“We are escaping the GULAG. This is the second attempt”

Two MPs were invited at the roundtable: head of the Verkhovna Rada Committee for Science and Education Lilia Hrynevych and head of the Committee for Culture and Spirituality Mykola Kniazhytsky. The conversation lasted three hours and covered a number of fundamental problems of Ukraine’s humanitarian sphere. The fact that such competent and bright people lead what we deem to be the key parliament committees inspires optimism, just as the frank conversation at the editorial office, which can be viewed thanks to the SK-1 Channel team.

“I think that Den’s humanitarian policy can be useful for the country. In our work we often outpace the Kremlin’s administration, because they are trying to continue the tradition of occupation of our historical heritage and impose historical myths. In particular, they were only preparing to promote their ‘Russian world’ strategy in Ukraine, when we already published the book The Power of the Soft Sign, which was a true antidote and brought everything to its proper place. It is of principal importance for me, and I want the Ukrainian society, media, school system to fully use these achievements. That is why we want to talk with you about your vision of all that, how it can be made more accessible to most MPs so that this tendency become eventually mainstream,” said Den’s editor-in-chief Larysa IVSHYNA, opening the conversation. “For instance, we named this year the year of Yaroslav the Wise. His reign began a thousand years ago at the height of the Kyivan empire, and we as a nation are directly associated with it and have no right to pretend we have nothing to do with this. Moscow’s strategists, relying on nuclear weapons, will oust us from our place in History. This is not only a fight for oil and gas, Crimea and Donbas, but also for Our place in History.”

What should mass historical education be like? What is the role of mass media in the implementation of humanitarian policies? How can we bring education to a new level of quality? The discussion also touched upon ways of stopping Russia from usurping our history, as well as the books which are a must-read for each Ukrainian politician. And of course, Den’s humanitarian policy.

“WE ARE NOT A NATION WITH TWO DECADES OF STATEHOOD. WE ARE A COUNTRY WITH INTERRUPTED STATEHOOD, BUT WITH A THOUSAND-YEAR-OLD CIVILIZATION”

Maria SEMENCHENKO: “Recently the Ministry of Education introduced an innovation which raised a wave of antagonism in society: it excluded a number of humanities, in particular, history of Ukraine, from the list of obligatory subjects on university curricula. What kind of sign is that?”

Lilia HRYNEVYCH: “I believe this happened due to what I consider to be the Ministry’s functional error in implementing the Law ‘On Higher Education.’ The new law on higher education provides us with one of the basic values, the autonomy of universities. In particular, academic autonomy, which enables the universities to shape their contents in the framework of certain standards. The Ministry’s good intentions were to show this opportunity to our universities. But what happened I believe was a quite predictable response of the conscientious, patriotic part of the academic community, which raised its concerns that these humanities could totally disappear from curricula in many of our universities, in particular technical ones. And at the time of such a breaking point in our social life, when we are searching for a solid uniform humanitarian platform which would allow us to withstand the neighbor’s aggression, it is of crucial importance. This response became an excellent test for the society. The society is not drowsy, it realizes (probably, better than government) just how important the humanities in higher education are.

“Another problem which was touched upon here is the quality of teaching of such humanities. I believe that in higher education we can speak not just of a course of the history of Ukraine (because such a course is offered by the secondary tier), but of a course of the true history of Ukraine. By the way, in this respect Den’s Library can help both students and those who received their degrees long ago. I read Den, and we really need such periodicals now. We do not really have a lot of media which cover humanitarian policy. However, we have to do with the Russian myth, which is still alive even now, at the time of the Russian aggression, and is broadcast to the public in a huge variety of ways. I would like to quote the Gospel of John: ‘And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.’ Today this is true about history and all that comes under the headline of the state’s humanitarian policy.”

L.I.: “When the theme of Yaroslav the Wise was just conceived, I received a warm letter from the Dnipropetrovsk Mining Academy with the words of support for this idea. There work truly devoted people, among which is our old-time reader and friend of our newspaper, Viktor Pushkin. He explained how important it is today. We are not a nation with two decades of statehood. No, we are a country with interrupted statehood, but with a thousand-year-old civilization.

“I discovered the works of George Yurii Shevelov rather late in my life. Meanwhile, Shevelov gave a precise definition of the three key threats for all things Ukrainian: Moscow, the Kochubei-mentality complex (this is a serious internal challenge), and provincialism. Provincialism allows the spreading of low quality. Even if it is patriotic, but still low quality, and backward. Therefore consistency of methods is needed in all that concerns the media and the parliament’s policies: what the progressive part of Ukraine’s parliament can do to enhance the necessity to overcome these three threats.”

“THERE WAS NO UNDERSTANDING OF THE FACT THAT RUSSIA WAS BUSY WITH A HUMANITARIAN INTERVENTION IN UKRAINE”

L.I.: “Do you sense that we are mature enough to support those who have already done something?”

Mykola KNIAZHYTSKY: “No, I don’t. We have neither a European structure in culture management nor transparent media which would support the things you are talking about. We have yet to create this system.”

L.H.: “Now we can find a hundred reasons for lack of finance for education and culture, starting with the war and crisis. Yet we have to remember that it is largely the decay of education and culture that caused this war. In 2010 I met one American lady with a Russian background, who made a research into teaching history in Ukraine. And she told me that history from the same textbooks is taught in absolutely different ways by teachers from different regions. ‘You have to realize that your country is about to break,’ she told me.

“Obviously, the education which does not foster a shared identity in a shared country will result in a divided nation. That a part of people in Donbas were prepared to support terrorists is also the result of such inadequate education. Our task in the parliament today is to influence the situation on the legislative level.”

L.I.: “I agree that a part of the drama our country has been through of late should be blamed on politics and economy. There was absolutely no understanding of the fact that Russia was busy with a humanitarian intervention in Ukraine, and it was carried out long before the tanks and rockets intervened.”

“THERE WAS A POLICY OF GENOCIDE AGAINST THE UKRAINIAN AUDIENCE AS SUCH, NOT ONLY THE INTELLECTUALS”

Roman HRYVINSKY: “It is no secret that those pro-Russian separatist sentiments have long been fostered by Ukrainian television channels. We have seen Tsariov, Kolesnichenko, Kornilov, and others traveling from one channel to another, and who made decisions about inviting guests to studios. Don’t you plan to raise this question before the Prosecutor General in your capacity as MPs?”

M.K.: “We know where this center was. First this was Viktor Medvedchuk, then Serhii Liovochkin, later there appeared sub-centers and executives. Then there were the owners of the country’s biggest media groups, CEOs, and talk show hosts. This is how the network functioned. It was a sheer manipulation with the Ukrainian society.”

R.H.: “Shouldn’t there be some sort of responsibility for this?”

M.K.: “We can only talk of responsibility when the politicians representing the society realize the danger of such processes. But do they realize the danger? What we need is not so much responsibility as the realization that this is faulty. However, most of our decision-makers have not realized it yet.”

L.I.: “For instance, we say that all these years television has implemented a sort of apartheid policy against the Ukrainian intellectual audience.”

M.K.: “I would say more: there was a policy of genocide against the Ukrainian audience as such, not only the intellectuals. An ordinary Ukrainian who wants to hear a Ukrainian folk song or see a performance or go to a theater may be a qualified worker, he does not have to be a university professor, but his cultural needs were likewise ignored. Certainly, what you speak about (the necessity of a normal intellectual discussion and humanitarian discourse regarding the country’s development) was totally missing from the picture. But so was a total mass culture. Just remember the first years of independence: Den appeared, as well as numerous television projects, countless Ukrainian stars which were not to be found in the Soviet system. That is, there was some quality Ukrainian pop music which existed in a sort of tiny ghetto. And then – voila! A whole spectrum appeared, from rock to jazz to some experimental music forms, and they became enormously popular. And then Kuchma comes, and by his second term in office all this had begun to decay and had been ousted by mass Russian culture. And the process is still going on.”

L.H.: “I am convinced that an intellectual reader and viewer must be prepared and developed. This is titanic work. If there is no source to draw from, man remains stuck in the world where he is.”

L.I.: “Ukrainian identity and modernization is Den’s national idea. It earns credit to all things Ukrainian. We keep hearing complaints about the absence of our own elite. It is absent because it has been ousted by Shufrych on TV. If television gave room to Yevhen Hrytsiak, the leader of the Norilsk uprising, everything would be different now. What are we doing now, actually? We are escaping the GULAG. This is the second attempt. And this is what we all should be preoccupied with: from discussion topics to the hierarchy of values to the hierarchy of leaders.”

“RUSSIA IS GRAVELY SICK. IT HAS SWALLOWED SOMEONE ELSE’S HISTORY ONCE”

M.K.: “When we speak about the Russian state, we have to realize that it finances two types of the ‘Russian world.’ One ‘Russian world’ has the face which we can now see in the so-called LNR and DNR. However, they also promote a sort of European image of the ‘Russian world.’”

L.I.: “The one for highbrows.”

M.K.: “But it is a ‘Russian world’ as well, which is likewise sponsored by the Russian state in order to show that the ‘Russian world’ is not only what we see on Russian TV. It also includes Zvyagintsev, and it used to include Tchaikovsky. This is Russia’s haute culture. But we have to realize that we are part of this great European culture, and try to learn it, as well as the contemporary European culture, film, etc. We are paying too little attention to it.”

L.I.: “I absolutely agree. Why do we talk about priorities in parliamentary activity, about influencing government officials, about choosing reference points, after all? We do not consider ourselves as Russia’s guinea pigs. We have our own plan there. And we have a certain responsibility for Russia. Not only from the viewpoint of remote historical past, but also in the light of more recent processes. It is Russia that needs the federation. Moreover, Russia might want to be a confederation. Maybe, it should follow the United States’ example. Russia is gravely sick. It has swallowed someone else’s history once. It got a severe poisoning and cannot still get over it. We have to define our grounds and concepts concerning ourselves and concerning them.”