Prior to this round table, The Day was visited by Yuri Sayenko, doctor of sciences in economics, head of the social expertise department, Ukrainian Academy of Sciences Institute of Sociology, who presented the chief editor with a booklet containing the institute’s studies and poll turnouts during the parliamentary elections of 1994, 1998, and 2002. The booklet is a survey of Ukrainian society, taking into account the principal parameters, including the economic and political situations, pastime, living conditions, and ecological status. Later, when invited to join the round table, everybody understood the sociologist’s desire to share with the media the results of their work (read the parable about sociology). Mr. Sayenko also shared his views on Ukrainian poverty, prospects of a democratic society, hazardous social trends, national democratic mistakes at the dawn of independence, and the role of the Church in contemporary Ukraine.
In an interview with The Day, Andriy Yermolayev quoted Andropov: “We don’t know the society we are living in.” Do you think there are grounds to understand our society today?
I would say that all the social sciences, including sociology, are in a tragic situation, along with our society. Our society doesn’t know what it’s all about, but our social sciences are unaware of this. Considering that Soviet society — say, in the 1980s, being more structured — was described as vague and incomprehensible, the current picture is darker by far. The thing is that all previous theories, methods, assessments, even forecasts relied on studies of stable societies. So then we got into trouble and everything went head over heals.
Trouble?
I mean systemic structural disintegration — economy, administration, political orientation, consciousness, etc. There was no generation gap in Ukrainian culture before or during Soviet times. Now we have it and it’s getting huge. Young people in their orientations are drifting far apart from the older generation and the choice of the future — I mean elections — is made by the older generation, because there people are more active at the polling places. That’s what I call tragedy! We have spent more than a decade trying to figure out how our society is structured, but haven’t been able to adopt the methods and criteria...
What makes us so unique? Sociologists in other postsocialist countries know how to monitor the situation; they don’t seem to face the kind of problems their Ukrainian counterparts do.
It’s hard to say. We have good contacts with sociologists in the West; and we maintain close contacts with Russian colleagues, but we have practically no contacts with Polish and Baltic researchers, although sociology has always been at a quite high level in the Baltic states.
Does it mean that there is no social contract — perhaps from state structures — for knowledge about a new structure of society, its large-scale and comprehensive study?
There is no social commission. Everything our institute does at present is aimed in three directions: (a) earning a living, fulfilling certain commissions during election campaigns, etc.; (b) getting subsidies for research and procedural studies we’re doing — even though such projects are not always practically important; (c) doing what we consider necessary, using part of budget appropriations and of what we earn ourselves. This is how we publish literature and keep track of public opinion. Imagine, we’ve monitored its dynamics since 1994. There are certain indices of public opinion dating from 1992 and in the latest 2002 study we even compare current and Soviet indices. We send findings to a number of state institutions, but practically none has shown any interest, none has commissioned any studies. It is as though the state did not notice our existence. Here is an example. Before closing the Chornobyl nuclear power station, the president signed an edict designating the Institute of Sociology as the principal organization monitoring the social and psychological aspects of the problem. Two years passed and no one had contacted us, no one had shown any interest in our findings...
What do you make of this attitude?
It means that those in office pay no attention to the social-psychological factor, the effect of public conscience on all processes in this society. I’m personally convinced that every economic program must allow for the factor of tremendous social psychology resistance and transformation of [public] consciousness. We must also put right the system of social education, in the broad sense of the word. At present, every study reveals people’s striking lack of knowledge in the legal, economic, sociological, and other domains. Something must be done about it, but I don’t know how.
In 1997, in an interview with The Day, Yevhen Holovakha was asked about the social condition in Ukraine. He offered a formula consisting of three negative components: distrust, uncertainty, and dissatisfaction. How would you modify this formula today?
I wouldn’t, for nothing has fundamentally changed. The people are not explained about a new way of life, and the mind cannot be in a state of uncertainty for long. So people tend to return to the past. Over the past decade the number of people wishing to go back to the planned economy and the Soviet way of life has noticeably increased. In other words, democratic sentiments were stronger in 1994 than now.
What about the younger generation?
Over the past ten to eleven years they have experienced a new system of education and have had a first- hand experience of open societies; a great many young people study and work abroad. In other words, the younger generation, unlike the middle and older ones, must be studied using special methods. The trouble with sociologists is that, we are all in a great hurry. We haven’t developed criteria to assess the [new] phenomena and processes — like the characteristics of a civil society.
Perhaps we had to rely on the adage that practice make perfect? What current phenomena would you describe as manifestations of a civil society?
The first that comes to mind is The Day and Olha Herasymiuk’s campaign for replenishing that village library stock destroyed by fire — and your newspaper’s other initiatives.
Larysa IVSHYNA: Of course, this is pure theory, pondering what would have happened if the Soviet structure had been dismantled rather than destroyed. However, all knowledgeable people in Ukraine ought to have created a kind of atmosphere in which it would be understandable that we could and should use some of the components of that dismantled Soviet structure on the new construction site; something would be recognized as hopelessly obsolete, others would be still salable. We have individuals with outstanding intellect, yet their efforts are out of sync, so even after eleven years we are still not sure that we have cleared that debris and figured out what should be discarded and what used in building the new structure — and who would do this construction and how. Do you sociologists have the same impression?
Very well said. I think our Social Democrats have also played a negative role. Rather than use our experience, they said forget everything that came before and start from scratch.
That was phase one. They said forget everything, and others would forget everything about them.
Indeed. That’s another reason why the youth potential wasn’t used, as all posts were occupied by older individuals. Now the impression is that we are moving down a blind alley, picking up what’s left of that old intellect. Where is our new intellect, new energy?
Abroad. You’ve studied the phenomenon, youth exodus from Ukraine. What is it? Immigration, leaving to study abroad and then return, or what?
We polled young people aged under 30, among them scholars, fellows at our research centers, and 2,000 fourth and fifth year students at all our national universities (majoring in five specialties). The students would all go and never come back. The young researchers wanted to leave, earn some money and experience, then return home. Also, for the researchers the important thing was access to the higher international scientific level, while for the students money came first. Obviously, public spirit, as a factor having tremendous importance for other bodies politic, just doesn’t work here.
It would be interesting to know your opinion on Ukrainian poverty. The problem is currently given the highest national priority, yet no one seems to have tried to figure out where it comes from and what we should do to overcome it.
Assessing this phenomenon, using sociological and statistical methods, yields very different results. On the one hand, our living wage is UAH 365 a month. 70% of this sum (UAH 210) is spent on food, 15% on housing and municipal charges. In other words, that living wage is an amount helping us to survive. By the way, other polls show the same picture. When asked about the level at which one is considered poor, most of our respondents pointed to a per capita income under 400 hryvnias, very close to the stated amount. Why not make this sum the poverty line? Because in that case we would have 90% impoverished residents. Who would ever agree to this on high?
But they should, if it’s the true picture.
Yes, but the picture would be too frightening. So they put together a team of experts who allegedly proved that the poverty line is 157 hryvnias a month, so we officially have 25% of the population living below that line.
Where does this poverty come from? There are traditionally poor countries, they have been like that for centuries: their very lifestyle, even social consciousness are in conformance with that status. Even their biological characteristics are different. Thus, people in such countries are lower in height by 10% and weigh less than elsewhere in the world. Their life expectancy is lower, too. But their situation is quite different. There you find a higher educational standard and spectacular economic breakthroughs — in other words, gleams of civilization. And there is the miracle that took place 13 years ago. I mean countries that got suddenly impoverished. When all traditional poverty parameters don’t tally except that people are jobless or low-paid, and so on. Highly educated and qualified societies with developed economies, defenses, and cultures...
Are there any special scientific parameters to determine just how long such unfavorable conditions must last to cause irreversible degrading transformations?
No, there aren’t.
Is this an alarming trend?
I can’t speak about the whole of society. I know about Chornobyl victims. There is degrading trend, indeed. This year finally our emergency management ministry has agreed with my concept, one I came up with five years ago. It’s about the revival of the Chornobyl area. People live there anyway. They will stay there come what may. Five years ago I noticed that 80% of the victims did not want to be resettled. In other words, even at that period the resettlement program had to be considerably reduced, leaving it open only for young families.
The squatters are the best socially and mentally adapted inhabitants of the Exclusion Zone. They are content with what they have, all they want is to be left alone: “Let us live the rest of our lives here.”
There is much degradation among the resettlers, those aged 40-50 when made to leave their homes at Chornobyl. They are unable to integrate into the new sociocultural environs, even less to adjust themselves to the new economic conditions. No one waited for them there, they found no employment opportunities. They hate everything in their new places of residence and there are very few enterprising individuals among them. I determined all this, using special methods. These people are paternalistically oriented; they believe that their life and health are ruined beyond repair and they are all waiting for social aid. In a word, sixteen years [since the Chornobyl disaster] have taken their toll. Passive social aid ruins consciousness and the personality. The social policy must have two components whereby (a) man must be helped and (b) efforts must be made to single out individuals that can be rehabilitated, reviving their enterprising spirit and sense of responsibility, people that can and will work. By the way, the entire social policy in Ukraine is passive. We are making all those people paternalistic; they look to the state for help. Unless we activate the mechanisms rehabilitating our society as a whole, we may well lose a considerable part of it.
At a recent round table discussing the development of civil society, a lot of what was said boiled down to the population having to reach a certain living standard to build that society in Ukraine. Do you also think that civil society in Ukraine requires all community members to be better off? Why do people eagerly discuss the perils of living on 100 hryvnias a month or the murderous prices at a new shopping center across the street never get around to forming a community of sorts and jointly defending their material interests?
I’ve said that our life consists of modern and future problems that must be solved. A society is progressive when serious attention is paid to the future. A great thinker said that those poor in spirit are doomed to misery, that they never think of the future. One living in misery cannot think of the future; all one can think of is one’s daily bread. In this context the category of time is quite interesting. Many philosophers and researchers say that we live in a time trap, that time is at a standstill here. Untrue. Time never stops and there are no time traps. Every second and every one of us are allocated corpuscles of time. The most important criterion is what we have to fill these corpuscles with. For those living in misery time is filled with suffering, trying desperately to figure a way to survive. Only society can get man out of this state by generating a model of the future. People must be shown a way to survive. Look at what happened in Western Europe after World War II. People were in the same fix as we are now, but they worked to rebuild everything devastated by the war and for the future of their countries.
You say it is necessary to introduce social education, that man should be given faith, that the social paternalistic policy must be changed. Who do you think should do all this? The state or some public institutions, perhaps political forces? And what do you mean by giving man faith? Do any of your studies point to the nature of this faith?
If I knew an answer to that last question, I’d rate a Nobel Prize. Perhaps it’s necessary to put together all our intellectual potential, what’s left of our energy, and then think about what’s to be done next. I have no ready prescriptions. I have only a diagnosis. I’ve turned to various official structures, political parties, patriotic organizations, and Our Ukraine. I’ve proposed to set up a board of independent experts, find 12-15 individuals operating in various fields of endeavor in every region, taking orders from no one — I mean really independent individuals — so they could think all this over and make suggestions. We would work with such people. We could meet at least twice a year and collect their proposals.
What was Our Ukraine’s response?
They said they knew everything well enough. I have a parable about sociology. It’s my own creation. An administrator is asked whether he needs sociology. No, he says, I’ve got so many resolutions and enactments, so much information, I know everything there is to know about society. The same question was posed a people’s deputy. He says I constantly meet with people, I know how they live, what they want, so I don’t need sociology. A researcher, when asked this question, says he doesn’t need it, either. He reads literature, studies philosophy, he knows everything. Finally, the man in the street is asked and he says, “I don’t believe it. For as long as I’ve lived, no sociologists have ever asked me about anything.” The likelihood of being interviewed in a poll meant for 2,000 respondents is very little. Statistically, one has to wait 150-200 years to be in that number.
“Getting back to prescriptions, I think that a dialog, communication, social education are the only way to achieve some changes. Remember how painstakingly the Soviet Communist Party worked to brainwash the masses? Everyone had to subscribe for newspapers, every home had a radio; they saw to it the people could afford televisions, there was a nationwide system of propagandists, every week people listened to political information at places of work... Brainwashing, indeed, but that was also work with people’s consciousness. Unless we work with our people, have a dialog with then, we will never change anything.
What trends recorded in your studies are likely to deepen?
There will be no dramatic shifts. Household chores will remain the same, the more so that we are entering a phase when all our household appliances, refrigerators, and pieces of furniture will tend to break down. Most people cannot afford to replace any of these.
In addition, the energy tolerance index in all [social] groups will decline. In fact, the Ukrainian community at large is very interesting, in that they dislike mostly themselves.
The existing regime offers no survival model, nor does the opposition. In other words, we are uniting against something, while we should unite for something. The opposition has three different causes for which to struggle: the Communist, the Socialist, and Tymoshenko’s. As for Viktor Yushchenko, his stand is anyone’s guess. He is a decent man, generally speaking, but he has a fundamental drawback; he is not a resolute, clearly spoken, and determined politician. I can’t see him as a strong leader. He is no de Gaulle, Eisenhower, or Adenauer.
How would you describe a society where people do not trust the powers that be, where the regime is unpopular and has low ratings in terms of people’s trust? And where a host of people who believe that the opposition is an even weaker structure, that in many cases it will prove ineffective, meaning even worse than the existing regime? Are you monitoring such sentiments?
We are monitoring sentiments that can be described as follows: there is tremendous social fatigue, immense apathy, and an intolerant attitude to the current situation. 75% respondents annually complain that their living standard is declining; 77% are convinced that Ukrainian society is thoroughly corrupt; 50% believe that this country is ruled by the Mafia.
What role does the Church play in a modern society?
Our Church behaves the way our oligarchs and those in power do. Those in power build themselves castles. There is an office of the presidential administration at the Institute of Sociology, meant to deal with complaints. Poor people visit it with their problems. Of late the office has been under major repair, European style: there will be plush offices. Imagine all those miserable people stepping into such offices. The same is true of the Church. They build grand temples and make huge investments in such projects. And all this is against the background of the entire humanitarian sphere falling to pieces, neglected daycare centers and schools. Soviet power never left children in the street. Of course, houses of God must be rebuilt, but this can be done on a more modest scale. It is too bad our Church does not seem to consider the experience of the Ukrainian diaspora where the Church unites under its roof everything: faith, tuition, family education, even social aid communities; where the Church takes care of the flock’s spiritual and earthly needs.
