much of this has to do with an identity crisis. People need to have a clearer idea of who they are and what their role is in the United States. The lack of understanding results in marginality. This is something that can be avoided by clearly identifying strategies and purpose. Otherwise, the opportunities to lead the community responsibly will be forfeited.

Dr. Kuzio and Mr. Deychakiwsky took a huge step in the right direction, and their analysis helps all of us who work on Ukraine-U.S. relations to better focus and understand current needs.

Marta Farion
Chicago

The letter-writer, an attorney, chairs the Chicago-Kyiv Sister Cities Committee.

Kuzio, Deychakiwsky claim misses the mark

Dear Editor:

Taras Kuzio and Orest Deychakiwsky's claim in The Ukrainian Weekly (August 7) about an academia disinterested in contemporary Ukraine misses the mark.

I visit Harvard regularly on behalf of the Ukrainian Studies Fund and have seen the growth of teaching and research on contemporary Ukraine in recent years. I've met many research fellows at the Ukrainian Research Institute who work as specialists on current issues. Among them were Kostiantyn Morozov, Borys Tarasyuk, Serhii Teriokhin and Yuri Shcherbak, all of whom have held or now hold high government offices in Ukraine.

The U.S. State Department senior analyst concentrating on Ukraine, Gene Fishel, and the current director of the Ukrainian program at the U.S. Foreign Service Institute, William Gleason, have each spent a year at the institute, as have several foreign area officers from the U.S. Department of Defense.

Political scientists who have lectured or held research fellowships at the institute include, among others, Zenovia Sochor, Steven Shulman, Oxana Sheval, Lucan Way, Paul D'Anieri and Roman Solchanyk.

I also see, through the monthly Krytyka (published in Kyiv by Harvard scholars), how the Ukrainian Research Institute is involved with Ukraine. In terms of Harvard University Press publications, "Ukraine and the World" (1998) was the first book-length publication on Ukraine's current foreign relations. (Dr. Kuzio surely must know this. He authored a chapter in this book.) Jumping to the present, in preparation for publication is Gwendolyn Sasse's "Crimea and Post-Soviet Ukraine: The Dynamics of Conflict-Prevention" (planned for early 2006).

Every year for the last decade and a half, Harvard's Summer School has offered modern history and political science courses on contemporary Ukraine.

I've even expressed concern about the shift of resources at the institute from medieval and early-modern period studies of Ukraine to the contemporary field. The Ukrainian Studies Fund believes both are important to our understanding of Ukraine and that Harvard is capable of working in one area as well as the other. Course offerings, publications and research programs bear this out.

For example, the Ukrainian Research Institute's Ukraine Study Group is an advanced research forum open to Harvard students, faculty and fellows, as well as to members of nearby academic institutions and the general public. Last year there were 16 sessions; 11 were on present-day Ukraine (e.g., the presidential election, Viktor Yushchenko's new economic strategy, lustration, private secondary education, etc.).

As the major advocate for both the Harvard and the Columbia programs, I can say that "disillusionment" or a shift in "hopes" in regard to Harvard were not factors in the Ukrainian Studies Fund's decision to join the Columbia initiative. A significant consideration was the fact that Columbia had many of the "right things" a great program would need: an interested faculty, a receptive administration, an existing program, a strong tradition in Ukrainian studies, a comprehensive library collection, a large student population, an important metropolitan setting, community support, etc. This is what we look for in working to increase the presence of Ukrainian studies in the U.S.

There were other considerations as well. Columbia's program is much smaller than Harvard's, which means that an increase in support at Columbia would be more noticeable. The program is also being built from an existing infrastructure at the Slavic department in the School of Arts and Sciences and the Harriman Institute at the School of International and Public Affairs, which means that new funds can be applied purely to program needs.

The Columbia program is not designed to substitute or duplicate Harvard's work but to truly expand Ukrainian studies. That is why both institutions continue to work in contemporary studies, but from different perspectives.

For example, scholarly conferences on the 1932-1933 Holodomor (Famine-Genocide) were held at Harvard and Columbia. Harvard's focused more on research conducted since Dr. Robert Conquest's path-breaking "Harvard of Sorrow" (itself a product of an institute project) and stressed new comparative and social studies. The proceedings will appear in the forthcoming issue of the journal Harvard Ukrainian Studies. Columbia's session focused more on how the Holodomor was documented and studied in the past, and included a presentation by Jim Mace (his last in the U.S.). It also featured an exhibit of archival materials from Ukraine and was the occasion for the signing of an agreement between a major Ukrainian state archive and a U.S. commercial vendor for the production of a set of 158 reels of microfilm containing archival documents on the Holodomor. Several major libraries in the U.S., Canada and Europe have now purchased this collection.

Sessions on the Orange Revolution were held at Harvard and Columbia as well. Each covered different aspects of the event. In considering the revolution's aftermath, Columbia held a panel discussion, "The First 100 Days of Yushchenko's Presidency: An Analysis," with participants form the U.S. State Department and Washington non-governmental organizations. The Ukrainian Research Institute at Harvard looked into Ukraine's bid to integrate with Europe and engaged John Gillingham, a leading scholar of the European Union, to be a fellow at the institute this fall.

Dr. Kuzio, in particular, has a reputation of making questionable statements about the lack of interest in contemporary Ukraine in Canadian and U.S. academic institutions (see The Ukrainian Weekly's April 10 interview with Dr. Kuzio and subsequent rebuttals). Analysis that overlooks facts and blurs the line between academia and political advocacy is not very useful.

Roman Procyk
New York

The letter-writer is executive director of the Ukrainian Studies Fund.

Analysis exaggerates re focus at Harvard

Dear Editor:

I am writing to comment on Taras Kuzio and Orest Deychakiwsky's August 7 comments about the absence of courses on contemporary Ukraine at Harvard's Ukrainian studies program. This summer I am teaching a course "Modern Ukraine: 20th Century" at the Harvard Ukrainian Summer Institute (which is a part of the prestigious Harvard Summer School program). Enrollment in my class includes 29 students: 11 graduate, 10 undergraduate and eight non-credit. There are students from the U.S., Canada, the U.K., Poland, Russia and Ukraine in this group.

The course syllabus is posted at www.huri.harvard.edu. It features contemporary Ukraine and is constructed from a political science perspective. I am sure that additional information on the availability of other contemporary Ukraine-related classes and events at Harvard and at Harvard's Ukrainian Research Institute (HURI), e.g., lectures, seminars, roundtables, Ukrainian Studies Group sessions, etc. is readily available to all who seek it.

I would say that the statement that HURI is "not giving sufficient attention to contemporary Ukraine" is an obvious exaggeration.

Dr. Georgiy Kasianov
Cambridge, Mass.

The letter-writer is head, Department of Contemporary History and Politics Institute of Ukrainian History, National Academy of Sciences, and professor, National University of Kyiv Mohyla Academy.

Kudos to two writers for quality overview

Dear Editor:

Kudos to Taras Kuzio and Orest Deychakiwsky for "A Guide To Who's Who in D.C.'s Ukraine-related Activities" (August 7). It is a quality overview, without patting ourselves on the back.

The authors correctly state that Ukrainian American community organizations have provided relatively little in the way of input into U.S. policy formulation regarding Ukraine. This stands in sharp contrast to some exaggerated claims of the diaspora's influence on U.S. policy, as well as on events in Ukraine. The latter aspect is the subject of this letter.

Illusions are important for diaspora. They are part of a larger hobby that fulfills its life. Its purpose is mainly self-serving to feel good about itself and fill a vacuum that all Americans need to fill with something - be it car-racing, drugs, pro hockey, proselytising, etc.

For the diaspora, Ukraine is a show, in the same way as bird-watching. Few of us in the West have any real desire to go and live in Ukraine. It would require some very tough choices, too numerous to mention. Staying put makes sense for most. It takes much less effort to be an election observer or attend a conference with Kyiv's literati. One could say there are two Ukraine's - one there, another across the Atlantic.

The reality is less rosy. For instance, UNA membership and the number of subscribers to its two publications are diminishing. Could it be that they are losing touch with the membership that is becoming steadily more like most Americans, more sensitive to American issues than to ethnic folklore?

The organized sector of the Ukrainian American community, with its traditional conservative twist and abhorrence of non-conformity, increasingly finds itself at the tail end of American horizons. It is reminiscent of the convention of a large organization which at the end of the day is frantically looking for its own list of resolutions from a previous conclave, because the organizing committee forgot to prepare a new draft. This is not a metaphor; it actually happened.

I also recall the community's stoic and sustained endorsement of the Vietnam war - even when much of the country had soured and recognized its futility. Similarly, flag-waving for the Iraq invasion is a reflection of poor collective vision, although some soft-pedalling has become apparent lately.

As the country's attention in the first half of August was riveted on Cindy Sheehan, the mother of a soldier killed in Iraq, maybe the reality perception of the Ukrainian American community can be gauged by the distance it feels from that woman who is camping outside the vacationing President George W. Bush's compound in Crawford, Texas, to protest against the war, death and destruction that this president brought to a country that did not attack us.

Boris Danik
North Caldwell, N.J.

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