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117. herbs and vegetables in my kitchen garden 118. book in my library 119. poem fit to be framed 120. song I love to hum * * * It seems logical for grandparents to want to leave their grandchildren a bequest that provides most of the information that only they can offer. But parents and grandparents often go through life hiding their pains and sorrows; often the reasons are serious enough to warrant their silence. And as unfortunate as this may be, their silence should also be respected. In 1983, at a National Endowment for Humanities Seminar on Ethnicity held at the Immigration Histoiy Research Center of the University of Minnesota, one of the twelve scholars shared her personal "ethnic" fami ly experience. She remembered her father as a man who hardly ever spoke to his family. He would come home and go directly to his garden. That garden was a gem and the talk of the whole neighborhood. But as a result of his gardening, his absence was felt on the home front and his children hardly spoke with their father and even grew quite afraid of him. "He was like a stranger in his own house," recalled this adult woman. However, when she was in her teens, she began to question her father about his past. The only reply she ever got was "Movchy!" (Be quiet!) and he left for his garden. Years passed and she avoided the issue. But when her father passed away, she discovered to her astonishment that he never spoke about his life because he had been a deserter and did not want anyone to know about it. Under the Austro-Hungarian Empire, he had been drafted into the army, but he refused to serve and fled to America. Although America is the land of the free, this man kept his secret for fear of reprisals. Even in this distant land, the man felt that silence was the price of safety. We wonder what might have happened had he actually joined the Austro-Hungarian army. In her Letter from a Condemned-to-die Soldier, an excerpt of which introduces this article, Ol'ha Kobylians'ka's (1863-1942) offers a possible answer to this question. Vasyl' has been drafted to serve in the Austro-Hungarian army, leaving behind his wife, his seven children, and his elderly father. In his ordeal, he marches to the Italian front; after the battle he gets lost and marches for days. Exhausted, hungry, he is captured, questioned in a language he cannot understand, and condemned to face the firing squad at dawn. And that is when we recognize that Ukrainian literature is very precious because it reveals so much about a people's silence. But what does the novella by Kobylians'ka have in common with Baba's Book ? Baba's Book is the book that has not yet been written, but which is surely bound to interest numerous readers. It is the book made up of the answers to the 120 questions presented in this article and that only a grandparent — a Baba or a Dido — will be able to create, because it is the book of their life story. In French literature, there is a sixteenth century author, Michel de Montaigne, who did just that. His series of books are know as the Essays. Montaigne's personal account begins with an introduction from the author to the reader in which he explains that the book is not intended for anyone but his family. Today, Montaigne's Essays give readers the most valuable cultural, literary, and political details about life in Sixteenth Century France as well as in Europe. Would it not be a phenomenon indeed if by the end of the twenty-first century there were a new "genre" in Ukrainian literature and that this new "genre" were to be the "grandparent's essay" known as Baba's Book or Dido's Book, a book giving details about Ukrainian life in Ukraine as well as in the diaspora? Bibliography Ega, Franfoise. Lettres a une Noire. Paris: Harmattan (1978). Jackson, Marcy. The Grandparent Book. Self-published (1982). Kobylians'ka, Ol'ha. Tvory/Works. Uzhhorod: Karpaty (1983). Montaigne, Michel E. (de). Complete Essays of Mon taigne, Donald M. Frame (translator) Stanford University Press (1958). Copyright Helene Turkewicz-Sanko, Ph.D. Professor of French Language and Literature and Ukrainian Literature in Translation, Department of Classical and Modern Languages and Cultures, John Carroll University. 1983 National Endowment for the Humanities Seminar on Ethnicity Participant (Minneapolis-Saint Paul Immigration Histoiy Research Center of the University of Minnesota). March 1999 UNWLA NEW e-mail: irynak@aol.com UNWLA NEW FAX NUMBER: (212) 533-5237 Видання C оюзу Українок A мерики - перевидано в електронному форматі в 2012 році . A рхів C У A - Ню Йорк , Н . Й . C Ш A.
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