On Lukashenka: some tangents (Inquiring minds need to know)

[Robert DeLossa]

The Ruthenians that Professor Pylypiuk refers to were the Orthodox East
Slavs living in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth; proto-Ukrainians and
Belarusians. (Not to be confused with contemporary Carpatho-Ruthenians,
also called Rusyns.) The perceived (then and now) cultural centers of East
Slavic Orthodoxy were outside of Muscovy and in Ruthenian lands until after
the mid-17th century. The connection with Spanish literature has to do with
the experience of peripheralization, especially during the Reformation and
the Counter-Reformation, where Spain and Poland-Lithuania (and, therefore,
the Ruthenians) were on the peripheries of the movement, and also in their
respective roles as antemurales christianitatis. There are many
similarities that were perceived even then and it is no accident that the
protagonist of Calderon de la Barca's masterpiece La Vida es Sueno is
Polish.

David Frick's book on Meletij Smotryc'kyj has lots of food for thought on
how the world worked in early 17th-century Eastern Europe. Another good
study on the Polish-Ruthenian issue is Frank Sysyn's Between Poland and the
Ukraine.

Rob DeLossa



>As I am a Beotian, I prefer nothing, and I don't even know what is the
>Ruthenian system. I even can't see what it have in common with Spanish
>literature.
>
>> In some respects, I find contemporary Ukrainian literature more
>>rewarding simply because it places greater emphasis on style and story
>>rather than endless philosophizing.  But, once again, this is a matter of
>>personal taste.
>
>In effect.
>
>Georges.


____________________________________________________
Robert DeLossa
Director of Publications
Ukrainian Research Institute, Harvard University
1583 Massachusetts Ave., Cambridge, MA 02138
617-496-8768; fax. 617-495-8097
reply to: rdelossa at fas.harvard.edu
http://www.sabre.org/huri