In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:

444 LETrERS IN CANADA Quant au teletheatre d'Hubert Aquin, qui entremele dans la realite et dans Ie reve l'echeveau de plusieurs couples, j'y retrouve avec enchantement , dans un registre different et toutes proportions gardees, la poesie, la maltrise formelle et, par consequent, la verite humaine qui faisaient I'inoubliable beaute de Prochain episode. Pour tout dire et pour boucler mon propos, je situerais volontiers cette oeuvre au niveau d'excellence ou je mettais tout al'heure Ie Double ieu de Fran<;oise Loranger, en raison de son originalite et de sa reussite. (REJEAN ROBIDOUX) PUBLICATIONS IN OTHER LANGUAGES It has now become apparent that, with few exceptions, the literature of Canadian Ukrainians is being produced and developed by those who arrived in Canada after the Second World War. Although it is clear that they have begun to draw new ideas from their Canadian cultural environment, they still dream of the period when for a few brief years Ukraine was free before it was crushed by the Russian Revolution and Polish aggressiveness. In hundreds of books the Ukrainians publish here and elsewhere they bewail the downfall of their country, recount in minutest details the struggle for its preservation, and seek every political means whereby they can bolster their hope that there will yet come a time when Ukraine will recover her liberty. It is understandable that we cannot deal with all such works. Only a few examples may be given. One of them is the first volume of Volodymyr Kedrovsky's 1917 Rik (The Year 1917, Trident Press, Winnipeg, 526). The author's personal reminiscences collected in this substantial book treat of military matters, especially of attempts to form a Ukrainian army in order to strengthen the Ukrainian Central Rada (Council), which proclaimed the independence of Ukraine in 1917 and began the task of governing the country, which was still in a political turmoil following the abdication of the tsar and the establishment of the interim government in Petrograd. Both the governments were threatened by the communists, and for that reaSOn the Rada was willing to co-<)perate with its Russian counterpart, headed by A.F. Kerensky, provided that Ukraine's independence remained intact. That move failed. This and other events are too prolix to be given full treatment here. To round out this complicated subject, one can only mention a few salient points which the book provides. Seeing Ukraine isolated, Kedrovsky, who during that period was connected with the Ukrainian government as the Associate Secretary for Military Affairs, became a disillusioned man. This mood is evident in the preface to his work, which he introduces with quotations from two prominent Russians who, in their appraisal of their country, inferred that Russia was a nation with which it was difficult for any other state to arrive at a positive agreement. According to K.P. Pobedonostsev, a member of the State Council under Alexander III, 'Russia is a snowy wilderness in which there roams an evil man.' Professor F.I. Buslayev, a member of the Russian Academy of Sciences, stated that, even at the end of the nineteenth century, she was still 'Muscovy, a semi-barbarian and semi-Tartar military camp.' In other words, Russia was always out of step with the West. Of some interest is Kedrovsky's reminder that during the Crimean War a Cossack division, composed mostly of those Ukrainians who lived under Turkish rule, was organized by an emigre, M. Chaykovsky, and fought with the British and French against Russia. This division decisively defeated the Russians at Silistria, but was not allowed to continue its war of liberation further. Quite notable likewise is the fact that the greatest Polish poet, Adam Mickiewicz, who sought the emancipation of his nation from Russia, joined this Cossack division, hoping that once Ukraine became free, Poland too would regain her liberty from the tsarist regime. All to no avail. Mickiewicz died in Istanbul in 1855, and Russia crushed the Polish revolt in 1863. One of the best publications of Trident Press is Ivan Piddubnyj's Slidamy Zhyttia (In Life's Paths, 397). This work is both an autobiography and a history of Ukraine under Communist rule, with the historical part predominating. Piddubnyj was born in the vicinity of the city of Kharkiv, in the north-eastern region of Ukraine where Russian influence was more intense and tsarist stringency was felt more keenly than anywhere else in the land. In spite of it all, he did not lose his spirit of nationalism; in fact, his patriotism increased even while he served in the Russian army during the First World War, which ended the Romanov dynasty and hastened the Revolution. According to this author, communism might have been nipped in the bud if Marshal Foch's proposal to liquidate it immediately had been accepted by W oodrOw Wilson. The American president, however, was under the influence of General Bliss, who was against using force to crush the revolutionary 'will' of the Russian people. No expedient action was taken, and the Bolshevik terror began to assume ever greater proportions. The military and political progress of communism is grimly described by Piddubnyj in his powerful prose. He is particularly effective in dealing with the deeds of the dreaded Cheka, created specially for the purpose of exterminating all those who opposed the new order. This secret police faithfully followed Lenin's directive that 'it is better to execute ten innocent people than to leave alive one that is guilty.' With impressive and, at the same time, depressing vividness Piddubnyj recounts the catastrophic famine imposed by Stalin in order to collectivize the peasants' lands, a famine that raged until some ten million people, mostly Ukrainians, died of starvation and those who survived were brought to heel. The author rightfully denies that Ukraine was a hotbed of anti-Semitism, blaming the pogroms of the Jews on Russian provocateurs. The entire Jewish question as regards Ukraine is presented in this book with clarity and impartiality, and deserves close study. The Ukrainians, however , were the greatest victims of Stalin's terror. His secret police GPU, which replaced the Cheka, enabled him to destroy indiscriminately countless numbers of Soviet people through purges and liquidations. Life in Ukraine became so horrible that tens of thousands of her inhabitants Red beyond the Urals to escape his mania for letting communism loose to devour its own offspring. Certain events of the Second World War are presented even more effectively by Piddubnyj. For example, while hundreds of thousands of Soviet soldiers voluntarily allowed themselves to be captured by the invaders, hoping that the Hitlerites would free Russia and her Republics from Stalin's tyranny, it soon became apparent, particularly in Ukraine, that the nazis were in fact much worse than the communists. The reaction was not long in coming, and it spelled the doom of the teutonic imperialistic designs, thus allowing Stalinist autocracy to resume, when victory came, its hostile policy toward the West. Thanks to Franklin D. Roosevelt and Winston Churchill, the real victor was the USSR. The former naively believed that within the next decade the Soviet Union and the western allies would learn to live as friends, while the latter concentrated his attention on military rather than political aspects of the war. It therefore became inevitable that, three years after the holocaust , NATO had to be formed to prevent communism from engulfing Europe. Piddubnyj accuses the allies of perpetrating one of the cruellest deeds of the war by allOWing many thousands of displaced persons, war prisoners, and escapees from the Soviet Union to be repatriated against their will to eastern Europe. It is true that when it became evident what was happening to these unfortunates, those who still remained on the territories occupied by the allies were permitted to emigrate to the United States, Canada, Australia, and other safe regions of the world, PUBLICATIONS IN OTHER LANGUAGES 447 but only after much harm and injustice were done to the countless numbers of those forcibly handed over to Soviet authorities. Piddubnyj concludes with the statement that there is no basis for the belief that conflicts within the Communist sphere will lessen the fears which the West now feels from that quarter. In other words, as great as the breach now is between the U SSR and continental China, they will unite the moment they are convinced that the W est has weakened enough to be incapable of withstanding their aggressive militarism. Among the numerous Ukrainian journalists, the name of Roman Rakhmanny is prominent. Such is his importance that Trident Press in Winnipeg has published a collection of his political and sociological articles and commentaries under the title of Na p'yatdesiatiy paraleli (Along the Fiftieth Parallel, 266). The book consists of about fifty items ( two of them in English) which he published between 1959 and 1969 in various newspapers and journals. The title denotes that the fiftieth parallel passes through the middle of Ukraine as well as southern Canada, with the cities of Kharkiv and Vancouver at its ends and between them such centres as Kiev, Lviv, Winnipeg, and Regina. In that curious manner the author implies the unity that exists between Canadian Ukrainians and their European compatriots. All of his articles concern Ukraine as a servile dependency of Russia within the U SSR. He stresses that, whereas many newly·formed countries in Africa are recognized as sovereign nations by world states, Ukraine, although a member of the U N, is not considered by it as an independent political entity, but as an indivisible part of the Russian-dominated Soviet Union. Even the other Soviet satellites have failed to recognize Ukraine formally as their equal. In Rakhmanny's opinion, Russia needs Ukraine's support in the UN, and gets it, but at the same time seeks to keep her in isolation, thus preventing her from gaining prominence. What puzzles the author more than anything else is that Canada and certain other western states recognized the Republic of Mongolia, another Russian protectorate, whose population is just about a million (over 100,000 less than the number of inhabitants of Kiev) and ?as as yet failed to establish diplomatic relations with Ukraine. The reason for this anomaly , of course, is obvious: the communist regime would block any move of this kind from any quarter. Russification and isolation of the Ukrainian people appear to be the chief aims of the central Soviet government. Rakhmanny's book abounds in factual material to that effect. Among the novelists, there are many who, haVing lived through the communist takeover of their native land, have become so obsessed with 448 LETI'ERS IN CANADA its dire consequences that they abandon all other subjects and write endlessly about that casualty of which they were witnesses. This serveS as a sort of catharsis. In fiction, where dialogues often predominate over descriptive passages, the accounts of the trials and tribulations of the Ukrainian people tend to become tedious. Such is the case of Ludmilla Kowalenko's trilogy Nasha ne svoya zemlia (OUT Native Land That 15 Not Our Own, Trident Press, 240). One must concede, however, that her literary merits, in spite of some monotony in her narrative, are great. Certain parts of it are rather historical than fictional. One such passage is that in which the novelist discloses the eagerness of the Soviets to annex Ukraine by any possible means. Aware of how staunchly the Ukrainian population defended its newly-won freedom, Lenin cyoically exclaimed; 'Give them two independences, as long as they give us bread.' Ostap Luckyj - Molodomuzetz (0.1. - One of the 'Young Muse', Toronto, 69) is a collection of several articles, poems, and translations of this poet who, from 1902 to 1907, took an active part with other young writers of western Ukraine in adapting Ukrainian prose and poetry to the doctrine of art for art's sake. Although his literary output was small, its influence was great On the incipient writers of the entire Ukraine in the first two decades of the present century. Advocating freedom of ideas and poetic fonns in literature, Luckyj was instrumental in introducing impreSSionism and symbolism into Ukrainian literature, much to the disapproval of the then greatest living Ukrainian poet, Ivan Franko, who contended that the 'Young Muse' was devoid of import and idealism in man's struggle to attain true material and spiritual wellbeing . In the colourful contrasts and ornate phraseology of the new writers Franko saw only an aimless play of words and fonns which had nothing of worth to contribute to humanity. A giant, however, was defeated by that small group of literati who, in spite of all drawbacks, continued to broaden their horizons. This short collection was prepared by Professor G. Luckyj in tribute to his father, who died in a Russian concentration camp in 1941 at the age of fifty-eight. In his brief introduction , he explains that the latter abandoned all literary activity after the First World War, feeling that he could do more for his people as an organizer of the co-operative movement and as a political leader (he was elected a member and, later, a senator in the Polish parliament). Dr B. Rubchak has made this collection top-heavy with his 'Background [35 pages] to the Volume [24 pages}.' In this pretentious article he ranges from Edgar Allan Poe and Ralph Waldo Emerson through the PUBLICATIONS IN OTHER LANGUAGES 449 entire gamut of European impressionists and symbolists. Regardless of its erudition, it might have been reduced drastically in order to deal with Ostap Luckyj more effectually. Dr M.H. Marunchak continues to be prolific in investigating the cultural life of the Ukrainians in Canada. His latest volume is Istoriya presy, literatur, druku pionerskoyi doby (A History of the Press, Literature and Publications in the Pioneer Era, 284). The work was sponsored by the Ukrainian Free Academy of Sciences in Canada and printed by the Redeemer's Voice Press in Yorkton, Saskatchewan. There is an introduction written by the president of the Academy, Professor J.B. Rudnyckyj who, in gathering related bibliographical material, adds some exploration of his own. One piece of infonnation is that between 1904 and 1969 Ukrainian literature in Canada numbered well over four thousand items, although Rudnyckyj does not tell us how he arrived at that figure. Dr Marunchak's three-fold study is an impartial presentation of Ukrainian publications since 1904, when the first newspaper in this language, The Canadian Farmer, was founded in Winnipeg . It was soon followed in every part of the country by others representing various political and religious ideologies which produced polemics that at times assumed rabid proportions. The more important newspapers were often subsidized for ulterior motives by Canadian political parties. Their main concern, however, was to serve their readers, which they did more or less faithfully. Where Maruncbak excels is in treating the literary effort of Canadian Ukrainians, from its most primitive period in the early years of the first decade of the present century to the middle twenties, by which time it had attained a tolerable degree of aesthetic value. Meticulously compiled and well illustrated by excerpts, this section of the work is an exemplary piece of scholarship. No less assiduous than Dr Marunchak in her labour is Mrs Olha Woycenko whose Litopys ukrainskoho zhyttia v Kanadi (The Annals of Ukrainian Life in Canada, Trident Press, 475) is now at volume 4, which covers the years 1930-9. The work is not original. It consists of over two thousand excerpts garnered from the Ukrainian weekly Ukrainskiy Holos (The Ukrainian Voice) and is intended to represent various aspects of the life of the Ukrainian element in Canada. Many selections relate what happened in the world at large during the period under discussion. The present Annals, although somewhat disjointed, present a clear picture of the economic depression during the thirties, particularly in the prairie provinces, and of the resultant urbanization 450 LETTERS IN CANADA of Canadian Ukrainians. Among their political activities, it is interesting to note in several excerpts the short-lived idea (which emerged in 1930) of creating 'The League of British Ukrainians' whose purpose was to be to work toward the establishment of Ukraine as a dominion within the British Empire, with the English sovereign bearing the titles of King of Ukraine, Grand Duke of Galicia, and Hetman of the entire Ukraine. The thirties were also noted for the intensification of the communist movement in this country and the fierce manner in which all Ukrainian nationalist groups reacted against it. Another important item in this compilation recalls that The Manchester Guardian sided with the Ukrainians in Galicia, whom the Polish government was treating with utter ruthlessness. A first-rate chronicler, Mrs Woycenko continues to work on these Annals without respite. Approximately four more volumes will be required to complete them. If Mrs Woycenko does not Bounder in midstream, she will have created an encyclopedic opus that may outlive even the source from which she now draws her material, and that will serve for decades as a mine of information. It is to her credit that she reveals what has to a large extent remained in oblivion. Informative enough, although written in erratic English, is the thirty-six-page brochure Commemorating the Pioneers of the First Greek Orthodox Church at St. Julien, Saskatchewan. Its author, Mr Andrew Hawrish, also supplied fifty illustrations representative of that colony. The community is situated several miles east of Rosthern, the chief immigration point for the newcomers since 1897. From Rosthern the first Ukrainian immigrants dispersed to settle such areas as Fish Creek, Batoche, Alvena, Wakaw, Meacham, Smuts, Cudworth, and others, including St Julien. In the latter locality the first Ukrainian Independent Orthodox church was built in 1903, and the first school in 1908. All the names of the pioneers of this district are mentioned. The book is indeed a memorial to them. St Julien was for many years the centre of Ukrainian life in that part of the province and, for that reason, deserves a brief notice. Professor C. Bida, chairman of the Department of Slavic Studies at the University of Ottawa, is to be commended for his selection of forty poems from the works of eighteen French-Canadian poets and for haVing them translated into Ukrainian. The volume is entitled Poeziya suchasnoho Kvebeku (Poesie du Quebec contemporain, Librairie Deom, Montreal, 195). The introduction was written by Cecile CloutierWojciechowska , herself One of the poets selected. In her presentation PUBLICATIONS IN OTHER LANGUAGES 451 she seeks to explain the involuted manner of expression of these poets and to clarify what they are attempting to convey. According to her, this category of poetry is a personal one; the younger poets' quest is to discover first their individuality and then to transform themselves into impersonal beings. In the process some of them fall into exhausting despair, others suffer cosmic anguish, and still others so lock themselves in their own spirituality that they become laconic. As a result, their outbursts are so curt that the brevity of their poems must be combined with the white pages on which they appear, the latter seemingly to be filled by the reader's Own metaphysical inventions. Dr Bida, whose gleanings are characteristic of this modernistic trend, did well to supply the translations with the originals on opposite pages. In comparing the Ukrainian renditions with the originals, it is obvious that the translators , with few exceptions, did full justice to the French-Canadian poems. In conclusion, it should be stated that, in the past, cultural relations between French Canadians and Ukrainian Canadians were almost non-existent. Books of this kind will certainly bring these two groups into greater intellectual intimacy. The most literary almanac to be published thus far in Ukrainian is that compiled by Professor Yar Slavutych of Edmonton, Alta. under the auspices of the firm SLAVUTA, established several years ago and supported by public donations. This almanac, the second of its kind, bears the title Pivnichne Siayvo (The Northern Lights, 190). The collection is an excellent compendium of both prose and poetry contributed by some forty authors. From the diversity of subjects offered we can deal only with the most distinctive. In our evaluation, the poems of Dr. Slavutych must be placed in the first rank. This poet's fame in Ukrainian literature has long been established. Both as an impressionist and symbolist, he is one of the more eminent craftsmen in his field. Having given the best of himself in his European themes, he now seeks to explore the Canadian north-west, from the prairies to the Yukon. The almanac contains some fifty items of literary value. Among them are to be found Slavutych's versions in Ukrainian of four of Shakespeare's sonnets , 18, 46, 71, and 154, and Mykola Arkas' fine translation of the first canto of Homer's Iliad. The entire fourth number of Canadian Slavonic Papers (x, 4, 408597 ) and part of the following number (XI, I, 1-144), printed for the Canadian Association of Slavists by the University of Toronto Press, are devoted to Czechoslovakia. Eleven scholars contributed a series of articles about its tragedy and related matters, as well as about eastern 452 LETTERS IN CANADA Europe as a whole. One of Dr G. Skilling's cardinal points in his article is that Alexander Duocek's action was merely to do away with the effete Stalinist system and, without departing from the Warsaw Pact or rejecting any of the communist tenets, to build a new socialist democratized state conforming to the wishes of the Czechoslovak people. There was no question of opting out of the Soviet bloc or of changing its external policy, but simply of effecting certain internal and economic changes that might contribute to the greater welfare of the state. Professor J.A. Boucek presents a historical review of what took place in the immediate past to make the invasion inevitable. An eyewitness account is given by Professor Trevor Lloyd, a scientist who was attending a convention of geologists taking place in Prague precisely at the time of the invasion, 21 August 1968. In his estimation, the Czechoslovaks are one of the best educated people of Europe and had been enjoying one of the best standards of living. It was therefore not surprising that the government in Moscow should maintain tight control over them and not allow them to slip away to the West altogether. Dr Lloyd considers the invasion a political error on Russia's part, since her military mOve not only alienated from her the Czechoslovak people and their army, but also revealed to her that Polish and Hungarian troops were unreliable. What effect this blunder had within the USSR regime is still unknown, but it may well be that Russia 'met her W aterloo On Wenceslas Square.' Being a staunch Slovak, Professor J.M. Kirschbaum tends to blame Prague for what happened in the entire land. He insists that only a small minority of the Slovak communists contributed to the conversion of Czechoslovakia to communism. According to Dr Kirschbaum, Slovakia was always treated by Prague as a poor relation. The conclusion this historian arrives at is that the present head of Czechoslovakia Gustav Husak, a Slovak himself, is used by Moscow as a threat that he could at any time create Slovakia an independent state if Prague fails to follow Kremlin orders. Dr A. Bromke's article in XI, 1 corroborates what has been mentioned in the article above. He stresses that since Dubcek did not intend to tamper with the W arsaw Pact, the military action taken by Russia discredited her, and that precisely at the time when the United States was willing to discuss with the USSR the curtailment of strategic missiles. Sooner or later, the cleavage which, he is certain, has occurred in the Kremlin will widen, and someone there will have to bear the brunt. It is difficult to assess how valid is his statement that East-West problems would have been easier to solve if the invasion had not occurred. It must be borne in mind that, regardless of what the us might have done in that case, Russia could not have permitted the Czechoslovaks to proceed on an independent path, for the other satellites would eventually have followed suit, with the effect that the entire communist political structure would have faltered. The outcome of it all, according to Dr J.e. Campbell, was that NATO had to abandon its idea of a detente and revert to 'elementary considerations of security.' There has been a change regarding Etudes slaves et est-europeennes (Slavic and East European Studies), edited by Professor T.F. Domaradzki of the University of Montreal. It has nOw joined Canadian Slavonic Papers, as a result of which subscribers to both these journals will receive five issues per year. The former periodical is written mainly in French and is published by Les Presses de l'universite Laval, Quebec. Its volume XIII, now haVing a format similar to that of esp, contains learned articles about A. Mickiewicz, N .M. Karamzin, L. Stur, and a valuable miscellanea, all of which will appeal to scholars interested in Slavic Studies. (C.H. ANDRUSYSHEN) ...

pdf

Share