Science Fair

Learning and erudition have been greatly esteemed in Ukraine since time immemorial. Proof of this are the old chronicles, whose authors never forgot to mention, whenever they had the opportunity, the libraries, literacy, and literary pursuits of those they described. The Ukrainian countryside, which lost under serfdom the educational level that once struck traveling foreigners, has still preserved respect for learned people and the burning desire to have the local children educated (My grandfather was also this kind of person: despite the eternal peasant hardships, he decided to make a gentleman at least out of his youngest son).

Soviet power fully met the educational requirements of society, which did not lead, however, to a true blossoming of scholarly research, in any case, in comparison with Western achievements – perhaps because the highest academic ranks were held by people with Communist Party cards rather than by those who really had an inclination or capability for research. One can often hear today apologists of the old regime mournfully lament over the “brilliant Soviet academic institutions and scientific research”, which the new regime does not need. These critics turn a blind eye to the fact that Soviet academia worked in no way better than industry or farming did, i.e., with the same low efficiency. In academe also one true or laborious researcher was confronted by a hundred false or lackadaisical ones. The latter often held high academic posts and determined the strategy of research. Hundreds of junior and senior research associates in hundreds of research institutes were run-of-the- mill clerks who gleaned information that nobody needed, wrote articles that nobody read, or tried to cough up a dissertation for decades on end. Those opuses were then sent to the archives forever; library statistics says that not a single reader has ever borrowed the overwhelming majority of those works. Of course, it was an entirely different picture in high-security research institutions fulfilling defense orders. But even in the most devastating arms race, one US researcher did the job of several Soviet ones.

Unfortunately, the situation has changed very little during the past decade. On the other hand, such a new phenomenon has arisen as an all-out academic effort by our political and business elite. Steeply rising is the number of doctors, professors, and especially academicians. Serious people are very little interested today in such trivial ranks as candidate of science or a corresponding member of the academy. If one fails to win a chair in the National Academy of Sciences or a state university professorship, he will find an easy way to a new academy or university. If the Higher Attestation Commission refuses to approve a thesis, you can confer on yourself the title of a gowned professor even if you fail to get hold of a professorial gown (such professors have contacted The Day).

The popularity of scientific research has achieved an unheard of level: it will soon be difficult to tell Verkhovna Rada or the Cabinet of Ministers from the National Academy’s Academic Board because of the number of doctors of sciences sitting there. One people’s deputy begins all his television appearances with “We, doctors, think... ,” “It is the practice of us, doctors, to...,” “We, scientists, are very much alarmed...” or “Let me, a researcher, state...” It is impossible to imagine such a high academic level in an obscure American Congress or British House of Lords.

Yet, there are problems even here. Although the heads of our elite are just brimming with ideas, there is no time to write theses or books, for the bugle calls for other urgent endeavors. What is to be done to save the original ideas and theories for generations to come? Serious demand always generates the corresponding supply. This country has formed in the past few years a widespread intellectual service – illegal by nature – to fulfill the academic ambitions of our elite.

Somewhere in their tiny apartments, quiet and self-composed erudite people earn a living by doing research in all spheres of science and technology. They write from end-of-year and graduation projects to postdoctoral theses, from the texts of reports at international academic conferences to serious books. What characterizes this gray research sphere is efficiency, speed, along with the unavoidable use of computers and the Internet. A command of foreign languages is indispensable here for one at least to be able to keep watch of scientific periodicals and other publications. If necessary, such hacks can conduct or order a sociological survey. Moreover, they are as accurate as Germans.

This kind of service also existed, although on a far lesser scale, in Soviet times. But since politicians and our much-vaunted new Ukrainians have fallen head over heels in love with science, the gray service has attracted the most talented and knowledgeable part of the losers who failed to fit into the new system.

It is thus little wonder that in this country ambitions not always go hand in hand with learning, nor is true education always combined with ambitions. What can be done, what kind of a reform should be carried out to take these two groups, the buyers and sellers, out of the shadow and make them change places?