Traditionally, Ukrainians strongly associate sociology with elections and ratings. There is nothing strange about it, as elections are a permanent phenomenon in Ukraine. However, in reality ratings are only the tip of the iceberg. Above all, sociology is the social diagnostics of society’s life. This is what the organizers of the Third Sociological Readings in commemoration of Natalia Panina, one of the founders of contemporary Ukrainian sociology, tried to show.
It should be noted that this time the readings were special. First, this year marks Panina’s 60th birth anniversary. Second, more works had been submitted to the competition than ever before. Finally, those who took part in the conference enjoyed Franz Schubert’s work Death and the Maiden performed by a string quartet. This is a very complicated music work, which is quite rarely performed in Kyiv. However, Russian colleagues have not come this year as they were afraid of the flu epidemic. This may be just as well, because the conversation could fail to be so open, live, and informal with foreign guests.
Virtually all the participants of the conference in one way or another touched the topic of the quality sociology is taught with. They spoke about the profanation of the sociological science which has acquired a dangerous scope. As is known, the rapid growth of an organism leads to deterioration of its condition. This medical fact is the best illustration of the state of affairs in sociology today. Ukraine witnesses an upsurge of private educational establishments, where sociology is taught by non-specialists. This opportunism discredits both Ukrainian professional community and the science of sociology itself.
“Across the country we have a single state diploma , which is good for Kryzhopil as well as Lviv and London. Yet London will not do, as we don’t certify it. One should work hard to certify a London diploma,” Andrii Horbachyk, assistant professor, Department of Sociology and Psychology at Shevchenko Kyiv National University, noted. “I want to say that our whole system is full of contradictions. Therefore the only thing we can do is to raise the level of students, and possibly cut the number of university places in order to improve the quality.”
Liudmyla Sokurianska, a professor at Karazin Kharkiv National University, noted that a quasi-sociological elite has emerged in Ukraine. “It sometimes happens that we reject Ph.D. theses. Then their authors go to private higher educational establishments, which have no traditions, but have formal grounds, such as a council consisting of six doctors (I am not saying anything about the level of those doctors), and defend their doctor’s and candidate’s theses there. This kind of ‘scholars’ even spell certain notions with mistakes,” said Sokurianska with resentment.
However, the deputy head of the Institute of Sociology Yevhen Holovakha honestly admitted that he cannot say no to people, even when he sees that the paper is poor. “When I see ahead of time that the thesis is poor, I run away and nobody can find me (the audience laughs). But if I get into trouble, I get to the full. I see that the work is bad, but what can I do? The Ph.D. student has already arranged for a banquet, invited relatives, mom and dad. And he has collected the papers for three years. How can I come and ruin everything like a bull in a china shop? What will happen next? No, I cannot do so as I am not so highly principled,” Holovakha admitted. “The responsibility rests with the departments which allow these works. I will never stop blaming them.”
Holovakha, the main organizer of the readings, spoke in a very touching way about his wife Natalia Panina. She was not a public person; moreover, she was afraid of publicity. Although Natalia was born in December, she did not like cold winter, and strange as it may seem, she did not like… sociology for quite a while. Moreover, her coming into the science was purely accidental.
“She went to the Institute of Gerontology, where she tried to get a job of psychologist. And they did not take her,” Holovakha said. “But in the reception she caught the eye of an absolutely fantastic woman, Nina Sychuk, the head of the Department of Demography and Social Statistics. After a several-minute talk with Natalia, she took a firm hold of her and took her to the department. There Natalia eventually became a real guru of sociology.
“I don’t know whether it was God or destiny that brought her into sociology. But it was her calling! This calling enabled her to do a colossal amount of work in this science.”
There is another interesting and significant fact: in Soviet times Panina obtained the first computer for Ukrainian sociologists. A PC cost 67,000 rubles at the time. For your information, a four-room apartment in Kyiv cost 40,000 rubles then. This “scientific miracle” is still standing in Holovakha’s office. He promised to transfer it to a museum one day.
Actually, the idea of the competition was Panina’s brainchild. Her early death prevented her from implementing this idea, and the cause was carried on by her husband and fellow sociologist Holovakha.
“She would say, ‘We had some competitions in Soviet times. We were doing something, though it was not so good. Why aren’t we doing anything now? Why do international organizations have dozens of prizes and awards, whereas we have a desert?’ I replied, ‘Why would you need this? It’s so much trouble.’ But she made me stick to it,” Holovakha recalls. “It seems to me those who will receive these medals will carry out a revolution that is so badly needed for our professional community.”
Three people have won silver prizes this year –Andrii Melnykov, Oleksandr Shulha, and Ksenia Ursulenko. And the gold medal, with a portrait of Panina engraved on it and the prize went to Viktoria Sereda of Franko Lviv National University, who is a young mother. The medal is made of pure gold. It was designed by well-known artist and restorer Viktor Bahlii. Numismatists are already hunting for this medal.
Sereda said that she partically owed her victory to Panina, because Panina’s methods served as the basis for her contest article. “Thus the interesting idea she had no time to realize in her lifetime was implemented by the Sociology Institute, and I had the honor of analyzing this material,” she pointed out.
Among others, she received congratulations from Den’s editor in chief Larysa Ivshyna. “I very much respect both those people who teach young sociologists as well as the young scholars themselves who follow the classical way, in spite of being tempted by false sciences. Like never before, Ukraine needs everything to be performed with high standards and quality,” Ivshyna noted and presented the winner with the two-volume edition Extract 150, a collection of the newspaper’s landmark publications for the past 12 years.
One of the last general secretaries of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union once said a phrase that became famous: “We don’t know the society we are living in.” Those words shocked everybody as they were uttered by the then head of the KGB, the almighty Yuri Andropov. But do we have a thorough knowledge of present-day Ukrainian society? It is hard to give an unequivocal answer to this question. Without doubt, the study of Ukraine is underway. But for some reason this knowledge has not turned into an instrument of national management.
Perhaps, this kind of competition is one more step on the way to breaking the tendency. However, first and foremost, young scholars indisputably need a great stimulus, because it is not only awards that they gain, they acquire recognition among older colleagues, which is very precious.
The Day's FACT FILE
Natalia Panina was born on Dec. 10, 1949. In 1972, she graduated from the Psychology Department at the Lomonosov State University in Moscow. For the last 15 years she headed the department and was a senior research worker in the Institute of Sociology of the NAN of Ukraine. She developed a number of methods that are now being widely used in sociology. Under Panina’s guidance, an archive of sociological data was created in the Institute of Sociology at the NANU, which is unique in terms of technical processing, and the organizational-technical fundamentals of establishing of the National Sociological Archives of Ukraine were developed. Panina authored over 200 scholarly works, including such notable items as the textbook Tekhnolohia sotsiolohichnoho doslidzhennia (Technology of Sociological Research), the monographs Psykholohia liudskoho vzaiemorozuminnia (Psychology of People’s Mutual Understanding), Sotsialne bezumstvo: istoria, teoria i suchasna praktyka (Social Madness: History, Theory, and Modern Practice), etc. In 2004, at the height of the presidential campaign, during the well-known scandal, when it became known that sociologists were involved in the political process, Panina published an article saying: “The problem is not with ‘sociology and politics,’ but with politics, politics, and again politics.” After this scandal Panina resigned from the position of the head of the Professional Ethics Commission at the Sociological Association of Ukraine. Her colleagues say that by doing so she confirmed one more time her reputation of being the “conscience of Ukrainian sociology”. She died of heart attack at her working desk on Aug. 8, 2006, at the age of 56.
