Harriman Institute shifts focus to Ukraine, other Soviet successor states (01/31/93)

Harriman Institute shifts focus to Ukraine, other Soviet successor states

by Khristina Lew

NEW YORK - With the collapse of the Soviet Union, hundreds of "Soviet" academic and research institutions were faced with the sudden disappearance of their object of study. For many, the transition to a post-Soviet world has been slow-moving and Russia-oriented. For The Harriman Institute at Columbia University, the nation's foremost center for the advanced, interdisciplinary study of Russia and the Soviet Union, the shift was marked by a decision to focus on the successor states of the USSR and to create a Ukrainian studies program.

Adapting to post-Soviet study

Harriman Institute Director Richard Ericson wrote in the fall of 1992 that the Harriman community, in evaluating its program of instruction, research and public affairs, "rejected the option of returning to our roots and restricting our attention to Russia alone; that seemed too narrow. However, we face a phenomenal challenge in adequately dealing with most of the other new states of the former Soviet Union. Our expertise has always been largely Russian, so a broader focus will require new resources, new skills, new courses, and in particular a more direct and deeper involvement with the states and nations of this area."

As a result of the policy change, students pursuing a Harriman Institute certificate in conjunction with a graduate degree from Columbia are no longer required to master the Russian language. Proficiency in a language other than Russian is now acceptable; courses from Uzbek to modern Uyghur sprinkle the Harriman course selection list. Ukrainian I has been reintroduced to the curriculum and is being offered during the spring 1993 semester.

The Ukrainian studies program

The idea of introducing a Ukrainian studies program to the institute "was a natural sell, like a Honda," says Dr. Alexander J. Motyl, Harriman Institute's associate director and author of "Dilemmas of Independence: Ukraine and the Politics of Post-Totalitarianism" (Council on Foreign Relations, April 1993.)

You used to have to justify the study of Ukraine, Dr. Motyl explained, but with Ukraine's economy and the nuclear issue headlining the news, "it was finally understood that Ukraine has to be studied." At The Harriman Institute, which was founded in 1946 as the Russian Institute, the study of Ukraine is critical to the study of Russian relations. "You can't think of one without the other," he emphasized.

Student interest in Ukraine, exhibited largely by non-Ukrainian students, was also a motivating factor. Of the 100 students participating in the Harriman Institute certificate program in any given year, seven will take courses in the Ukrainian language, and Dr. Motyl estimates that roughly 25 would take a Ukrainian history or politics course.

The proposed Ukrainian studies program would include Ukrainian-language courses, courses in Ukrainian politics and economics, conferences, seminars by visiting scholars and policy-makers, and contacts with Ukrainian institutes in the United States, Canada and Ukraine.

The Harriman Institute has initiated discussion on cooperation with the Canadian Institute of Ukrainian Studies at the University of Alberta, the Renaissance Foundation in Lviv and Harvard University's Ukrainian Research Institute.

Funding for nationalities programs

The Ukrainian studies program has grown out of the tradition of studying non-Russian nations begun in the 1970s with Columbia University's Program on Soviet Nationality Problems and continued by The Harriman Institute's Nationality and Siberian Studies Program.

Founded in 1988 with support from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, the Nationality and Siberian Studies Program was run as a four-year pilot program by Dr. Motyl. Although the program's charter expired in 1992, the study of nationalities and national minorities is being proposed for inclusion in the Harriman curriculum.

The Harriman Institute subsists on a $12 million endowment by the late New York Gov. W. Averell Harriman, but in order to make the Ukrainian studies and the nationalities and national minorities programs a permanent fixture, the institute must raise an additional $1.5 million to $2 million in endowments for each program. Dr. Motyl estimates that the future maintenance of the two programs, which might eventually include tenured faculty, will cost $10 million.

Funding for Ukrainian I, taught by Elena Merkoulova, a graduate of the Kiev State Institute of Foreign Languages with a master of arts degree in linguistics, is currently provided by various departments and institutes of Columbia University. According to Dr. Motyl, however, such an arrangement is "minimally onerous for all concerned."

The institute's mandate

In addition to educating future post-Soviet affairs experts, The Harriman Institute promotes advanced research on Russia, the Soviet Union and its successor states; publishes journals, monographs and books; sponsors conferences, workshops and lectures [On April 13, Prof. Mark von Hagen, who is currently developing a Ukrainian history course, will lecture on the topic "Does Ukraine Have a History?"]; and hosts fellows, senior research scholars and visiting scholars. Among Harriman's senior research scholars this year are Anatoly Dobrynin, former Soviet ambassador to the United States, and Jack F. Matlock Jr., former U.S. ambassador to the USSR.

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