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Revisiting Cossack Glory by Martha Bohachevsky-Chomiak Zaporizhzhia, has the usual trappings of all major Ukrainian cities - museums, monuments, squares, and parks. In addition, the city has two major historical attractions that are uniquely Zaporizhzhian. The order in which you name them defines your political priorities. One is the Dniprohes, the grandiose hydro electric station which Walter Reuther, who eventually headed one of the two major labor unions in America, helped build in the 1930. The station was to have ushered in an era of electrification that would ensure for the workers of Ukraine unlimited access to hydropower. Instead, the Dniprohes flooded and eliminated scores of villages, blocked the Dnipro River, and submerged the famed rapids that gave the Ukrainian Cossacks their name - za porozhtsi (those coming from beyond the rapids). Today in Zaporizh zhia, the list of shortages includes both water and electricity. This same Dniprohes marked yet another step in the destruction of the Cossack stronghold on the island of Khortytsia, the site of Cossack glory, the locus of the Cossacks as epitomized by Taras Shevchenko, and allegedly, the largest fresh water island in the world. When Catherine II destroyed the Sich, subverting the very term Cossack into the opprobrious Tsarist detachments, the island reverted to being a fishing village for some, a symbol for others. The sandy soil and the introduction of the potato made Shevchenko utter one of his lapidary historical comments — "And wise Germans are planting potatoes on the Sich". In later years, the Soviets went one better than Catherine II's co-nationals. They designated the Khortytsia as a national park, not so much because that was where the last major sich was, but because the Cossacks were commoners who fought class oppression. It is somewhat comforting that since Ukraine became independent, the Cossack museum on the Khortytsia has been greatly expanded and its exposition brought more in line with historical truth. Today, there are many more visitors to the museum. The upgrading continues, residents are asked to move from the island, and the Cossack church on the island is to be rebuilt. A new bridge through the island will, hopefully, not threaten its ecological or historical profile, but simply ameliorate commuter traffic. But the Khortytsia's Cossack Museum pales before the solid grandeur of Sich: A National Club (Natsionalny Klub). Although technically a private club, the premises are open to those with money and proper attire. Fronted by a striking hand forged six- foot fence that is softened by twining leafy ornaments, the buildings of "Sich" include grandiose outside huts, open kitchens, a little private summer pavilion, a rustic look-out tower, and a couple of aquariums and holding tanks for fish. The grounds taper off into the scrawny forest that now covers most of Khortytsia. You step over rocks, signs showing the road to Paris, Moscow, and the "shynok" bar, and a broken prehistoric steppe Baba or two, and finally reach the building that represents the might of the Cossack brotherhood. Inside, both the spacious bar and the multi leveled restaurant sport realistic peasant motifs, including cutouts of Taras and Natalka into which you plop your face for a memorial photograph. You can move further into history, go past the spacious billiard room to the dark and musty banquet room, with prehistoric cave drawings on its rustic whitewashed walls. Recessed black light makes the stick drawings glow. Should you desire to relax, before or after the hearty meal served in earthenware dishes, you can retire to the sauna, with or without company. The new Sich is heavier, more solid and totally dedicated to male physical prowess within the externals of Cossack culture. It openly and unabashedly caters to the new upper and middle classes. It is an in-your-face challenge to laws and the sacred tradition. It exalts maleness, brawn, jolly good times with the fellows. Gals are thrown in as well - solid, good-natured matrons, with lovingly condescen ding smiles, with an "oh let them have their fun, what harm is there in having them let off some steam" attitude. More likely though, the fellows will have their fun with the long-legged earlier versions of the matrons who frequent the bar in closely rationed numbers. The service is impeccable, soft and un obtrusive, quick and relaxing. It lulls you, especially after you read the first page of the menu instructing you that your drink is to be enjoyed for at least an hour before you order another one. Does this mark the replacement of the here-is-to-the-ladies-as-third-drink- in-so-many-minutes ritual that is a standard component of the three-martini lunch? Given all this, is the new Sich a shell of the former or its kernel? Not a burning question and certainly not one debated on this island. Those who write about the Cossacks do not visit the new Sich. When told about the new structure, they bemoan the “НАШЕ ЖИТТЯ”, ЛИПЕНЬ-СЕРПЕНЬ 2002 21
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