Most readers of The Weekly, one would imagine, have at some point in their lives made a monetary contribution to “Ukrainian studies.” It may have been a hard-earned $5 bill tendered cautiously to an importunate gentleman in a shabby suit carrying a battered briefcase on the steps of your parish church, or it may have been a $50,000 check signed with a flourish in a flush of well-lubricated patriotism at a fancy hotel banquet. It may have gone to fund a chair or an institute in Canada or the United States, or a university in Ukraine. In any case, you may have occasionally wondered whether your contribution has produced tangible results. A few days at the recent ASEEES convention in Washington would have answered your question.
Founded in 1948, the Association for Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Studies (formerly known by the no less cumbersome name of the American Association for the Advancement of Slavic Studies or “Triple A Double S”) publishes the respected academic journal Slavic Review and hosts annual conventions encompassing history, literary studies, linguistics, political science, the arts, and other fields pertaining to the cultural and geographic area indicated by its name. It has both individual and institutional members. The theme of this year’s convention, held November 17-20 at the Washington Marriott Wardman Park, was “Global Conversations.”
These conventions are enormous. This year, over 1,500 participants (not counting simple attendees) crowded into 14 sessions, each comprising 54 panels or roundtables lasting an hour and 15 minutes each. Receptions, screenings, meetings (such as that of the American Association for Ukrainian Studies) and other events filled the rest of the time. One could hear a good deal of non-native Russian, but real Russians and other native Slavs were numerous as well.
What place did Ukrainian studies have in all this? A search of the online program (available on one’s cellphone through a handy app) using the keyword “Ukraine” yielded 115 results, including 38 “events” (mostly panels) and many abstracts of papers. True, the phrase “Russia and Ukraine” has become de rigueur for topics involving the East Slavic portions of the Russian empire and the USSR, and does not always ensure due consideration of the Ukrainian component. But this shows that modern scholarship is at least paying attention to Ukraine.
Discussions of Russian foreign policy naturally included Crimea and the Donbas. A number of panels focused on Ukrainian history or literature. Former Ukrainian President Leonid Kravchuk joined Russia’s Gennady Burbulis and Belarus’ Stanislau Shushkevich at a roundtable on the dissolution of the USSR. A literary panel was dedicated to Nikolai Gogol (Mykola Hohol), Panteleimon Kulish and Ivan Franko. A presentation on “New Perspectives and Findings on the Famine (Holodomor) of 1932-1933 in Ukraine” featured five prominent diaspora scholars and one from Ukraine. Two diaspora church historians and an ethnographer discussed “Ukrainian Sacral Culture in the New World.” A roundtable devoted to Paul Robert Magocsi’s 2015 book “With Their Backs to the Mountains” was titled “Carpathian Rus’ – Real or Imagined?” Diaspora scholarship itself was also considered: a panel titled “Global Conversations: Ukrainian Diaspora and Formation of Ukrainian Intellectual Self in Soviet and Post-Soviet Space” featured speakers from Canada, the United States, and Ukraine.
On the lower level of the hotel, a large exhibit space accommodated some 60 publishers. Among them were the Harvard Ukrainian Research Institute and the Carpatho-Rusyn Research Center.
The meeting was not without controversy. A letter of November 12 from literary scholar Alexander Etkind of the European University at Florence to the ASEEES Executive Committee was circulated at the convention. Prof. Etkind objected to the avowedly apolitical organization hosting, “as one of its core activities,” a dissertation research fellowship financed by Princeton professor emeritus Stephen F. Cohen and named after him and another scholar. Prof. Etkind’s objection was based on Prof. Cohen’s “controversial political statements,” which were highly critical of the U.S. and Ukraine and highly supportive of Russia and President Vladimir Putin. For example, Prof. Cohen allegedly blamed the U.S. for the Russian annexation of Crimea and wrote about “Kiev’s atrocities” in the Russian-occupied Donbas. Considering these statements “factually wrong and politically bizarre,” Prof. Etkind stated that he did not wish to participate in the activities of a society that had associated itself with Prof. Cohen’s name, and therefore would not attend the convention. This incident, too, showed that Ukrainian issues are taken seriously in the academic world.
During the convention, the Embassy of Ukraine hosted a presentation on the Great Famine of 1932-1933 (the Holodomor) organized by the Holodomor Research and Education Consortium (HREC) of the Canadian Institute of Ukrainian Studies (CIUS), the District of Columbia chapter of the Shevchenko Scientific Society and the Ukrainian Congress Committee of America.
At a reception for George Grabowicz, professor of Ukrainian literature at Harvard, he was presented with a festschrift in his honor. Several colleagues addressed the festive gathering, some recalling the days when the very notion of Ukrainian studies was considered dubious, if not outright disreputable.
Today, the Ukrainian specialist is a common sight at scholarly meetings. He or she may be from any country in the world, and more and more often is not of Ukrainian ethnic origin. Of course, the North American diaspora, which supported the founding of the Harvard Ukrainian Research Institute and the Canadian Institute of Ukrainian Studies in the 1970s, has produced a respectable contingent of active scholars, most of whom have found positions in Canada. But, increasingly, students from Ukraine, some educated there and some abroad, have filled the limited job openings for Ukrainian specialists.
For your columnist, the ASEEES convention was a rare opportunity to delve into the arcana of Slavic scholarship. Even more important, it was one more chance to see former colleagues and renew old friendships, some dating back over 40 years. For the Ukrainian American community, it was proof that those crumpled $5 bills and those $50,000 checks – and everything in between – have earned copious dividends.
Andrew Sorokowski can be reached at [email protected].