Don’t betray lofty ideals!

The number of people who have signed the petition on our site (www.day.kiev.ua) to support Donetsk students’ initiative to name Donetsk National University after Vasyl Stus has been steady growing. These people come from different regions of Ukraine and even from abroad. They have varying ages and education, but all of them consider it a matter of honor to voice their support to the student undertaking.

Collecting signatures is no short-term campaign. For over six months now readers have been voting on the site, and the newspaper introduced a permanent column titled “Why Stus?” We understand that Stus’ name is a high aim that cannot be reached immediately — on the contrary, it will take time and strenuous effort. However, there are people for whom Stus is an epitome of courage and steadfastness a priori, without proof and lengthy discussions. Remarkably, people rally around Stus’ name.

The editorial office of The Day has received a letter from Prof. Vadim Shmyryov, who resides in Novosibirsk. He is an ethnic Ukrainian but for over 50 years now has lived in Russia. His addresses his letter to his colleagues at Donetsk National University, and it has been distributed among the professors and lecturers working in this institution.

Dear colleagues,

I consider it my duty to address you with this message. The Donbas is the place where I was born and graduated from high school. This is also where my parents’ graves are. For over 50 years now I have lived in Russia, but thoughts of Ukraine have never left me. Recently, I was deeply saddened and disturbed by online publications on what I thought were strange events in your university, linked with the initiative to name it after Vasyl Stus.

Understandably, each student and teacher wants his or her alma mater to have a worthy name. I was sincerely happy that the 500 students at your university who came up with the idea have a normal concept of true moral values. I am glad that the Donbas has such young people.

The ensuing events were discussed on Ukrainian Internet forums. There I explained to the users who Stus is and why he is a worthy candidate for naming the university after him. Let me quote from my post.

“I am writing to my fellow countrymen in Donetsk in Russian, even though my mother tongue is Ukrainian. I was born and finished school in the Donbas, so I am not from Western Ukraine. It is sad to see a strangely belligerent attitude adopted by my fellow countrymen toward the lofty ideals on the grounds that Ukrainians were their bearers.

“Stus raised his voice in defense of human dignity and paid with his life for this. His only guilt was that he wanted to speak his native language. Imagine for a minute that someone is heaping all manner of curses on your Russian language and demands that you speak, say, only English. If you don’t agree, you will be imprisoned the next day. When your sister and wife come to see in you prison (no more than once per year!), the prison officials will demand that you speak only English in the presence of prison guards.

“Have you pictured this? So how does it feel? Mind you, this is precisely the humiliation Stus went through. He declined the visit and died two months later in solitary confinement.

“He graduated with highest honors from Donetsk University and laid down his life for something that is dear to all normal individuals and nations. Isn’t he worthy of respect? I am sick at heart and ashamed of my Donetsk land. Proud and courageous Cossacks used to live here, and they knew what human dignity is. And now? Give it some good thinking. The lofty things need to be guarded and respected regardless of nationality.”

In response to these words a girl from St. Petersburg, who had been zealously condemning the Donetsk student initiative, wrote: “Sorry. I didn’t know.”

I believe that now everyone in Donetsk University is well familiar with Stus’ tragic life. But what do we read on the Internet about further events in Donetsk University? The powerful ones intervened and put pressure on the students and teachers. The students were summoned to the police and pressured into abandoning their initiative.

Here is what we read in the address delivered on April 28, 2009, by Anatolii Blyzniuk, head of the Donetsk Oblast Council:

“First, I believe we need to invite [Minister of Education and Science] Vakarchuk or someone else to come here. Lawyers, study the ways the law gives us to [make him] come here and take a look. We are ready to dispatch a delegation made up of our members and tell him: ‘How long will you continue this humiliation?’ We have to work out a legal mechanism. Heads of the factions, get together, select people, and we’ll make a working group, six to eight people, and give it a task. Otherwise they will not go away [i.e., will not abandon the idea of naming the university after Stus. — Ed.]; I’m 100 percent sure.”

Like active politicos who have staked on splitting Ukrainians and are now raging in their militant zeal. When one reads the story told by female students about a “preventive” conversation a police officer conducted with them, one is amazed at how zombified this lackey is; he is probably not even aware that he is furthering the cause of the butchers who killed Stus.

Public statements have been made, in particular by MP Oleksandr Yefremov, to the effect that the opposition to the student initiative arose because Stus is considered to be a Western Ukrainian, and Western Ukrainians have to be battled with because they are not “ours.” That’s a philosophy fit for a backyard mob. Those who profess this “philosophy” cannot grasp the fact that lofty ideals do not depend on geography and that Donbas patriotism does not lie in justifying all things Donetsk and fighting all things Western Ukrainian. Rather, it lies in the struggle for true culture in the Donbas.

Without lofty ideals it is impossible to raise a worthy younger generation. To Ukrainians, Stus has become an embodiment of human spirit in the struggle for human dignity and fight against Ukrainophobia.

Archival footage of his reinterment in Kyiv is touching — multitudes of people came to bid farewell to him! Blyzniuk cannot comprehend that the whole thing is not about Vakarchuk’s stance. The hell raised by Donetsk politicos is condemned by all rational people. “We will not yield to Ukrainians!” — this is, in essence, the position adopted by these people, who try to shape the matrix of moral values in Donbas.

There is just a short way from there to the universally condemned practice of stirring up national hatred. They have split the country in two to suit their political goals and incite people to confrontation.

Who can explain why the Western Ukrainian city of Drohobych has Nekrasov Street, even though Nekrasov has never been to the area, while Donetsk University cannot bear the name of Stus, a Ukrainian poet who graduated from this same university and lived and worked in Donetsk? This is an amoral position. You begin to understand that it must be for a reason that such a monster as Oles Buzyna built a nest in Donetsk. This is nothing else but frenzied obscurantism.

Dear colleagues, I regard it as inconceivable that you may support the position of the local politicos. I am afraid, however, that many stick to Pushkin’s axiom “Don’t argue with a fool.” Search your hearts honestly and see for yourself whether there is plain faint-heartedness lurking behind this. Apparently, there are some people who prefer not to exacerbate the situation. However, exacerbation is being done precisely by those politicos who ostentatiously dishonor Ukrainians’ national pride. This is akin to malicious hooliganism, which, as is known, becomes impudent if it is not met with adequate response.

I appeal to you, dear colleagues, to manifest civil courage and adopt an active stance in this situation, one that is worthy of true intellectuals. “Let us join our hands, friends, or separated we’ll die.” May each person make their contribution to stemming the confrontation, which is being exacerbated by criminally reckless politicos. We are responsible for the younger generation’s ethics, and there is no getting away from it. How can we respect ourselves if we let belligerent ignoramuses continue pouring their poison into young souls?