Titus HEWRYK: “Do Ukrainians expect to achieve European living standards by waving red flags?”

Below is an interview with Titus Hewryk, who is well known to readers of The Day . He is a full member of the New York-based Ukrainian Free Academy of Sciences, full member and chairman of the art research section of the Shevchenko Scientific Society in the US, a well-known architect and historian of architecture, former chief architect at the University of Pennsylvania (Philadelphia, USA), and a US citizen. Today he lives in Kyiv, where he is an advisor to the well-known project Art Arsenal. Titus Hewryk and his wife Sofia are closely monitoring the political (or pseudopolitical?) events that are tearing Ukraine apart.

What do you think were the real, not just declared, causes of the protracted political face-off in Ukraine?

“I will begin by saying that it is very difficult to answer your question, i.e., to describe the roots of the current political situation in Ukraine, although we have been in Kyiv for several months and are closely watching everything that is going on. It is next to impossible to be an impartial observer: logic and emotions are constantly being intertwined. But in any case, one can say that the current situation arose out of Yanukovych’s desire for revenge and his lust for power on the one hand, and Yushchenko’s inept governmental policies, on the other. But where is all this coming from? On reflection, I have formulated the following ideas:

1) The Bolsheviks did manage to achieve their goal: not all the residents of Ukraine feel that they belong to the Ukrainian people. The never-ending famines, the Holodomor, forced resettlements, extermination of the intellectual elite, terror, deportations, and unjustifiably heavy war tolls are the disasters that seem to have broken the nation’s backbone.

“Today this is creating such truly absurd problems as the choice between ‘Europe and Eurasia,’ ‘democracy and a strong hand,’ etc. At the same time, everybody craves for ‘European-style renovations,’ everyone goes to ‘German dry- cleaners,’ buys European kitchen appliances, slips into blue jeans, races around in Western cars, everyone wants to live ‘like a European,’ and vacation in Europe. Nobody ever says that they want to live ‘like a Russian’ or ‘like a Chechen!’ Yet, almost everyone is against the EU and NATO. My question is: do Ukrainians really expect to achieve European living standards by waving red flags?

“Maybe, the current behavior of Ukrainians results from the fact that thinking and having a personal opinion was looked down upon in the Soviet era. Or maybe this is just the old peculiar Ukrainian mentality of passivity (‘I’m staying out of this’) like in the days of the battles at Kruty?

2) Taking into account the statements by Putin and the Patriarch of Moscow, one cannot help emphasizing the importance of the native language. Meanwhile, the media (e.g., Dzerkalo tyzhnia of April 28, 2007) report that 38 percent of Ukrainians speak Ukrainian, 39.2 percent speak Russian, and 22.6 percent speak a Ukrainian-Russian pidgin. Moreover, in the past 12 years the number of Russian-speaking Ukrainians has edged out Ukrainian-speaking Ukrainians. Why? And what will this lead to? Some people say that the Ukrainian linguistic situation is very similar to the one in Estonia. But only 50 percent of Estonia’s potential fifth column enjoys Estonian citizenship, while in Ukraine these kinds of people account for 100 percent!

“Or maybe the future of Ukraine should only be associated with the areas where people speak Ukrainian or consider it their mother tongue? Maybe Ukrainians ought to follow the example of Finland, which decided at a certain historical moment to cede part of its territory to the aggressor and thus save the nation?

3) Our people not only suffered during the evil Bolshevik times; they also lost their moral values. Nobody believes anybody: cynicism is king. They have also lost the spirit of initiative and conscientious work. Yet when these same Ukrainians go abroad, they know how to build a new life and often make their way up in the foreign environment. Why is that?

“Right now, many people feel that everyone was almost equal (or so it was presumed) in the now defunct USSR. But today there is an abnormally wide chasm between the rich (‘elite’) and ordinary, poor people. Everybody can see this because the abyss is in plain view: television commercials, the windows of the most expensive urban stores, etc. This raises the question of how the poor react: do they feel that their moral principle have been betrayed or do they simply envy?

“We have understood very well in Kyiv that it is too little to declare your good intentions — you have to know how to build, you need energy and a businesslike spirit. The only comfort is that there are a lot of creative people in this country, as well as such noble projects as the A-Ba-Ba- Ha-La-Ma-Ha publishing house, the Hlodos Competition, Kyiv Mohyla Academy, the Art Gallery, Viktor Pinchuk scholarships, the newspaper Den/The Day, and the scholarships at Ostroh Academy, etc.

4) Many of those who are considered the current leaders of Ukraine quite often do not think or act like citizens of Ukraine. Moreover, they are staunch followers of the Bolshevik- era denationalized and Russo-oriented nomenklatura. They don’t care about Ukraine: they only care about financial resources for which they are constantly fighting.

“Nobody in this country shows long-term thinking, so to speak. And rightly so! Twenty years from now, all the oligarchs, their regional henchmen, their children and their capital will be in the West, not in Ukraine. The ordinary people are just being ‘had’ and manipulated. We pity the Donbas people because fate decreed that they defend the leaders who cheat and fleece them. My wife Sofia and I once walked through Yanukovych’s ‘army,’ a white-and-blue passive crowd standing on Independence Square. And although we had a little orange flag in our hands, nobody said anything to us or even gave us a hostile look — the demonstrators were passive, exhausted, and indifferent.

“What always shocks us is the behavior of some Russians in Ukraine, i.e., their attitude to Ukrainians, the Ukrainian language and culture. More often than not, these people take all pro-Ukrainian things as something anti-Russian. Some Russians still consider themselves masters of the country, as do their compatriots in Estonia. This behavior resembles the conduct of the British in colonial India. On the contrary, I have never come across this in the US, although we have people of various ethnic origins and different attitudes. My wife, children and I lived for 30 years in a city neighborhood heavily populated by blacks. Our closest neighbors were a black family, and blacks also worked in my office. But in spite of various problems that existed between blacks and whites, I never saw the kind of prejudice that some Russians show.

“Even more shocking is the behavior of Ukrainians: their passivity (or is it caution?), lack of energy, and businesslike spirit. For example, do Ukrainians show an adequate and open reaction to Dmytro Tabachnyk’s xenophobia or the manifestations of Russian fascism in the speeches of Natalia Vitrenko? Let me give some examples for the sake of comparison.

“There are no monuments to Adolf Hitler and his satraps in Germany. Moreover, it is unthinkable that someone would insist on keeping a monument to Hitler on Berlin’s main street on the pretext that it is a work of art. Nor can one imagine a statue of Hitler, a high-quality piece made by a German artist, being exhibited in Israel. But this exists in Ukraine, where the party of Lenin and Stalin brought about the Holodomor. Moreover, Ukrainians are being successfully persuaded that it is necessary to leave these statues of public enemies alone because they are art! This is why there is still a street in Kyiv named after Pavel Postyshev, a Russian Bolshevik who masterminded the Holodomor in Ukraine. I hope very much that sooner or later, on the place in Besarabka where a statue of the blood-thirsty Lenin is now standing, the people of Kyiv will erect a monument to their compatriots whom the Nazis hanged there during the German occupation of Kyiv in 1941-43.”

Does the practice of organizing a long-term ‘political vigil’ by a large, inert mass of people in the center of the capital exist elsewhere — a vigil that is remunerated well by our standards? We saw the poorest Ukrainian job-seekers, not citizens of Ukraine, on Independence Square.

“When one says ‘vigil,’ I can only imagine a vigil for a cause, not for money. It is especially difficult to accept the fact that children and teenagers have been brought from Odesa to Kyiv for a ‘face-off’ and then these children get into a road accident. The government does not bring to justice those who talk children into skipping school. And on top of it, the public and the press do not resent or duly condemn these punishable actions.

“I learned what a short ‘vigil’ is during my student years. I remember the day when I cut my university classes and, despite my father’s ban, stood all day long on the barricades in front of the United Nations building in Manhattan, shouting ‘Murderer!’ This is how I ‘greeted’ Nikita Khrushchev on his visit to the UN. Later, my friends and I took part almost every year in processions or marches down Manhattan’s main thoroughfare, marking the great Ukrainian famine this way. This usually occurred on weekends, and I must admit that very few people paid any attention to our march. My fellow students were protesting against the Vietnam War. There were more and more manifestations of this kind of discontent, but I can’t recall any 24-hour-long protest actions. There may have been such prolonged ‘vigils’ in Washington, though. Today, too, there are endless demonstrations in America — against the war in Iraq, for equal rights for women, blacks, the disabled, immigrants, etc.

“Election campaigns are also accompanied by rallies, where candidates rally people to vote for them. None of my friends pay any attention to these rallies because it is a waste of time. It is much more important to trace the past behavior of candidates and vote accordingly.”

Do you think our media, especially TV, adequately cover what is going on in Ukraine? To what extent do the content and tone of programs reflect the basic needs of society?

“It is astonishing that the press, television ‘debates,’ and even parliament almost never discuss ways of solving such key problems as...”

Education, morality, behavioral ethics...

“Medical care, social security, the mortality rate.”

Environmental pollution, potable water, rural sewerage, etc.

“Drugs, alcoholism, and smoking among children and young people.”

AIDS.

“Tuberculosis.”

The long-term forecast predicting that the population of Ukraine will fall to 25 million by 2050.

“Energy-saving technologies and alternative sources of energy.”

The countryside, the needs of rural cooperatives.

“...as well as the fact that Ukraine is one of the biggest sources of foreign slave labor, a fact that is always discussed in the world press.

“In general, the lack of public debates on the most important and most painful problems of society shows a lack of interest in improving the country’s well-being. Some politicians may be pondering these issues, but the country’s overall political culture is not interested in these problems. Nobody is beating the drums!”

Do you agree that the current political ‘barricades’ are being run — on both sides — by similar people who are vying for the right to exercise unrestricted control over our national resources? Or does this always occur in election periods, albeit in different forms?

“The desire to manage Ukraine’s resources is not an original idea, but greed and a lack of a sense of proportion on the part of the Ukrainian ‘elite’ — now that’s truly unique. In the past few years I have noticed some signs of this kind of greed in the US, too, but in that country the ordinary man is not as poor as in Ukraine and, besides, he knows how to learn the lessons of the past and react accordingly. That is why from time to time highly- placed people are sent to prison in the US.”

To what extent are you sure that the ‘pro-presidential’ forces will really be able to come to terms for a longer period of time? Or, as usual, will this ‘alliance’ only last until the next conflict? What can help the pro-Western side achieve real unity?

“This is a very painful problem because it is closely tied to the failure to understand such things as ‘who I am’ and ‘what happened in the 20th century’ as well as to a lack of sociopolitical education in the past decades. Maybe the continuation (or deterioration) of the current inadequate rule and the coming of a new West/Europe-oriented generation will be able to change the situation.”

Will the year 2012 affect the Art Arsenal? Will at least something be done as part of this project before 2012?

“The Art Arsenal may be regarded as an illustration or symbol of Ukraine’s present circumstances. My impression is that a carefully-orchestrated and secret war is being conducted against the Arsenal and the new exhibit at the Shevchenko Museum. I have a lot of sad and mixed feelings about the Art Arsenal. My observations in the past few months have made me rather skeptical about the successful completion of this project. But Arsenal is a major subject that deserves a special discussion.”

I know that you and your wife recently visited places that are dear to your hearts — where you were born and where your family and ancestors are buried. What were your impressions from this pilgrimage?

“You are right: we fulfilled one of our long-standing wishes. Our three sons, daughter-in-law, and two granddaughters came from the States to see us. All of us went to visit our ancestors: my wife Sofia was born in Lviv and I was born in Drohobych. This was perhaps the last opportunity for Sofia and me to pray, together with our sons, on the graves of our family members.

“In Drohobych we visited the graves of my grandfather and grandmother, great-grandfather and great- grandmother, ancestors of the Hewryks and the Kushnirs, as well as the houses where my father and I were born, the building where there once was a court in which my father used to defend his fellow countrymen from Polish justice, and the monument to a close relative, Hero of the Soviet Union Hryhorii Hewryk. The city has an 11th-century Rus’ defense tower, a 14th-15th-century Catholic church, two mid-17th-century outstanding monuments of wood architecture, some very good mansions from the turn of the 20th century, and Galicia’s largest synagogue. The synagogue is in bad shape. In Lviv, as you know, five days are not enough to see everything.

“In far-off America, my father used to tell me about his native city. I remember Dad saying that during World War I a lot of Turkish soldiers, who were fighting on the Austrian- German side, were killed in action and buried at a newly-built cemetery on the outskirts, past the old tower. There is some Turkish blood in our family. Dad told me that after the war, under Polish rule, people used to come from Turkey to visit their relatives buried at the Turkish cemetery in Drohobych. Last week I also visited this place. The cemetery is gone, and there are plans to build cottages on the waste ground. Standing by the demolished graveyard, I couldn’t help recalling our first trip to Lviv in 1967, when Sofia and I saw and photographed the destruction of the Sich Riflemen’s graves at a Lviv cemetery. I also recalled statements made recently by Putin and the mayors of Kharkiv and Poltava.

“In my native Drohobych and in Lviv, our sons and I were again stunned by the barbarian policies of the Soviet regime — not only towards cemeteries but also any vestiges of our nation’s past, the monuments of architecture, and our identity. These are not royal palaces, but they are our treasures!”