Vitaliy Keis on the state of Ukrainianization in the Donbas
NEW YORK - Dr. Vitaliy Keis, professor of English at Rutgers University's Newark campus and native of the Donbas region of Ukraine, recently returned from a semester-long teaching stint in Slavianske, a medium-sized city in the Donetske Oblast. Prof. Keis taught at the Slavianske State Pedagogical Institute, the leading teacher-training institution in the oblast and the center of Ukrainianization efforts in the heavily Russified Donbas.
During his half-year in the Donbas, Prof. Keis's activities, originally intended to be limited to the teaching sphere, crossed that self-imposed boundary numerous times. Some of his observations cast doubt on official Ukrainian governmental assertions that the Ukrainianization of schools is proceeding apace, while others highlight the mixed feelings towards the Ukrainian language and culture that characterize today's Donbas.
This interview was conducted by The Ukrainian Weekly editorial assistant Yarema A. Bachynsky and also draws on material presented by Prof. Keis in January during his appearance before the Shevchenko Scientific Society in New York.
PART I
Q: What did your academic activity at the institute consist of?
A: I taught two courses at the institute: an English rhetoric/composition course as well as a course on contemporary Ukrainian diaspora literature. This course focused heavily on the New York Group of Writers. In the English course I had about 20 students, but the Ukrainian course was attended by over 200 students. There were two lecture hall sections; each was held once a week for two hours; a two-hour recitation in groups of 25 students would meet once a week also.
Professors in Ukraine teach longer hours than here, or perhaps my long hours were a result of the tremendous interest and demand for the diaspora literature course. There were no free moments. I taught Monday through Thursday. Friday through Sunday I was on the road, at some newspaper, school, television program, etc. Sometimes I got calls at midnight advising me to be ready at the crack of dawn because I would be going to Kramatorske [another city in Donetske Oblast] or some other city to inspect a school, or meet with students, or something similar. Besides teaching, I took an active part in the political life of the area, spent much time politicking. Something, by the way, which I had not planned on doing.
Q: Where does the Slavianske Institute fall in the educational scheme of things in Donetske Oblast?
A: Donetske is a million-plus city; it is the region's capital. The Slavianske Institute, though not nearly as prestigious as Donetske University, nonetheless plays a far more important role in the Ukrainianization and indeed in the general education of the oblast's youth. Where the university turns out high-level scholars, academics who can debate the finer points of the Ukrainian language, philology etc., the institute trains teachers who then go out into the oblast and bring the Ukrainian revival straight to primary and secondary school students. They are doing this as we speak, where at all possible. Things were so bad in the past with teaching Ukrainian that only poorly or even unqualified individuals were assigned to teach Ukrainian.
The Donbas does not need academics; Kyiv, Kharkiv, Lviv have plenty of those. That's why the institute's worth is almost immeasurable. It is the center of Ukrainianization in the Donbas. And the institute would not be what it is without the determined and persistent work of Prof. Vasyl Horbachuk. He is a good academic, a scholar and a patriot fully committed to rebuilding the prestige and primacy of the Ukrainian language on Ukrainian territory.
Q: What is Prof. Horbachuk's position at the institute? And how is the institute structured?
A: He is the dean of the Novyi Korpus [New College]. Let me explain. The institute consists of four colleges or campuses, if you will. It trains teachers for all of the Donbas. Although I do not know the total number of students for the institute as a whole, the Ukrainian department at the Novyi Korpus alone consists of 300 students (200 full-time and about 100 part-time) and 40 professors. The Staryi Korpus [Old College], where pedagogy per se is taught, is about three times as large, and everything is taught in Ukrainian there. But ours [the Novyi Korpus] is the one that trains all the "revolutionaries." That is, those teachers who will insist on Ukrainianizing the schools regardless of official attitudes.
Q: At the end of their training, how many of these teachers will stay in the Donbas?
A: The large majority will remain in the Donbas. They start teaching even before they are finished with their studies at the institute. Many are assigned permanent teaching locations before graduation. They are from the Donbas and they will work in and for the Donbas.
Q: In your talk at the Shevchenko Scientific Society in January, you commented extensively about how ethnic identity does not accurately predict a Ukrainian citizen's attitude towards Ukrainianization. You mentioned a Prof. Vnukova in this regard. What led you to hold her in the high esteem you do?
A: Prof. P. Vnukova is the chair of the pedagogical department at the institute. At first I had no contact with her because she is not a philologist. I met her first in Mykolayivka, a small town in the Slavianske region with a wonderful high school supported by the local factory but government-run. The school is equipped with the most modern computers and teaching aids. Naturally, Russian is the language of instruction there.
Recently the institute "adopted" the school. We were invited to a presentation by the faculty and administration to inspect the school. Prof. Horbachuk invited me along as an observer. During the course of the visit, students gave a concert, all very nice. But everything, including teachers' presentations, was exclusively in Russian. Even the standard set of national symbols, trident etc., at the school entrance were surrounded by Russian-only signs explaining their significance.
When the principal got done talking, we were invited to give a critique. Sitting there and seething, I contravened parliamentary procedure and raised my hand, even though as a non-faculty guest I did not have a voice. Surprisingly, I was recognized. I started speaking, in Ukrainian. I noted there were no Ukrainian language signs, and that I was very surprised to hear and see the schoolchildren give an exclusively Russian concert. What surprised me most was that the emcee was a Ukrainian language teacher, yet she led the event entirely in Russian. I expressed my dissatisfaction.
Immediately after I finished, Prof. Vnukova spoke; following her, Prof. Horbachuk. All three of us spoke in Ukrainian and highlighted the same problems. The teachers and administrators were most unhappy because we had ruined their day. Towards the end, a mathematics teacher got really annoyed at me, saying I should have stayed in the U.S.A. and not have come to meddle in "their" affairs. So it was with the Ukrainian language teacher. The pro-rector of the institute said he would launch an investigation of the high school, inasmuch it was clearly violating the law on languages and was under the institute's purview.
Following this affair I remarked to Prof. Vnukova: "It's great there are such patriotic Ukrainian women here." And she responded, "Sorry, but I am 100 percent Russian." That shocked me. She is Russian, her husband is Russian, at home they all speak Russian, but the entire family, kids and all, know the state language, Ukrainian, and do not dishonor it in any way. She told me that as a Ukrainian citizen, her loyalty rests with Ukraine, even though her ethnicity and native language are Russian.
Q: Did you ever experience unpleasantness of a Ukrainophobic or anti-Ukrainian character directed at you, while teaching, or at some other time and place during your stay in the Donbas?
A: At school I did not have this, other than the just-mentioned incident. However, my students told me of one incident related to my visit. At Slavianske School No. 5, a prestigious math and science institution similar to New York City's Bronx High School of Science, the administration is stridently anti-Ukrainian. After considerable begging and pleading by parents and students alike, the school set aside one room for a Ukrainian activities club, which the students proceeded to upgrade with Ukrainian motifs and a small library.
In that room, the activities club meets. Students self-teach Ukrainian, with no official support; they have no teacher. These students invited me to speak before them. I insisted they get the principal's permission. This took some time, and finally I was allowed to speak there, although the principal made a point of unloading her anti-Ukrainianism on me prior to going home that afternoon. In talking with some of the students during our time together, I was told the principal had angrily complained about "Americans" "always coming [to Ukraine]," etc.
On the other hand, I even had a situation develop in the opposite, e.g., anti-Russian, direction. I had never understood what the expression prevalent during Soviet times "speak a human language" meant. What it means is that Ukrainian was considered an animal language. In any case the administration made a mistake once and misscheduled my and another [Russian] professor's lecture halls to meet in the same room at the same time. I started teaching a bit early and upon being suddenly disturbed by an angry old professor frantically screaming at me in Russian to leave the room, I told him to "speak like a human being, as I cannot understand you." Well, the class took that politically; some guys started clapping; it took 15 minutes for the commotion to cease. The class was quite pleased at this, admittedly inadvertent, but significant nonetheless, turning of the tables on "the human language." Now this professor complained to the rector of the institute, but nothing came of his grumbling.
Q: And to what extent has the institute been Ukrainianized, other than the philology department and the Novyi Korpus, which according to you are essentially Ukrainianized?
A: In the early Kravchuk days (i.e., during the presidency of Leonid Kravchuk), the rector ordered that all teaching be done in Ukrainian and many of the departments, though far from all, went over to Ukrainian as the language of instruction. Philosophy, history, physics and math are all taught in Ukrainian now. But other departments continue teaching in Russian. The moment [President Leonid] Kuchma started talking about two official languages, the rector sat on the fence and has since vacillated over the promotion or preservation of Ukrainianization.
Note, however, that no Ukrainianized department has switched back. All school holidays are conducted in Ukrainian. In the institute as such, hard-line Ukrainophobia is, if it at all exists, confined to underground status. But that refers only to the Institute. Outside, on the streets, no one speaks Ukrainian (the result of unrelenting Russification). But the students who are to become teachers of the Ukrainian language or who will teach in Ukrainian, well, they are patriotically inclined people who are using Ukrainian more and more, even in public.
Copyright © The Ukrainian Weekly, March 17, 1996, No. 11, Vol. LXIV
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