FOR THE RECORD: Mark von Hagen's address to IAUS congress

Below is the text of the opening address delivered on June 29 by Prof. Mark von Hagen, president of the International Association of Ukrainian Studies (Mizhnarodna Asotsiatsiya Ukrainistiv), at the IAUS congress held in Donetsk.

Dear colleagues, on behalf of the program and organizing committees, welcome to the sixth international congress of IAUS, and to Donetsk, the home of IAUS founding member Ivan Dziuba and to another great Ukrainian patriot Vasyl Stus. Although the Donbass has been subjected over the past two centuries to intensive russification and deukrainianization in the name of industrial progress and economic development, the region was once the home of Cossacks and later foreign colonists invited by Russian emperors and empresses to replace the deported and defeated Kozak hosts. All these groups built what today is southeastern Ukraine.

Donetsk therefore is a very different Ukraine than those Ukraines that have been the host sites for prior congresses of IAUS in Kyiv, Lviv, Kharkiv, Odesa and Chernivtsi, but each of those cities also represented very different Ukraines, with different historical paths and contemporary complexions.

Our local host, Volodymyr Shevchenko, rector of Donetsk National University, is a good illustration of the region's Ukrainianness. He attended a Ukrainian primary school near his native Dnipropetrovsk, but soon transferred to a Russian high school. He achieved international renown in his field of physics and is a member of the Academy of Sciences of Ukraine and honorary member of other national academies. And he has been chair of the local Prosvita society and the proud father of the University Lycee which turns out more national Ukrainian-language Olympiad winners than any other institution in the country. Thank you, Pane Volodymyre, for all your cooperation, your patience, and professionalism, and for your sincere Ukrainian hospitality since we first met.

In addition to Rector Shevchenko and his team, many other colleagues helped make this congress possible, but special thanks go to Yaroslav Hrytsak, Frank Sysyn and Diana Howansky, as well as the Kyiv MAU office.

The Orange Revolution and Ukraine's international image

Although I have never overcome the feeling that I am the accidental (vypadkovyi) president of this organization, in the past three years that I have served in that office, I have had many moments of gratification and pride, but perhaps none so powerful as those of a long-distance observer of the Orange Revolution.

Three years ago, when we last convened, Ukraine's reputation, frankly, was not a positive one in the international arena. Its present under Kuchma was summarized as corruption, apathy and provincialism, while its past was indicted for xenophobic nationalism, especially violent anti-semitism, backwardness, and was assumed to be little different from Russia.

The Orange Revolution presented an opening for the world to consider a different Ukraine, in which its citizens, especially its young people, mustered the courage to demand a government accountable to the Constitution and held strong to a vision of non-violent regime change in the name of dignity, transparency and human rights. May God grant that the new government of Ukraine prove itself worthy of its citizens and the hopes of millions of progressive citizens of other countries, especially in Russia and Belarus, but even "older" democracies such as the United States, which has become notorious for its violation of international law and its assault on civil liberties at home and abroad.

What the Orange Revolution did, among other things, was to remind the world that Ukraine has a history of progressive traditions (in addition to the negative features that are better known and often misunderstood): religious pluralism, civic activism, ethnic tolerance, Kozak democracy.

During the past several years I have been immersed in the history of Ukraine during the years of war and revolution (1914-1923); the more I become familiar with the complex legacies of Mykhailo Hrushevsky, Andrey Sheptytsky, Volodymyr Vynnychenko, even Pavlo Skoropadsky, the more I am impressed by those progressive currents in modern Ukrainian politics and culture.

Since Chernivtsi, I have come to know these fellows even better and have even greater respect for them and the ways in which they faced the difficult ethical and political dilemmas into which the 20th century threw them, and how they approached those dilemmas with dignity, tolerance and a good measure of honesty, especially by today's political standards.

Indeed, I often wonder as I commune with my book's heroes, where are such leaders today in the world? Before the revolutions of the early 20th century there were Taras Shevchenko, Ivan Franko, Mykhailo Drahomanov and others; since then, other heroes have emerged, from the "Shestydesiatnyky" and Ukrainian Helsinki Group to the young people of Pora.

This other Ukraine is being increasingly acknowledged internationally. When The Ukrainian Museum reopened in New York after several years of fundamental redesign and reconceptualization, its organizers chose wisely an inaugural exhibit not of pysanky or Shevchenko portraits - and I defend the continuing importance of both of these more traditional subjects of Ukrainian culture - but of the revolutionary sculptures of Alexander Archipenko, a leading figure in the international avant-garde of the 20th century.

New programs in Ukrainian studies have opened at the University of Ottawa in the capital of Canada with a chair in political science; at Stanford University; and elsewhere. Older programs have been boosted by the Orange Revolution and a new outpouring of generosity from the North American hromada (community).

I hope that the Orange Revolution in Ukraine has only just begun and that it will indeed spread to societies where the citizenry has proven itself less courageous in demanding decent government. Unfortunately, there are alarming signs that the opportunities of the revolution might be squandered by the government.

The Orange Revolution and MAU

The new image of Ukraine represents important opportunities and difficult challenges for IAUS too. IAUS exists today with the same mission that its founders set for it in Naples: to raise awareness about and inform the international community, including Ukraine itself, about the richness and dilemmas of Ukraine's present and past.

How might this best be accomplished in the future? I propose this evening several critical perspectives that are based on my best intentions for the future of both IAUS and Ukraine and hope that these frank observations will provoke a discussion among the attendees at this sixth congress in Donetsk.

At one level, IAUS is undergoing a process of maturation, which might also be seen as a crisis of growth. Never before in the history of the association have the organizers faced over 1,300 applicants for a congress that has traditionally accommodated 600 to 800 participants. Many colleagues were disappointed by their not being included in the program because of local and financial constraints. Although the overwhelming majority of the applicants came from Ukraine itself, and Kyiv in particular, the range suggests that Ukrainian studies is no longer an endangered species.

But is it a healthy species? The organizational headaches that have attended the first congress in Kyiv have not much changed over time, despite heroic efforts by the bureau, organizing committee, program committee and Donetsk University administration to set a new path for the organization.

And here we touch on the sensitive issue of IAUS's relations with and continuing dependence on several institutions which have become impediments to future progress, unless those relationships and those institutions are reformed: the National Association of Ukrainianists, the vice minister for humanitarian affairs, the National Academy of Science of Ukraine, the Ministry of Education and Science, and the Ministry of Culture.

First to the National Association, which - until the last minute - demonstrated less initiative than the Italian and Polish organizations. This is lamentable because the National Association is meant to be the backbone of IAUS. The national association itself is deeply embedded in its relations with the academy and ministries; all the while it has become clear over time that Ukrainian studies remains a poor and struggling stepchild in the priorities of those organizations.

The academy is more than ever dominated by the powerful interests of the natural and applied sciences and is content to ignore the humanities and social sciences. It is also overly concentrated in the capital to the disadvantage of the rest of the country. Moreover, the academy has proved unable to integrate its research activities with the educational missions of the system of university and higher education, an unfortunate legacy from the Soviet era that negatively affects the development of humanities and the social sciences.

Of all the relevant organizations, the Ministry of Education proved to be the most attentive to IAUS and provided the largest sum of funding for the congress. Without the ministry's support, we would not be meeting here in Donetsk. The IAUS bureau took an important step of insisting that foreign attendees make their own travel, hotel and restaurant arrangements, thereby freeing up the small budget to cover the costs of Ukrainian participants.

The Ministry of Education and Science also raised considerable alarm with its plans to recentralize its control over the sphere of higher education, thereby rolling back the important gains in university autonomy and academic freedom that were won since the end of communist rule. Fortunately, leading Ukrainian universities, among them, Kyiv-Mohyla Academy, Lviv National University, and the Ukrainian Catholic University, in the spirit of the Orange Revolution, rallied to the defense of university autonomy and the ministry has engaged in a positive dialogue.

Finally, the continuing refusal of the VAK [Vyscha Atestatsiyna Komisia, or Higher Attestation Commission] to acknowledge foreign educational degrees is evidence not of intellectual superiority of Ukrainian scholarship to its foreign counterparts, but of persistent defensive provincialism, and needs to be addressed seriously as Ukraine takes a more active role in Bologna process.

The vice minister for humanitarian affairs and the Ministry of Culture have allowed for the deterioration of the Kyiv Lavra Cave Monastery, are doing little to prevent the collapse of the local archival system, and have stood by while a once-vibrant Ukrainian film industry declined to the point of virtual collapse. Moreover, measures restricting the Russian language and culture do not in and of themselves help to strengthen the Ukrainian language and culture. A more proactive pro-Ukrainian policy needs to be pursued in film, mass media, and the offering of convenient and professional Ukrainian-language courses. Personally, I think the more languages a citizen knows, the better for Ukraine and the world, but the Ukrainian language is still weak and unstable in contemporary conditions.

In short, despite years of post-independence reform programs and proposals, the organizations that are most important to IAUS have failed to construct a meaningful agenda for Ukrainian nation-building and the development of civic consciousness through the support of basic scholarship and culture. This is all the more regrettable because, in Ukraine's current orientation to Europe, the best immediately available resources that it has to offer are still in the realm of scholarship and higher education; of course, this can only last as long as this generally positive legacy of the past is not squandered by disregard or low priority by the government.

Let me start with the opinion that centralization and bureaucratism are foreign to Ukrainian traditions, but survive in contemporary Ukrainian institutions that still bear the weight of Soviet and Russian imperial legacies. The centralization and bureaucratism have led not to scholarly innovation but instead preserved a climate of conservativism and provincialism. The ministries and academy need an orange revolution of their own to bring them and their constituencies into the modern world of scholarship, education and culture.

What possible paths are available? First, the Academy needs to be decentralized and debureaucratized by spreading its resources more equitably throughout the country. This decentralization also means the integration of the academy with the educational process of the university system. And it means a reform of the priorities of the academy itself, with more equitable apportionment of resources to humanities and social sciences.

Although the academy for many years played an important role in keeping alive the humanities discipline that have proved important to Ukrainian studies - history, linguistics, literature, folklore - they have not encouraged the social sciences that are the center of any effort to understand contemporary Ukraine - politics, economics, sociology, anthropology, media studies, gender studies. Donetsk University, at its founding, incidentally, provided a model for the integration of academy and university that has not been replicated elsewhere in Ukraine to such a degree.

Perhaps with time the academy's still considerable resources can be largely transferred to the university system. In its place, special national research funds in the humanities and social sciences can be established to support talented scholar-educators in their research. After all, Ukrainian studies thrives in Poland, where the Academy of Sciences is very much subordinated and secondary to the government's support for higher education.

Universities must be assured their administrative autonomy and intellectual pluralism; indeed both should be generously enhanced if the Orange government of Ukraine is to be taken at its word that it is committed to a democratic, European future for the country. Likewise, local governments and municipalities have more responsibility and financial and legal means to protect local monuments of culture: museums, theaters and archives. This is not a call for the government to withdraw from the crucial processes of building a modern, progressive Ukrainian culture and civic identity. But it is a call for the government to make that project more democratic and participatory, more transparent and encouraging of local and regional initiatives.

As to future IAUS congresses, it appears that holding such a large international gathering every three years is beyond the budgetary capacity of the Ukrainian state, so it might make sense to consider congresses every four to five years, and on a much smaller scale, and possibly in a foreign country, notably Poland, whose national association has been most active and is best represented among foreign associations. In the interim, the National Association in Ukraine can organize more frequent, local conferences and workshops, as can IAUS itself, both in and outside of Ukraine, depending on national and international funding.

I close with a caution - that I can not imagine another non-Ukrainian scholar being willing to take on the presidency of IAUS until some major changes are introduced; more importantly, it is not likely that a foreign scholar would be able to use IAUS and its international experience and resources to help in the fundamental processes of reform that are called for. I suspect that a Ukrainian president will also not be terribly willing to undertake these urgent and very difficult measures. I have no illusions about the challenges of bringing the Orange Revolution to Ukrainian studies. But whoever takes on that mission will have the support of hundreds of scholars and teachers in Ukraine itself, but also the commitment of the international Ukrainian studies community as well.

"Sche ne vmerla Ukraina" is a refrain that has been repeated many times in modern history, but there won't be too many more opportunities like the Orange Revolution for IAUS and its affiliated institutions to take advantage of. The time is now and not tomorrow.

Good luck and enjoy the congress!

Copyright © The Ukrainian Weekly, July 31, 2005, No. 31, Vol. LXXIII

| Home Page |