BY HANK REICHMAN
The recently published Winter issue of Academe, devoted to the theme of “higher education in wartime,” which I guest-edited, includes three articles by Ukrainian scholars. Odesa historian and philosopher Oksana Dovgopolova writes movingly about the impact of the war on her institution. “War creates immense challenges for higher education—there is no way around it,” she writes.
Russia’s invasion has forced Ukrainian society to grapple with issues that were previously confined to specialized academic fields: collective memory, the relationship with the imperial past (various Ukrainian territories at some point were part of the Ottoman Empire as well as the Soviet Union), and the shaping of the Russo-Ukrainian War’s memory language. Some universities have been responsive to societal demands during this time of crisis, despite higher education’s traditional inertia and sluggishness. In 2023, the Kyiv School of Economics started offering a memory studies and public history master’s program built on the principles of community and collectively shaping the vision of the future.
In an online-only article Timofii Brik of the Kyiv School of Economics expands on this. “In wartime, relevance often takes precedence over institutional specialization,” he explains. “Initially, the Kyiv School of Economics was a small, economics-centered institution, but as the war has progressed, we have launched programs in psychology, law, urban studies, and cybersecurity, and we even established a School of Engineering with experimental MA programs in drone technology and microelectronics.”
Yet, as Brik acknowledges, the losses have been dreadful:
According to one survey, by fall 2022, 18.5 percent of Ukrainian scientists had left the country. About 15 percent of scientists remaining in Ukraine have stopped conducting research, and the others have seen their research time significantly reduced. Many of those who have stayed cannot physically reach their institutions or have lost access to crucial data for their studies.
Young people, a group of particular interest to any educator or university administrator, have been especially affected by Russia’s aggression. A survey conducted by the Kyiv School of Economics in 2023 found that 40 percent of Ukrainian children showed symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder. This finding should also be put in the context of significant displacement. About ten million Ukrainians were forced to move from their homes, of whom four million went abroad. According to the head of the Ukrainian parliament’s Committee on Education, Science, and Innovation, Serhiy Babak, 10 to 15 percent of students—about 130,000–150,000—were outside the country in 2023. Students who have remained in Ukraine are studying under the pressure of air attacks. Today in Ukraine, access to a bomb shelter has become a significant factor in determining an individual’s access to education.
Lastly, writing from safety in the United States, displaced scholar Yana Prymachenko nonetheless argues that “for Ukrainian historians, neutrality has become untenable.”
Before 2022, Ukrainian scholars still had choices about how to navigate their academic careers: either stay within an academic field or be involved in political and civil activity. But with Russia’s genocidal war, which targets intellectuals among others, there are now only a few options. We are fighting for our survival and striving to preserve Ukraine’s intellectual capital for its eventual reconstruction.
I call attention to these moving and important articles today because what many of us have feared since the November election now seems to be coming to pass. Under Trump the US government is not only abandoning its support for Ukraine. It is forging an apparent alliance with the authoritarian Putin regime in Russia. Indeed, if the 1939 meetings between Soviet foreign minister Vyacheslav Molotov and German foreign minister Joachim von Ribbentrop followed the previous year’s betrayal at Munich by months, the meetings this week between secretary of state Marco Rubio and Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov follow the mimicry of Neville Chamberlain by secretary of defense Hegseth and vice-president Vance at the Munich Security Conference by just a few short days. I guess time moves more quickly in the twenty-first century.
In this context US academics have an obligation—not only to speak out against and resist this betrayal but to come to the aid of our Ukrainian colleagues. One way to help is financially. United 24 is a Ukrainian government site for donations. There one can direct a donation to “education and science,” which includes support for school reconstruction and bomb shelters for educational institutions. If you’re looking for a tax-deductible donation, or wish to make a Qualified Charitable Distribution from your IRA (as I have), RAZOM is an American NGO, which cooperates with Ukrainian NGOs to support civilians. Historian Timothy Snyder’s Documenting Ukraine project, which “supports scholars, journalists, public intellectuals, artists, and archivists based in Ukraine as they work on documentation projects that establish and preserve a factual record—whether through reporting, gathering published source material, or collecting oral testimony—or that bring meaning to events through intellectual reflection and artistic interpretation,” is also tax-deductible and accepts donations here.
Contributing editor Hank Reichman is professor emeritus of history at California State University, East Bay; former AAUP vice-president and chair of the AAUP Foundation; and from 2012-2021 Chair of AAUP’s Committee A on Academic Freedom and Tenure. His book, The Future of Academic Freedom, based in part on posts to this blog, was published in 2019. His Understanding Academic Freedom was published in October 2021; a second edition will be published in March 2025.
