Українсько-турецьке минуле та проблеми етнокультурної толерантності в есеї В’ячеслава Медведя “Галерник і наглядач”

Abstract

In the article an essay of outstanding Ukrainian writer Vyacheslav Medvid’ (22.02.1951) “A galley convict and a warden” (Halernyk i nahlyadach) (1994) is analyzed. This work supports the idea that all myths about interethnic and interreligious conflicts should stay in the past, and international relations must be premised on the universal human values of equality and mutual respect. Inspiration for the essay was a work “Report on a seajack of an Alexandrian admiral’s galley by captain Mark Yakymovs’kyy in a port of Metelino” (1628), written by Italian author Marco Tomazo Marnavizio, which was revised in the article by Ukrainian historian Yu. Mytsyk in 1991. Narrating the content of the report V. Medvid pays attention to the fact that it was written under the ideological and political influence of Christian-European views of the 17th century. For those who shared them the Moslems and the Ottoman Empire were considered to be the conventional image of an enemy. That is why M. T. Marnavizio completely ignored the “Turkish” point of view on convicts’ revolt and galley hijacking, though he pointed at the strange behavior of Turkish admiral Kasym-back (Kasym-bay) after the captives escape. In order to fill the gap in works by Marnavizio and Mytsyk, Vyacheslav Medvid’ decided to have a look at galley hijacking from Kasim-back’s point of view and to recreate the reasoned viewpoint of the Other, the Turkish admiral. The writer came to the conclusion that a one-sided view on past events, particularly the idea of a “secular enmity” of Ukrainian and Turkish people is no more than a myth, which should be a thing in the past, and become a material for production by modern culture the works of art, which should give pleasure with reception. Contemporary Ukrainian-Turkish relations should be free of the myths of the past and be grounded on mutual respect and equality. Medvid’s essay became very popular among the intellectual-cultural elite of Ukraine, it was republished for several times and received the great enthusiastic responses from key literary critics, including Oles’ Buzyna, but is a little-known for the broad reading public. Maybe because it was written in parabolic form, the points of the essay were formulated indirectly, readers need to make significant intellectual efforts for reception and understanding. But “A galley convict and a warden” means much for creating a new vision of international relations in Ukraine. A necessity of a translation into Turkish and publishing of the essay is also relevant.