Publications in Other Languages

PUBLICATIONS IN OTHER LANGUAGES 497 dividual, though the concluding section, 'Parliamentary Revue: where there is no text at all, suggests a wider context for the estimation of folly than a dispassionate observer might think the earlier sections justify. (But is there a dispassionate observer of, or in, the House?) The methods of presentation vary from inter-cut cartoon and balloon sequences (for question period), through reset and illustrated Hansard passages and biographically captioned distillations of Ministers of the Crown, to straightforward citations of procedural rules. All in all, the imaginative conception and presentation, and the excellent drawings, deserve more praise than do the evidence and the implied argument. But, nonetheless, more power to the scissors-and-pen technique; as we say in found art, losers weepers. (JOHN M. ROBSON) PUBLICATIONS IN OTHER LANGUAGES Now that bilingualism and biculturalism have become firmly established in Canada, her ethnic groups, especially the Ukrainians, begin to seek their proper place among the English and French founding nations. This they do, in the first place, by publication of books in which their material and spiritual culture reveals their contribution not only to Canada but to the world at large. If Ukrainians are mentioned here specifically, it is because they have not as yet become assimilated to the extent that their fellow-citizens of various national backgrounds have become. Regardless of the fact that most of them consider themselves Canadian first and foremost , they continue to preserve the culture of their forefathers by means of their Old Country manners, customs, folklore, and particularly by constantly producing a goodly number of literary works in which their individual thoughts and the sequence of their communal life are recorded. By preserving that which is their own and incorporating into it that which others have to offer, they help to present to the world the mosaic nation that Canada actually is. While seeking to understand others, they themselves seek that others understand them. And t1lat they accomplish to some degree by writing about their past and present. In that manner all ethnic groups in Canada bring themselves more closely together and strengthen the bonds that unite them into one solid and powerful state. The previous year was distinguished in Ukrainian and world literature by the 250th anniversary of the birth of the greatest eastern European 498 LEITERS IN CANADA philosopher, Hryhory Skovoroda (1722-94). Although this event was given ample prominence in many Ukrainian journals and periodicals, there appeared no book to summarize the philosophical, theological, poetical, and fictional writings of this eminent eighteenth-century humanist. Lesser or greater accounts of his life and works, however, were given in certain almanacs, the most important of them being that of the Ukrainian VDice (Trident Press, Winnipeg, 190 pp). There, a fine article on this author was written by Petro Royenko. Skovoroda was born into an ordinary peasant family of Cossack stock. His entire boyhood was spent in direct contact with Nature, which inspired in him introspective, religious moods. At the age of six he could read the Psalms and liturgical books and, mostly by self-teaching, progressed so rapidly that he was SOOn sent to the Kiev Academy whose curriculum was then thoroughly scholastic. As a result, Skovoroda's philosophy became Platonic and his method of teaching Socratic. In fact, he was always called, and still is, the 'Ukrainian Socrates.' 'Know yourself ' was his chief tenet. He was offered opportunities to teach at the Kiev and Kharkiv Academies. For a few brief periods he did so, but preferred the life of an itinerant philosopher who entered the homes of the rich and the poor in order to teach all those with whom he came in contact how to find true peace of mind and soul. According to Skovoroda, man is the measure of all things. His heart is the abode of God himself, who is Nature in its entirety. Hence man is the microcosm of God's macrocosm, both being the same. From this conception stems this philosopher's paradox of 'unequal equality' which is rationalized by him in the following manner: 'In God's sight all men are equal, but among themselves they are unequal, because they do not equally...