Not so long ago, Kharkiv’s State Institute of Art elected a new rector, Prof. Tetyana Verkina, a gifted pianist, noted teacher producing virtuoso performers, and a well- known public figure. She is the author of the international festival Kharkiv Assemblies, marking its tenth anniversary this year, serving as Kharkiv’s autumnal calling card. She is the city’s second female rector (Kharkiv has over thirty institutions of higher learning).
Her legacy is truly burdensome. Over the past couple of years, the Institute of Art, as a major venue of Ukrainian culture, has experienced numerous hardships. A number of gifted graduates worthy of occupying places of honor on the teaching staff, have left Ukraine, while the institute’s equipment (including musical instruments and audio/video facilities) has fallen into decay. Worst still, the ground floor, being an officially protected architectural site, has been leased out for private businessmen using the premises as casinos, shopping centers, and business offices.
Owing to such “bona fide care” of the institute’s previous management, the students have lost the cafeteria, gym, and opera studio. The lessees quickly did what is locally known as European repair, turning the place into precisely what they wanted it to be, leaving no trace of the historical site in the heart of Kharkiv. Apparently, the businesspeople concerned care nothing about the students — among them future talents of the 21st century of Solovyanenko’s, Richter’s and Oistrakh’s caliber — struggling to learn works by Lysenko and Tchaikovsky in unheated classrooms with peeling walls.
The Day: Prof. Verkina, aren’t you afraid of inheriting this gruesome legacy?
Prof. Verkina: Let me tell you that I have of late witnessed amateur concerts performed at well-to-do institutions of higher learning. Regrettably, our own symphony, chamber, and folk orchestras are pressed for funds, so they can’t afford concerts with an adequate stage setting and in befitting audiences. Yet our posters attract so many residents of Kharkiv.
It’s a shame that we have lost several generations of teachers, people aged between 25 and 40 years. We must do our utmost to prevent the generation gap getting any deeper, otherwise we will risk losing the music schools of Kharkiv. This explains our special attitude to the veterans in the field.
Much has to be done. First of all, we must have our classrooms properly heated; we must buy new equipment and have the old facilities repaired, primarily musical instruments and premises. We have turned to the municipal and regional authorities for help.
The Day: Are you satisfied with Kharkiv’s position on the current cultural map of Ukraine?
Prof. Verkina: That’s a rhetorical question. Kharkiv, as a cultural and music venue, is known on all continents. However, our bureaucracy has kept its Soviet tradition, stimulating culture at the capital city level, practicing the brain-drain tactic, having all talent transferred from the province to the metropolis. Remember our unique Borys Hmyria? He was known as the Ukrainian Chaliapin. Or take Hizela Tsipola, the world’s unmatched Madama Butterfly. The creative elite of Kharkiv has never been content with its position in the cultural outskirts of Ukraine. Now that we live in an independent Ukrainian national state, we stand a real chance of changing the situation for the better.
We also have foreign students at the institute, those enrolled under contracts with China and Russia (I don’t mean student exchange programs addressing border regions). Judging by the number of enrolment applications, we could have more foreign students, but there are problems that must be solved in Kyiv. Our colleagues in Great Britain, US, and other countries appear interested in our academic standard. [Prior to this interview, the Kharkiv Institute of Art was visited by the Dean of the Music Faculty of the Royal Northern College of Manchester, UK, who conducted a master class with local students — Author.]
One other point. Our generation was raised on a high musical standard. What’s happening on our radio/television channels, the kind of “music” are they playing? Soviet prison songs, for the most part. This “music” has a dreadful destructive force; it helps build a criminal, rather then civil, society. We must restore the best traditions of our institute for the sake of this country’s future. Thus we are confident that Kharkiv will be astir, seeing our posters in a couple of years from now. They will mark truly significant cultural events, both in this city and the rest of Ukraine. Otherwise, we shouldn’t have begun in the first place.
The Day: Some of the higher schools in Kharkiv have introduced Ukraine as the language of instruction, acting in keeping with the language law; however, most others seem content doing official paperwork, using the official language. How do you feel about this problem, in your current official capacity?
Prof. Verkina: Let me tell you about something that has actually taken place. Our students, while on a concert tour of Switzerland, were, were invited to a VIP party at the Ukrainian embassy. Among those present were many diplomats from other countries. After the concert, our students had an opportunity to communicate with the diplomats; they could tell them about own impressions of the concert tour. Mind you, they spoke Ukrainian and were interpreted using several European languages. It was then that our students realized how important representing their country and using that country’s official language was.
We will certainly expand the usage of Ukrainian as the language of instruction, primarily with regard to the general educational subjects. I think, however, that we should not take sharp bends, like making students use Ukrainian when mastering specific disciplines and using the parlance. Otherwise the teaching standard would suffer. On the whole, our graduates must, of course, have a fluent command of the official language.
The Day: You are Academician Verkin’s daughter. Your father is known as the founder of one of Ukraine’s most powerful research centers, FTINT, and as a physicist of world repute, but also as one with a musical education. Begging pardon for a cliche question, but how much have you taken after your father?
Prof. Verkina: I was fortunate to be born to a musical family. My father, while enrolled at the University’s Physics and Mathematics Department, also attended lectures at the Institute of Art. He was a virtuoso pianist. My mother came from a singing family, she was in love with Ukrainian songs. As a student of the University’s Chemistry Department, she had to choose between chemistry and music, as Conservatory Professor Lunts offered her a music career. Well, my mother chose science. My parents would often stage family concerts, and I must have contracted the musical virus. I fell in love with Ukrainian songs and then chose my creative life-path.
After B. I. Verkin became FTINT Director, he set up a Physicists’ Philharmonic Society there. At the turn of the 1980s, it became a favorite cultural venue of Kharkiv. Music inspired physicists to make revolutionizing discoveries; among other things, they proved that music, of all the arts, has the strongest positive effect on man.
In the early 1990s, shortly before his passing away, my father told me that the Physicists’ Philharmonic Society should be restored, because a decaying culture meant decaying physics and technologies.
I had pledged to carry out his behest, and together with like-minded individuals, we initiated a festival known as Kharkiv Assemblies. It was held this year for the tenth time, once again proving that the Ukrainians harbor an undying affection for culture.
