Kyiv and Moscow bureaucrats agree to joint review of textbooks

by Roman Woronowycz
Kyiv Press Bureau

KYIV - An agreement between mid-level bureaucrats from Kyiv and Moscow to look into the formation of a committee to review Ukrainian and Russian school textbooks and agree on an acceptable version of their individual histories brought a deluge of criticism after a news item appeared on several Ukrainian news websites beginning June 8.

The agreement to reach a consensus came as a result of the formation of a subcommittee on humanitarian cooperation from a more general Ukrainian-Russian committee on cooperation that was organized in conjunction with the "Year of Ukraine in Russia" celebrations that President Vladimir Putin last year declared for 2002. The larger committee is co-chaired by Ukraine's Vice Minister of Humanitarian Affairs Volodymyr Semynozhenko and Russia's Assistant Chief of the Presidential Administration Valentina Matvienko.

The controversy arose after the subcommittee issued a statement on its purpose, which many Ukrainians, including some members of the mass media, have interpreted as giving Moscow undue influence over the writing of Ukraine's history. Ukraine has made its first attempts to bring accuracy and legitimacy to its version of hundreds of years of Russian-Ukrainian history after centuries of redesign by Moscow while it controlled Ukrainian lands.

The subcommittee resolution tasked: "a group of experts on the question of school textbooks with the aim of objectively presenting Ukrainian history and Ukrainian-Russian relations in Russian textbooks and the history of Russia and Russian-Ukrainian relations in Ukrainian textbooks and to quicken the development of constructive cooperation."

The resolution resulted in a demonstration by the Molodyi Rukh youth organization before the Cabinet of Ministers Building on June 11 to protest the accord. Leaders of the youth group expressed concern that the committee would allow Russophiles to further skew Ukrainian-Russian history if given the opportunity to approve school textbooks.

"If Semynozhenko loves the Russian version of Ukrainian history so much, let him read those books, but spare us from reading them," explained Taras Shamaida, a leader of Molodyi Rukh, according to the Kyiv Post.

On June 18 Uriadovyi Kurier, the government's official press organ, issued a statement in which it said that the interpretations in certain media reports as well as by Molodyi Rukh were misleading and politically motivated attacks against the Ukrainian government.

The report stated that: "Vice Prime Minister of Ukraine Volodymyr Semynozhenko emphasizes once again that the Ukrainian side will only accept any decisions made in the framework of the work of the subcommittee as they relate to the national interests of Ukraine, including their accuracy and expedience for the nation and its citizens."

Stanislav Kulchytskyi, a respected professor of history and the assistant director of the Institute of History of Ukraine's National Academy of Sciences, commenting in the newspaper Den, explained that attempts by two formerly adversarial countries or nations trying to come to terms with various interpretations of controversial moments in their histories has its precedents. He named successful Polish-German, French-German and English-French projects as examples of successful efforts to find a common viewpoint on shared national experiences, good or bad.

In the article, the noted academic explained that the goal, however, cannot be to find "a cloudless point," as he put it.

"It is not recommended to obscure conflicts and wars," explained Prof. Kulchytskyi, "but we should explain them in a way so as not to formulate in our children hostility towards our neighbors."

Prof. Kulchytskyi added, however, that if there was to be cooperation between Ukraine and Russia on textbooks it should be done via a commission at a higher government level. He added that, while initially averse to overtures calling for him to be part of such an undertaking, he had changed his attitude in the past year, largely due to deliberations on the topic with the director of Russia's Institute of World History, Aleksander Chubarian.

Prof. Kulchytskyi insisted, nonetheless, that it would be premature to begin the undertaking before certain basic issues were resolved, including such questions as whether to deal with Soviet history as part of the history of Russian imperialism and how to address the Kyivan Rus era, which both nations claim as their beginning.

Copyright © The Ukrainian Weekly, June 23, 2002, No. 25, Vol. LXX

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