Thoreau in Ukraine, or a visit to the National University of Ostroh Academy (01/08/06)

Thoreau in Ukraine, or a visit to the National University of Ostroh Academy

by Dianne Piper-Rybak

"Who knows what beautiful and winged life, whose egg has been buried for ages under many concentric layers of woodenness in the dead dry life of society ... may unexpectedly come forth amidst society's most trivial and handselled furniture, to enjoy its perfect summer life at last!"

So ends the penultimate paragraph of the final chapter in "Walden" as Henry D. Thoreau recounts the story of a "strong and beautiful bug" that for several weeks had been heard gnawing its way out of an old table in a farmer's kitchen - a bug, he surmises, "from an egg deposited in the living tree many years earlier still, as appeared by counting the annual layers beyond it." I was reminded of this story that so strengthened Thoreau's "faith in a resurrection and immortality" during my September 2005 visit to Ukraine's National University of Ostroh Academy.

The purpose of my visit was to provide the students of Ostroh Academy's Foreign Language Department the experience of being in an American university classroom, which would be a distinct departure from their traditional lecture hall filled with 100 or so students laboriously taking notes with no thought of asking questions or expressing opinions.

The academy's Foreign Language Department offers majors in French, German, Polish and Latin, as well as English, which is considered the school's second language. Russian is noticeably not part of the curriculum, nor is it spoken on campus, signifying the significant nationalistic role the academy has played since Ukraine's declaration of independence. Ostroh Academy reopened in 1994 under the direction of Dr. Ihor Pasichnyk - after a 356-year hiatus.

The town of Ostroh is ancient. The first known mention of it is in 1100, and by the 14th century, the Ostrozky family had built a castle and a church there, both of which are still standing and open to the public. In 1576, Prince Konstantyn Ostrozky founded the original academy in an attempt to intellectually strengthen Ukraine's Orthodox clergy against Jesuit attempts to convert the country to Roman Catholicism. Its curriculum included the trivium (grammar, logic, rhetoric) and the quadrivium (mathematics, astronomy, geometry and music), as well as theology, philosophy, medicine and natural science.

Soon after, in 1578, Ivan Fedorov established Ukraine's first printing press in the town of Ostroh and printed the first Ukrainian primer for the academy; in 1582, the year before he died, Fedorov printed 1,200 copies of the first Slavic-language Bible. However, with the establishment of a rival Jesuit academy in Ostroh in 1636, Ostroh Academy fell into decline and, when Prince Ostrozky died in 1638, it ceased to exist altogether._1_ Or so it seemed.

Evidence of Ostroh's rich history is on display not only in the town's Museum of the History of the Book but also in the academy, where a copy of the 628-folio "Ostroh Bible" rests on a shelf in the rector's office. Even so, history somehow ceases to be history when one realizes that today's classroom, just down the hall from a room that houses an ancient indoor well, was once the living quarters of Carmelite monks whose remains, discovered in the 1994 renovation, lie just below in the old monastery's crypt.

In 2000, coinciding with the 900th anniversary of the town, Ostroh Academy was designated a "national university" in recognition of its significant role in Ukraine's national rebirth. Since then, the university has attracted not only international support but also well-recognized professors from throughout Ukraine as well as the U.S. and Canada.

That year, Northern Illinois University (NIU) established a program to facilitate an exchange of American scholars who teach summer courses at Ostroh, and Ostroh scholars, who study for their master of science in education degrees at NIU._2_ Presently, the academy is attempting to position itself within the European Union's structure of educational institutions.

When I accepted the invitation to visit Ostroh Academy, I was told my students were fourth-, fifth- and sixth-year students who were majoring in English; the duration of my stay and the topic of my presentation would be entirely my choice. Because my doctorate is in English and because I have worked at the "Writings of Henry D. Thoreau" at NIU since 2001, Thoreau seemed to me an appropriate foundation for a three-hour discussion comprising American literature and the American Renaissance in general.

Once there, I managed to whittle the Ukrainian notion of a "small group" from 50 to 25 students per day, which, in the end, swelled each of my three teaching days to accommodate more and more enthusiastic learners.

To my surprise, not one of my 85 students, most of whom aspired to be interpreters or business managers, knew of Henry David Thoreau. Or "Walden." Or Ralph Waldo Emerson. "Transcendentalism" was not in their admirably extensive vocabulary. Who had they read? Walt Whitman, Edgar Allen Poe, Mark Twain, George Orwell and J. D. Salinger. Nonetheless, I explained, I had chosen Thoreau because he is an American icon. Every American student is required to read him at least once, beginning at about the age of 15, then again in college and yet again in graduate school.

Ask any American who Thoreau is, I said, and they will tell you, at the very least, two things: (1) Thoreau went to jail for refusing to pay his taxes and (2) he lived for a while in a small cabin in the woods that he built by himself. While Thoreau wrote about both these experiences (and much, much more), I said, it is his experience in the woods at Walden Pond that is the subject of his major work, "Walden." Undeniably an American classic, "Walden" is definitely a book they should be familiar with.

Though these students had not read Thoreau's essay on "Resistance to Civil Government," written after his one-night stint in jail, there was little I could teach them about the subject. Less than a year ago they had boarded buses armed with no more than blankets, food and the kind of moral fortitude that only the young seem to possess, headed for Kyiv to take part in the "Orange Revolution," joined, but not led, by teachers and even their rector.

Later, when I asked Rector Pasichnyk if they had not put their jobs, even the very existence of the university, at risk by supporting now President Viktor Yushchenko's opposition party, he simply smiled and said, "The students were going with or without us." It was clear to me he would have considered himself a failure as an educator had they not participated in Ukraine's first-ever "civil disobedience."

I had not come to Ostroh to introduce a particular philosophy, moral or otherwise. For me, Thoreau provides a unique snapshot of life in a newly forming democracy, albeit one that only a century later emerged as a world super power. Understanding this snapshot is key to understanding "Walden." Thoreau's views on emerging technology, represented by the advent of the train, which brought with it a rapidly expanding industrialization and concurrent degradation of the environment provide an important perspective on America in the 19th century. He wrote about it with understated passion and originality. Still, what underlies that American democracy is American individualism and that, along with originality, is the foundation of Transcendentalism - a philosophy that Emerson articulated and Thoreau lived.

By car, Ostroh is about three and a half hours east of Lviv, Ukraine's second largest city. It doesn't take long on this highway to realize that "horsepower" takes on a newer, more literal meaning here. Our car, "small, but made in Ukraine" our driver from the academy proudly informed us, was soon outnumbered by wooden carts perched on four automobile tires and pulled by one or two horses, depending, presumably, upon the wealth of the driver.

In September, these carts, wide enough to accommodate a driver and one another, are brimming with hay, the same hay seen piled into Monet-like stacks along the highway. Fences, except those encircling houses within the villages, are rare here and grazing cattle are kept from wandering onto the road by a lone cattleman (or woman) who assumes this responsibility for neighbors while they perform more remunerative work outside the village. It is "cooperative," not "collective," farming today; that is, it is a way of life no longer mandated and managed by the Soviet government.

I began to wonder how appropriate Thoreau's "Simplify, simplify" would be here.

Arriving at the university, I was surprised to see a wooded campus where students mow the lawn and weed flowerbeds. Some were digging a trench through which water would soon flow toward a fountain in front of their newly built library, inside which students were sanding and painting, determined to meet their goal of an October 30, 2005, grand opening. Rector Pasichnyk explained that students feel a sense of ownership when they are allowed to do these things themselves.

It was an idea he might have taken from Thoreau's "Economy" (had he known of it): "I cannot but think that if we had more true wisdom in these respects, not only less education would be needed, because, forsooth, more would already have been acquired, but the pecuniary expense of getting an education would in a great measure vanish."_3_

Students at Ostroh did not build their living quarters, but they did reclaim and renovate the former Soviet military barracks built soon after Russia "liberated" Ukraine. These are conveniently located across the street from the academy. In a sense, they are living the evolution of an era; that is, they do not "play life, or study it merely, while the community supports them at this expensive game, but earnestly live it from beginning to end. How could youths better learn to live than by at once trying the experiment of living?"_4_

Lacking books for them, I asked my students to take turns reading passages from "Walden" from overhead transparencies, assuring them that there would be words they would not know: some words were common only in the 19th century, others are representative of Thoreau's penchant for archaic words, still others are understood to be Thoreau's attempt at humor. Nonplused, they read and provided what comment they could; they seemed particularly to appreciate Thoreau's play on the "Cenobites," who "see no bites." The sixth-year students, compared to the fourth-year students, were noticeably reserved - a consequence their teachers attributed to their having been longer under the Soviet system of education.

I question still why Thoreau, in 2005, was unheard of in this remnant of the former Soviet socialist republic. Perhaps it is simply because there was no access to Thoreau's work; American literature has until recently been low on Ukraine's priority list, although that is certainly not the case any longer. The academy's library is growing day by day with English-language books, much of it literature, donated from the U. S. and Canada.

Or, perhaps it was because there was no room in the former Soviet Union for individualism and originality. Individualism runs counter to communism. To be sure, Thoreau's "Let each step to the music he hears however measured or far away" struck a chord with many of these students. Almost without exception, students mentioned this passage in the end-of-session short essay I had been asked to require of them - the ubiquitous "coherent five-paragraph essay" addressing the question "In your opinion, is Thoreau's "Walden" relevant today?"

Except for one young man, who wrote that he now thought he might follow that different drummer within him and retreat to live his life in a cabin in the woods, the essays generally argued that living alone in the woods - even as an experiment - was no solution. It was more important to accept life's challenges and adapt to life, to contribute to society; to live life to the fullest was impossible alone. But, they said, it was up to the individual to decide how to live - each should follow the voice within him or her.

My account of Thoreau's life, that he had indeed been a social creature, that Walden Pond was an easy 25 minute walk from Concord, that then, as now, Walden Woods was a public park, had fallen on deaf ears in Ukraine - just as it often does in America. However, Thoreau's words had not.

The most thoughtful of the essays tackled the "Simplify, simplify" passage. One young woman wrote, rather astutely I thought, that perhaps "Walden" would be more meaningful to middle-aged readers than to people her age. She admitted that she did not like to think about giving up the few material things she has only just begun to acquire. Self-gratification is important to college students and is the driving motivation behind larger ambitions for one's self and one's country.

Ukraine is finally emerging into a world of technology and industrialization; will its people turn away from these in the name of simplicity? Probably not, but there is much to be done just to get to the point of consideration. In the town of Ostroh, the central hot-water system has not functioned for years, although the university has hot water in the mornings. Since the Chornobyl disaster, a deep distrustfulness lingers about the safety of the nearby nuclear power plant. Unemployment is high and locals commute to larger towns to work.

The university, all agree, is an economic boon as more and more students arrive; today enrollment is at 2,000, up from 890 only five years ago, and many of the students prefer to rent flats in private homes rather than live in the dorms. While duplex-style housing is provided for teachers on campus, just a few minutes walk past clay tennis courts and an outdoor stadium for track meets (and jogging), many of them, with their families, have spilled over into the town now, too.

It may be that Ukraine's epoch of what Thoreau referred to in 19th century New England as a time when "the mass of men live lives of quiet desperation" is over. I had not needed to explain Thoreau's "what is called resignation is confirmed desperation" to these students. They've been there, and the role Ukraine's young people played in the "Orange Revolution" suggests that they are not going back.

For now, the academy has resisted both Orthodox and Ukrainian Catholic overtures to re-establish its ancient church (and renew the 16th century rift that resulted in the academy's establishment in the first place). Rather, this space, with its extraordinary acoustical qualities, is used for free cultural events such as the Rivne District Symphony's performance of Stravinski's "Symphonies of Wind Instruments" that I attended just minutes after my last class.

The previous day, at the end of classes, the stadium's loud speakers disrupted the campus serenity with The Fifth Dimension's "Let the Sun Shine" heralding the arrival of a team of Ukrainian bicyclists on their way to Kyiv promoting world peace. As I looked around, I found it impossible to identify within the crowd the two dozen Canadian students participating in a six-month exchange program this year - the academy's own crusade for promoting world peace. During my visit, the rector declared the entire campus to be a non-smoking area, and soon after, students began planning a "day of awareness" about the problems Ukraine faces resulting from drugs and alcohol.

In these and many other ways, the National University of Ostroh Academy can be heard slowly "gnawing out" a 21st century example of the "egg deposited in the living tree many years earlier still, as appeared by counting the annual layers beyond it." And, as Thoreau writes, "Who does not feel his faith in a resurrection and immortality strengthened by hearing of this?"

* * *

You can help secure the future of Ukraine by giving to the National University of Ostroh Academy. Please send your tax-exempt contributions to: Friends of Ostroh Academy, c/o Myron B. Kuropas, 107 Ilehamwood Drive, DeKalb, IL 60115-1856. Checks should be made out to Ukrainian National Foundation/Ostroh Fund.

1. Kuropas, Myron B. "Miracle of Ostroh: A Beacon of Hope for Ukraine's Future," The Ukrainian Weekly 65, no. 47 (November 23, 1997). [Back to Text]

2. Kuropas, Myron B. "Teaching in Ostroh, My Corner of Ukraine," The Ukrainian Weekly 70, no. 38 (September 22, 2002). [Back to Text]

3. Thoreau, Henry D. Walden, ed. J. Lyndon Shanley (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1971), p. 50. [Back to Text]

4. Thoreau, Henry D. Walden, ed. J. Lyndon Shanley (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1971), p. 51. [Back to Text]

Since 2001, Dianne Piper-Rybak has been editorial assistant for The Writings of Henry D. Thoreau, University of California, Santa Barbara. She telecommutes from Northern Illinois University in DeKalb, Ill., and holds both an M.P.A. in comparative administration and a Ph.D. in English from NIU.

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