When did you begin writing for publication?

Myroslav Petriw: This is a question with two separate answers. I started writing the Ukrainian novel Skarb Yaroslava in 1995. That novel was completed in 2001 and published in Ukraine in 2003. I began writing this English-language book, Yaroslaw's Treasure, in late 2006.

Both are historically rooted works. How did your interest in Ukrainian history first develop?

Petriw: I was exposed to stories from Ukrainian history from early childhood. As a child of the post-war emigration, I found that the most basic existential questions had their answers in history. The very fact that I lived in Canada and not Ukraine had its roots in history. I thoroughly enjoyed the study of history during the Saturday high-school-level Ukrainian courses I took for four years. It was at that time that my initial interest became a real passion.

The plot for Yaroslaw’s Treasure is unusually intriguing. What caused you to connect earlier Ukrainian history with the recent turbulent events of the Orange Revolution?

Petriw: Again I need to return to my Ukrainian novel, which was written and published well before the Orange Revolution. I knew it was a story that needed to be retold in English, but in the meantime the Orange Revolution had changed history, making the original story obsolete. So then I began studying how I could weave the original story of secret archeological digs into the actual events of the Orange Revolution.

What did your studies tell you about that?

Petriw:Very little if anything had been published in English that dealt with the Orange Revolution. I discovered a vacuum just begging to be filled.

So this is not revisionist history, but revision of a novel to incorporate history.

Petriw: Yes, I found that I could take many of the mysteries and loose ends of the Orange Revolution and tie them directly to the story of the search for Prince Yaroslaw’s fabulous Library. Serendipitously, the result works on many levels. By neatly tying up these loose ends the fiction becomes very believable. The fact that General Yuriy Kravchenko and Mad Max Kurochkin were both bidding on the same Dnipro Hotel and were both killed under unresolved circumstances lends credence to much of the fictional story. The fact that Independence Square (Maidan Nezalezhnosti), the epicentre of the Orange Revolution, stands on the same bit of real estate as the Lyadski Gates through which the Mongols broke Kyiv’s defences in 1240 A.D., ties those two political events metaphysically, raising the tale of the loss and rediscovery of the Library to an even higher plane. A post-genocidal nation’s search for self must naturally include a search for its history, thus the quest for the Lost Library becomes an allegory for the Orange Revolution.

So Yarloslaw’s Treasure is substantially different from your earlier Ukrainian novel, plus it was written in English, right?

Petriw: Correct on both counts. It is surprising how history rewrites itself, never mind a book.

On that score, you convey a great deal of fascinating information about early Ukrainian history in Yaroslaw’s Treasure, not to mention all of the rich detail about events during the Orange Revolution. How did you manage to keep the political and historical information from getting in the way of the story?

Petriw: The story came first. But being a story about history, setting it against the background of current history was only natural. What is more, the events in Ukraine prove that fact is often stranger than fiction. I am convinced that very few readers could categorize all the events depicted in this novel correctly as fact or fantasy.

Did you cut out a lot that you might have liked to include?

Petriw: I did not. I had the good fortune to work with a Blue Butterfly editor who allowed me the freedom to express what needed to be said, while holding me to the discipline of brevity. A large pile of adverbs bit the dust, but none of the story.

What is your greatest satisfaction as a writer?

Petriw: I think a writer has to satisfy himself before he can hope to satisfy others. The fact that even after having proofread the story a hundred times, I still catch myself engrossed in it provides great satisfaction. But I think the greatest satisfaction is yet to come. It will happen when someone who is completely unfamiliar with Eastern Europe, finds himself or herself reading the story just for the pleasure of reading a tale well told.

Yaroslaw’s Treasure is a work of historical fiction, but readers will no doubt recognize some places, events, and personalities.

Petriw: Yes, places are real, the history is accurate, and the Orange Revolution took place. Public figures, some still living, are portrayed in both real and fictitious circumstances, while others are merely referred to in statements by the fictional characters who populate the story.
          When it comes to works of fiction, which Yaroslaw's Treasure definitely is, readers understand that the story is larger than its facts. It is about the human condition. Whether reading books or watching movies, people are very sophisticated about understanding this, and in recognizing the blurred line between fact and fiction.

So the types of disclaimers printed in novels and shown at the end of movies, “No resemblance to anyone living or dead, etcetera,” are not necessary?

Petriw: Does anyone take them seriously?  In fact, for this to be historical fiction and not just plain fiction, such resemblance is absolutely necessary. I like Blue Butterfly’s approach “Think Free … Be Free!”

The “factual” parts, then, are intermingled with your creative writing?

Petriw: Exactly. Documentable deeds need to be present in an historical novel, to establish both a realistic setting and believability for the story. That’s what separates historical fiction from fiction of other types.

How did you achieve this in Yaroslaw’s Treasure?

Petriw: Many instances in this novel include direct translations of actual statements and news reports of the period. Others are purely my fictitious inventions. It’s the blending of both that maintains the sense of realism required in historical fiction.
          Of course, given the era in which the story is set, statements by public figures and reports by the controlled news media are themselves likely to contain distortions and fictions. As stated early on in this novel, it’s “Alice in Wonderland”—all is not as it seems.

Does the same apply to the characterization of public figures in your book?

Petriw: Certain episodes and personalities in Yaroslaw’s Treasure will be instantly recognizable to anyone who follows current events in Ukraine, because the story reflects what has been reported in news reports, documentaries, and exposés at the time. Oddly enough though, compared to some accusations made in the media about some of these characters, I may have inadvertently cleaned up somewhat one or two very tarnished reputations!

Is that an issue for a writer, whether inadvertent or intentional, altering a reader’s perception of a real person?

Petriw: The big challenge for any writer is ultimately to pin such insects, be they wasps or butterflies, to a board and label them. However, these public figures are much more complex as individuals than news reports, editorials, tape recordings, and television sound bites ever reflect. In this novel, I’ve tried to bring that across. Even choosing on which end of the good-guy/bad-guy spectrum to pin a living individual can become problematic, as it must be interwoven into the higher purpose of telling a good tale.

Initial reaction to Yaroslaw’s Treasure has been extremely positive because of the way you engage readers. Is this what you expected?

Petriw: It is what I had hoped. It is what I was attempting to do in crafting this story. But it would be very presumptuous of me to say that this is what I expected.

Readers connect with this story. Can you shed light on what is happening?

Petriw: The protagonist, Yarko, represents the average reader. He begins outside the story, even outside the country where the story takes place. He is sucked into the whirlwind of history quite involuntarily. Often it is the situation that dictates his actions. He is rarely fully in control of the events around him, yet he is never just a mere bystander. Similarly I had hoped that the reader would get carried away by the current of the story, coming out of it unscathed, but in a different place.

Your novel makes clear that, for a very long time, the relationship between Ukraine and Russia has not been a happy one. While most outsiders might be aware of this in a general way, Yaroslaw’s Treasure portrays some of the more horrid details. Do you foresee a time when the relationship between Ukraine and Russia will improve?

Petriw: I will not even attempt to foresee the future. What I can say unequivocally is that the relationship between Ukraine and Russia-the-empire will always be problematic. On the other hand, the relationship between Ukraine and Muscovy-the-nation-state could be quite neighbourly. I think that exactly the same thing can be said about Russia's relationship with many other neighbours, ranging from Georgia to Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, and even Poland.
          In fact today's Polish-Ukrainian relationship is proof of what I'm saying. The historic relationship between Ukrainians and Poland-the-empire had been one of hostility and mutual "ethnic engineering," while today's relationship between the two nation-states is the very epitome of neighbourliness and friendship.

Is there any hope, do you believe, for Ukrainian-Russian relations to normalize?

Petriw: The pre-conditions for this normalization were given in my previous answer. Now your question becomes whether there can be a Muscovite identity that does not rely on conquest and expansion for its source of self-respect. Regrettably, today all those who could give voice to such a self-identity are being killed. What is more, the worship of past brutes of imperialism is being revived. The short-term answer to your question is negative.

If someone asked you about your single most important message in this book, what would you answer?

Petriw: I never visualized this book as something that carried a single message. I saw it more as a cleverly crafted menu, something to tease a reader’s taste buds. For some it would waken a taste for Ukraine’s history, for others an interest in its archaeology, for still others it could pique a taste for the language. For many it should create a new awareness of the existence of a Ukrainian political entity on the European continent. For those who find their roots in the Ukrainian nation, I hope to reawaken their sense of pride.

Do you envisage Yaroslaw’s Treasure as a feature film?

Petriw: Yes. The film has been playing in my head for a dozen years. I would love to see it transferred to the silver screen.