University of Ottawa Chair of Ukrainian Studies hosts its first major conference (06/15/97)

University of Ottawa Chair of Ukrainian Studies hosts its first major conference

by Andrij Kudla Wynnycky
Toronto Press Bureau

TORONTO - Although an endowment for Ukrainian studies at the University of Ottawa has been in place for over a decade, it was not until recently that a Ukrainian studies Chair was officially established and immediately sponsored its first major initiative, a conference this spring in Canada's capital.

With its international roster of well-known speakers, the conference "Towards a New Ukraine: Ukraine and the New World Order, 1991-1996," attracted a substantial audience from across North America.

Scholars arrived from institutions as diverse as Cornell University, Boston University, the University of Saskatchewan, York University and the University of Toronto.

In attendance were officials from the Canadian Department of National Defense and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs; representatives of governmental and non-governmental agencies such as the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA), the Canadian Society for International Health and the Canadian Bureau for International Education (CBIE); community leaders from across Canada and the U.S., and a substantial number of the general public.

On March 21-22, just under 300 people filled the De Celles lecture hall, one of the university's largest, much to the delight of the organizing committee headed by Ottawa-based political scientist Prof. Teofil Kis. Irena Bell, chair coordinator, said more than half of the conference's registrants had arrived from out of town. The organizing committee also included Profs. Irena Makaryk and Roman Weretelnyk.

The conference was held in cooperation with the host university's departments of economics and political science and the Ottawa-based Sheptytsky Institute of Eastern Christian Studies at St. Paul University.

Members of the organizing committee expressed their thanks to Northland Power Corp. and Antin Iwachniuk (who was guest of honor at the proceedings) for the generous donations that made the conference possible. Along with the late Constantine Bida, Mr. Iwachniuk is also a founding donor of the Ottawa chair.

Also introduced by Prof. Kis at the conference opening was the chair patron, Canada's former Governor General Ramon J. Hnatyshyn, Ukraine's Ambassador to Canada Volodymyr Furkalo and Sen. Raynell Andreychuk.

The line-up of speakers featured Dr. Bohdan Krawchenko, who spoke about the building of a new civil society and political system in Ukraine; Dr. Bohdan Hawrylyshyn, about changes to the economic system; Taras Kuzio, about domestic sources of Ukrainian security policy; Dr. Borys Gudziak, about Ukrainian religious life; Mykola Zhulynsky, about the problematics of culture in Ukraine; Ambassador Anatolii Zlenko, about the development of Ukraine's foreign policy in 1991-1996; and Andrii Vesselovsky, on Ukraine's foreign policy strategies.

Originally, Ivan Dzyuba, Ukraine's former minister of culture, was to have participated, but helath-related problem's prevented him from attending. Mr. Zhulynsky presented a talk instead. According to Ms. Bell, Mr. Dzyuba did submit a paper, which will be included in the published conference proceedings due out this fall.

Another scheduled speaker, Ihor Kharchenko, head of policy analysis and planning of Ukraine's Ministry of Foreign Affairs, also was unavailable because of a NATO meeting; his deputy, Mr. Vesselovsky, a former member of the embassy staff in Ottawa, filled in.

Conference organizers were particularly fortunate to secure the participation of the two most prominent Ukrainian Canadian advisors who have left their mark in Kyiv, the vice-rector of Ukraine's Academy of Public Administration, Prof. Krawchenko, and the chairman of Ukraine's Council of Advisors, Dr. Hawrylyshyn.

The two headliners did not disappoint. Their trenchant commentaries on the sources of disarray in Ukraine's nascent polity and economy, and their spirited defense of what they considered to be the country's astonishing progress served as the reference point for much of the subsequent two days of discussion. (See sidebar)

A foreign policy forum

The similarity in the presentations of three of the conference's presenters effectively created a forum for the discussion of Ukraine's foreign policy.

Mr. Kuzio, a research fellow at the Center for Russian and East European Studies of the University of Birmingham (England) , as well as an advisor to the Ukrainian Parliament, led off by positing two opposing currents of thinking that have determined how Ukraine's government has dealt with questions of security: "Romantic Eurasianism" and "Pragmatic Europeanism."

Mr. Kuzio suggested that as Ukraine's leaders shepherded the country from her status as a quasi-nation emerging from under the Soviet bulwark, many sought to realize the "romantic ideal" of acting as a neutral country on the Eurasian divide. However, the U.K.-based scholar said that Russia's continued unwillingness to acknowledge Ukraine's refusal to go the Belarusian route and allow itself to be re-absorbed into the Russian sphere of influence has forced the emergence of a pragmatic pro-European stance.

This tension, according to Mr. Kuzio, has led to a sense of compromise and consensus among Kyiv's policy-makers. He said because the country can't afford to shift radically eastward or westward, it keeps its fingers in various foreign policy pies, such as cooperation but not full integration with the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) on one hand; and participation in the U.S.-sponsored Partnership for Peace, but a hesitant and deliberate approach to NATO expansion on the other.

Mr. Kuzio said that under President Leonid Kuchma and Foreign Affairs Minister Hennadii Udovenko's stewardship, Ukraine has practiced "active neutrality" - not a passive avoidance of integration in other alliance systems and economic compacts, but a non-aligned participation in the development of Europe's security structure.

Mr. Kuzio pointed out that Ukraine's dependence on Russian and other foreign energy suppliers has forced it to perform "a delicate and interesting dance." However, he suggested that Russian bluster over Sevastopol such as that of Moscow Mayor Yurii Luzhkov could very well drive Ukraine to seek full NATO membership.

Drama and thunder from Zlenko

Ambassador Zlenko, a career diplomat, Ukraine's first minister of foreign affairs and recent appointee as ambassador to France, offered a rousing chronicle of a policy "built from virtually nothing," and the perils of "navigating the post-Soviet labyrinth" of international affairs, at a time when "Ukraine could not afford mistakes."

Mr. Zlenko also revealed that an autonomous if not independent course for Ukrainian policy was already being charted by academic mini-think-tanks and groups of experts. "We began studying consular practices, treaty drafting, alliance formation," he said, seemingly outlining basic areas of study, and yet off limits for many members of Ukraine's minuscule apparat.

The former U.N. envoy also asserted that since the ending of the Russo-Chechen conflict, Russian pressure on Ukraine has increased substantially.

Mr. Zlenko had harsh words for Russia's constant pretensions to Crimea, arguments over the delineation and demarcation of borders, unwillingness to share the assets of the former USSR, and insistence that Kyiv sign the CIS statute on foreign policy coordination and other agreements that could limit Ukrainian sovereignty. He even went so far as to suggest that the CIS's future viability is in question.

Bearing out Mr. Kuzio's prescription, the senior diplomat said that ongoing efforts to integrate with European political, economic and other structures (including military) will likely produce the solution to problems with Russia.

The ambassador intoned: "We will continue to sign only those documents that will guarantee Ukraine's security and independence and further its national interest."

In a more conciliatory vein, Mr. Zlenko praised President Kuchma's leadership in leading Ukraine "out of the swamp of bickering with Russia and the world community."

He repeated Ukraine's deserved claim to the title of "the first country that has voluntarily renounced nuclear weapons," and said that movement towards the World Trade Organization, NATO and the European Union must be undertaken gradually.

The calm did not last long. Aroused by a question from the floor concerning the difficulties Ukraine faces in the U.S. Congress, Ambassador Zlenko turned the question back at the diaspora, thundering: "Where is our lobby? Who can organize it? ... It is a pleasure to watch other lobbyists work in Washington, where is ours?" Mr. Zlenko called for the establishment of a strategic partnership between Ukrainian organizations in the diaspora and Ukraine.

An apparatchik's sang froid

Mr. Vesselovsky, deputy head of the policy analysis branch, at Ukraine's Ministry of Foreign Affairs was the last of the trio addressing this topic, and was the most measured, even dry.

Delivering a paper prepared jointly with his branch chief, Mr. Kharchenko, the Kyiv-based analyst set out Ukraine's position as "a young democracy living in a gray zone of instability ... [and seeking to] avoid multiple, potentially destructive national debates on each new situation and international event."

Mr. Vesselovsky identified "diversification of Ukraine's foreign economic relations" in order to escape the inherited dependency on the Russian Federation as a matter of primary concern. Therefore, the analyst said, "European and trans-Atlantic vectors" are important and will continue to grow in importance in the future.

He quoted a document concerning the country's national security adopted by the Verkhovna Rada in January 1997, the Constitution of Ukraine, and Rada guidelines passed in 1993 in setting out the legal framework of his state's policy.

He concluded by hailing Canada's and Ukraine's "like-mindedness" in foreign policy and comparing, with understated humor, the two countries' geopolitical situations. "Canada is the second largest state on this continent and has an enormous and dynamic neighbor. Ukraine is also the second largest state on the European continent, and its neighbor is more than twice as large [as the U.S.] and arguably twice as dynamic."

Asked whether he adheres to one of the foreign policy orientations posited by Mr. Kuzio, Mr. Vesselovsky cagily replied that the Birmingham-based analyst's "Eurasian versus European" formulation was one of the more interesting he had heard, but said in his branch "we are more practitioners than theoreticians."

Cultural and religious divertimenti

The two other speakers provided what amounted to divertimenti from the foreign policy theme. Former Vice Prime Minister Zhulynsky offered a fairly workmanlike harangue about the threats faced by Ukrainian culture in the very country that should be best positioned to preserve it.

Mr. Zhulynsky said the removal of Mr. Dzyuba as minister of culture before he had a chance to bring into being a consultative network on the preservation of the country's cultural values was a heavy blow, which set back efforts on this score considerably. The national deputy opined that movement in this area is particularly problematic in the current climate of economic crisis.

Dr. Borys Gudziak, vice rector of the Lviv Theological Academy and director of the Institute of Church History in Lviv, regaled the audience with a somewhat surreal exercise in theocratic optimism. Dr. Gudziak interpreted the general disaffection with secular society and the proliferation of various cults as signs of "spiritual efflorescence" and "a great opportunity for the Church." Dr. Chirovsky of the Sheptytsky Institute, praised Dr. Gudziak for "taking us beyond the statistics and the bad news."

Upon the conference's conclusion, its organizers beamed at the event's success. Initially slated for a hall seating 150 people, it had been moved to premises that could accomodate twice that number. Prof. Kis said he had never seen an academic conference oversubscribed to the extent that "Towards a New Ukraine" had been.

One of the conference's headliners, Dr. Hawrylyshyn, noted: "Ukrainians, particularly in the diaspora where they shut themselves in the ghetto, often suffer from an unwillingness to do things by reaching for a world-class standard. But this conference was not bad."

According to the organizers, the following topics will be examined in subsequent conferences during the next four years, under the general theme of "Towards a New Ukraine": "Deconstruction and Reconstruction: The Building of a New Economy in Ukraine"; "In Search of a New Polity: A New Constitutional Order for Ukraine"; "Plus ça change?...: Women in a New Ukraine"; and "Quo Vadis? Culture, Education and Science in Ukraine."

For more information, contact the Chair of Ukrainian Studies, University of Ottawa, 559 King Edward Ave., P.O. Box 450, Station A, Ottawa, Ontario, K1N 6N5; telephone (613) 562-5800, ext. 3692; fax, (613) 562-5730.

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