"Double Palimpsest" Katarzyna Kotyńska

“Ukraiński palimpsest. Oksana Zabużko w rozmowie z Izą Chruślińską” (Ukrainian Palimpsest. Oksana Zabuzhko in conversation with Iza Chruślińska) Kolegium Europy Wschodniej im. Jana Nowaka-Jeziorańskiego, Wrocław 2013.

Iza Chruślińska conducts her extended interview with Oksana Zabuzhko in a manner that seems typical of the genre: she starts off with the poet’s personal background, she investigates her generational models, and she asks her about her roots, predecessors, spiritual masters. Uncharacteristically, however, the Polish reader is thrown in at the deep end in the very first chapter of the book. Pastoral culture, which seems familiar and has been conventionally perceived as uncomplicated, turns out to be rich in deep intellectual discourse, teeming with the names of clearly outstanding people, who have been completely unknown here in Poland, such as the extraordinary selftaught artist Kateryna Vasylivna Bilokur, or the brilliant essayist and literary historian George Yurii Shevelov (Schneider). Incidentally, a selection of his writings has just been published by the karta Centre (in KARTA Quarterly, 75, 2013), who are considering publishing an individual volume of his essays; we should concur with Zabuzhko’s opinion that the time has come to do it.

By all means, “Ukraiński Palimpsest” is not the first Polish presentation of a Ukrainian’s intellectual reflection on the history and culture of Ukraine – due to the efforts of many translators, journalists, and publishers, we can boast a considerable “Ukrainian library”, which presents the modern narratives: the list of the most important authors, whose works have been published in Polish as separate volumes, includes Yaroslav Hrytsak, Mykola Riabchuk, and Natalya Yakovenko. This book, however, is the first ever in Poland to offer a story about modern Ukrainian culture as seen “from the inside”, while at the same time focusing on its development trends. The editors have made it easy for us to orient ourselves in the abundance of facts by supplementing the interview with precise footnotes, although some inconsistencies with regard to the spelling of Ukrainian names and their Polish transcription may be slightly confusing.

The nature of this palimpsest is indeed two‑fold. On one hand, from the Ukrainian point of view, we have an effort to recreate the genealogy of Ukrainian culture, described by Oksana Zabuzhko through her own investigation. On the other hand, the book may serve as a new Polish guidebook to rediscovering Ukraine, a guidebook to the indispensable and potentially creative process of penetrating the layers of common stereotypes, yet they appear false.

In his introduction, Adam Michnik rightly points out that Oksana Zabuzhko sometimes speaks in a didactic manner, and sometimes she convolutedly evades giving an unequivocal answer to the questions regarding controversial issues in the history of both nations. All typical of Zabuzhko’s emotionality, solemnity, and poignancy aside, it is worth remembering that this Ukrainian intellectual’s attitude towards Polish‑Ukrainian issues (including the most vexing ones, such as Volhynia or the battle of Lemberg) expressed in the book is not exclusively hers. Ukrainians see many things in a different light; they paint many images, for example, the culture and science of interwar Lviv, in different colours, and they place emphasis on different aspects of a problem.
We ought to talk. Life is pointless if we do not discuss things. We can never have too many good, thought‑provoking books on Ukraine – Poland’s largest neighbour. Because, in order to talk rather than to outshout each other, we need to listen to each other very carefully. Iza Chruślińska’s book that took her a year to write offers another point of view on the subject matter. It is worthwhile spending a couple of hours and dealing with the Ukrainians’ vision of themselves, of the Polish people, of Europe as a cultural reference point, as well as of many other things.

And we Ukrainists, tired of endlessly answering the same questions (“Is there anything interesting in this culture at all?”, “Is Ukrainian really differ‑ ent from Russian”), will again sigh for Galileo: “The world is turning, after all, is it not?”.

Translated from the Polish by Paweł Łopatka

Katarzyna Kotyńska – research associate at the Institute of Slavic Studies of the Polish Academy of Sciences, translator of Ukrainian literature, Ukrainianist, literary scholar. She is the winner of the Angelus Central European Literary Award for translating Oksana Zabuzhko's novel „The Museum of Abandoned Secrets” (2013). She published the book " Lwów: o odczytywaniu miasta na nowo” [Lviv: on reading the city anew, 2015]