Courage and Fear by Ola Hnatiuk (review)

Ola Hnatiuk's ambitious Courage and Fear addresses the experience of L'viv (Lwów, Lemberg) during World War Two, covering the first 1939 Soviet occupation, the subsequent 1941 German occupation, and the post-1944 Soviet liberation, the de facto third occupation. The narrative extends from the 1930s onto Soviet rule up to 1956. This history emerges through the lens of the ethnically trifold population of Poles, Ukrainians, and Jews. However, the methodology does not adhere to the customary historical approach of establishing insights through factual research and aiming at solidly-grounded conclusions; rather, the atrocious occupations, the Holocaust, mass reprisals, and deportations that L'viv witnessed emerge through the personal narratives of scientists, scholars, artists, and other men and women of letters from each minority. Because of their prominence and common interests, such individuals necessarily interacted with each other; they also directly bore the consequences of historical upheaval and political outcomes. The micro-historical approach constructs a complex, constantly changing, kaleidoscopic mosaic of human relationships under the circumstances of relentless terror, both Soviet and German.

To produce this intricate picture of behaviors, attitudes, and worldviews under duress, the author mastered an enormous range of ego-documents: diaries, speeches, letters, and testimonies. The author is attuned to the ongoing debates over the merits of personal documentation of historical events, but the immense quantity of archival material that Hnatiuk analyzes warrants the authenticity of the image that emerges. The author highlights the authenticity of real-time writings over "those penned many decades later" (p. 76). All this takes space: three hundred and fifty pages of text are followed by more than eighty of appendices, including a fifty-page names index. The methodological approach makes reading Courage and Fear a challenge.

Since I am reviewing the English-language translation, it is only fair to note that following life narratives of so many people with names that are not necessarily familiar to American readers is not easy. Indeed, the narrative method presents an even more significant problem to all readers, including those of the original edition. The author is aware of the problem, acknowledging that, "the narrative does not follow … simple chronological lines [which] would make for easier reading. Instead of linear narrative structure … I relied on nested storytelling" (p. xvi). For this reason, the lives discussed intersect in various constellations; many disappear only to reappear in subsequent discussions of different themes, varied groups, or other circumstances.

The chapter Ukrainian Hamlet gives a sense of the convoluted construction of the book and the lessons it communicates. The chapter is built around Mykhailo Rudnytsky, a Ukrainian-Jewish intellectual, scholar, and journalist whose translation of Hamlet into Ukrainian was staged in 1943 under the Germans. The story of this quite improbable event, however, appears very late in the chapter. Starting with Rudnytsky's biography, the narrative shifts to the Soviet occupation and the Marxist-Leninist ideology imposed on L'viv's intelligentsia, which had little choice but to conform. The practice of denunciations flourished, and many Polish and Ukrainian writers vanished without a trace. The author emphasizes the propagandist celebrations of famous Polish, Ukrainian, and Jewish artists that were intended to emphasize the "brotherly" relations of different ethnicities under Soviet rule. The celebrations of Polish bard Adam Mickiewicz and Ukrainian bard Taras Shevchenko (along with others) receive detailed descriptions. The arrival of the Germans, which was preceded by the Soviet murders of political prisoners, inaugurated the extermination of almost the entire Jewish population. The enthusiastic welcome of the Germans by many Ukrainians (following years of Polish and then Soviet oppression) ended in disappointment, as their hopes for independence were not fulfilled.

Only sixty-nine pages into the chapter does the story of Hamlet's performance begin, raising the question, "how was it possible to legally stage Hamlet in Ukrainian during the Nazi occupation, and if this were not enough, to use a translation prepared by someone with Jewish roots?" (p. 369...