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Culture, religion, and education in Ukraine

I’ve had a chance now to sample–in tiny doses–Kyiv’s cultural, religious, and educational institutions. Some would be impressive even without the war. But conflict makes it doubly difficult to keep high standards. Money is short and people have other things to think about. We shouldn’t expect world class museums, performances, and universities. When we find them, they merit not only praise but support.

The internet I am using is too slow to upload pictures for this post. I’ll try to do that when I am in a better cyber environment.

A fine opera house

I particularly enjoyed a performance of Semen Gulak-Artemovskiy’s Zaporozhian Beyond The Danube. It’s not the greatest 19th century opera, but it has significance for our time. It concerns Cossacks in Ottoman captivity who want to return to their Zaporozhian homestead. Today, part of that oblast is in Russian hands. Wikipedia tells me the opera premiered in 1863 in Russian in St. Petersburg, but today it is normally performed in Ukrainian, as in Kyiv. The opera house is a handsome one of the traditional variety.

The performance was very good. One or two the singers didn’t seem quite up to their roles, but the chorus and dancers were great. The choreography was mostly chic traditional, but done with real flare. The capacity of humans to defy gravity long enough to twirl gracefully three times in the air always amazes me. I caught no outward manifestations of nationalist sentiment in the audience or cast. But the plot certainly tugs at the heart strings under current circumstances. And yes, it’s a comedy, so the Cossacks do get to go home.

Museums

The National History Museum was another high point. I found it hard to resist its juxtaposition of a weapons exposition with a show featuring haute couture. Best was the 10th century cross archaeologists excavated from the church Volodomyr the Great founded after his conversion in 988. This and the many other objects found there disprove President Putin’s claim that Russia’s czars founded the Rus. It was more than three hundred years later that Moscow emerged as a governing center.

I can’t compliment the Kyiv Picture Gallery, where I viewed a colorful exhibit by a forgettable trans-Carparthian painter. I think the Khanenko Museum down the street was where I should have gone. The exhibit of ancient coinage and modern paper money at the gargantuan Ukrainian House only had labels in Ukrainian. But I gather it aimed to demonstrate the continuity of Ukrainian statehood.

Religion gets shorter shrift

Ukrainians mostly regard themselves as Orthodox Christians of one variety or another. Seventy per cent are self-avowed “believers.” The Russian Orthodox Patriarchate is now nominally illegal, but some churchmen are still loyal to it. The Ukrainian Orthodox Church, which exists in two institutional forms, is dominant. The Greek Catholic Church, which the Soviets prohibited, has revived. Originally “Uniate,” it recognizes the authority of the Pope and aims to bridge the gap between Orthodoxy and Roman Catholicism.

Ukrainians told me they are not as devout as many Poles and some Russians. They identify as Orthodox more because of family tradition and national culture than personal faith. But during services the orthodox churches see some prayerful traffic while the service proceeds behind the iconostasis barrier.

The St. Sophia complex, which originated in the 11th century, and St. Andrews, designed in the mid-18th century by Italian architect Bartolomeo Rastrelli, are impressive. The Soviets put them to other uses. The state now administers them. St. Andrews and the park below have spectacular views over the Dnieper River. The St. Sophia bell tower has a view over much of the center of Kyiv.

Also impressive is the Kyiv-Pechersk Lavra religious complex. A current exhibit there of Crimean artifacts underlines its relationship to Ukrainian history and culture.

The Jews seem ok

What remains of the Jewish community feels fairly comfortable in contemporary Ukraine. Some have chosen, wisely, to focus on ecumenical humanitarian work rather than serving only the Jewish community. The President comes from a Jewish family, though he himself has not been active. The community is, as often, fragmented. The Orthodox are dominant, but there is a Reform congregation.

Babyn Yar, where the Nazis shot more than 33,000 people in late September 1941, is amply memorialized. Maybe overly so. The monuments there seemed less than coherent to me. Two big ones were too explicit for my tastes, but this haunting “symbolic” synagogue hit my chords.

Education is less valued

Here I can only repeat what some Ukrainians have told me. Education is not highly valued in the society, especially now with the war on. English is taught from first grade, but few people on the street speak more than a few words. The quality of the state universities is not high. Two historically important ones get low grades. Their professors’ salaries are low.

The Kyiv School of Economics, where I’ve been speaking is the exception. Founded only in 1996 and struggling even a decade ago, KSE has raised a lot of private and foreign money. It now sits in a building with a clever internal design a few miles from central Kyiv. But it plans to move at some point to terrain and buildings it has purchased near the Dnieper. By all reports, it pays its professors much better than the other universities in town and subsidizes its students.

The result is an institution that is generating some of the best minds and technocratic work in the country. Its social sciences department chose to be accredited in Germany rather than Ukraine. That is an option open to other Ukrainian institutions but not generally used. KSE also has a thinktank concerned with current issues like how to tighten the EU sanctions on Russia. They are also trying to correct World Bank statistics on Ukraine’s GDP.

Next up

I attended the Kyiv Security Forum. Next up will be some wisdom I gathered there.