In Defense of George G. Grabowicz’s Honor and for a Reform of Ukraine’s
National Taras Shevchenko Award
An Open Letter to the President of Ukraine, Petro Poroshenko, and Ukrainian Civil
Society
December 18, 2015
Dear Mr. President!
Dear Members of Ukrainian Civil Society!
We, the representatives of an international community of scholars, artists, and
civil society, wish to express our outmost concern regarding the instances of ideological
pressure that accompany the nomination process for the 2015 National Taras Shevchenko
Award. At the same time, we would like to call upon you to introduce in-depth reform of
the National Award with the goal of restoring trust in this recognition of distinction for
achievements in Ukrainian culture, scholarship, and art.
The inacceptable level of ideological vilification surrounding the nomination of
George G. Grabowicz, the Dmytro Chyzhevs’kyi Professor of Ukrainian Literature at
Harvard University, prompts us to voice our concern. Post-Maidan Ukrainian society that
fought for dignity, universal values, and democratic freedoms deserves a National Award
that meets international standards. Instead, the discussion is rife with accusations of “lack
of patriotism,” “anti-traditionalism,” “rampant liberalism,” and other criteria that have no
place in a serious conversation that seeks to assess quality of contribution.
The Shevchenko Award was founded in 1961 by the Council of Ministers of the
Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic with the goal to honor works that are “ideologically
highly committed and artistically outstanding” and those that “further the development
of Ukrainian Soviet literature, music, visual arts, theater, and film.” Since the Award’s
inception and to this day it was precisely the ideological side of this prize that has
outweighed the criteria of aesthetic quality and scholarly insight, which has led to an
increasing discreditation of an award that bears the name of Ukraine’s outstanding poet.
For some time now the Award has not done credit to Taras Shevchenko’s genius and has
had little influence on Ukraine’s cultural and scholarly developments.
Works by Professor Grabowicz were nominated for the Award in the category
“Literary Studies and Art History” by the Taras Shevchenko Institute of Literature at
Ukraine’s National Academy of Sciences. The current discussion surrounding George G.
Grabowicz’s nomination for the Award epitomizes the depth of the current crisis and the
level of the Award’s ideological bias.
As professor of Ukrainian literature at Harvard and president of the Shevchenko
Scientific Society in the US, George G. Grabowicz has made an invaluable contribution
to the study of Ukrainian literature and culture on the highest international level. As the
editor in chief of the journal Krytyka and Krytyka Press, he is one of the most influential
advocates of objective, balanced, and rational discussion of all the complex issues of
Ukrainian history and culture throughout history and to present day. Professor
Grabowicz’s deep and innovative works attract both young and established scholars from
all over the world to Ukrainian questions. With his works, he introduces the highest
standards of international scholarship into Ukrainian studies and serves as an
intermediary between Western and Ukrainian academia. This applies to his explorations
of Ukrainian-Polish and Ukrainian-Russian literary relations, the Jewish theme in
Ukrainian literature, his studies on many Ukrainian writers – from Ivan Vyshens’kyi to
Mykola Khvyl’ovyi and Pavlo Tychyna, – and his critical research on the colonial and
totalitarian heritage in Ukrainian literature, culture, and scholarship. Professor
Grabowicz’s research on Taras Shevchenko, to which he has devoted over 40 years of his
life, deserves particular praise.
Yet George G. Grabowicz’s advancement to the 2nd round of the competition for
the Taras Shevchenko Award provoked a series of attacks on the scholar’s persona and
his works. Representatives of right and ultra-right radical organizations, movements, and
parties (“Svoboda,” “Pravyi Sektor,” and the “Dmytro Dontsov Scientific-Ideological
Center”) as well as scholars of dubious or compromised repute who ideologically align
with these forces have launched a massive smear campaign against him. In their
published statements and appeals, these individuals and organizations resort to methods
of discrediting and destruction of the opponent that we know well from Soviet times.
Thus they tear out of context and distort his formulations and statements, and
ascribe to the scholar those ideas whose mere voicing should evoke “righteous anger”
among those who are not even familiar with the scholar or his work. Guided by their
antiquated and highly ideologically-driven conceptions of contemporary Ukrainian
society, these forces attribute to George G. Grabowicz precisely those statements and
attach those labels that, in their view, will most effectively shock Ukrainians into
believing that awarding the prize to such an individual would be inacceptable. Needless
to say, such methods are far from the principles of literary studies and research, or
impartial public debate.
Since Ukrainian civil society has not yet developed any mechanisms of effective
defense against such smear campaigns, and because Ukrainian law continues to remain
ineffective in fighting defamation, we strongly speak out in defense of the honor and
dignity of George G. Grabowicz, our colleague and a devoted friend of a democratic
Ukraine.
We call on all people of honor to join us and resolutely condemn such attacks
as inacceptable and destructive to the new Ukrainian society that seeks
democratization and riddance of the past totalitarian heritage.
We also call on you, Mr. President, for a radical reform of the National
Shevchenko Award and for the award’s decisive removal from the influence of
ideologically biased forces. To achieve effectiveness and prestige, the Award needs only
to confer the prize based exclusively on aesthetic achievements and scholarly criteria by a
committee that consists of competent and ideologically unprejudiced artists and scholars
who enjoy international recognition.
We call on all Ukrainian civil organizations and all concerned citizens of Ukraine
to counteract the smear campaign against George G. Grabowicz. We see his nomination
for the 2015 National Shevchenko Award as a unique chance to begin the Award’s
reform that has been long overdue.
We are willing to join the efforts in defining the principles of such a reform of the
National Shevchenko Award and to participate in its practical discussion.
Sincerely,
Vitaly Chernetsky
Associate Professor, Department of Slavic Languages and Literatures, University
of Kansas, USA
Director, Center for Russian, East European and Eurasian Studies, University of
Kansas, USA
President, American Association for Ukrainian Studies
Tamara Hundorova
Corresponding Member, Ukraine’s National Academy of Sciences, Professor,
Doctor of Philology
Head, Department of Literary Theory, Taras Shevchenko Institute of Literature,
Ukraine’s National Academy of Sciences
Dean, Ukrainian Free University, Munich, Germany
Mykola Riabchuk
President, Ukrainian Center of the International PEN-Club
(Collection of signatures currently in process.)
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