Onegin et al.

[Maryna Vinarska]

Daniel Rancour-Laferriere <darancourlaferriere at COMCAST.NET> wrote:
"The approach of Maryna Vinarska is paranoid, and does not have much to do with Onegin".
.................I would appreciate very much if next time you read the original message and the question posed in it. My comment does have nothing to do with Onegin but with the query about that linguistic creativity caused by the wish to avoid using the word "goluboi" when commenting on the Oxford-Cambridge boat race.
I hope you are not going to accuse the whole website of any _phobia_ because they used the word "svelto-sinij" definitely trying to avoid the word "goluboj". I assure you that "svetlo-sinij" is nonsense.

To make my comment on the issue clearer I am pasting now my additional comment which was sent privately. Here it is in its original form:
"The word is actually not offensive or smth. Not at all. The attitude is really simply humorous, like in many other cases. The number of jokes about "daltoniki" exceeds the number of jokes about "golubyje", believe me. But I think that the jokes about blondes "po-prezhnemu lidirujut". To be a blonde is also a diagnosis in all societies... And what? I got accustomed to live with this diagnosis... don't react when I get a new joke about how stupid we are...
But sure, it is still supposed that those having daltonism don't start proclaiming that the way how they see the world is the only right one, and those having diabitis don't start recruiting every second person for using saccharine whatever reasons they may have. And we, blondes, are not going, in this case, to persuade everybody into dying their hair to join our company."

"What is wrong with being gay?"
.............................In the present day Ukraine there is absolutely nothing wrong with being gay or whoever at all.  It is actually not interesting to anybody at all, if this or that person is gay, straight, has diabitis or heart failure or doesn't have anything at all. It is a private business of everybody. And let it be like this if it is okay for that country. That what you are doing is called in Russian "peredergivat".
The starting point, as far as I remember, was psychoanalysis as a research tool in literary criticism. 

"It is NOT a "medical condition," contrary to what Vinarska says.  Freud himself thought homosexual orientation was perverse or neurotic, but psychoanalysis has come a long way since Freud." 
............................As to whether homosexuality is a medical condition (or congenital disease) or not I can only add that this is what it is still considered to be among regular inhabitants in my native Ukraine, as far as I know, regardless of whether smb likes it or not. I hope you are not up to organizing a sexual revolution in that country. 
Besides, I have a long and very challenging career behind my back, working as an in-house translator for three research institutes of medical profile as well. I am not commenting, I am just reporting. Homosexuality was a permanently discussed topic in The Lancet. I assure you that The Lancet is not smth like Cosmopolitan or Playboy.

However, Vladivostok seems to be in Russia. About what was going on in Vladivostok, when Boris Moiseev was supposed to come with his concert, I read on the BBC site. Those events are the echo of  those early days when it was really open propaganda promoting homosexuality as a lifestyle. People still can't forget it, no matter that Boris Moiseev stopped showing up in stockings, lipsticked, etc. long ago. He is loved by everyone. And his singing that old song "My vam chestno skazat' khotim, na devchonok my bol'she ne gliadim" in the concert "Noch' v stile disko" is a good example showing that the attitude to homosexuality is humorous and ironical and nothing more. No one chases gays either in Russia or in Ukraine. But I suppose that no one wants that propaganda-circus again as well, especially if Onegin is to take part in it. 

And in this connection I would like to express my hope that Dr. Rancour-Laferriere is not going  to proclaim Patriarch Alexius II or Archbishop Benjamin of the Vladivostok Diocese  _paranoid_ only because at the moment they have their own point of view on homosexuality (rather tough, unfortunately) which is actually their right as well as long as it concerns Russia and not the USA. I would like to inform the list owner that it may actually lead to an international scandal if Dr. Rancour-Laferriere proceeds with his diagnostic activities so far...

I am actually ready to admit my ignorance on the issue, with me it is absolutely okay. I am ready to accept even that gays are aliens and let's live peacefully.  But I still can't understand why Onegin became gay.  Because he was a Dandy, because he rejected Tatijana and because he was compared to "vetrennaja Venera"?
I am sorry, but should I, in this case,  treat the following joke, I once heard in class, seriously: "A chego eto sem' muzhikov voobshche v odnom dome zhili, bez zhenshchin?"
It was said about "7 bogatyrej" in "Skazka o mertvoj zarevne i o semi bogatyriakh" written by the same guy called Pushkin! Jesus! Is everything, he wrote, about gays? Really! Why did 7 guys live together and without women? Huh? Should I let students work on that and, probably, let them draw a parallel with those politically organized "men's houses" somewhere in New Guinea or wherever else, no matter that Pushkin never visited that place and that those houses maybe didn't exist at all when he wrote that tale, and so on and so forth?.. I do like having fun very much but I have my own point of view as to what education should actually be. 
 
"Note also the xenophobia in this formulation: "our" heroes are not here to defend themselves.  From whom?  From some non-Russian "other" who has no business looking into the sexual proclivities of certain Russians? "
.............................I don't know what the word "xenophobia" means in American English (no one accused me of it in the USA to make me consult the Webster's) but my Oxford Advanced Learner's Dictionary says the following: "xenophobia - a strong feeling of dislike or fear of people from other countries".
As far as I remember, Vera Beliakova is Russian, brought up and educated in the UK, currently living in SA. I doubt that she can be xenophobic in any way. I myself am a multilingual product of cross-cultural marriages, but there were no ethnic Russians among my ancestors at all. Being actually absolutely non-Russian myself I simply can't have smth against other non-Russians in your perception. Sorry! Your accusation has no real ground under it. 

And if you think that we have "fear", as my dictionary also defines xenophobia, of people from other countries, I would like to say that it is better not to rely on this idea. I don't know what is in that your book "The Slave Soul of Russia", I haven't read it yet, but I assure you that there is nothing of slaves in our souls.  

I once heard or read somewhere that being rude and aggressive is exactly the sign of having fear. 

Besides, I would like to emphasize that under "our" literary heroes not exclusively heroes from the Russian Literature were mentioned, but Hamlet "in tights" as well.
 
"Maryna Vinarska's xenophobic soprotivlenie is narrow and focused, but it is clearly there nevertheless.................."
....................... Dr. Rancour-Laferriere , I would like to hear if it is a common practice among American academicians to quote from the message which was sent to you _privately_ or it is the sign of particular selectivity in this respect shown by you.
I assure the list members that in my native country quoting from a _privately_ sent message is considered to be more than inappropriate.

Just because the passages quoted by Dr. Rancour-Laferriere also show some particular selectivity, I would like to add that my idea was that we need all our characters like Onegin, Pechorin, Oblomov, etc. in their more or less _original_ form for children in schools. New interpretations are always and everywhere appreciated, but only if they result from using research tools which use facts and not smb's fantasies.
As John Reed, who's no more with us, once told me: "Making Onegin gay is like taking the Mona Lisa and adding the moustache and goatee that she "must have really had"". 
 
In my _private_ e-mail I mentioned then the question I once heard from many Ukrainian colleagues who are, sure, aware of all those new tendencies and approaches: "Na chem budem detej vospityvat'? Na  pokemonakh?"

In my _private_  message to Dr. Rancour-Laferriere I explained the following:
Under "vospityvat'" in this particular context, not enlightening on questions of human sexuality is meant, but that what is probably the reason why many of those crazy Russians (under Russians I mean all those born in the former USSR) still believe that it is not  exclusively our sex drive which predetermines our behaviour in every situation, and that of Onegin as well, when he rejected Tatiana, but smth else which is so difficult to define, describe or analyse and that is probably, in its turn, the reason why Russians (again, all of us) got that characteristic  -  crazy... which I myself treat as a positive one.
My colleagues in Ukraine, I am in contact with, definitely don't want it to look like this: "So why do you think Onegin rejected Tatiana?" "He was homosexual!" "Then why did he fall in love with her at the end of the novel?" "He might be bisexual!" 

Indeed, why try to understand why he _really_ rejected her? Psychoanalysis can make everything so pretty simple, quick and clear! To dig up deep into the history in order to understand what was what at that time is, sure, very time-consuming...

"No, thank you.  Your classics are wonderful (including the components of "golubaia kul'tura" within them). "
....................So dear Dr. Rancour-Laferriere, okay, but can't you in this case be a little bit more flexible, more receptive, not so overtly _aggressive_  if you realize that smb doesn't see Onegin like you want it. Be ready then to see a comment on your interpretations in the style of John Reed, whose life has been cut short so prematurely. 
Don't be so aggressive. What is this aggressiveness?  What would Freud say about this aggressiveness? 
Pity that you have no sense of humour at all... 

"You can't chase me away that easily."
....................Dear professor, what is this strange statement? Did anybody attack you in that your sunny California or what? 

"I've been in this business for over thirty years, and even if I drop dead tomorrow, what's done is done.  I don't believe Bulgakov's idea that "Rukopisi ne goriat," but I do know that you cannot unpublish books."
.......................Dear Dr. Rancour-Laferriere, who do you actually mean saying "_you_ cannot unpublish books"? Who is that "you"?.. Who are you addressing?.. Who is that mysterious "you"?.. Is there any mafia in California chasing scholars or what?..  In my native country we have only literary critics Would you be so kind to specify who you are so afraid of?  I hope it is not those legendary KGB agents. I thought that the time when everybody thought he was chased by KGB agents is over... I am puzzled. 
 
I am sure that many people have a great interest in all your books. Let them be. I do love them in advance. At the moment I am trying to find your "The Slave Soul of Russia". I will not leave any line unread because I want to understand which research tool you used to come up, as a result, with this very peculiar  title. Or maybe this title is only a joke and not one more of your very special diagnoses.

I wonder if you left anybody straight, not paranoid in any way, having no any phobia at all? It seems that you managed to do smth unbelievable at all: you managed to psychoanalyse the whole country. I mean that your "The Slave Soul of Russia".

"I wonder if the mind of Lovelace has ever been psychoanalyzed, by the way?"
..................... I don't care very much if you, Dr. Rancour-Laferriere, are going to psychoanalyse the mind of Lovelace now (the guy doesn't qualify for standing in a row together with Onegin, Pechorin, etc.),  but I am definitely against the idea that you think, you have the right to psychoanalyse list members as well. 
Dear Dr. Rancour-Laferriere, I would like to know if you have a license.

Regards,
Maryna Vinarska

			
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