Point of Clarification, or, What My Dissertation Might Be About

Nose deep in the L’viv Archives last week, I came across a 6-page essay written at the turn of the century by a L’vivan ethnographer, speculating on the commonalities between Hutsul-Carpathian and Caucasian cultures – both the high mountain dwelling wild people of their respective regions, known for their independent spirit, animist and superstitious beliefs. (This morning I was told to whisper the secret of my previous night’s bad dream out of my open window so it would float away and unburden me. I obeyed, but am not sure yet if it worked.)

The article is titled “The Carpathians and the Caucasus: Some Hypotheses About Ethnological Parallels.” The author’s cautious advancing of his hypotheses impressed me, given the frequently imperious tone of early anthropology. Gingerly, he suggests that future study of high mountains dwellers in numerous regions – including Taurida, future Crimea – might prove fruitful for ethnographers interested in the “halbwild” peoples of the various “civilized” empires.

Two days ago, my first day back in the Carpathians, my friend Marta from L’viv and I visited our sick-bed-bound friend Oksana (Hutsulka Ksenija) and her mother in their Hutsul home in Verkhovyna (where the girls are pretty as geese, as the song goes. Oksana, to be fair, is rather stunning.) After an evening of gossip and mulled wine, we awoke lazily to a Sunday breakfast of fresh cheese, sour cream and poppy seed rolls in the coziest wood-heated bedroom imaginable.

Afterwards, Marta and I left to wander in the mountains, which had been dusted with snow overnight. Behold:

We got quiet on the mountaintop, and I got to thinking (about my dissertation, of all things). Last week, I took pride in finally being able to articulate, in Ukrainian, to an ethnomusicology colleague from the Ivan Franko University, what I’m actually doing here, without having her blink and nod at me as if I was more than a little deranged. I’ve found myself delivering half-hearted explanations right and left lately, to people as dear as my kid brother (who, it was revealed in a phone conversation yesterday, had absolutely no clue why I’m here) and as distant and administrative as the IRB board (don’t ask). So I’m going to attempt to start up this blog again with a clarification, a small explanation of my project (and with hopefully less jargon than my dissertation proposal required).

Unlike the comparative project of the early 20th century armchair ethnographer, my project does not attempt to pin down similarities between the cultural traits of the Crimean Tatars and the Hutsuls (though I will admit that finding an article like that in a musty archive is totally thrilling, in the nerdiest possible sense). My project is to compare histories of exoticism, specifically how both groups have been the traditional wild people to some other, more powerful or more insecure (depending on how you look at it) group. Comparing the histories of exoticism between the Hutsuls and the Crimean Tatars is, admittedly, not the most obvious choice. Both groups are de facto “Ukrainian” (in the sense of citizenship) – at least this is what their post-Soviet passports say. But until the euphoria (and subsequent disenchantment) of the Orange Revolution effectively bonded these two groups in their political orientations, the Crimean Tatars and the Hutsuls had been the subjects of different histories in different empires, sometimes fighting against the same enemies, but often pitted against each other.

So, why these two groups? While distinct in ethnogensis, history and territory, Hutsuls, the superstitious, hard-drinking subsistence farmers to Poland and Austro-Hungary’s urban intellectuals, and Crimean Tatars, the perceived inheritors of Genghis Khan’s barbarism to the Russian Imperial gaze, are the two ethnic groups on the territory of contemporary Ukraine that are the most laden with stereotypes of “otherness” or, specifically, “wildness.” The interesting twist, in both cases, is that being exotic, or colorful, or unique, or wild, is an effective way to stimulate cultural revival vis-a-vis tourism and the heritage industry.

Yesterday, the curator at the Kosiv Hutsul Museum told me that she herself “didn’t realize how special her culture was” until she saw it on display at a festival in Warsaw, which convinced her that a top priority of the Hutsuls should be “to show their culture to the world.” Of course, once you leave the enclave, the world begins to meddle, and then debates about authenticity and representation begin.

Music, this thing that not only reflects but also creates culture, is my way into this whole project. Often, the debates that rage in traditional communities about how musical culture should be used - preserved or updated, institutionalized or hybridized - bear striking analogies to bigger questions about how minority and indigenous groups should be bracing against homogenization/assimilation while being realistic (and savvy) about living in the globalized 21st century. Which is why it is not wholly surprising that the rather famous Tafiychuk family of Hutsul musicians are caroling in New York City right now (and not, as I had hoped, in the Karpaty). So if you’re around in the city, you might want to check out the events that the Yara Arts Group is putting on this week at La MaMa (and tell me how it is):

Still the River Flows
Dec 26-28 – Fri- Sun
a new theatre piece by Yara Arts Group
featuring Koliadnyky of Kryvorivnia, Tafiychuk family,
Svitayana, Julian Kytasty, Yara artists and Lilia Pavlovsky and family
La MaMa Experimental Theatre, $25 children $10
74 East 4th St (between 2nd & 3rd Ave) New York (212) 475-7710

Hey, that’s a small start, I think!

It’s snowing outside. I’m going to bundle up and head into Kosiv proper to buy a tiny Christmas tree.
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From the sweaty internet cafe: Here's another photo from the top of the very chic ski resort Bukovel, where we happened upon this Hutsul ensemble caroling for some German television special. This is the only ski resort I've ever been to where men with trembitas (alpine horns) wander around drinking hot beer at the bottom of the slopes.