National University of Kyiv-Mohyla Academy: symbol of the rebirth of Ukraine

by Viatcheslav Brioukhovetsky

I would like to recall an event that occurred in the summer of 1989. Under the slogan "From the Heart of Europe to the Heart of Ukraine," a cruise was organized to commemorate the 175th anniversary of Taras Shevchenko's birth. Floating down the mighty Dnipro River, it was the first time that many of us had an opportunity to mix freely with representatives of Ukrainian communities from various countries.

When the boat docked in my native city of Cherkasy, we were met with songs and the traditional greeting of bread and salt.

I was standing on the top deck with Vitautas Piatkiavicius, the Lithuanian writer, and asked him, "Vitautas, do you like this?" He thought a moment and replied, "Yes, very much. I love your songs, your singing. But to be honest, we Lithuanians can't understand Ukrainians. You have an unrelentingly severe history, but you've become so accustomed to your hardship that it seems you finally became enamored of it and can't live without it!

"You revel in singing about how you've been beaten and disgraced. Today you have the chance to build your own country, but it's as if you're lost - as if, what hardship are we going to sing about now? Who are we going to complain about this time, or call our 'dear enemy' [',ÓÓÊÂ̸ÍË']?"

And with sadness I realized that he was right.

We really do prefer to seek the reasons for our losses and failures somewhere outside - and not within ourselves. It is possible that this very conversation was the spark that a few years later inspired me to tackle the project of reviving the Kyiv-Mohyla Academy.

Among other things, it seemed necessary to disprove the prevailing and quite unfair notion that higher education in Ukraine was on the level of a Third World country. Few countries have as many institutions of higher learning. International ratings, however, are a different story. Compared to the Sorbonne, Cambridge or Harvard, Ukraine's universities, institutes and academies leave much to be desired. With perhaps one exception: Kyiv-Mohyla Academy - officially known as the National University of Kyiv-Mohyla Academy - which was re-born following Ukraine's independence, after an interval of almost 200 years.

The academy's inception dates from the early 17th century, the beginning of the national liberation movement and the reunion of all Ukrainian lands that had been divided and appropriated by neighboring countries. One of the important factors in this process of increasing national awareness was the creation of a system of secondary and higher schools that would help raise the younger generation to be well-educated and aware of its national history and identity.

Numerous religious brotherhoods appeared with their own schools. Among these, Kyiv's Brotherhood of the Epiphany deserves special mention. In 1615, a city noblewoman, Yelyzaveta Hulevychivna, presented the brotherhood with her land and estate in Podil, Kyiv's historic lower section, admonishing that it should be used for humanitarian purposes, and "particularly to accommodate a school." This event took place on October 15, 1615, which has since been marked as the date of the Kyiv-Mohyla Academy's founding.

It emerged as an ordinary school at the time, but it evolved quickly, especially when reorganized as a college by Metropolitan Petro Mohyla in 1632. Twenty-six years later, Kyiv College achieved the status of a higher school and was granted the title of "academy."

Mohyla shunned the staid Byzantine educational model then dominant in Ukraine; instead he patterned his academy on Europe's Jesuit institutions. This helped the academy become a scholarly powerhouse that attracted students from all over Eastern Europe. Yet it maintained its distinctly Ukrainian heritage and its close ties to the Kozaks, who gave the country its first taste of statehood.

Over two centuries thousands of its graduates became prominent scholars, artists, politicians, military leaders, religious and cultural figures. Even when closed in 1817 and later reorganized as Kyiv Theological Academy, its rich academic traditions retained the institution's leading role as a research and educational center in Ukraine and throughout Eastern Europe.

Revived in 1991 as a modern university, Kyiv-Mohyla Academy was recognized in Ukraine as a symbol of the new state. In a few years the National University of Kyiv-Mohyla Academy won acclaim at home and became increasingly noticeable on the international scene. It functions as a national university with the status of a self-governing (autonomous) state-supported institution of higher learning, committed to innovative teaching programs and institutional control over the organization of educational and research processes.

The university aspires to follow the educational and cultural ideals of Ukraine's intellectual heritage, while endeavoring to provide an education that is relevant to contemporary national needs, sensitive to international scholastic requirements and responsive to the social challenges of modern times.

The importance of the new university lies in its pioneering effort to create in Ukraine a university of international stature. The attempt to fashion a new model of higher education in Ukraine by establishing a liberal arts university is a very significant intellectual enterprise. The National University of Kyiv-Mohyla Academy is not subject to the control of the Ministry of Education. This allows the university to work towards its stated goals: to nurture individuals to become highly educated, erudite, and knowledgeable in contemporary domestic and world affairs.

One of the academy's major distinctions is student selection based on merit. No one is admitted on the basis of "a phone call from upstairs." The anonymous testing system is a reliable protection against this most persistent hold over from the Communist era, favoritism.

The curriculum is based on the best Western European and North American university standards, with an eye toward positive domestic experience, including old Kyiv-Mohyla traditions. Among the latter is the liberal arts education principle dating from the 17th century.

At present, the Kyiv-Mohyla Academy graduates bachelors, masters, candidates and doctors of science specializing in philosophy, history, cultural studies, philology, political studies, economics, business, sociology, social work, law, computer technology, ecology, radiobiology and biology. A journalism program will be initiated in the near future, eventually followed by a medical ecology program. The university's two working languages, Ukrainian and English, enable it to invite prominent foreign scholars: 200 have worked at the academy to date. The teaching staff boasts a composition of 30 percent professors and doctors of science, and 50 percent candidates of science (roughly corresponding to assistant professors) - numbers unlikely to be found at any other Ukrainian educational establishment.

In a broader sense, the National University of Kyiv-Mohyla Academy is an educational experiment on a national scale. We are trying to create our own structure of higher learning, combining the conceptual systematic programs of European universities with the latitude of student choice offered in North American institutions of higher learning. However, the principles of the educational scheme that we propose to our students differ both from the Western model of higher learning and from the one that existed and continues to exist in Ukraine. It is easiest for me to explain this in the following manner.

That which an American university offers its students resembles a square, almost unlimited room with a number of doors. Students may walk around the room for a long time, turning left, right, going forward or turning back, often even wanting to leave through the doors. Although there are, of course, signposts and directions, students are free in almost the full sense of the word.

In Ukraine, as in the entire former Soviet Union, students enter a rigidly prescribed program. Upon entering a university, they found (and find) themselves in a long, narrow corridor. It is possible to travel along this corridor in only one direction (not a step to right or to the left) and travel only in a group, as assigned. If a student does not agree with this route, he or she must defy the established order, evoking criticism from other students and the faculty. In this system, freedom is almost absent.

What we offer students at our university, however, resembles a triangle: a broad base with the exit at the top. At the beginning of their studies, students have a wide range of choices and can freely move within the "university space," looking for the best possible variant to build an individual program.

Gradually, the student is forced to narrow his or her selection, to define a preference. Individual specialization in an academic program is finalized. A number of considerations are important here.

First, a student has a relatively free choice, but it is required to take a certain number of prerequisite courses, which fundamentally expand his or her world view and understanding.

Second, a student who feels that he or she has made a wrong choice can fairly easily change the track of his or her educational direction.

Third, our focus is on the development of individuality and individualism, not only in the sense that a student has the possibility to create his or her own academic plan and program. More importantly, a student has the obligation to make individual choices, and this cultivates a sense of personal responsibility and develops the sense of a self-made personality.

The number of students admitted to the Kyiv-Mohyla Academy is growing each year. Today, the university's student body numbers 2,251 (including our branches in Ostrih and Mykolayiv). In 1992, when we first accepted applications, 529 students applied to be admitted to Kyiv-Mohyla Academy, in 1993 there were 873, 1,068 in 1994, 1,496 in 1995, 2,168 in 1996 and 2,895 in 1997. This year we expect at least 4,000 applicants. Today we have a full-fledged university, with four-year bachelor's and two-year master's programs, as well as candidate's and doctoral programs.

In keeping with the tradition of the original Kyiv-Mohyla Academy, we are also developing a network of secondary-level colleges throughout Ukraine. Already in existence are the Kyiv-Mohyla College in the capital, Berehynia College in Cherkasy, Sich College in Zaporizhia, Ariadna College in Theodosia (Crimea), Hutsulschyna College in Rozhniv (Ivano-Frankivsk Oblast), Halych College in Ternopil, Donetsk Humanities College, Kremenets College (Ternopil Oblast), and Siverskodonetsk College (Luhansk Oblast). Over 6,000 secondary school students study in these instutions.

Next year we plan to open another branch of our university in Symferopol, which we regard as extremely important in the process of de-Russifying Crimea.

Our aim is to establish a network of high-quality educational institutions, truly prestigious ones, in which the country's most talented youth want to study. We feel that this is the only way to make Ukraine, if I may say so, Ukrainian. For it is the sad truth that there are fewer Ukrainian-language books, newspapers and journals being published in Ukraine today than there were in Soviet times; today in Kyiv you will hear fewer people speaking Ukrainian than four or five years ago.

The euphoria of our national rebirth has passed, and suddenly it has become evident that there was a lot of talk from some people, but very little action. What is required is hard work, every day, which is not so appealing for the television cameras or the speaker's podium.

I want to tell you something of our experience. In the process of establishing a branch in Mykolaiv of the National University of Kyiv-Mohyla Academy, I received severe warnings about the reception that a Ukrainian-language institution would have in this quite Russified southern oblast. I took the risk and insisted on two things: that the university should be first-class and should operate only in Ukrainian from day one.

And the response was very quick. The Mykolaiv branch of the Kyiv-Mohyla Academy rapidly won a positive reputation thanks to excellence in teaching, modern educational programs, good equipment, a solid administration and a supportive atmosphere. The parents of children studying in Mykolaiv's Russian-language secondary schools have started to demand that these schools convert to Ukrainian, because their children are determined to study at the Kyiv-Mohyla Academy. I am convinced that the same thing will happen in Symferopol.

Here is another example. Our Sich College in Zaporizhia, which also had problems starting up, today is recognized as the leading institution in reforming education in that region.

Beyond that, though, the students themselves are astonishing. I visited the college recently and was gratified by the tremendous progress made by this high school in four years' time.

Furthermore, I was impressed by their singing (you should know that for a Ukrainian, this says a lot). Their spiritual empowerment was undeniable, and it was confirmed by a story they told me.

Last summer these pupils traveled across the country on a bus tour with children from other oblasts. As with children everywhere, there was singing on the bus, and they all sang songs together. However, during the song "Chervona Kalyna" (a formerly banned patriotic hymn about the partisan Sich Riflemen fighting to rescue their homeland), the children from our college remained silent. After the song finished, they were teased: "You're from the Sich College, the famous Kyiv-Mohyla Academy, and you don't know this song!" I was later introduced to the boy who had replied, with great emotion, "At our college we never sing this hymn sitting down!" I am amazed at the national pride of the young generation coming up in the academy's network of schools.

Fortunately, no one can turn back the clock now. Ukraine has been established, and Ukraine will exist forever. But, we need to get to work on rebuilding our nation.

That is not to say that today there is no real threat to Ukraine's independence. I do not wish at this time to dwell on the reasons, but somehow in seven years we still have not been able to convince certain sectors of the population that their pro-independence choice in the 1991 referendum was the correct one. I will, however, tell you what I feel is the most important reason: the lack of true national leadership. This is not an indictment of my nation, but a statement of fact.

For too long, various occupiers have destroyed and de-nationalized Ukraine's intellectual elite, cutting off at the roots our traditional honor-bound willingness to work and instilling a ubiquitous feeling of inferiority. Of course it is impossible to change all this within a few years. Again, what we need is slow, steady and often thankless work. We need to bring up and encourage the new generation, and they will change our world.

At the Kyiv-Mohyla Academy, we have graduated 505 bachelors and 111 masters of arts and sciences; this is not a large number for a country like Ukraine, but it's a good start.

The Kyiv-Mohyla Academy was reborn as a symbol of the indestructibility of our nation, and we are striving to expand its influence throughout Ukraine.

At times, I am questioned as to the advisability of spreading ourselves so thin in these tough economic conditions. It's a fair question, for it would certainly be easier to survive by concentrating our efforts only in Kyiv. But my meetings with the talented people running our university affiliates in Kyiv, Ostrih, Mykolaiv and Symferopol, as well as the directors of all the colleges and everyone else working in our network, tell me I'm right.

A writer was once asked why he spent so much time on talented young writers if they were already talented. The writer replied, "Talent always needs help, while stupidity will often have its way anyhow."

However, if you think assisted talent is all it takes, think again. What does it mean - talent? Another writer, our own tragically misunderstood Hryhir Tiutiunnyk, made the following aphorism: "It's not enough to see, not enough to understand - we must love. There is no mystery in talent - there is only the eternal mystery of love."

Such love was aptly expressed by our famous poet, Taras Shevchenko, in a poetic equivalent to the Latin saying "dulce et decorum est pro patria mori."

ü Ú¦Í ªª, þ Ú¦Í Î·Î
åÓ ìͦªÌÛ Û·Ó"Û,
ôÓ ÔÓÍÎÂÌÛ Ò,þÚÓ"Ó ÅÓ"¦,
ᦠÌ ÛÛ Á¦"Û·Î ...

And we in Ukraine are called to cherish this great love - it is more than a feeling, it demands action. Such love will foster new generations that will strengthen our independent nation, proud to bear the name Ukraine. And I will meet my Lithuanian friend Vitautas Piatkiavicius again one day and tell him, "See, Vitautas, what a beautiful country we Ukrainians have built!" It will happen, I am sure of it.

Viatcheslav Brioukhovetsky is president of the National University of Kyiv-Mohyla Academy. From November 30 to December 10, he will visit Canada and the United States. Information about his visit may be obtained from Prof. John Fizer, (732) 846-4847, in the U.S., and Prof. Jaroslaw Rozumnyj, (204) 488-8693, in Canada.

Copyright © The Ukrainian Weekly, November 22, 1998, No. 47, Vol. LXVI

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