Set the record straight

Ignatieff is correct in saying these comments are taken out of context, and that they were made in an ironic way to point out stereotypes Russians had about Ukrainians that he set out to challenge. Following the first of three meetings he had with Ukrainian community leaders in the major centres of Ukrainian Canadian community life, this one in Edmonton on Feb. 27, I had the opportunity to conduct a 10-minute face-to-face interview with him and asked him about that issue directly. "I think there are things that I wish I had said better because they created a misunderstanding," he replied, adding: "What I discovered was that some of the formulations I used in 1992 were misunderstood and if I gave offence, I can only apologize and express my regret."

He repeated that message at later meetings in Winnipeg, March 20, and Toronto May 8, and stressed his support for Ukraine's independent statehood and security (which he also did in the book), and the need for Russians to come to grips with their own history, in particular Stalin's crimes against humanity.

But what Ignatieff failed to do was to specifically rebut those harmful stereotypes he cited in his exercise -- namely, the references to "Great Russians," "little Russians" and "nasty anti-Semites." And this is something he must do if wants to get this albatross off his neck and bury it once and for all.

These terms are not only false, they are also grossly insulting to Ukrainians.

First, no Ukrainian would ever call a Russian a "Great Russian."

"Muscovite" would be far more likely. Great Russian is a name Tsarist Russian imperialists decided to give themselves when Peter the Great renamed Muscovy as Russia, intending to usurp the legacy of Kyivan Rus -- the original Ukrainian state. The purpose was to deny Ukrainians their own national identity, relegating them to the role of an inferior "little Russian" branch of the "Great Russian" nation. As such, it must be categorically rejected.

The "nasty anti-Semite" stereotype is a very harmful myth. Ukrainians and Jews lived alongside each other for centuries, sometimes in harmony, sometimes in conflict, and the history of their relations is a complex issue that cannot be addressed by simplistic generalizations.

The conflicts that arose were caused more often by social and economic factors than racial or religious ones, and were often initiated by external forces -- starting with the Polish magnates who used Jews as middlemen to exploit their Ukrainian serfs, continuing with Tsarist Russian officials who deliberately initiated pogroms and other provocations in order to keep two downtrodden groups from uniting against a common overlord, and the Soviet Union's continuation of that same policy as a means of keeping dissident groups apart. The most obscene example was during Stalin's era, when Communist party officials blamed Jews for initiating the 1932-33 famine.

Although conflicts existed, they have been greatly exaggerated, or even falsified. On the other hand, one rarely hears about the positive side of Ukrainian-Jewish relations. For example, who knows that during the short-lived Ukrainian People's Republic (1917-1921), a Ministry of Jewish Affairs was established to deal specifically with that minority's concerns, that Yiddish was one of the official languages of that state, or that Yad Vashem has recognized 2,246 Ukrainians among the Righteous of Nations, making that country number 4 among those who helped save Jews during the Holocaust. And that number doesn't even include the Ukrainian Greek Catholic primate, Metropolitan Andrey Sheptytsky, who risked his life to arrange false baptismal certificates for no fewer than 200 Jewish children, who were then smuggled to monasteries, orphanages and convent schools in and around Lviv.

If Ignatieff wants to address this issue in a definitive way, he can do so in the manner he is best suited to. He can do an academic study of Ukrainian-Jewish relations and come to his own conclusions. During his Edmonton visit, Ignatieff met with the scholars from the Canadian Institute of Ukrainian Studies who would be more than happy to point him to the right source materials for a starting point.

Were he to do that, he would not only bury the issue once and for all, but gain a great deal of respect from the Ukrainian Canadian community for doing so.

Marco Levytsky is editor of the Edmonton-based, nationally circulated Ukrainian News.

Republished from the Winnipeg Free Press print edition June 28, 2009 A10