Dorohyj Bohdane,
Ty cilkom i v usiomu majesh raciju. Holovne - ne xvyliujsia.
Tvij shchyro,
MR
Date: Sun, 22 Jul 2007 19:40:53 -0500 (CDT)
>> From: "Rubchak, Bohdan" <kalush@uic.edu>
>> To: aaus-list@ukrainianstudies.org
>> 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.
>>
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