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Best regards, Andrew Stewart - - - Subscribe to the Washington Babylon newsletter via https://washingtonbabylon.com/newsletter/ Begin forwarded message: > From: H-Net Staff via H-REVIEW <h-rev...@lists.h-net.org> > Date: July 15, 2020 at 11:37:04 AM EDT > To: h-rev...@lists.h-net.org > Cc: H-Net Staff <revh...@mail.h-net.org> > Subject: H-Net Review [H-Ukraine]: Kupensky on Hrytsak, 'Ivan Franko and His > Community' > Reply-To: h-rev...@lists.h-net.org > > Yaroslav Hrytsak. Ivan Franko and His Community. Translated by > Marta Daria Olynyk. Brookline Academic Studies Press, 2019. 588 pp. > $42.00 (paper), ISBN 978-1-61811-968-1. > > Reviewed by Nicholas Kupensky (US Air Force Academy) > Published on H-Ukraine (July, 2020) > Commissioned by Nataliya Shpylova-Saeed > > Yaroslav Hrytsak's _Ivan Franko and His Community _(2019) is a > pioneering volume that sits at the crossroads of three different > genres. It is at once a biography of the Ukrainian writer Ivan > Franko, a microhistory of eastern Galicia from the 1850s to 1880s, > and a case study of the origins and meanings of the Ukrainian > national movement. > > These concerns are reflected in the book's title, both elements of > which are creatively balanced in its narrative. At times, Franko's > biography takes prominence, and the development and evolution of the > artist serves as a structuring metaphor for the profound changes > taking place in eastern Galicia in the last half of the nineteenth > century. Elsewhere, the microhistory of eastern Galicia predominates, > and, thus, we see the degree to which Franko's biography distills and > amplifies the varied worlds he inhabited. > > _Ivan Franko and His Community _is divided into two methodologically > distinct parts that allow Hrytsak to read Franko both horizontally > and vertically. "Part I: Franko and His Times" largely sticks to a > chronological narrative and, in meticulous detail, takes the reader > through the ever-expanding "small communities" (p. xiv) that helped > shape Franko as he moved from his native village of Nahuievychi > (chapters 2 and 3) to school in Drohobych (chapter 4), university in > Lviv (chapter 7), prison (chapter 8) and back again (chapter 9). > "Part II: Franko and His Society" synthetically analyzes core > concerns of Franko's aesthetics and politics, such as his > relationship with peasants (chapter 11), Boryslav (chapter 12), women > (chapter 13), Jews (chapter 14), and his readers (chapter 15). It > concludes with a discussion of why Franko began to be known as a > genius (chapter 16) and a prophet, contrary to the biblical logic, > even in his own land (chapter 17). Finally, the narrative is followed > by fourteen fascinating tables that graphically illustrate the > contours of Franko's worlds, such as the religious makeup of Galicia > (table 1), literacy (tables 2-4), demographics of the > Boryslav-Drohobovych oil basin (tables 5-6), family data (tables > 7-8), data about Ruthenian-Ukrainian publications (tables 9-13), and > the geography of Franko's publications (table 14). > > Although the book's Ukrainian title uses the image of Franko as a > "prophet"--_Prorok u svoïi vitchyzni. Franko ta ioho spil'nota_ > _(1856-1888_)--the English title in Marta Daria Olynyk's powerful > translation wisely draws attention to its central historical and > theoretical tensions, namely Hrytsak's thoughtful exploration of > Franko's modernism, nationalism, and socialism. > > Hrytsak begins his study by representing the Austrian province of > Galicia as a "civilizational borderland" (p. 15), whose territory > became the playing field for a host of competing class, confessional, > and national identities. And what Hrytsak emphasizes is that > Galicia's historical development challenges the assumption that > industrialization and urbanization (neither of which were widespread > at the end of the nineteenth century) are necessary ingredients to > the formation of modern nations. In his formulation, Galicia is a > historical region "where there was a great deal of modernity but > little modernization" (p. xix). In this respect, the volume_ _makes a > valuable contribution to studies of modernism in Eastern and Central > Europe, which have tended to explore the relationship between the > region's material backwardness and aesthetic progressivism. In _All > That Is Solid Melts into Air: The Experience of Modernity _(1982), > Marshall Berman noted how nineteenth-century Russian writers produced > some of the most canonical symbols of modernity in a country without > widespread industrialization and urbanization, a phenomenon he calls > "the modernism of underdevelopment."[2] More recently, scholars have > focused on the diversity of "peripheral modernisms" that emerged on > the margins of the Russian, Habsburg, or Soviet empires.[3] > > While Hrytsak does not explicitly place Franko's aesthetics within > this tradition, his voice resonates with these debates by > demonstrating how the Galician experience of modernity was not > dependent upon the teleological triumph of urban (modern) over rural > (traditional) spaces. Instead, it could be experienced not only in > Lviv, the "hidden capital" of nationally conscious Ukrainians (p. > 124), but also "without even leaving the village," where there was a > robust network of "reading rooms, cooperatives, and other rural > organizations" (p. 26). Because of his deep roots in both of these > worlds, Franko emerges as the protean figure most capable of > fostering "the consolidation of Ukrainian culture as a modern > culture" (p. 151). > > Hrytsak demonstrates Franko's skill at capturing the Ruthenian > "mentality" (p. 17), which he himself wrote was characterized by > "ambiguity, indefiniteness, and half-ness" (p. 72). For this reason, > he stresses that there is no coherent Frankism to be found in his > poetry and prose. Drawing upon Isaiah Berlin's essay _The Hedgehog > and the Fox: An Essay on Tolstoy's View of History _(1953), Hrytsak > classifies Franko as the consummate fox--a thinker who knows "many > things" but not "one big thing" (p. 191)--and this philosophical > flexibility gave him the latitude to adapt his aesthetics and > politics to the region's changing conditions. > > While Franko ultimately chose to marry Ruthenian and Ukrainian > culture, Hrytsak takes a two-chapter digression (chapters 5 and 6) to > travel down the different paths that Franko could have taken. And > these chapters contain the book's valuable contribution to the study > of national identities. Central to Hrytsak's analysis is the concept > of the "fatherland" (_bat'kivshchyna_), which can be "small," like a > village, region, or territory, or "large," like a nation or empire > (pp. 77-78). He explores the competing fatherlands that overlapped in > Franko's communities--Cossack, Galician, German, Rus', Russian, > Ruthenian, Polish, Ukrainian--and demonstrates the great slippage > between ethnonational and territorial understandings of these terms. > To this end, he illustrates Mykhailo Drahomanov's observation that > "the Ruthenians are a nationality that knows the least about its > fatherland" (p. 95) in a thorough analysis of peasant representations > of the symbolic geography of their homes. In one account, many > Galician peasants, even by 1897, had no idea what the term "Ukraine" > meant (p. 108). > > In chapters 7 and 8, Hrytsak shows how Franko's conversion to the > Ukrainian camp was intimately tied to his arrival in 1870s Lviv, a > "nationalizing city" (p. 134) that also, crucially, was a "staging > area" (p. 154) for political émigrés and radical ideas passing into > and out of the Russian empire. The central figure for Franko and his > circle was Mykhailo Drahomanov, the Ukrainian intellectual who > visited Galicia on his way to exile in Geneva. It was Drahomanov who > helped make the case that the socialist and populist sentiments in > vogue among young Ruthenian intellectuals were best realized through > ethnonational solidary with the Ukrainian people (p. 144). As a > result, when Franko began to simultaneously champion the socialist > and Ukrainian movements in 1876, this conversion allowed him to > transform his social causes--feminism, free love, atheism--into > Ukrainian ones as well. In other words, if it were not for the "new, > leftist culture" that emerged in Franko's Lviv, there may not have > been the "victory of the Ukrainian national movement" in Galicia (p. > 393). > > In this respect, Hrytsak's study effectively polemicizes with two > persistent and seemingly irreconcilable interpretive traditions: the > Soviet, which celebrated Franko as the spokesman of an "oppressed > class," and the national-patriotic, which praised him as the > spokesman of an "oppressed nation" (p. 213). On the one hand, Hrytsak > rehabilitates Franko's socialism from the contorted teleological > readings of Soviet critics, for, as he explained during a recent > discussion of his book, "Franko was a Marxist who tried to save > Marxism from Marx because he believed Marx was too simplistic" in his > thinking about Eastern Europe.[4] By doing so, Hrytsak demythologizes > the Ukrainian Franko as the flag-carrying bard of a politically > independent nation-state by constantly emphasizing the many contexts > when Franko's socialist identity took equal, if not greater, > precedence over his national one. > > In the final analysis, Hrytsak's study is a significant reexamination > of Franko's life and legacy, one that will be a touchstone for > scholars of Central and Eastern European literatures, modernism, > nationalism, and socialism for years to come. And perhaps the lasting > contribution of Hrytsak's progressive Franko is that he managed to > show it was possible to "be both _Ukrainian _and _modern_ at one and > the same time" (p. 339). > > Notes > > [1]. _Prorok u svoïi vitchyzni. Franko ta ioho spil'nota (1856-86_) > (Kyiv: Krytyka, 2006). > > [2]. Marshall Berman, _All That Is Solid Melts into Air: The > Experience of Modernity_ (New York: Penguin, 1988), 193. > > [3]. See, for example, Marc Caplan, _How Strange the Change: > Language, Temporality, and Narrative in Peripheral Modernisms_ > (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2011); Harsha Ram, > "Decadent Nationalism, 'Peripheral' Modernism: The Georgian Literary > Manifesto between Symbolism and the Avant-garde," > _Modernism/modernity_ 21, no. 1 (January 2014): 343-59; Michael > David-Fox, _Crossing Borders: Modernity, Ideology, and Culture in > Russia and the Soviet Union _(Pittsburgh, PA: University of > Pittsburgh Press, 2015); and Ilya Gerasimov, _Plebeian Modernity: > Social Practices, Illegality, and the Urban Poor in Russia, > 1906-1906_ (Rochester, NY: University of Rochester Press, 2018). > > [4]. Yaroslav Hrytsak, "Online Book Discussion: Yaroslav Hrytsak, > _Ivan Franko and His Community,_" June 8, 2020, Canadian Institute of > Ukrainian Studies, Edmonton, Alberta, Canada, > www.facebook.com/canadian.institute.of.ukrainian.studies/. > > Citation: Nicholas Kupensky. Review of Hrytsak, Yaroslav, _Ivan > Franko and His Community_. H-Ukraine, H-Net Reviews. July, 2020. > URL: https://www.h-net.org/reviews/showrev.php?id=55244 > > This work is licensed under a Creative Commons > Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States > License. > > _________________________________________________________ Full posting guidelines at: http://www.marxmail.org/sub.htm Set your options at: https://lists.csbs.utah.edu/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
