Better Colorful Than Gray

What began as a discussion of The Day’s books with the Crimean students translated into a search for ways to develop Ukrainian studies and form new citizens in the Crimea.

“Welcome to the territory of the Ukrainian language” — with these words Natalia Rudenko, director of the Crimean Ukrainian himnaziya, greeted The Day’s Editor-in-Chief Larysa Ivshyna, Vice President of the Kyiv Mohyla Academy National University Professor Volodymyr Panchenko, and Yury Shapoval, head of the Historical and Political Science Center at the Institute of Political and Ethnic Studies of the Ukrainian National Academy of Sciences, who flew down to Simferopol to meet with the high school students and present them and the teaching staff with books from The Day’s library. After a brief tour of the school the guests met with the senior students, members of the Charisma Club, and were pleasantly surprised by the students’ keen interest in the problems facing Ukrainian studies, the formation of a Ukrainian state, contemporary politics, and culture. The Day’s own books Ukrayina Incognita, Dvi Rusi [Two Rus’], and Viyny i myr [Wars and Peace] address these very issues, which led Larysa Ivshyna to call them “the textbooks on acquiring Ukrainian citizenship.”

Speaking of the importance of knowing one’s own history, Professor Volodymyr Panchenko emphasized that with such knowledge can be cultivated real citizens who will build a new European Ukraine. Citing Lina Kostenko’s poem “Colored Mice,” he emphasized that knowledge of true history, no matter how complex and difficult, makes citizens “colorful, not gray,” as well as confident, unique, successful, and interesting to the greater world.

For their part, the himnaziya students said that the pressing issues of Ukrainian studies are not treated in a democratic and objective way throughout Ukraine. For example, Borys Tatorin, who won the nationwide student essay contest “Let us unite, my brothers” and received a diploma for his essay on Nestor Makhno from Verkhovna Rada Speaker Volodymyr Lytvyn, said that in the Crimea similar essays are treated with unjustified suspicion and unobjectively, for which reason a number of essays that received prizes in the nationwide contest were not given their due in the Crimea. Natalia Rudenko provided many other examples. High school graduate Leonid Kradazhan wrote an essay entitled “What the Pereyaslav Rada Has Brought Ukraine” and Andriy Ivanchenko authored an essay about the Book of Veles. There were other essays on the historical role of Symon Petliura, etc., but the conservative Crimean jury proved unable to evaluate their novel approaches and fresh, unconventional viewpoints.

After familiarizing herself with many Crimean realities, Larysa Ivshyna said that revealing one’s Ukrainian side requires daring and resoluteness. In this connection, student Andriy Boichuk asked her in what way The Day’s books can help form a fair attitude toward Ukraine among the general public and cultivate confident builders of Ukraine.

“These are textbooks on acquiring citizenship because they provide arguments for those people who already feel Ukrainian and are searching for internal and external mainstays. From them you will derive irrefutable facts. However, history and knowledge are not a momentary force. They shape beliefs, which help people in conflict- prone situations better to understand one another; Russians, Ukrainians, and Poles become closer in a new European history, irrespective of the nature of previous centuries,” Ms. Ivshyna answered.

In discussing the nature and history of Ukraine’s independence, Larysa Ivshyna warned against viewing the country’s independence as a source of all blessings and automatic fulfillment of all hopes for a better life, adding: “History in the form of the country’s independence, for which many generations of Ukrainians struggled, has given us only a chance, and we must create new European realities with our own hands and strive for a better quality of life.” She believes that “molding new citizens,” “producing new meanings,” and transforming “contact history” into a viable educational force are the main goals of The Day and its books Ukrayina Incognita, Dvi Rusi, and Viyny i myr.

Professor Yury Shapoval believes that the advantage of The Day’s books is that they evaluate historical facts and socioeconomic processes from the standpoint of Ukraine, as they are seen from Kyiv and not from other capitals.

Answering students’ questions about what they should do to preserve their human and national identity, Kyiv Mohyla Academy Vice President Volodymyr Panchenko said that “a profound knowledge of the history of one’s own people is a moral category that will help young Ukrainians always to preserve light and freedom in their lives — a lucid mind and independent thoughts, worldviews, and deeds.” He called on young Ukrainians to follow the example of other European nations and always preserve their self-respect, pride, and independent views.

The meeting lasted a long time. The discussion was so lively that nobody noticed the time flying by. Yet the discussion was not the only result of the visit from The Day’s Editor Larysa Ivshyna to the First Crimean Ukrainian High School. The director and her guests from Kyiv agreed to reinforce Ukrainian studies in the Crimea. The high school’s contacts with the Kyiv Mohyla Academy will become more active and diversified. Larysa Ivshyna will be promoting creative contacts between the high school and the Ostroh Academy. Meanwhile, The Day’s editors will be devoting a series of new materials dealing with Ukrainian studies in the Crimea.

Larysa Ivshyna presented several copies of the books Ukrayina Incognita and Dvi Rusi to the school library and the most active participants of the discussion. Ms. Ivshyna presented the two first volumes from The Day’s library to Andriy Boichuk for the most interesting questions, while Olena Bezkorovaina received a CD by Ukraine’s popular singer Oleh Skrypka, who is also a longtime friend of The Day.