private / from vera / Onegin et al.

Tue Apr 18 07:11:29 UTC 2006

Dear Maryna,

I loved every word !
You see, we are independents and can say waht we think, 
whereas many American academics are sitting in colleges
scared of losing their tenure or jobs or having homosexuals
demostrate against them or selfsame students asking that their 
lecturers  be removed.
They have to toe the politically correct line -
self-censorship
They are like little scared rabbits sitting in the 
headlights of a car.

Professor D. is also a vey popmpous ass.
He loathes me by now.

Vera Beljakova
Russian, schooling in German and England,
resident of Africa.

Original Message:
-----------------
From: Maryna Vinarska vinarska at YAHOO.COM
Date: Mon, 17 Apr 2006 19:42:43 -0700
To: SEELANGS at LISTSERV.CUNY.EDU
Subject: [SEELANGS] Onegin et al.

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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