Postby George Kovac » Tue May 26, 2015 9:59 am
Thanks, Slava. Revanchism, indeed.
Ukraine, among other things, demonstrates the political power of language.
I lived in Kyiv (Ukrainian spelling) in 1993, shortly after the country had declared its separation from the former Soviet Union. In the cities most everyone spoke Russian, but at that time there was a concerted effort to switch to Ukrainian, a language the residents' grandmothers still spoke back in the village in which one grew up. Over a long dinner in Kyiv, a law professor I was interviewing to hire for my firm spoke candidly of the changes happening in his country. He said folks were struggling to speak Ukrainian, and I should be patient and bear with the often clumsy effort. I had discovered that when excitable or angry, even the most conscientious Ukrainian speaker often reverted to his more familiar Russian. My colleague explained that in order to establish their separateness and independence, Ukrainians were keen to restore the Ukrainian language to its pre-Soviet primacy. I noted, by way of contrast, that Ireland (the country from which my mother's family hails), which had mainly lost its native language to England 400 years ago, was able to maintain its Irishness despite the adoption of its more powerful neighbor's language. Indeed, Irish writers became some of the most gifted writers of English, a sweet revenge. But because Ireland is an island, language was not essential to keeping that sense of separateness. Ukraine shares a long border, culture and family ties to Russia, and those factors explained why re-establishing its native language was an essential part of identifying as specifically Ukrainian, not a mere Russian region. Encouraging English speakers to drop the definite article before their country's name was part of that initiative. But Ukrainians have been less successful in getting English speakers to adopt the Ukrainian spelling and pronunciation of "Kyiv." (Almost rhymes with "heave.")
Ukrainians were also very proud to point out that Kyiv was a powerful and established culture and hegemon hundreds of years before Russia emmerged from its backwardness, and in fact, medieval Moscow was "civilized" by missionaries from Kyiv. Those conversations made me imagine chauvinistic ancient Greeks wearily insisting to visitors from the Western parts of the Roman Empire that Roman culture was essentially just a reworking (co-option?)of the older Greek culture.
(I note that I am not of Russian or Ukrainian ancestry, and I only learned a few scraps of language while there. I often mixed Russian and Ukrainian words when speaking to the amusement of the listeners, because my hosts, from whom I was learning, were not consistent in applying their new language ambitions.)
Ukraine's is a complicated history. And the heady optimism (among the younger elite, at least) of those early post-Soviet years has proved disappointing and uneven in the ensuing 25 years. It was a missed opportunity, and I am not sure how soon history will grant Ukraine a second chance. Hopefully, that time is soon.
Shortly before the violence erupted at the Maidan (my old apartment was nearby) in early 2014, and before the subsequent annexation of Crimea by Russia, I published this letter, explaining some of my thoughts on recent Ukrainian history and politics:
<<WALL STREET JOURNAL DECEMBER 20, 2013
We Should Have Been Paying More Attention to Ukraine
As someone who lived and worked in Kiev in 1993, I agree with Edward Lucas's dismal assessment of Ukraine's medium-term prospects. In the period immediately following the collapse of the Soviet Union, a yearning for integration into the economy and culture of the West was dominant among Ukrainian citizens, combined with outspoken contempt for Moscow's hegemony. One of the least appreciated of President Clinton's foreign-policy initiatives was his embrace of Ukraine. He visited the country on numerous occasions during his administration. President George W. Bush, perhaps because of his preoccupation with the more immediate threat of global terrorism, ignored Ukraine, and President Obama has been equally indifferent. America and Western Europe failed to exploit the opening that Ukraine, in all its domestic messiness, might have accepted. With President Yanukovych's diffidence in the face of Vladimir Putin's assertiveness (and the EU's shortsighted rebuff of Turkey), the West has squandered a singular opportunity to positively reshape the geopolitical landscape in a critical region of the planet.
George Kovac, Miami>>