Ukraine's minister of justice assailed over academic credentials

by Zenon Zawada
Kyiv Press Bureau

KYIV - For the last eight years, Roman Zvarych, today Ukraine's minister of justice, has been claiming that he earned a graduate degree in philosophy from Columbia University.

He also has been saying he was a New York University professor between 1983 and 1991.

Yet, officials at both universities have verified that neither statement is accurate. Instead, they are part of a web of lies woven by Mr. Zvarych that served to elevate him from a national deputy in the Verkhovna Rada to the highest echelons of the Ukrainian government.

The American-born son of a building contractor who grew up in Yonkers, N.Y., is now enmeshed in his second major scandal after taking office just two months ago. Mr. Zvarych caused the first scandal of President Viktor Yushchenko's administration when he threatened to resign and then backed off following a controversy over a government ban on the re-export of oil and his wife's employment with a firm that resells oil.

Now it is known that not only does Ukraine's new justice minister lack any formal legal education, he also has no graduate or post-graduate college degree, despite his insistence to the contrary to Ukrainian reporters in recent weeks.

"I received the diploma of a master in philosophy," Mr. Zvarych told the popular Russian-language newspaper Fakty i Kommentarii in an interview published on March 25.

He repeated that claim as late as April 19 to Ukrainska Pravda, the Internet newspaper that first broke the news about Mr. Zvarych's deceit on April 14 in a story reported by Washington correspondent Luba Shara.

The lies about Mr. Zvarych's background were disseminated primarily through the Who's Who in Ukraine directory that is released annually by the publisher Kyiv Informatsia Servis (KIS) and available electronically.

The Who's Who entries are influential because they are appear to be the only source of biographical information for Cabinet Ministers and Verkhovna Rada employees.

In fact, Ukraine's government pays KIS for the unverified information as part of its Intranet system, said Yurii Marchenko, director of KIS.

When Ukrainska Pravda broke its story, it cited the Cabinet of Ministers' Internet site as the source of information on Mr. Zvarych. In fact, the webpage's content looks identical to the entries in Who's Who based on the format, content and style. A Cabinet of Ministers spokeswoman who did not give her name would not comment on the matter.

In his first submission to Who's Who in 1994, Mr. Zvarych never claimed to have any college degree. He listed his education only as Columbia University. He also wrote that he was a "candidate of sciences in philosophy," a statement Europeans understand to mean someone who has already obtained a master's degree.

It's not until his second submission to the Who's Who directory in 1997 that Mr. Zvarych claimed to have earned a master's degree in philosophy. He also added that he studied at Columbia University's philosophy department between 1976 and 1981.

In fact, Mr. Zvarych did study at Columbia University, The Weekly learned. However, he had registered himself for classes only between 1976 and 1978, according to the university Registrar's Office, which handles student records.

Columbia University spokeswomen Katie Moore confirmed on April 21 that Mr. Zvarych did not earn any degree from Columbia University.

The same facts were obtained and verified by Ukrainska Pravda.

Given that Mr. Zvarych obtained no degree from Columbia University, that would throw into question another item on his Who's Who biography.

In his submission in 1997 Mr. Zvarych claims to have been an assistant professor at Columbia University between 1981 and 1983. The Weekly was unable to confirm the validity of this claim.

Mr. Zvarych also claimed in his 1997 submission to Who's Who that he was a New York University professor for seven years, between 1983 and 1991.

In fact, Mr. Zvarych did teach at New York University, said university spokesman Josh Taylor, but only between 1989 and 1992, or three years.

Mr. Zvarych was no professor, however. He was "a part-time lecturer at NYU's School of Continuing and Professional Studies, teaching sections of a social science class," Mr. Taylor said.

KIS does not verify the information provided by the contributors to its annual Who's Who directory partly because it wouldn't have the resources to verify the biographies of its 14,000-plus contributors, Mr. Marchenko told The Weekly.

It's also not the role of the publisher to censor or police its contributors, he said.

Mr. Marchenko said he is confident that Mr. Zvarych himself authored all the educational information in his biography, as well as his professional experience in the U.S.

The only time KIS editors change biographies is to add governmental positions, he said, but never to subtract or change information.

As proof of Mr. Zvarych's direct involvement in writing his biography, Mr. Marchenko provided copies of two of Mr. Zvarych's handwritten attestation forms submitted to Who's Who - one of which contained meticulous editing notes.

In the five business days since the story broke, the Justice Ministry's press office, led by press secretary Olena Iskorostenska, has stonewalled media inquiries.

Ms. Iskorostenska declined to answer any of The Weekly's questions on Monday, April 18. On Tuesday, lower-ranking officials answered the phones and took messages.

One of these officials picked up the phone on Wednesday morning, April 20, and took a message, but then the press secretary's phone gave a busy signal all Wednesday afternoon.

No one at Mr. Zvarych's office answered repeated calls on Thursday, April 21, and Ms. Iskorostenska never responded to The Weekly's repeated requests to interview Mr. Zvarych. As of press time, there still was no response from Mr. Zvarych or his office.

As a result, The Weekly was not able to confirm with Mr. Zvarych whether he has any college degree at all. None of his three biographical submissions to Who's Who between 1993 and 2004 make any reference to a bachelor's degree.

Mr. Zvarych's biographical information about his professional background in Ukraine also has raised eyebrows.

In the Fakty i Kommentarii interview, Mr. Zvarych stated, "I wasn't a practicing lawyer in the U.S., only in Ukraine."

But Mr. Zvarych makes no mention in his biography of studying law at any Ukrainian educational institution or working for any Ukrainian law firm.

His most relevant legal experience would have been his work as a member of the Verkhovna Rada's Legal Reform Committee beginning in 1998, according to his 1999 Who's Who entry.

During the interview, Mr. Zvarych also waxed about being 17 years old and attending Columbia lectures in 1969 that were taught by Prof. Zbigniew Brzezinski, "who took an interest in me."

This story is entirely inconsistent with his claim that he attended Columbia University between 1976 and 1981.

Despite what would be considered a serious ethical breach in the U.S. that would almost surely demand resignation, virtually all of the Ukrainian media have avoided or ignored the story.

Roman Chaika, the host of a popular Saturday night political talk show, "Five Cents," on Channel 5, was the only Ukrainian television reporter who raised the question of Mr. Zvarych's diploma. The show aired on April 16.

Amidst all the avoidances, denials and deceptions involved in this ongoing fiasco, Mr. Zvarych did manage to admit one of his lies to Ukrainska Pravda.

Ever since 1994, or his first Who's Who submission, Mr. Zvarych has claimed to have written a "candidate's dissertation" on the "Ontological Foundations of Platonic Ethics" in 1981.

When asked by Ukrainska Pravda on April 12 whether he actually wrote a dissertation, Mr. Zvarych admitted: "I didn't write a dissertation. I didn't reach that level. I earned a master's degree, a master's of philosophy."

"Therefore the work on Plato - that was your master's degree work?" the Ukrainska Pravda reporter prodded.

"About Plato? That was a work in the context of a so-called colloquium," Mr. Zvarych responded.

Mr. Zvarych's colleagues also demonstrated a remarkable silence on the matter. When asked at an April 20 press conference about Mr. Zvarych's lies, Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko offered a humorous answer without confirming Mr. Zvarych's educational background.

"It would be wonderful to place in the press club the diplomas of all the ministers with their supplements, their grades - including California diplomas, physics-mathematical school certificates - so that you would be able to check the expertise of those working in government," Ms. Tymoshenko said.

The California diploma was a reference to Viktor Yanukovych's claim to have a diploma from what turned out to be a non-existing institution.

Her second reference was to a comment made earlier in the week by Transport Minister Yevhen Chervonenko, who prided himself on graduating from an elite physics-mathematics school in Dnipropetrovsk.

Members of the Ukrainian American community in Kyiv responded with cynicism and disbelief when asked to consider that Mr. Zvarych told lies that are scandalous by American standards.

Some suspected a smear campaign.

In May 1998 Mr. Zvarych gave an interview to Roman Woronowycz of The Ukrainian Weekly's Kyiv Press Bureau when he was first elected a national deputy in the Verkhovna Rada. He informed The Weekly that he had earned a Ph.D. in philosophy.

He also told The Weekly that he renounced his U.S. citizenship and applied for Ukrainian citizenship because he considered himself a Ukrainian, not a Ukrainian American. He said he accepted Ukrainian citizenship - which he was granted in January 1995 - in order to resolve "an internal contradiction that would lead to various psychological problems."

"In order to alleviate any possible problems, psychologically and otherwise, this was the right thing for me to do," Mr. Zvarych told The Weekly.

Mr. Zvarych also said in the interview that he always wanted to be a politician, "but never really saw my place in American politics."

The Ukrainian Weekly editor Andrew Nynka contributed to this story.

Copyright © The Ukrainian Weekly, April 24, 2005, No. 17, Vol. LXXIII

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