Dr. Tetiana Shestopalova
NEW YORK – It was a cry from the heart, an eyewitness account of the war and occupation of her homeland. Dr. Tetiana Shestopalova recently shared her love for Luhansk with the audience at the Ukrainian Academy of Arts and Sciences (UVAN) in New York. “We should all bow our heads to the Ukrainian soil, because we are all the same – east and west. We can be diverse, but we are one.” This quote was the unifying thread in her talk.
A current Fulbright Scholar, Dr. Shestopalova is professor of Ukrainian literature and pedagogy at Luhansk Taras Shevchenko National University. She later gave a riveting account of how her school and students are coping with the war all around them.
At first glance, southeast Ukraine and the Donbas region might bring to mind only an alien world of smokestacks and abandoned mine shafts, residents zombified by a steady diet of Russian media brainwashing, and the savage fighting in the cities and airports. The barbaric parading of Ukrainian POWs by “separatists” and members of the Donetsk populace shocked the world. On the Luhansk map we notice exotic cities like Antratsyt, named after its coal deposits, and Sverdlovsk, named after the pathological mass murderer, bloody architect of the Red Terror, and first de jure head of state of the Russian SFSR. But as Dr. Shestopalova explained in her talk on October 26, 2014, this is not the whole picture by any means. And it wasn’t always this way.
The first impression was of the unique beauty of the natural landscapes. We tend to forget Luhansk is right in the center of the steppe zone. The UVAN audience was treated to a variety of slides, including photos of prairie dogs (the “bobak marmot”) standing at alert among the tall feather grass and unique wildflowers on wide sunny plains. This marmot is currently on the endangered protected species list; in the past, it functioned as a “food reservoir” for Ukrainians in times of famine. A symbol of the Luhansk Oblast, it is displayed on its coat of arms. The beautiful flowing grass, called “satin tresses” (shovkova kosa or kovyl) has 20 species that are also on the protected list. Dotting the grasslands, lush forests provide shade near rivers. Until the 1980s the steppe eagle could still be found in Ukraine. Sadly, only 4 percent of the Ukrainian steppe still exists in its original untainted, pristine condition. Luhansk maintains three nature reserves to study and preserve the steppe vegetation and wild fauna.
Students at Luhansk Taras Shevchenko National University.
The history of the steppes is very important, not least because of today’s facile but superficial resurrection of a “Novorossiya” by the Kremlin propaganda factory, Dr. Shestopalova continued. Stone “babas” and artifacts found in the steppe zone attest to numerous cultures populating the area for over three millennia, starting with the Trypillians, followed by wandering Asiatic cultures like the Cimmerians, Scythians and the Polovetsians. All the while, Mediterranean naval powers were building trading outposts and establishing colonies near the Black Sea shoreline. During the Crimean Khanate, however, starting around the 16th century, the steppes were depopulated.
With ever expanding Ukrainian settlements, the Zaporozhian Sich Kozaks constantly fought for control of this area, until Russian Empress Catherine destroyed the Sich in 1775. Waves of German, Greek, Serbian, Moldovan and Bulgarian immigrants came and went. Up until 1820, the influx of Ukrainians into this territory was the strongest, while after 1880 Russian immigration dramatically increased. During the Holodomor in 1932-1933, the Luhansk region experienced a rate of population decline of 25 percent or more – in the highest bracket for Ukraine.
The fourth most populous region in Ukraine, the Luhansk population comprises 58 percent ethnic Ukrainians and 39 percent ethnic Russians. In northern areas the percentage of Ukrainians climbs to 80 percent. However, 68 percent consider Russian their native language – a 5 percent increase since 1989. There has also been a more recent influx of workers from Azerbajjan, Abkhazia and Korea. Almost all students coming from Africa, China, India, Arabia and Turkey utilize Russian as their language.
Similarly to Donetsk, the city of Luhansk was “founded” by a foreign businessman. In 1795, the British industrialist Charles Gascoigne established a foundry near the Luhanka and Vilkhivka rivers. Gascoigne had developed a new type of cannon, a shorter-barreled “carronade” that would be favored by the Russian and British navies for the next 70 years. The Donbas area is especially rich in mineral deposits, supplying almost all of Ukraine’s coal and iron ore. Luhansk soon grew into a major industrial and railway center, and by 1905 had the largest steam engine plant in the Russian Empire, building 21 percent of the empire’s steam engines.
During the entire Soviet era, there was only one working church in the region, the Holy Ascension Cathedral. Today, the “separatists” of the “Luhansk People’s Republic” (LPR) are also destroying all churches of every denomination, other than the Moscow Patriarchate, the speaker noted.
Dr. Shestopalova described how younger residents not brainwashed by Kremlin propaganda quickly lampooned the buzzwords of a so-called Russian Spring – “Donbas is Russia” or “Luhansk is Russia” – transforming them into “Luhansk is Israel,” “Luhansk is Scotland.” Others mocked Russian propaganda by grouping Luhansk with other previously trampled states: “Abkhazia, Transnistria, …Luhansk?!” Their goal was to counter the massive barrage of disinformation. Their message: “Get it into your skull: Luhansk is Ukraine!”
Tragically, during the recent Russian occupation, numerous residents, activists and journalists were killed. Many who attempted to defend the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) building were taken captive. Activists killed included the head of the local Prosvita, the organization for cultural enlightenment. University faculty and alumni were among the fallen. Many were tortured, had their internal organs destroyed and fingers smashed, agonies that belong to the Inquisition of the Middle Ages.
Entering the university, many students were not always aware of the true history and culture of their homeland, but with time they slowly grew to understand and love their heritage, Dr. Shestopalova related. Ukrainian poetry clubs and even embroidery sewing competitions became popular. Many graduates of Luhansk University are now employed in Kyiv, Lviv, Uzhhorod and many other cities. However, due to the war, the planned 200th anniversary celebrations of Shevchenko’s birth, field trips and outdoor celebrations had to be limited because of fears for the students’ safety. The city’s Lenin statue was painted blue and yellow, but the real struggle occurred on the grounds of the Shevchenko monument. There, the anti-Maidan forces and “titushky” thugs attacked, wielding bats and brass knuckles, and broke up even peaceful Shevchenko-honoring meetings, she said.
Throughout Luhansk, a graffiti struggle ensued. It started off as simple spraying of blue and yellow versus the Russian tricolor, but then it turned deadly serious. The provocations were directed at “enemies” of the LPR, internal and external: the University rector, Viktor Kurylo; “neo-Nazis;” “fascists.” Posters of false alarm about the imminent arrival of “Banderites” or the Right Sector soon appeared. Portraits of “enemies” began to be seen on city walls.
The LPR declared its enemies to be anyone who demonstrated an informed national and government position, and all such “enemies” were marked for destruction, Prof. Shestopalova explained. The noted Ukrainian author Irena Karpa had created satirical cartoons lampooning LPR “ministers” and other “officials.” When Iryna Filatova, the LPR minister of culture, recognized herself in one cartoon, she submitted an official petition (now posted on the Internet) to the LPR, in which she sued for 50,000 rubles for mental distress caused by this cartoon, and in all seriousness demanded that its author, Ms. Karpa, be judged by a war court and shot.
Meanwhile, propaganda photo-ops of “Luhansk residents who loved Russia” were engineered, utilizing “testimonials” from Communists, pensioners and from the rank and file of alcoholics and drug addicts. Murder, robbery and lawlessness spread. More residents became victims of shelling – while shopping in stores, on crowded buses; neighbors were killed trying to hide in the unsafest part of buildings, their basements.
At Luhansk University, students became afraid to reach into their pockets for cellphones because of the menacing balaclava-masked “separatists” patrolling the halls with automatic rifles. Eventually these LPR forces took over the student dormitory, threw out all the students and confiscated their documents. The city was closed to traffic and on October 3, 2014, Ukraine’s Minister of Education, Serhiy Kvit, announced the university would move to the city of Starobilsk, under the control of Ukrainian forces. Now the students had to take their final exams online, Prof. Shestopalova said.
Luhansk University, which has a student body of 30,000, had enjoyed partnerships with many international educational institutions, like the Vienna Music Conservatory, Thomas More College (U.S.A.) and the Academie d’Orleans-Tours in France. Luhansk students were able to obtain an M.B.A. degree in partnership with Franklin Pearce University (U.S.). They could take part in various student exchanges and scholarship programs through the Confucius and Goethe institutes. Many students developed their sports skills to the point of becoming champions in Olympic and Paralympic games. Students organized and ran numerous social work activities, including SMART, a program to enhance community engagement among young people in Ukraine by helping children from orphanages, sharing their pedagogical experience and promoting humanist ideas in society. In fact, Luhansk had been named Ukraine’s best higher education institution for several years in a row by Ukraine’s Ministry of Education and Science.
Now, in a surreal scene reminiscent of George Orwell’s “The Animal Farm,” the LPR announced its new “minister of education”: Lesia Laptieva, formerly an assistant high school principal in Krasnodon, a small depressed mining town. Ms. Laptieva announced on TV channel 24 that she intends to fully transform educational standards in Luhansk to conform with the Russian Federation. She cynically promised that all high schools and universities operated by the LPR would have their diplomas recognized throughout the Russian Federation. Never mind that on the Internet, one can read a copy of the official letter from Moscow University stating this is not being considered and will not happen.
Dr. Shestopalova concluded: “I am not a politician… Many of my students care and work for Ukraine, but many also believed the so-called LPR minister of education and are continuing their education in the occupied zone. Our government must think through and gradually implement a nation-centered strategy for Ukrainian education. The challenge will be to put together textbook literature that will direct students to national goals rather than regional divisions. We must create higher quality Ukrainian films and television.”
“We need people to grow in their self-awareness and an awareness of the world around them, rather than destroy anything they don’t know or are unaccustomed to. A turn to international literature will be most helpful, because then they would see the common thread from Orwell, Remarque through Shevchenko and our Maidan contemporaries like Serhiy Zhadan and a thousand others who understood the connections with similar cataclysmic events in history,” she said. “This will be the first step towards understanding the dramatic events that are affecting every resident in Ukraine, the first step towards understanding ourselves, and an opportunity to think about what will come tomorrow.”
“I have seen how people wear a thin veneer of civility. The invaders have convinced themselves that carrying a weapon gives them power over others. But making war will not solve anything. Only education to the truth is the answer… We are diverse in Ukraine, but we are all one,” Prof. Shestapalova underscored.