The Crimean question

[Chernetsky, Vitaly A. Dr.]

Dear Professor Meerson, dear Colleagues,

First, I am surprised that a private letter addressed to another person was forwarded to the list without first asking for my permission to do so. This too is a violation of rules of decorum. Second, as a native of the northern Black Sea coast region (specifically the city of Odes(s)a) and a Ukrainian person of multi-ethnic and multi-cultural background, I found the unprovoked lengthy outburst in Prof. Meerson's message last night personally hurtful. No one in Ukraine is waging a campaign of "claiming" Crimea for ethnic Ukrainians. On the contrary, the Crimean Tatar Mejlis and personally Mustafa Dzhemilev, another prominent dissident, have always been close allies of the pro-democracy movement in the entire Ukraine. It is Tsarist policies in the 19th century and, especially, the Stalinist deportations in the 1940s that disrupted the historically established ethnic makeup of Crimea. The Crimean Tatars, the Pontic Greeks, the Caraites, and the Krymchaks are the communities who!
 se rights have been abused. However, it is the fringe right-wing ethnic Russian extremists, urged by Luzhkov, Zatulin, and other unsavory characters from the Russian political establishment that have been stoking the tensions in Crimea in recent years; I certainly hope that Prof. Meerson would not want to be considered their ally. For those curious to learn more about the history of multicultural Crimea, I recommend the 2007 book by Gwendolyn Sasse, _The Crimea Question: Identity, Transition, and Conflict_--or the beautiful novel by Liudmila Ulitskaia, _Medea and Her Children_. There are also several excellent recent dissertations on Crimea (for instance, two at Columbia that I am personally aware of) that I hope will soon result in fruitful additions to our understanding of the dramatic past and the complicated present sociocultural situation on this peninsula.

Sincerely,

Vitaly Chernetsky

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Dr. Vitaly Chernetsky
Associate Professor
Dept. of German, Russian & East Asian Languages
Director, Film Studies Program
Miami University
Oxford, OH 45056
tel. (513) 529-2515
fax (513) 529-2296
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________________________________________
From: SEELANGS: Slavic & East European Languages and Literatures list [SEELANGS at BAMA.UA.EDU] On Behalf Of Olga Meerson [meersono at GEORGETOWN.EDU]
Sent: Tuesday, September 14, 2010 11:37 PM
To: SEELANGS at BAMA.UA.EDU
Subject: [SEELANGS]

Dear SEELANGSers,
As Vitalii Chernetsky suggested, I should "have the decency to apologize" for my comment, to Martha, and the whole list. Perhaps I should. The only thing I don't understand is why I should have been ashamed of "invoking vsue [presumably meaning in vain?] the name of a great person from the dissident movement" (meaning Grigorenko, I presume, whom, by the way, I knew personally and was even his priest's wife, while having no honor of ever meeting Viralii Chernetsky or Martha). If the rest of you, my colleagues, find my letter to Martha offensive, please accept my apologies. And of course, I am asking Martha herself for forgiveness. I indeed did not mean anything ad hominem, as Vitaly has suspected. I am sorry if my argument about certain paradoxes in Crimea's history, and its historical-cultural independence from both Russia and Ukraine, could have been misconstrued as a personal offense. Please accept my apologies, all who feel offended. Here is Vitaly's letter to me. Althoug!

 h !
it was private, it urged me to apologize to the whole list, so I think the list deserves to know Vitaly's own stance on the matter:

Dear Professor Meerson,

It is highly inappropriate for you to launch into such ad hominem messages at fellow SEELANGS members. Dr. Kuchar only reminded the previous poster that Evpatoriia is now part of the state of Ukraine. Your logic in linking that with her allegedly "claiming Crimea for Ukrainians" is spurious and reprehensible. The poster in no way suggested that people other than ethnic Ukrainians "do not belong" in Crimea. And invoking vsue a great person from the history of the dissident movement--for shame!

I hope you have the decency to apologize to Dr. Kuchar and the list for what you have done.

Vitaly Chernetsky


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