On my flight to Kyiv this time around the stewardess of the Lufthansa flight was handing out customs forms just before we were to land and asking the passengers if they wanted them in English or in Russian. I took the English form, but pointed out to her that the other one she was holding in her hand was in Ukrainian, and that there was a difference between Ukrainian and Russian, and that in most countries most people would take umbrage at that kind of confusion (what would a Pole say if the 'Polish' form you were handing him was actually in Czech?).
She was a bit chagrined, but said that nobody had told her, and that nobody had ever complained, and that, yes, she would distinguish the two from now on. I rather doubt it. She herself might – but the problem won't go away, and it's a problem that is much bigger than most people – including many western commentators on Ukraine and Ukrainian affairs – realize.
It is also not confined simply to the language issue – although that is surely its clearest and, for some, most painful manifestation. Ukraine, after all, is a country where not only is the official language – Ukrainian – seldom heard on the streets and in the shops and offices of the capital city, Kyiv, or in the most populous southern and eastern regions, but also one where just a month ago the nation's parliament – on a motion of the communist all – but – majority – actually voted against making the teaching of Ukrainian (the official state language) mandatory in secondary schools.
In the European context this inertia of a colonial-type diglossia or linguistic disparity is almost unique. (The other case, of course, is Belarus, where things are still worse, but that country can hardly be considered a part of Europe, or what we used to call 'the free world.' In this other world – in Minsk – moves are afoot to shut down the last secondary school in the country still using Belarusian as the language of instruction.)
In Ukraine the situation is certainly not as bad: the Ukrainian language and culture, unlike those of Belarus, are not on the verge of extinction. But outside of western Ukraine they have been largely relegated to a different reality, to virtual reality.
The dynamics and symptoms are familiar. In the subway (the best thing in Kyiv – it's fast, clean and cheap) the signs are mostly in Ukrainian, but all the attendants speak Russian, and no passenger would ever think of addressing another passenger other than in Russian: it's public space after all.
The same is true of the Kyiv airport at Boryspil. The Ukrainian signs are there alright, but the only language spoken is Russian; and English, to be sure. In fact, much more English than Ukrainian.
Small wonder then that the Lufthansa attendant asked 'English or Russian?' In the semiotics of the usual speech situation Ukrainian is a pro forma variant, a virtual emanation of Russian. It may be officially proclaimed, but the actual language spoken – particularly in the day – to-day public sector – is Russian.
This is particularly true of the overarching 'national' and, in effect, symbolic context. The President or other dignitaries address the public in Ukrainian, but the language they and their staffs actually speak is Russian. Analogously, in the television studios everyone shifts to Russian as soon as the camera is turned off; those working behind the scenes never bother to speak Ukrainian to begin with.
The opposition between reality and ought-to-be or virtual reality is reinforced by market forces. In the book stalls along Khreshchatyk and all around the city, or at the large outdoor book market at Petrivka virtually no Ukrainian books can be found.
Where you can find them is in the two or three quasi-state-owned book stores that still remain open, or at small, dimly lit and dingy stands, usually manned by elderly ladies, in such Ukrainophone organizations as the Ukraina Society or the Union of Writers.
Ukrainian books, presumably, do not sell, although the proposition can never be truly tested because of bizarre tax laws that make it cheaper to print books in Russia and import them here, or generally to service the larger Russophone public of the former Soviet Union. After seven years of independence Ukrainian literature – much more than during Soviet times – has been reduced, as the critic Mykola Riabchuk has argued, to the literature of a ghetto. An emigre community in one's own country, small and poverty stricken to boot.
Other aspects of Ukraine's virtual reality may be less apparent, but no less systemic. A striking example are the institutions ostensibly devoted to preserving and developing the nation's cultural and intellectual sectors.
On the surface and judging by the official discourse they are all in place and supposedly thriving – the Educational establishment, the National Academy of Sciences, the Ministry of Culture and all their respective subdivisions, and a multitude of similar institutions.
But the actual picture is depressingly bleak, and Ukraine appears as a country that simply has no commitment to this area. Teachers remain unpaid for months on end. Lack of funding has created a colossal brain drain in all the disciplines, particularly the sciences. Whole institutes are but shells of their former selves.
At the same time, in the years since independence no structural reforms have been undertaken or even planned. No paring down of bloated bureaucracies, no reduction of cadres, no removal of dead wood and certainly no infusion of new blood.
The only step taken was the cosmetic changing of names: thus the Institute of the History of the Party became the Institute of Political Theory, the Institute of Scientific Atheism became an Institute of Comparative Religious Studies. The researchers and instructors, their theories, methods and style of work remained largely the same.
Exceptions do exist, of course – but they are exceptions. The government, which in the absence of viable civil or private institutions is still the only employer, has chosen to effect 'reform' by withholding payment.
As a result, academic institutes make do by subletting space, libraries and museums cut down on the hours they are open or the amount of light they use, and workers are given longer and longer unpaid leave. In effect, an ostensibly European country has largely if not totally abandoned its cultural and educational sector.
But that is in reality, behind the scenes. On the surface everything remains in place. Venerable institutions remain untarnished, and presidiums unchanged. And the top brass do get paid.
To state the obvious, Ukraine is a country in which the governing elites and the vast parasitic bureaucracy they control have allowed in as much of the new democratic, pluralistic, market-oriented values and forces and at the same time have retained as much of the old Soviet values, resources and levers of power as suits their corporate needs.
As a country, Ukraine is somewhere between the Ukrainian SSR and Ukraine Inc.
On the one hand thriving primal or shadow capitalism with casinos and gangsters and big time spenders galore, and on the other a Soviet-type society and economy where much of the population, and not only in the countryside, is in the role of serfs – working for no pay and with little hope for emancipation.
The fact that with this kind of record and with this kind of unaccountability before its citizens Ukraine could still get the massive support from the West that it does, suggests that virtual reality can be persuasive for some. Like Disneyland, it takes a special effort to see beyond it.
But it can be done. One simply has to step out of the cocoon and look beyond the glossy ads. And learn to see tell-tale signs-like the several letters that distinguish the Ukrainian and Russian alphabets.
Behind the seemingly small nuances lies a big difference. And beyond that the story of a culture trying to revive itself despite its opportunistic political leadership and its ossified establishment.
(George G. Grabowicz is Professor of Ukrainian Literature at Harvard University and Editor-in-Chief of the Kyiv journal Krytyka.)
