“The Magocsi Problem” (Problema Magochoho): a preliminary deconstruction and contextualization

Abstract

An academic gathering – be it a symposium, a conference, or a round-table – to examine the work of a fellow scholar is invariably timely. At the very least it presupposes a consensus on the basic significance of the subject being addressed and a collective decision to address it. As a launch of a new book (in Ukraine a phenomenon known as prezentatsiia), it provides the welcome opportunity to discuss a new contribution and with that to fill in and redraw our map of the field. If more than one work or project is involved, it provides a still greater opportunity, and indeed poses a scholarly obligation, to see the larger picture and to engage in stock-taking and rethinking. By contextualizing, problematizing, and where need be, deconstructing, we recalibrate our understanding and thus revive the field and our commitment to it. Clearly, the process of laudatio, of paying homage to achievements spanning a whole career, also contributes to this.

Keywords:

• Ukraine
• Magosci
• nationalism

Notes

An earlier edition carrying the same title but covering the years 1964–1985 was edited by Luba Pendzey with an introduction by Bohdan Budurowycz. U of Toronto P, Toronto, 1985.

The literature on this is substantial. For recent internet material, see Donii.

Cf. the “Open Letter,” signed by Paul Robert Magocsi and Steven Chepa, disassociating the World Congress of Rusyns from extremist positions, particularly attempts to establish a Russian “protectorate” over the Transcarpathian oblast', as well as Professor Magocsi's note arguing that Ukrainian government inaction provokes such extremism (21).

The literature on language death is voluminous, especially on the Internet; see http://www.ethnologue.com/show_subject.asp?code=LGD for one such bibliography. The rates of language death in various regions of the world are difficult to assess, especially because of the range of criteria and statistical evidence employed. Nevertheless, as noted in 1992 by one leading authority, Michael Krauss: “I consider it a plausible calculation that – at the rate things are going – the coming century will see either the death or the doom of 90% of mankind's languages” (cited in Crystal 18). For a study of the Ukrainian language under the pressures of Soviet linguicide, see Masenko.