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["Rubchak, Bohdan" <kalush@uic.edu>]

Mykolo!

This letter (my last on the subject) will be straight talk, without any
tongue-in-cheek "discourse" stylizations.

First, I am happy to inform you that I am neither your uncle, nor your
beloved. More to the point, I am not your "AmeriKan unKle," although, God
knows, you have assembled a whole bunch of those, including one called
Sam.

Because your letter to me speaks for itself and needs no elucidation, let
me turn to another of your Texts (which I recently circulated through this
list), in which you emote about Grandma embroidering Ukrainian towels,
waiting for you to come home from glorious battles against American
turkeys (and pork chops and steaks). There you muse on what would have
happened to you if you had permanently settled in the United States: you
would have probably wound up teaching in a "provincial" college or editing
a diasporan periodical. This is by no means your first snide dig against
your AmeriKan unKles (and aunts), without whose generous help, hospitality
and initial funding you would have found it much more difficult to climb
the lofty heights of the Numero Uno European Public Intellectual. Only
this time, in order to put us down once and for all and in your desperate
reach for wit, you summon the aid of Nabokov's nefariously xenophobic
attack on the early (Ukrainian) Hohol, with which even my Russophilic
American professors felt rather uncomfortable. And this is really bad.

Let me inform you that over the years we have done somewhat better than
that. In my estimation, there are only two major universities (Princeton
and Stanford) where Ukrainian diasporans or their immediate descendants
have been absent from faculty or library staffs. As for diasporan
periodicals, you still have a long way to go before you see in Ukraine the
caliber of intellectual journal that Suchasnist' was in its heyday. That
one, I am afraid, you would not have been invited to edit, because a Jurij
Shevelov you ain't! I wonder what purpose such opinions, which you
stubbornly disseminate in Ukrainian publications, are supposed to serve.
In any event, they are surprisingly close to the "travelogues" that
Vitalij Korotych used to write about the sorry lot of Ukrainians in
foreign lands. But he wrote them in different times and with much more
obvious intent.

Returning for a moment to your America-bashing, you are obviously aping
the fashion among some European intellectuals, in whose ranks you have
decided to enroll (the insufferably patronizing tone of your Vyshenskian
missiles and your censorial pompousness in public discussions testify to
your view of yourself as one). But there are some important differences
between your models and yourself, the most outstanding being that they
know what they are talking about. Even if, in my opinion, some of their
criticisms of America may be wrong, most of them are informed, thoughtful
and responsible. Your America-bashing, to the contrary, shows no substance
whatever, and therefore is doomed to remain on the level of tabloid
babbling.

I implore you, Mykolo, to write what you know. Stay with your originally
interesting and valuable idea of the creolization of Ukrainians as a
minority in their own country, and when this idea wears out from a decade
of overuse, strain very hard and you may come up with a new one. Pose if
you must, but do it more impressively.

There is one really serious insult in your letter which finally must be
addressed. I have in mind the deliberate misspelling of a consonant. The
word "Amerika," which you have probably picked up from the hysterical
Harold Pinter, and which originates with Kafka's English translator, takes
me back to a very tragic time in my country, to the noble rebellion of
American youth against a foolish government, which I witnessed and in
which I marginally participated. Don't go there, Mykolo, for this is none
of your goddamn business. You have enough on your plate, what with dealing
with the embarrassing mess in your own country, and trying to save the
noble intent of the Orange Revolution. Stay with that!

VERY sincerely,

Bohdan


I apologize for my messy computer and its messy mailings. I must apply to
unKle Sam to grant me a new one! This copy should be the easiest to read.