Becoming Soviet: Lost Cultural Alternatives In
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BECOMING SOVIET: LOST CULTURAL ALTERNATIVES IN UKRAINE, 1917-1933 Olena Palko, MA, BA (Hons.) A thesis submitted in fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy University of East Anglia School of History December 2016© ‘This copy of the thesis has been supplied on condition that anyone who consults it is understood to recognise that copyright rests with the author and that use of any information derived there from must be in accordance with current UK Copyright Law. In addition any quotation or extract must include full attribution.’ Abstract This doctoral thesis investigates the complex and multi-faceted process of the cultural sovietisation of Ukraine. The study argues that different political and cultural projects of a Soviet Ukraine were put to the test during the 1920s. These projects were developed and executed by representatives of two ideological factions within the Communist Party of Bolsheviks of Ukraine: one originating in the pre-war Ukrainian socialist and communist movements, and another with a clear centripetal orientation towards Moscow. The representatives of these two ideological horizons endorsed different approaches to defining Soviet culture. The unified Soviet canon in Ukraine was an amalgamation of at least two different Soviet cultural projects: Soviet Ukrainian culture and Soviet culture in the Ukrainian language. These two visions of Soviet culture are examined through a biographical study of two literary protagonists: the Ukrainian poet Pavlo Tychyna (1891-1967) and the writer Mykola Khvyl'ovyi (1893-1933). Overall, three equally important components, contributing to Ukraine’s sovietisation, are discussed: the power struggle among the Ukrainian communist elites; the manipulation of the tastes and expectations of the audience; and the ideological and aesthetic evolution of Ukraine’s writers in view of the first two components. At the same time, the study explores those cultural, and often political, alternatives which Soviet Ukraine had lost once the interaction between local political actors and art creators was constrained by a strictly defined channel, fully determined by a centralist cultural strategy. It also examines the rationale for the Soviet nationalities policy and identifies the determinant role of the Ukrainian communists in implementing and adjusting all-Soviet policies within the republic. Ultimately, this study of cultural sovietisation significantly enhances our understanding of the complex process of establishing and consolidating the Soviet regime in Ukraine. 2 Acknowledgements First and foremost, I would like to thank my supervisors, Dr Matthias Neumann and Dr Francis King, for their intellectual advice, guidance and feedback on my work as well as for always providing constant reassurance and unfailing encouragement. I am truly indebted to them for the support they have provided during the course of my PhD and particularly during the final year. I must also thank Dr Tony Kemp-Welch, who co-supervised me for the first year and Professor Cathie Carmichael without whom I would not have had the opportunity to start my PhD in the first place. I would also like to thank Professor Peter Waldron and Professor Matthew Pauly for their comments and advice. In addition, I would also like to thank Dr Sonia Combe, my advisor in Berlin during my stay at the Centre Marc Bloch, for her invaluable advice, and Dr Béatrice von Hirschhausen for her help, feedback and support during perhaps the hardest period of my life. My PhD would not have been possible without the generous financial support I have received from the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) and the School of History at the University of East Anglia, the Studienstiftung des Abgeordnetenhauses von Berlin, the Open Society Foundation (OSF) and Mr James Temerty, a chairman of Northland Power Inc. (Canada). I am also extremely thankful for timely advice and feedback to Prof Evgeny Dobrenko from the University of Sheffield, Professor Yuri Slezkine from the University of California, and Professor Myroslav Shkandrij from the University of Manitoba. There are a number of people I would like to thank on a personal level for their support, encouragement and assistance, especially Graham Harris, Sam Foster, Mark Vincent, Charles Beacroft and Charlotte Galpin. Special thanks must go to Borja Perez-Viana and Dr Nada Ali, who have been a continual source of inspiration and support. Finally, I would like to thank my family for their constant support, encouragement and, most importantly, for their unconditional belief in my abilities. I would like to dedicate this thesis to my father, who passed away before seeing this thesis completed. 3 Note on Transliteration and Translation In this thesis, I follow the Library of Congress system of transliterating Ukrainian and Russian texts and proper names, except for the cases where a commonly accepted English translation exists (for example, Gorky and Mayakovsky). I have used the Ukrainian transliteration of Ukrainian names and geographical places (e.g., Kyiv, Kharkiv, Odesa and Donbas) for the sake of consistency. I have given quotations in the English translation. I have used the Michael M. Naydan’s translations of the poems by Tychyna (Pavlo Tychyna, The Complete Early Poetry Collections of Pavlo Tychyna. (Lviv: Litopys, 2002). The translations of the poems not included in this collection are my own. The English translation is followed by the original Ukrainian in the footnotes. As for Khvyl'ovyi’s prose, all the quotes are from - Mykola Khvylovy, The Cultural Renaissance in Ukraine. Translated by Myroslav Shkandrij (Edmonton: CIUS, 1986); - Mykola Khvylovy, Stories From the Ukraine. Translated by George S. N. Luckyj (New York: Philosophical library, 1960); - Mykola Khvylovy, “Woodcocks.” Translated by Yuri Tkacz in Before the Storm: Soviet Ukrainian Fiction of the 1920s (Ann Arbor: Ardis, 1986). The quotations of the short stories not included in these collections are my own. 4 Table of Contents Abstract ............................................................................................................................................... 2 Acknowledgements ............................................................................................................................. 3 Note on Transliteration and Translation ............................................................................................. 4 Table of Contents ................................................................................................................................ 5 The List of Tables ............................................................................................................................... 7 The List of Abbreviations ................................................................................................................... 8 Introduction ....................................................................................................................................... 11 Context of the Study ................................................................................................. 11 Focus of the Study .................................................................................................... 16 Methodology ............................................................................................................. 23 Theoretical framework .......................................................................................... 23 Case studies and biographical approach ............................................................... 27 Use of Primary Sources ............................................................................................ 30 Sources for the Biographical Study ...................................................................... 30 Methods of Social History and Sociology of Reading ......................................... 35 Historiography .......................................................................................................... 37 Chapter Outline ......................................................................................................... 48 Section One: Debating the Projects of a Soviet Ukraine: Political Alternatives in 1917-1926 ........ 51 A National and/or Social Revolution: the Civil War in Ukraine, 1917-1921 ........... 52 1919-1925: Debating the Projects of a Socialist Ukraine ......................................... 63 Korenizatsiia: the Centralist Perspective .................................................................. 76 Ukrainizatsiia: the Ukrainian Perspective ................................................................. 84 Section Two: Defining Soviet Ukrainian Culture: Cultural Alternatives of the 1920s ..................... 97 Chapter 2.1: Pavlo Tychyna (1891-1967) ......................................................................... 97 2.1.1. “Black Wings over the Doves and Sun”: Poetry of the Revolution(s) ........... 98 “Be damned together with war! Raven-black wind…”: the Poet amidst the Civil Wars .......................................................................................................................... 98 “A Party Member or Not?”: Coming to Terms with the Victor ............................. 106 “… Good that I am Alive and who Cares about the Rest”: Justifying the Terror .. 116 5 2.1.2. “Kharkiv, Kharkiv, where is your Countenance? For whom is your call?”: a Fellow-Traveller in the Soviet Capital .......................................................................