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On Deconstruction and Ethnicity

In a recent issue, Kritika published a review by Edward L. Keenan of Tat ́iana Vilkul’s Liudi i kniaz ́ v drevnerusskikh letopisiakh serediny XI–XIII vv. (The People and the Prince in Medieval Russian Chronicles of the 11th–13th Centuries).1 In his review, Mr. Keenan also referenced my own evaluation of Vilkul’s book and provided some pointed criticism of my views on Vilkul’s monograph. While Mr. Keenan enjoyed Vilkul’s book, he was not as laudatory in his assessment of my own critique of this work. Although Mr. Keenan has every right to criticize me as he sees fit, I find it discouraging that he does not back up his aspersions with any tangible evidence or cohesive arguments. Keenan’s opinion of Vilkul’s work is saturated with platitudes such as “her [Vilkul’s] account ... is convincing” (505–6) or “this [Vilkul’s] is an important book” (508). I find this type of approbation, based on personal taste rather than historical argument, to be irrelevant in a proper academic discussion. However, this is not the most disingenuous aspect of Keenan’s critique. Rather, Keenan’s review contains a variety of misleading calumnies about my person ranging from relatively harmless ones such as that I had previously been a “collaborator” (505) of Dr. Vilkul (I have not) to more acerbic denunciations that harm my reputation as an academic and fall far below the high level of Kritika’s journalistic integrity. In reference to my criticism of Vilkul, Keenan writes: “He [Lukin] seems to object to two things: first, the fact that Vilkul is so dismissive of all (prerevolutionary and Soviet Russian) historiography, including the work of recent eminences; and second, the fact that she is Ukrainian... . There is, however, a third possibility, as Lukin hints (421), that ‘narrativism,’ like other tendencies, has come from the West” (507). These accusations are entirely unsubstantiated. I did not accuse Vilkul of being disrespectful to authoritative works, but rather of the fact that