HARVARD UKRAINIAN STUDIES - See also - Harvard University

552 ReviewsA number of other authors chose to produce a survey of the literature or asynthesis on a broader topic. The problems in this approach are evident evenin Pelenski's essay, which treats in rapid succession (within 20 pages) the socialcomposition of the Haidamak forces, the role of the clergy and of the Russiangovernment in the uprisings, and the rebellion's impact on Poland and Polish-Ukrainian relations. The discussion is well informed, but lacks intensiveanalysis, conclusive results, and a unifying theme. The result is less satisfactorythan the more focused review essay by Zenon Kohut on the same subjectwhich appeared in 1977.*When the subject surveyed is as broad and frequently investigated as theFrench Revolution, the difficulties of the broad approach become moreobvious. Bogusław Lesnodorski's rambling discussion of some of the classicissues of the French Revolution is perhaps the weakest essay in the volume; itignores a great deal of new research, dismisses other works out of hand, andcontributes little new information itself. Covering a larger geographical areabut devoted to a narrow theme, Jan Biatostocki's survey of the changes in howpolitical events were portrayed in "high" art (as opposed to broadsides) ismore successful. He has produced a coherent, if not radically original, accountof the gradual politicization of art, based on evidence from America, WesternEurope, and Eastern Europe (primarily Poland). The only essay with equallybroad geographical coverage is Jerzy Topolski's on "revolutionary consciousness,"which is more a contribution to the Marxist theory of history than anattempt to explain events in (or evidence about) the past. The somewhatamorphous concept of "revolutionary consciousness" would allow the Marxisthistorian to weigh political thought almost as heavily as economic conditions inexplaining revolutions, and thus to incorporate much useful Western scholarshipon ideology. Whether the approach abides by the canons of orthodoxMarxism I leave to others to judge.The least successful section of the book is the three discussions by Americanhistorians of Eastern Europe of "Polish-American relations in the revolutionaryera." Although they do offer occasional new perspectives, the authorstended to follow the beaten path and to rely heavily on secondary sources,particularly the work of Miecislaus Haiman.Taken together, then, the volume neither attempts nor succeeds in havingany one strategy. It does not provide the broad coverage found, for instance,in R. R. Palmer's The Age of the Democratic Revolution. The editor's introductionprovides a brief discussion of the various typologies of revolution, butthe typologies have little to do with most of the essays. Furthermore, thefour-year interval between the conference and the publication of the papers* Zenon Ε. Kohut, "Myths Old and New: The Haidamak Movement and theKoliivshchyna (1768) in Recent Historiography," Harvard Ukrainian Studies 1,no. 3 (September 1977) : 359-378.