HARVARD UKRAINIAN STUDIES - See also - Harvard University

176 ШСЖ SEVĞENKOof the West and which on occasion did not consider itself to be a part ofEurope. This attitude has survived until our own time. Even today, not onlypeople who live in Sofia, Belgrade, Istanbul, or Bucharest but also peoplewho live in Moscow and Kiev travel "to Europe" although they know fromtheir school days that Europe ends at the Ural Mountains and that, therefore,they themselves are Europeans in the geographical sense of the term.The modern Ukrainian striving "toward Europe," as represented by thewriters Xvyl'ovyj and Zerov, can be considered a reaction against this attitudeof long standing. The same can be said about the declaration I read in1990 in Kiev that the geographical center of Europe is to be found in CarpathianUkraine. Of course, this rejection of "the East" reflects the attitudeof modern Eastern European educated classes, although not of all of them,as evidenced by the lines of Aleksandr Blok that constitute the second ofthe two quotations introducing my paper. On the level of the Eastern Europeanfolklore, on the other hand, the notion of "the East" has preserved itspositive connotation; the latter was inherited from late paganism and continuedin early Christianity: you have to pray with your face turned toward theEast, the abode of the gods, later of God, while the West is the dwellingplace of the demons, later of the Devil.If the notions "East" and "Europe" require an explanation within theframework of our subject, the notion of the West is in no need of such anexplanation, because in it the geographical and the cultural contents areidentical. You will excuse me if in this brief survey of the rôle played bythe West in Ukrainian culture I do not discuss single early events, such asthe relations between Princess Ol'ga and Emperor Otto I in the tenth centuryor the peregrinations of Princes Izjaslav and Jaropolk to Rome in theeleventh; if I do not point to the great numerical superiority of marriagesbetween the members of the Kievan dynasty of the eleventh and twelfthcenturies and their partners from Poland, the Scandinavian lands, Hungary,Germany, and France over marriages with partners coming from Byzantium;and if, finally, I do not dwell upon such facts as the western militarycampaigns and the western coronation (1253) of Prince Daniel I of Halyć,who, mind you, was also a vassal of the Golden Horde. These omissions areto be condoned on account of my purpose: I intend to turn your attention tophenomena of long duration, especially in the area of cultural history.From the vantage point of a cultural historian, the West's influence onparts of the Ukrainian territory began before 1340, acquired considerableintensity after 1569, and continued over the vast expanse of the Ukrainianlands until 1793. When we take into account the impact of Polish elites inthe Western Ukrainian lands and on the Right Bank of the Dnieper, thisinfluence continued until 1918 or even 1939. This West was, for the most