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Transitions Online http://www.tol.org/client/ Mon, 21 May 2012 13:52:29 +0100 FeedCreator 1.7.2-ppt (info@mypapit.net) http://www.tol.org/client/article/19346-yugo-kovach-kosovo.html Sir: David L. Phillips labels Russia as a troublemaker for its principled approach to Kosovo ("Abkhazia Is Not Kosovo", 7 February 2008). But Russia is not alone. Does he similarly label Slovakia, Romania, Spain and Cyprus? Phillips also rewrites history with his claim that Yugoslavia's 1974 constitution granted Kosovo the same rights as the federal republics. But the two autonomous regions of Kosovo and Vojvodina were denied the right of self-determination. Phillips' claim that Serbia's leaders launched an ethnic cleansing campaign in 1998 resulting in the displacement of a million of the province's Albanians hides more than it reveals. Serb forces did mount a counter-offensive against the Kosovo Liberation Army in western Kosovo. It prompted many villagers to flee to Kosovo's towns and cities. By the time of the Rambouillet talks [in France in 1999], almost all had returned to their homes. If there was any ongoing ethnic cleansing, it eluded the 2,000 international observers that had the run of the province. The observers, of course, were ordered by the OSCE to leave when it became apparent that NATO had opted for war. It was the bombing that triggered an exodus, with the province's Albanians fleeing into Albania and Macedonia, and a similar proportion of Serbs into supposedly safe inner-Serbia. Only after NATO's occupation of Kosovo did ethnic cleansing unarguably take place, the Albanians being the perpetrators. To believe, as Phillips does, that the beleaguered Serbs left in an “independent” Kosovo will be protected by NATO troops (or EU police) is pure moonshine. NATO was limp-wristed in its failed attempt to persuade the province's Albanians to allow the return of those they expelled. An independent Kosovo is a recipe for a state fit only for Albanians. So much for General Wesley Clark’s comment during the bombing of Serbia that "There is no place in modern Europe for ethnically pure states. That’s a 19th-century idea and we are trying to transition into the 21st century, and we are going to do it with multiethnic states.” Yugo Kovach Twickenham, Middlesex United Kingdom TOL http://www.tol.org/client/article/19347-david-r-marples-heroes-and-villains.html Culture Editor: I was happy to see the thoughtful and generally positive review of my book Heroes and Villains by Mykola Riabchuk in the 6 February issue of TOL. I would like to make a few explanatory comments concerning some of his inquiries into my choice of sources and subject matter. That many residents of Ukraine are still subjected to quasi-Soviet or Russian propaganda is surely true, but it is not a new phenomenon and it is less pervasive than it once was. I agree that one could offer an inquiry into the actions of the Red Army just as easily as those of OUN or UPA. That could be the subject of another book, and I hope that Roman Serbyn will write it. Certainly I had no room for this topic in Heroes and Villains though coverage of the nefarious activities of the Soviet security forces in Ukraine is well-covered. But I was not criticizing Serbyn for those comments; I was doing so only for inferring that there was no need for an inquiry into the activities of OUN and UPA. I did not select sources to suit the thread of my argument, as implied in the third paragraph of the section “Two Nations.” Indeed, I did not begin this study with any preconceived notions. No selection of sources could be completely satisfactory. I tried to make mine both broad and regional. Since the opinions offered in [the Ukrainian newspaper] Kommunist, for example, do not differ substantially from those I cited in the late Soviet issues of Pravda Ukrainy and other communist sources, there seemed no point in extending that particular survey. But in every chapter the Soviet (and now proto-Soviet) version was always outlined first, before discussing the “nationalist” narratives. Riabchuk makes a good point regarding the impact of television and popular culture on current thinking about the past. I acknowledge that television is a more influential “constructor” of opinions in today’s Ukraine than newspapers or monographs. However, the debates in newspapers, journals, and academic monographs are better determinants of the contents of school textbooks, which clearly do have an impact on what the next generation of Ukrainians will think about the recent (and for that matter, distant) past. That is why my concluding chapter offers a survey of school textbooks as well as the government commission report on the topics covered in my book that was issued in 2004. The reviewer laments Russian leaders’ reluctance to accept an independent Ukraine. The key issue in my book, however, is less what Russia is saying about Ukraine, or what Riabchuk terms the “Russophile and Sovietophile stream of Ukrainian discursive reality,” than whether the different interpretations of the recent past can ever be melded into a more objective historical format. To a large extent, the Sovietophile stream is self-evident and there is no need to repeat its well-known concepts. One could perhaps discuss why it remains so pervasive, but that was not my goal. Nor do I think the segment of the population that upholds such views should be regarded harshly. The healing of the wounds of the past in Ukraine requires not only the reconstruction of 20th-century history and the invention of “some historical myths” that Riabchuk recommends, but also the combining of praise and veneration for Ukrainian national heroes with criticism for misdeeds and atrocities that occurred alongside examples of their “spiritual strength and self-sacrifice.” That would not only make for more dispassionate historical studies but also open the door to some dialogue among the sons and daughters of Red Army veterans and UPA insurgents, as well as among the different regions of the country. Sincerely yours, David R. Marples Department of History and Classics University of Alberta, Canada TOL