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goods had to be shipped from elsewhere. The collapse of the Soviet Union was bound to bring with it economic dislocations. Historically, Ukraine had introduced Russia to modern education, but it was also a Ukrainian cleric, in the service of Peter I, who showed the Muscovite tsar the path to direct imperial power. Ukraine’s language was outlawed, its schools closed, its population sub jected to various degrees of forced Russification. After the failure of the Ukrainian National Republic in the period of the Revolutions of 1917, Ukraine underwent a number of metamorphoses, becoming ultimately a soviet socialist republic. The nuclear contamination of Chornobyl brought the Ukrainians into the public arena. Weighing each step so as not to provoke a Russian reaction, Ukraine asserted sovereignty in 1990 and its independence in 1991, after the failed Moscow coup. Although the com plex intertwining of the industries in Ukraine with those in Russia and the other successor republics is drawing the republics into an economic union that may have pol itical repercussions, culturally Ukraine is attempting to strike out again on its own. In large measure this is an exercise in history, especially the history of the 1920s, which was a vibrant period in literature, theater, and art. Most of the artists and writers of that period, however, were killed, and their works banned. The rediscovery of the ’’executed renaissance” is providing validation for the new directions taken by young artists. To a lesser degree, the rediscovered historians and other scholars are also providing direction to the new scholarship, but here the process is slower. The scholars hold conferen ces on this or that ’’rediscovered” scholar; and news papers run popular stories that fan interest in scholar ship and in the rediscovery of the history of the Ukra inians. Contemporary Ukraine, as other post-Soviet repub lics, presents an interesting mixture of want and enti tlement. Despite the low standard of living, most former Soviet individuals have come to expect certain, albeit very modest, perquisites — from subsidized bread to guaranteed jobs, apartments, even cars and travel. The cost was toeing the line and a tacit acceptance of the system. Many of the shortcomings remain in place, as do many of the persons who prospered. The situation in the humanities is as complex and unsettled as in other areas of endeavor. The profes sional organizations, such as the Union of Writers or the Academy of Sciences, fear an end to their priviledges while they welcome the expanded opportunity for travel and advancement. Limitations on travel and publishing no longer exist, but there are no funds for either. Except for Sevastopol, home of the disputed Black Sea Fleet, travel in Ukraine is unrestricted. The country is beautiful even in the gloom of winter, hoarfrost gleaming on sepia trees that intersect the miles of fertile land. In the spring Kiev swims in the fragrant bloom of acacia, chestnut, jasmine, and early roses. And the summer — well, the summer has been lovingly des cribed by Gogol, who transformed his nanny’s Ukrain ian folktales into masterpieces of Russian literature. Gogol’s pictures reemerge in the bucolic countryside, which had been off-limits to foreigners for decades. I criss-cross the country with the exhilaration of a child excused from school on a beautiful May day. I swim in the Black Sea, ski in the Carpathians, hike in the forests, drive through the steppes. I’m lulled by the gentleness of the land, the friendliness of the people. It takes a conscious effort to remember that the sea is polluted by industrial waste and the land ruined in one of the less publicized but disastrous agricultural schemes of Nikita Khrushchev. It was he, a Russian raised on the border of the Ukraine, and later his suc cessor, Leonid Brezhnev, also a Russian from Ukraine’s borders, who experimented disastrously with the plow ing of the virgin lands. The rivers, which in earlier cen turies had made fish the poor man’s staple, are nowa days home to flotsam, not to fish. The reactor in Chernobyl hides yet another ugly secret; the leaking sarcophagus heats the water in the large artificial lake on Prypiat that threatens to flood historic Kiev and its churches. My students, whose knowledge of Ukrainian history is sketchy, shared with me the informal stories their own grandparents had told them, so tto voce to be sure, about the Great Patriotic War, that is, World War II. Many of the Soviet soldiers who served on the European front ended up in Siberia because Stalin feared that their knowledge of even war-shattered Europe could raise questions about the Soviet standard of living, which was presented internally as the highest in the world. Siberian gulags deepened the soldiers’ knowledge of the West by throwing them together with the prisoners from the former Austrian and Polish territories. Khrush chev’s amnesty brought the soldier-prisoners back to Ukraine, there to meet the children of their own children. Wherever one turns in Kiev, or elsewhere in Ukraine, for that matter, there is a wall of history — and it is needed since Ukrainians are notoriously ignorant of their history. Partly that is due to the perverted histori cal picture they have been given; partly it is due to the conscious avoidance of issues that could cause serious problems for the present. Ukraine’s archives, until two years ago, remained military objects and access was carefully controlled. I had been told in 1980 while work ing on a book that there were no documents on the Union of Ukrainian Women. Twelve years later as I walked into the archive, the old guard, recognizing me, told me that the materials for which I had been looking were now available. It had been feared, apparently, that the information in the archive could strengthen the argument that community organizations in Ukraine his "HALUE ЖИТТЯ”, ЧЕРВЕНЬ 1994 19
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