THE SARMATIAN REVIEW September 2015 practical, as the writer admits that it was easier originally from , Solovij has contributed to for her to publish poetry written in the language Ukrainian modernism by creating covers for the of a stateless people rather than the poems she poetry volumes of several of the Group’s had written in English. members. The New York Group has served the same purpose as the generations of Ukrainian Rewakowicz points out that these writers were intellectuals since the end of the nineteenth disappointed with their reception in post-Soviet century. Their goal has been to maintain and : “They yearned for a wholesale develop Ukrainian culture’s relationship with embrace there, but encountered for the most part modern times. The Group has discharged this a silent gaze” (187). This sense of estrangement obligation during a crucial yet bleak time in is certainly an important aspect of the group’s Ukrainian culture. Rewakowicz’s monograph self-image, and Rewakowicz is correct in makes clear that they generously and profoundly pointing it out, but it also would have been answered their calling. worthwhile for her to shed more light on how and where they were accepted in post-Soviet Ukraine. She does mention the affinity between MORE BOOKS them and the School of poets, and briefly Debaty Artes Liberales: Inteligent, humanista, explores issues of exile in both groups. intelektualista, vol. VIII, edited by Katarzyna Interestingly, she attributes this affinity to the Tomaszuk. Warsaw: Artes Liberales at UW fact that both groups became “historicized” by Press (www.al.uw.edu.pl), 2014. 163 pages. the subsequent younger generation of writers in ISBN 978-83-63636-29-6. Paper. In Polish and Ukraine. This perhaps indicates that any English. rejection of the New York Group in post-Soviet Ukraine was not caused so much by the Group’s series of recorded conversations, slightly edited, between Polish, Buryat, and members having lived outside Ukraine but by a A Russian intellectuals concerning history and generational conflict. memory. What makes these conversations The New York Group played a role in the uniquely interesting is that they are not “official literary life of 1990s Ukraine. Boychuk’s journal statements” such as those found in well thought- Svito-Vyd was a forum for presenting the works out articles and books, but rather spontaneous of the simdesiatnyky generation, including those reactions to intellectual challenges that arise of Oleh Lysheha. Andiewska and Tarnawsky when scholars sit down to chat freely with one were well accepted by their younger colleagues. another with no preplanned strategy on how to Yurii Izdryk and Yurii Andrukhovych included treat their intellectual or political adversaries. Tarnawsky in their now-legendary 1992 Artes Liberales, a unique department in the “encyclopedia” issue of the journal Chetver that University of Warsaw, specializes in and listed what they deemed to be relevant to a promotes such discussions owing to the newly post-Soviet Ukraine. Most recently, the inspiration of Professors Jerzy Axer, Jan New York Group has become a major subject of Kieniewicz, and Piotr Wilczek. One imagines interest for Ukraine’s youngest generation of that this was the mode of discussion practiced at scholars. It also made an important connection medieval universities where scholars who were with contemporary Ukrainian literature through also monks gathered to draw inspiration from the -based poet Vasyl Makhno. each other’s ideas and criticism. Certainly the Rewakowicz stresses the relevance of this by atmosphere of camaraderie and openness evident quoting one of Makhno’s poems, and analyzing in these discussions is extremely rare nowadays, Makhno together with Vadym Lesych and other and mostly absent at other European and Ukrainian writers who wrote about New York American universities where open-to-all debates City. are usually staged by organizers and the kind of Jurij Solovij’s painting titled The New York discussion presented here is reserved for semi- Group was an excellent choice for the private circles of odinakomysliashchie. It would monograph’s cover. A New York artist be rare at American universities to find the

1959 September 2015 THE SARMATIAN REVIEW degree of academic freedom manifested at Boehm. Toronto, CA: Polish Institute of Arts Warsaw’s Artes Liberales. and Sciences in Canada, 2014. 214 pages. Photographs. ISBN 978-0-8851-1-2. Paper. Four debates are recorded in this book: The A sensitive biography of a Canadian of Polish Educated Classes and Political Power in Eastern background who started his adult life as a doctor Europe in 1918–1981; National Humanities in and later became a senator in the Canadian the Global Context: Polish and Russian Parliament. In addition to the biographical part, Experience; The Role of Scholars and the book records exchanges between Haidasz Intellectuals in the Dialogue between Cultures and other members of Canada’s political and Civilizations; Coda, or Accidental establishment. Interdisciplinarity: On Experiencing the World and Discovering the Future. The debates are followed by an English summary. Letters

Scriptorum Seu Togae et Belli Notationum Workers’ Rights in Canada. Workers’ Fragmenta. Accesserunt Peristromata Regum Rights in Poland Symbolis expressa (Fragmenty pism, czyli (In Memoriam: Brian Hunt, First President of uwagi o wojnie i pokoju. Zawierają dodatkowo our OPSEU Union Local) królewskie kobierce symbolicznie odtworzone), by Andrzej Maksymilian Fredro. Translated My deepest thanks for the April 2015 issue of into Polish by Jagoda Chmielewska and The Sarmatian Review. I couldn’t stop reading Bartłomiej Bednarek. Preface by Zbigniew Rau. the Requiescat for Zbigniew Romaszewski. It Introduction by Marek Tracz-Tryniecki. brought back a flood of sometimes-distant Warsaw: Narodowe Centrum Kultury and memories from the 1980s in Canada and Poland. Centrum Myśli Polityczno-Prawnej im. Alexisa During the 1980s I helped to found a Union de Tocqueville’a (13 Płocka Street, 01-231 Local at a very troubled environmental Warsaw, Poland), 2014. 843 pages. Illustrations, management agency, responsible for managing index. ISBN 978-83-7982-063-4. In Latin and thousands of square miles of land and water in Polish. southern Ontario, Canada. his monumental seventeenth-century work Unfortunately the manager of the largest T by one of Sarmatism’s leading division at the agency managed his division by representatives articulates the Polish perception requiring that his employees spy on other and practice of political liberty. Fredro writes in employees and report to him about their the tradition of the Roman Republic rather than activities. I refused to spy or report on the the Athenian democracy. At the same time, his activities of other employees, and as a result was text resembles Macchiavelli’s The Prince and not promoted for fifteen years, after which I was Lord Chesterton’s Letters to his Son because it hired in a different division under a progressive contains a wealth of practical advice on how the director where employees worked cooperatively political class should behave in order to build with each other. and maintain a strong state and achieve personal This manager continued to operate in a cruel prosperity. and callous way. A woman who was sexually abused by some of his spies came to me for Fredro’s “republic of nobles” does not deny the advice. I told her that if she went to the police existence of a vast sea of peasantry that made without a union, it would be her word against republicanism of the titled possible. Fredro was five or six men. She eventually reported the also aware that the nearly perfect democracy abuse to this manager, and he offered to settle prevailing among the nobles was threatened by the matter by laying her off so that she could the magnates, who began to form a separate collect unemployment insurance while she class in the seventeenth century. looked for another job. Then he laid her off at a Senator Stanley Haidasz: A Statesman for All time when it was very difficult to find work. Canadians, by Aleksandra Ziolkowska- Many similar unjust decisions were made by this manager.

1960