Mykhailo SLABOSHPYTSKY: “Today no one is stopping us from being Ukrainians in Ukraine”

The Fifth Petro Jacyk Ukrainian Language Competition, administered by the League of Ukrainian Philanthropists, is picking up pace. Over the years it has been gaining in popularity among school children, their parents, teachers, and an increasing number of students. Every year over five million contestants take part in the competition. The executive director of the League of Ukrainian Philanthropists, Mykhailo Slaboshpytsky, discusses the details of this year’s event.

“The fifth competition coincided with the beginning of the presidential elections in Ukraine. The situation in the country was electrified, and society was in political turmoil. Meanwhile, the League of Ukrainian Philanthropists is a gravitational center for famous writers whose names speak for themselves. On learning that they were headed to Zaporizhia, rectors of local universities panicked at the prospect of them appearing within the walls of their universities. As a result, the competition was postponed indefinitely. Nonetheless, the annual event commenced in all Ukrainian oblasts on November 9, the Day of Ukrainian Language and Literature, but not as festively as in previous years. Unfortunately, both in the capital and the provinces you could feel the people’s intense fear of the writers, even though they had promised not to do any politicking in schools and universities. All of this caused problems at the beginning, but I think we’ll be marking the finale of the competition in an especially festive way at the Ivan Franko National Drama Theater.

“We have a trustworthy jury and a team of specialists that are compiling competition tasks. We have an agreement with the Ministry of Education, whereby the ministry appoints half of the jury members, and we recommend the other half. The jury often includes writers. There are a lot of them at the oblast level. Vasyl Hei, chairman of the Volyn Writers’ Union, chaired, and maybe still chairs, the Volyn oblast jury. The writers Volodymyr Polishchuk and Vasyl Zakharchenko, members of the competition’s Supervisory Board, work in Cherkasy.”

“You recently returned from Canada, where you met with many sponsors of this competition. These individuals will undoubtedly donate funds this year as well. What about philanthropists in Ukraine? Have they matured enough to support the state language? Will it ever become a mass event?”

“Every year after the competition I travel to Canada with a new documentary film about the competition and show it to different audiences in different cities. This year I also showed a documentary on the fourth competition and witnessed a truly enthusiastic response to it. The audience occasionally asked me to pause the film, and comment. Among the many questions that were asked during such screenings, the first question was always, ‘Why isn’t this documentary aired on Ukrainian television?’ I would also like to know why. I would like to use this opportunity to ask why Ukrainian television pays so little attention to such a major Ukrainian project. I could not explain this in Canada, because people there often believe in words, and when they hear ‘national Ukrainian television,’ they get the false impression that it is what it says it is.

“Ukrainians in the diaspora, especially those in Toronto, see the competition as both a way of raising the prestige of the state language in Ukraine and an educational element in young people’s national and patriotic upbringing, and they support it extensively. People who read the Ukrainian press are already familiar with the name of Stanley Peterson, who donated $70,000 to this competition and considers it the largest national project in Ukraine. He is convinced that such competitions leave a distinct mark on society.”

“What is your view of the young members of the diaspora? What are they like and will they follow in the footsteps of their parents, or will the Ukrainian spirit of the diaspora end with the older generation?”

“We sometimes require the children of Ukrainian parents, most of whom are Americans, Australians, or Canadians, to be patriots of Ukraine. But we tend to forget that even ethnic Ukrainians who are born in Ukraine often do not have this perfect Ukrainian identity. Nadia Jacyk once said emphatically, ‘Don’t tell me that I am a great Ukrainian patriot. I’m Canadian, born in Canada, and I view everything from the perspective of a Canadian. It’s a different matter that my parents are Ukrainians, and I, who have Ukrainian sentiments, am fulfilling the will of my father. But first you must build a Ukraine in Ukraine and become Ukrainians yourselves; only then can you demand something from us.’ Nadia’s criticism of us is quite justified and correct, because today no one is stopping us from being Ukrainians in Ukraine.”

“Have you had a chance to meet with competition participants in other countries?”

“In Ukraine we met with competition participants from the Kuban, Bashkortostan, Transdnistria, and Georgia. I have always said that the state of the Ukrainian language in the diaspora, be it the Western or Eastern diaspora, will not help the language situation in Ukraine. If the diaspora in Canada or Georgia has a good command of Ukrainian, this doesn’t mean that the language situation in Ukraine will improve. We tell Ukrainian children: just look how painstakingly Ukrainian children in Kazakhstan, Russia, Canada, and Australia are learning the language of their mothers and fathers, and how big Ukrainians’ international solidarity is.”

“The Ukrainian competition will be used as a model for this year’s national language competition in Kazakhstan. This became possible after a Kazakh boy named Zhan Aidar Zhanbatyrov went running onstage in Kyiv two times to collect his prize for his perfect command of the Ukrainian language. Will this set the pattern for other former Soviet republics that are also facing major linguistic problems, such as Belarus, where the last Belarusian-language school has been closed in Minsk?”

“Kazakhstan is considering holding a similar competition. Our model was used for the first Russian-language competition in Russia, which encompassed all of the CIS. Now Kazakhstan is going to hold a competition for the Kazakh language. Zhanbatyrov’s father borrowed competition materials from us. The Kazakh embassy has offered to pay for my trip to Kazakhstan to share my experience. They want to do this by using our ready and functional model.”

“How many more such competitions should be held in Ukraine so that we can finally start making some progress in resolving the language problem? Is this a solution to the current situation in our country?”

“I’m certain that many more such competitions should be held, because the competition represents society’s will and position. Now we need the political will of the government to consolidate what we have achieved, and together with the government we will be able to tackle this problem and improve the language situation in Ukraine. Language problems are not unique to Ukraine. There was no Italian language in Italy when it was freed from colonial rule, but it was revived. There was no national language in Israel, but it was revived. And we too will revive the Ukrainian language in Ukraine.”