--- On Thu, 8/7/08, Wojtek Sokolowski <swsokolowski at yahoo.com> wrote:
>
>
> AFAIK, there was great deal of social interaction and
> intermarriages in Eastern Europe among the ethnic grouops
> living there - Slavs of various stripes, Jews, Tartars,
> Ugro-Fins, Germans, etc. Far greater than the level of
> social interaction between, say, Brits and the peoples they
> colonised (British colonists seemed to be particularly
> resitant to the idea of intermingling with the colonised
> peoples, far more so than Spanish or Portuguese colonists).
> Or for that matter, greater than the incidence inter-racial
> mariages in the US, including the, oh so enlightened, North.
>
> Wojtek
I almost mentioned this a while ao when somebody casually asserted that the reason Jews in Eastern Europe look like Eastern Europeans is that they were raped, promptly causing me to sign inwardly. "oh, lord....". This just might have more to do with the several centuries of INTERMARRIAGE between Jews and Eastern Europeans than the occasional goy rapist.
You might appreciate this op-ed from the Kyiv Post (English-language newspaper in Ukraine) from a few years ago. The subject is the Ukrainian Diaspora, but much of what it says is applicable to many others.
How The Diaspora Can Be Effective: Some Notes
Opinion: By Andrey Slivka, Kyiv Post Chief Editor Kyiv Post, Kyiv, Ukraine, Feb 18, 2004
On the U.S.-based Ukrainian Diaspora Web site Brama.com. I found posted the following letter, which crystallized a range of Diaspora attitudes about Ukraine. It was about Kyiv and its mayor, Oleksandr Omelchenko, and read:
"Omelchenko is no sweetie hero - the Diaspora should not forget that the mayor is one of those Kuchmists who tremendously abused his public office during the last mayoral elections...
"The curbs of the 'European' downtown Kyiv are full of parked cars... The 'European' and 'national' Maidan Nezalezhnosti subpassage is full of drinking, smoking, and drug-using youth...
"Tens of homeless people are begging inside the Maidan subpassage - flower merchants kick strangers as they pass by. Stray dogs are hovering around. Clouds of tobacco smoke fill anyone's dress with a harsh smell. This is the true 'revived,' 'modern,' and 'European' Omelchenko's Khreschatyk!
"The police (sorry, militia!) could clear the place with little effort, but they are busy collecting illegal cash fees..."
Most of that isn't true, of course. Downtown's sidewalks aren't overwhelmed by parked cars. Nor is the Maidan subpassage a pit of hooliganism. Kids smoke and drink there, but no one's "ravaging" or "aggressive." As a jogger, I've had my disagreements with Kyiv's stray dogs, but they're an ancient local issue that my native Ukrainian acquaintances hardly notice. There are no more beggars in Kyiv than in any capital. And I've never heard of anyone being kicked by a flower vendor.
Yet the seething letter expresses the Diaspora's disappointment with contemporary Ukrainian reality. In 1991 the walls came down, and what the Diaspora - of which I'm a member - saw wasn't all good. Ukraine should have been full of smiling peasants in native dress and with copies of Shevchenko under their arms, all of them ready to break out into nationalist anthems and rustic dance.
More, they should have been full of gratitude to their Diasporan brethren, who, they ought to have known, had kept Ukrainian identity alive during the Soviet era. Instead, while they've had their successes since 1991, native Ukrainians have had to deal with a lot of messes and troubles.
In other words, by ex-Soviet standards, they're typical. They get by, and their kids smoke and drink beer. But "typical" was not what the Diaspora had been taught to expect in the Ukrainian weekend schools of the East Village, of New Jersey, of suburban Philadelphia and Edmonton, and elsewhere.
The Ukrainian immigrant community's inability to engage Ukraine is remarkable. It's got to the point where "Diaspora" is often pronounced in Kyiv with a roll of the eyes. Diasporans are those aggressive people on Andrivsky Uzviz in embroidered shirts native Ukrainians never wear; they're to be avoided.
This is a problem, because Ukraine could use the sort of help well-meaning and relatively wealthy foreigners could provide. Toward improving Diaspora-native Ukrainian relations, I've compiled a list of points I think Diasporans might keep in mind as they interrelate with what they consider their spiritual homeland.
1. We're not Ukrainian. Not really. What we are are Americans, or Canadians, or Aussies, of Ukrainian descent. Or, more accurately, of Galician descent, meaning we're from a region that's not typical of Ukraine. Many of us are technically from Poland. We speak a heavily Polonized, antique Galician variant of Ukrainian. When I tell them my ancestral history, some native Ukrainians innocently respond: "Oh, so you're Polish."
Also, we didn't stay in the USSR and suffer. We spent the Soviet years in the West. The point is that we're both cultural outsiders and lacking the moral authority required to dictate terms to Ukrainians. Humility is called for.
2. Russian is an indigenous language of Ukraine. Ukrainians have a variety of nuanced attitudes toward Russian, but pure resentment isn't one of them. The language issue will not play here.
3. Ukrainians haven't declined in character since the 1940s. This goes back to the Diasporan view of pre-Soviet Galicia as a rustic Eden. Contemporary Ukrainians, it's thought, lack the mettle the old Diaspora generations had. They don't like to work, the idea goes. This is a very false perception.
4. The Famine and the Russians. There's nothing to be gained from the tenacious Diaspora conviction that the Famine was an expression of a Russian desire to exterminate the Ukrainian people, Nazi-style. It's not even true.
The Famine was an act of Stalinist savagery. Russians view Ukrainians as their bumpkin country cousins, who have no business trying to rule themselves. No one wants to exterminate their bumpkin country cousins.
Native Ukrainians won't listen to someone tell them that Russians view them like the Nazis viewed the Jews (or the Ukrainians). They don't see that; it insults their view of the world.
5. Kuchma isn't Satan. He's your typical post-Soviet strongman, situated somewhere on the continuum between Russia's Putin and Belarus' Lukashenko. Actually, he might be better than Putin. Diasporans should try not to be more outraged by him than actual Ukrainians are.
Conversely, Viktor Yushchenko isn't perfect. On the fringes of Our Ukraine you'll find enough louche figures, flirting with unpleasant rightist politics, to give a responsible person pause.
6. Symbolic politics are no longer important. They were in the Breschnev era. They're not anymore. Ukraine is now a real country. It needs less new Shevchenko monuments and more specialists in insurance, biotechnology, finance, television production, etc.
The Diaspora still specializes in symbolic gestures. Sending to Kyiv youth dance troupes from Connecticut isn't much use now. Besides, it can be misunderstood here as act of condescension: "This is how you Ukrainians are supposed to dance." Kids from Connecticut, if they want to help, should specialize in HIV science in college. And learn Russian.
7. Diaspora issues are not important. Last summer, Kyiv witnessed a contretemps when the World Congress of Ukrainians, a Diaspora group, was cheated by the Presidential Administration. The latter, at the last minute, reneged on a deal to lease the Ukraine House to the WCU for the group's annual meeting. It was a dirty trick on the PA's part, obviously designed to harass an organization sympathetic to the opposition.
The PA's treatment of the WCU has become a minor Diaspora cause celebre. There have been demands that PA head Viktor Medvedchuk resign over the incident. But in fact, of the 1,000 reasons Medvedchuk should resign, swindling the Diaspora is the 1,001st. Given what's going on in Ukraine right now, it's relatively unimportant. Again, humility is called for.
8. Think small. We should forget demanding meetings with President Kuchma or Medvedchuk, or holding summits with Yushchenko. (In the latter case we might be doing him more harm than good, since even anti-Kuchma Ukrainians don't like the idea of a politician being steered by foreign nationals.)
Instead, we should pay attention to Ukrainian life as it's lived on the ground. Is there a school library in Donetsk that lacks books? Then buy the books, even if they're in Russian. Is someone suffering from multiple sclerosis in Lviv who would benefit from western treatment? Provide it for them. Does a youth hockey program in Chernivtsi lack equipment? Donate it. Is there a chair in, say, French literature at Shevchenko University? Establish it.
True, the Diaspora has done this sort of thing before. Witness all the fine Chornobyl relief work it's done. But then, Chornobyl relief is inherently political: "Let's help fix the disaster those Russians made." The point is to help out, to build civil society, in all the quiet, gentle, humble ways.
9. Be a good guest. This is what all the above comes down to. We're in someone else's house here. We're far, far from home. Let's try not to talk too loud, or offend the hosts, or tear the curtains. Otherwise, we do more harm than good.