Scholarly societies join forces to hold annual Shevchenko conference (04/02/06)

Scholarly societies join forces to hold annual Shevchenko conference

by Dr. Orest Popovych

NEW YORK The Shevchenko Scientific Society (NTSh), jointly with the Ukrainian Academy of Arts and Sciences in the U.S. (UVAN), the Harriman Institute of Columbia University (HICU) and the Harvard Ukrainian Research Institute (HURI), hosted the 26th annual scholarly conference dedicated to Taras Shevchenko at the NTSh headquarters on March 11.

The proceedings were chaired by Prof. Vasyl Makhno, resident poet at NTSh, who introduced the speakers and enriched the program with his insightful commentary as a literary expert.

Opening remarks were delivered by Dr. Olexa Bilaniuk, the immediate past president of UVAN. Whether or not Ukraine ever becomes a truly Ukrainian state, said Dr. Bilaniuk, may depend on the extent to which Shevchenko's poetry is promulgated in the Russian-speaking regions of Ukraine, because many of the admonitions the great bard had directed at his countrymen still apply to the Ukrainian Russophones of today.

"Poetry as Conversation" was the title of the talk by Dr. Bohdan Rubchak (UVAN), poet, prose writer and literary critic, a retired professor of literature at the University of Illinois at Chicago. Taras Shevchenko is so familiar to Ukrainians that we take him for granted, while failing to recognize the fact that, as a master of literature, he is not just great, but unique, began Dr. Rubchak.

Shevchenko's uniqueness makes it impossible to compare him with poets in the English-speaking world, particularly since he is not translatable into English. Those translations that do exist make Shevchenko appear to be a mediocre poet, continued the lecturer.

Dr. Rubchak delved deeply into analysis of both the style and structure of Shevchenko's poetry, quoting many excerpts to illustrate the techniques the poet employed to create the complex structure of his poems. Shevchenko resorted to circular rhymes, a masterful use of alliteration and assonance, purposeful variations of the meter within a verse to effect a change in the atmosphere, sometimes varying the language used by his characters among the vernacular, Old Slavonic and Church Slavonic so as to contrast different speakers.

Shevchenko openly defied the literary canons of his day, which to him were inimical both esthetically and politically. In his poems, he had a predilection for debating with himself, with authority figures, and indeed with God, Dr. Rubchak noted.

Next on the program was a guest speaker from Kyiv, Dr. Nina Polishchuk, who holds the position of senior research fellow in the department of the history of Ukrainian philosophy at the Hryhorii Skovoroda Institute of Philosophy of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine. Currently she is in the U.S. as a Fulbright visiting researcher in the department of philosophy at Stanford University.

Dr. Polishchuk spoke on "The Poetry of Shevchenko in Modern Philosophical Context." In her opinion, the task of a philosopher is not to impose a way of thinking upon others, or to pretend to be able to solve some universal truths, but to teach a person to think independently. She claimed to find reinforcement for these ideas in Shevchenko's poetry.

The history of philosophy, continued Dr. Polishchuk, represents a contest between traditionalism and innovation. Democratic societies possess the ability to make radical changes, to innovate. So far, the intellectual elite in Ukraine has not participated sufficiently in innovative movements, as a result of which the country has been experiencing a brain drain, concluded the speaker.

Toward the end of the program, Dr. Polishchuk presented to the NTSh a copy of her book "Ukraine in the 17th Century: Philosophy, Society, Culture" (Kyiv: Krytyka, 2005). Dr. Polishchuk's impressive publication record includes such standouts as the "Philosophical Encyclopedic Dictionary" (Kyiv, Abrys, 2002), of which she is the chief editor, and the English-Ukrainian Philosophical Dictionary (Kyiv: Lybid, 1996).

"Ukrainian-Russian Relations: The Post-Colonial Aspect" was the topic addressed by Prof. Mykola Riabchuk (HICU). The existential challenge to Ukraine lies in the fact that Russian culture remains not only dominant, but also serves as Ukraine's bridge to Western culture, said Prof. Riabchuk. He feels that Russia has retained its dominant position vs. Ukraine due to several factors: 1) Russian culture is one of the important world cultures; 2) the Russian language is the lingua franca in that area; 3) Russia has a great armed potential; 4) Russia has inherited from the USSR some of the best material and human resources.

Furthermore, Russian culture has persisted in its imperial messages and remains strongly Ukrainophobic, continued the lecturer. In Ukraine, the national elites are strongly opposed to Russian cultural domination, while the other territorial elites are ambivalent about it.

Prof. Riabchuk said he believes the reason Ukraine's independence has not resulted in a revival of Ukrainian language and culture is that Ukrainians have internalized the negative self-image of being inferior to the dominant Russians, an image that has been fostered for centuries. In Kyiv, for example, the "dominant discourse" suggests that it is not "normal" to speak Ukrainian; that very notion is ridiculed without even being discussed.

The speaker opined that the present language situation in Ukraine will persist for many years, but he did propose two objective arguments in favor of saving the Ukrainian language: 1) the ecological argument - that the language should be preserved in the interest of diversity; and 2) the legal argument that language represents one of the human rights of the Ukrainian people.

The program ended with closing remarks by Dr. Roman Andrushkiw, first vice-president of NTSh.

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