Jews and Ukrainians: A Millennium of Co-Existence by Paul Robert Magocsi and Yohan Petrovsky-Shtern is long-awaited book. It is unique, since it provides answers to some of the crucial questions facing all of us who work in the humanities in the twenty-first century. It makes each of us—not to mention the entire intellectual community—reflect upon the question put forth by Professor Magocsi: why is it that conflicts, wars, confrontations, and destructions attract more attention from researchers than do periods of relative well-being? Why do analysts and scholars tend to focus on such topics? Why, finally, are these topics more interesting for readers? I believe that these are questions for each of us to think about throughout our lives. When reading this book I, too, asked those questions of myself.
What Jews and Ukrainians offers us is: firstly knowledge, and secondly the possibility to overcome stereotypes through knowledge. The book tells us about the millennial history of co-existence, cooperation, empathy, and co-creation. To my mind, these phenomena can be measured in two ways.
Jews and Ukrainians provides a look at both the geopolitical and geocultural dimensions of the topic. The book talks about the history, economic life, everyday culture, language, and literature over the course of a thousand years. It is noteworthy that the life of Ukrainian and Jewish communities in both the Russian Empire and the Austro-Hungarian Empire is described synchronically. In other words, if we take the nineteenth century, what was the life of the Ukrainian community on the territory of tsarist Russia and on the territory of Austria-Hungary during the 1850s? Or, during the interwar period of the twentieth century, what changes occurred in the life of Ukrainian and Jewish communities at that time? What, for example, was the difference between the life of the Jewish community in Austrian- and later Polish-ruled Galicia (I mean central Europe, of course), and the life of the Ukrainian community in the Russian Empire and later the Soviet Union?
For me, it is this very synchronization that is unique. Such an approach allows us to go beyond certain frameworks and established practices, and it forces us to leave our comfort zones. Yet, at the same time it provokes a powerful expansion of the horizons of cognition.
The book Jews and Ukrainians reveals many aspects that I could discuss for hours on end. I wish to look at that aspect as it pertains not only to Rivne but to the Volhynia region as a whole. We know that for centuries there existed numerous small Jewish market towns called shtetls. Actually, the shtetls were a particular world defined by religion and culture that was expressed in two ways. The first was the category of humanity, an environment that allowed a person to find psychological and economic support during times of crisis or of well-being. The life of the Jewish community in the shtetls was based on three phenomena: the home, the synagogue, and the market place. The market, by the way, was not just a place to exchange goods, it was also a place of intense interaction between different peoples. This book gives extremely interesting, colorful, and very convincing depictions of ethnic interaction.
As a philologist, I cannot help but recall that this humanistic environment (so close to Ukrainian culture) was immortalized first by Sholem Aleichem and later by Vasilii Grossman, Leonid Pervomaiskyi, and other artists, who are mentioned in Jews and Ukrainians. The book rightly focusses on two key points. Much attention is given to examples of mutual support. And why should it not do this? One fact that most particularly impresses itself upon the reader is the following: the almost 800 years of Jewish and Ukrainian co-existence without conflict. That alone makes this book worthy of our attention, since it forces us to think about humanist strategies as a whole and about the quality of education in our country and the need to change its goals.
I was especially impressed with how Professors Magocsi and Petrovsky-Shtern described both the high points in the life of the Ukrainian and Jewish communities as well as the moments of tragedy and confrontation. Consider, for example, the 1920s, that albeit brief period of extremely powerful intellectual growth which Iurii Lavrinenko has called “Executed Renaissance.” That was a time when Ukrainian culture spoke to the world directly, and a time when Ukraine’s culture helped to re-create a Ukrainian collective identity.
How did that happen? There was a unique All-Ukrainian State Jewish Theatre operating in Kharkiv, where the world-class Jewish director Solomon Mikhoels worked and collaborated with the ingenious Ukrainian director Les Kurbas. This creatively fertile collaboration is something that we today should explore further. Most importantly, the 1920s represented a time when writers of Jewish origin appeared as part of Ukrainian culture. To a large extent, they made an anti-imperial choice, as the literary historian Yohanan Petrovsky-Shtern noted several decades later. Among other such writers at that time were Leonid Pervomaiskyi and Raisa Troianker. Today, another writer, Moses Fishbein, has been inspired by those very same sources.
Jews and Ukrainians is at the same time a book that deals with the greatest trials in the life of the Ukrainian and Jewish communities in the twentieth century. This was the era of the Holodomor (Great Famine) and the Shoah (Holocaust). Those of us today who believe in the stereotypical view that the Holodomor was caused by Jews—that they are to blame while the Ukrainians were the victims—are not likely to be dissuaded from their beliefs by this book. Nevertheless, Jews and Ukrainians does draw our attention to some other important matters about which I can mention only a few. The book reminds us of the figures like Vasilii Grossman and Ivan Dziuba. Grossman, whom I consider to be undeservingly underrated, was truly worthy of consideration for the Nobel Prize. He was the first to say that the death of Ukrainian children during the Holodomor is as much a tragedy as the death of Jewish children during the Holocaust. And it was Ivan Dziuba who at a Babyn Yar commemoration pronounced the prophetic words: “Let Ukrainians learn about Jewish culture, and let Jews learn about Ukrainian culture.” Professors Magocsi and Petrovsky-Shtern provide in their book many such parallels among several other influential figures.
Speaking of parallels, I cannot help but draw your attention to yet another exceptional study, the recently published book by an American journalist-historian and Pulitzer Prize winner, Anne Applebaum—Red Famine: Stalin’s War on Ukraine. To my mind this is the most powerful study that has appeared during the last half century of studying the Holodomor. Particularly impressive is how the author Anne Applebaum carefully presents the stories of Jews saving Ukrainians during the Holodomor. We could also speak about examples of mutual help, cooperation, and humanity during the Holocaust. That is precisely what is lacking in most of the existing historical literature: examples of humanity, kindness, and overcoming the forces of evil. Fortunately, these qualities are what the book Jews and Ukrainians teaches us.
I am convinced that with Jews and Ukrainians Professors Magocsi and Petrovsky-Shtern have made a giant step toward helping us be stronger than the forces of evil and hatred. I would disagree what the authors say toward the end: that “this book cannot overcome the abyss of loneliness.” I also thought of these words, and I feel very grateful for the image of an abyss, which is profoundly important for me as a philologist. So what is it, this abyss of loneliness? Where does it start? Well, it starts where there is lack of knowledge, where we feel comfortable in our stereotypes, and where the language of hatred, hostility, and the need for an enemy is our only resource. It seems to me, however, that the book Jews and Ukrainians provides us with liberation from our solitude. That is truly a unique achievement.
Finally, to my second key point. When reading Jews and Ukrainians I reflected on how others would understand the book? It was especially interesting for me to apply the book’s descriptions to the experience of a specific territory, let us say Rivne and the region around it. I was reminded about how little we know about our own region. Would we be able to write the same millennial history of co-existence in our particular region?
Jews and Ukrainians also reminds us of the fascinating topic of writers and the phenomenon of multiple languages. For example, the Jewish authors Joseph Roth wrote in German, Bruno Schulz wrote in Polish, and Ilya Ehrenburg wrote in Russian. In other words, Jewish literature is multilingual. I, too, have been advocating the same conceptual understanding of Ukrainian literature. Alas, the reaction of my academic colleagues frequently takes the form of fierce resistance, but please hear me out. Ukrainian literature is multilingual, Ukrainian literature is Polish-language literature, German-language literature, Russian-language literature as well as Ukrainian-language literature. It is true that such an understanding is somewhat unconventional. The book by Professors Magocsi and Petrovsky-Shtern clearly reminds us of the value of looking at our history through the polyphony of languages and cultures. This is a chance to see ourselves in other people.
The existence of the Canadian-based organization, the Ukrainian Jewish Encounter, is of great significance. Why? Because the Ukrainian Jewish Encounter embodies, in fact, an encounter throughout an entire millennium. This is the kind of interaction that we need so much. Aside from the past, the Ukrainian Jewish Encounter allows us to look into the future in a new way.
In the end, the basic thrust of the book by Professors Magocsi and Petrovsky-Shtern is that it is aimed at the future. Its intention is not to preach to anyone. Yet it does extend the horizons of cognition as well as our own personal horizons. For this we are all deeply grateful to the distinguished authors and their sponsors, the Ukrainian Jewish Encounter.
