The work of the Ostroh Club, founded six months ago to encourage intellectual discussions among young people, is picking up pace. The third meeting of the club’s members, held at National University of Ostroh Academy, was dedicated to Ukraine’s Unification Day. The Ostroh Club now embraces six universities representing different regions of Ukraine. With every succeeding meeting the club is joined by representatives of other Ukrainian regions.
During the November 2006 meeting in Odesa students of Kharkiv’s Karazin University joined the students of Ostroh Academy, Odesa’s Mechnikov University, and National University of Kyiv-Mohyla Academy.
On Jan. 22, 2007, students from Donetsk National University and Lesia Ukrainka State University of Volyn attended the meeting in Ostroh, joining those who were already acquainted with each other. The participants had an opportunity to meet the initiator and permanent supervisor of the Ostroh Club, The Day’s editor in chief Larysa Ivshyna; the head of the Oversight Council of Ostroh Academy, the well-known politician and public figure Mykola Zhulynsky, and the successful Ukrainian businessman Mykhailo Kosynsky. After the meeting, club members attended the opening of The Day’s photography exhibit at Ostroh Academy and took part in a seminar on the topic “How to transform Ukrainian diversity into social capital,” as well as excursions and free informal communication.
SOCIAL SOLIDARITY AND NATIONAL EGOISM
The meetings at Ostroh Academy always inspire the club’s members to create new socially-important concepts or reinterpret old ones. So, Oleksandr Lisovsky’s question to The Day’s editor about whether social solidarity is capable of overcoming dissimilarity not only sparked deep reflections, but also united and shaped in the minds of those present several theses that have been known for a long time.
Social solidarity must be manifested through the defense of national interests. It should start both from a rationally grounded opinion and spiritual sense of the need for unity with one’s compatriots. Only then will we boost our mentality with a dose of healthy “national egoism” — a concept defined by the student Ihor Shmyndruk in his question about what should be done to form this egoism.
ASK “WHY?” IN ORDER TO KNOW “WHAT’S NEXT?”
It should be understood that every generation is responsible for its time, for each movement forward or backward, to an equal extent. The task of the next generation is to ask “Why is it so?” in order to make clear what to do next. The younger generation is often not exacting enough either in relation to itself or its precursors, which is why “working on mistakes” is impossible. Mykola Zhulynsky answered for his generation when he gave his speech to the audience at Ostroh Academy. When will the gray-haired Ukrainian intelligentsia give way to young and talented people? Why does the same pro-Ukrainian intelligentsia never visit Donetsk? Difficult answers to complicated questions. However, Zhulynsky demonstrated an understanding of the need to renew today’s intelligentsia.
HOW TO TRANSFORM UKRAINIAN DIVERSITY INTO SOCIAL CAPITAL?
Different opinions, starting from the view that the formation of social capital in Ukraine is impossible because of various circumstances and ending with the view that the foundations for its creation have already been laid, led to a single conclusion: one can accelerate social capital and create a civil society only by means of such measures as meetings of the Ostroh Club. Everything is connected: the formation of mutual trust is impossible without communication among the country’s citizens, and this communication will become valuable when Ukrainians learn to listen to each other.
“In our country ‘horizontal relations’ have been destroyed; each person was under the state mechanism’s microscope. Now citizens have a full spectrum of possibilities for forming a civil society. One only needs initiative, a desire to do something, and work,” said The Day’s editor, capping the two-hour conversation.
The conversation circle of the Ostroh Club has expanded to the information space, where its members have created their own Web site: www.club.uosa.net. Here everyone who is truly interested in the question of internal integration can join in the nationwide Ukrainian intellectual discussion.
Before their departure, the members of the Ostroh Club resolved to hold the next meeting in March or April. When they were saying goodbye to each other, they shed tears from the realization that one more step has been taken on the way to national unification, and from hearing Ukraine’s national anthem being played. Ukraine’s Unification Day is only one of many fine opportunities for patriotism, but one should work to unify the country every day.
The Day put two questions to the participants of the Ostroh Club. We are convinced that our readers would like to know the answers:
1. Give your assessment of today’s sociopolitical situation in Ukraine.
2. What are your impressions of the third meeting of the Ostroh Club?
Ivan KAPSAMUN, fourth-year student (Political Science), Institute of Social Sciences at Odesa’s Mechnikov University:
“The third meeting of the Ostroh Club did not evoke the same euphoria of being in western Ukraine that I felt the first time, although there were more than enough emotions. But the main thing was that here I was able to witness the high organizational level of the meeting, the kinds of questions that were raised at the seminar. Inside of me the rational element was already overcoming the emotional one, and many more questions cropped up, which should be answered.
“The Ostroh Club is a part of the civil society, which is, no matter what we say, in constant crisis because the horizontal connections between people have been lost. There is a huge abyss between society and government. Society cannot influence the government, which makes it irresponsible. There is systemic corruption within the government, and this makes it impossible to pick professionals for the government. Society is compelled to live according to these rules or be left in the lurch by the state. Ukrainian society has an inner potential for creating attitudes of citizenship, but what is needed is some sort of impulse, catalyst, and it is precisely the Ostroh Club that is assigning itself tasks to rectify the situation — at least it aspires to this, which our government lacks so badly.
“My strongest impression is that our country seemed small to me, although it has a large geographical size. To gain this impression all you have to do is take the train and travel a certain distance. As for Ostroh Academy, despite the system prevailing in the state, I think this institution is ahead of its time and is a cultural center of Ukraine.”
Vitalii LEBEDIUK, M.A. student (Political Science), National University of Ostroh Academy:
“Ukrainian society today lacks social solidarity, which results in the featurelessness of a person (nation), when a person as a valuable element of society is not a source of inspiration but the opposite — of despair and the loss of one’s place in the life of the community. That is why such a situation has emerged in Ukraine, where citizens look for protection from the state but do not create any protection for themselves. Political parties speculate on this background, deriving their strength from social problems. And if society had solidarity in the structure of it relations, the parties would change in quality and be renewed since they would seek and rely upon an electorate with a certain firm system of values. Only then would every citizen of Ukraine say: “I feel good and safe here (in the country)!”
“First of all, it should be stated that the Ostroh Club has not only expanded but also become institutionalized, because in strengthening our relations, we are identifying ourselves with a certain community of creative thinking and culture. In other words, I can say that at each meeting we are celebrating our club’s birthday because sincere communication flows from the participants, laughter is heard, and gifts are exchanged. There is much joy and many long reminiscences. Even if we are communicating for the second time, we feel huge changes that unite us even more and bring us closer. The main thing is that what we can really be proud of is that fearsome myths have been destroyed, which had been a sort of barrier in a person’s comprehension, for we have united all the parts of the great world of Ukraine. I think that it is precisely the Ostroh Club that is reminding not only its members but all of society that social capital can be created only when we unite people’s potential, which is in our heads.”
