1. What do you feel as 2011 is coming to an end? What important events occurred in your life? Were these events linked with what was going on inside and outside Ukraine?
2. Den/The Day wrote that Ukrainian society lacks true actions and people capable of a brave deed. As an attentive Den reader and watcher of everyday life, did you notice what may be called Deed 2011? Please name it.
3. What books, films, places, cities, websites, exhibits, etc., impressed you the most?
4. What Den/The Day contributors, articles, and projects were etched on your memory in 2011?
5. Please tell about yourself in a few sentences: profession, hobbies, family – everything that can arouse our readers’ interest.
Vitali KLITSCHKO, leader of the political party UDAR:
1. 2011 was for Ukraine a year of disappointments and dispelled illusions. That the Agreement on EU Association was not initialed was perhaps Ukraine’s greatest failure of the year. It seemed as recently as last summer that Ukraine would really come close to achieving its strategic goal – integration in the EU – in 2011. However, political expediency and the feeling of vengeance towards political opponents beat common sense. The year was also marked with the numerous protest actions of Chornobyl cleanup and Afghan war veterans as well as teachers. A nervous and sometimes even totally inadequate reaction of the authorities to social protest highlights failure of the so-called reforms and the ever-growing gap between bureaucrats and ordinary people. Yet I am optimistic about Ukraine’s future. I saw in the current year a lot of people who begin to regard what is going on in this country as their own business and personal responsibility. They may not believe politicians, but this does not mean they do not believe in politics or in their own civic position. The current year was not easy for me – first of all, because our family lost father. I owe him practically everything. Father always taught me to never give up and never gave up himself, fighting to the last… Father died just a few days before my 40th birthday. There was no celebration as such: it is hard to receive greetings when you are sick at heart. I suddenly realized that time rushes by very fast and it is important to value every minute, every moment, you spent with your close relatives. I also understood that I must work more for this country’s interests. So I devote now 90 percent of my time to political and civic work in Ukraine.
2. Time magazine experts were right to choose a protester, rather than a certain politician or public figure, as Person of the Year 2011. For this was a year of protests in Ukraine and the outside world. Therefore, any kind of protest is Deed of the Year. But what is the difference between protests in, say, Europe and Ukraine? The point is that Europeans are aware that a protest is a way to defend their rights and put their demands across to the government, that their position will be heeded and discussed at the topmost level – at national and the European parliaments, at the meetings of state and government leaders – and that, as a result, the officials will admit their political mistakes and failures, and voluntarily resign. In Ukraine, this is rather unlikely so far. Moreover, the authorities refuse to admit their failures and mistakes – on the contrary, they are blaming the mistakes on all and sundry: we are told about bribed protestors, fake Chornobyl veterans, and sinister Afghan war veterans, who are demanding more than they deserve. But it is more important that Ukrainian society is no longer indifferent to what is going on all around. People are rallying around certain ideas, charitable, political, and civic actions through social networking sites. They are rallying on the basis of common principles and outlooks, and this shows the awakening of a civic society. I think it is extremely important today for politicians to hear, understand, and take into account this public mood.
3. It is always difficult to answer this question because you are trying not to forget something. Of books, I would like to note Lina Kostenko’s latest novel Notes of a Ukrainian Madman – I read it with great interest. For my brother and me, the most talked-about film of the year is Klitschko. We made a sizable contribution to this project, and I am glad that it turned out so interesting and unexpected even for Wladimir and me. I hope Ukrainian audiences, too, will at last be able to see it soon. When I boxed this year in Wroclaw, Poland surprised me. That country resembled a big marketplace in the 1990s. Today’s Poland looks like Germany – superb roads, good infrastructure, and high living standards. All this has been done in the same 20 years that we have had since [the proclamation of] independence. Why have we failed? For Ukraine is not at all inferior to Poland! In general, this year my UDAR party comrades and I have traveled very much over Ukraine. I can remember visiting Kamianets-Podilsky to “inspect” a children’s sport school set up by our Fund. I was eager to stroll about the Kamianets-Podilsky castle, but, unfortunately, we were pressed for time. I hope to get back there in the summer – together with my family. And the last thing I’d like to note. For me, the website of the year is sort of a standardized page in the social networking sites that are burgeoning in Ukraine, too. For example, over 300,000 people have surfed through my brother’s and my Facebook site. I recently opened an FB page of my own. On the one hand, as a politician, I am aware of the importance of being present in social networking sites, especially when access to TV is limited. But, on the other hand, plunging into a virtual world has its downsides – this takes too much time and tears you away from the family and friends. In a word, I must seek a sound balance. Incidentally, I watch with interest the way European politicians communicate with their audiences in social networking sites.
4. Of the projects, I would like to mark the Den/ The Day annual photo exhibit. Although I failed to visit it this year, I always find pleasure in seeing these photo works which display so brilliantly and emotionally the true life of Ukraine and its citizens. I am grateful to your newspaper for being one of the few intellectual publications in this country. It seems to me, for some reason, that the Ukrainians are tired of the gutter press and want to have something to appeal to their mind and heart. What I especially appreciate is your support for the Ostroh Academy. I myself visited the academy this year and was pleasantly astonished with the level of students – the young people are taking interest in politics, the situation in Ukraine, etc. Such things as the high intellectual bar of these young people and their aspiration to be socially active members of society are very important for me.
5. It seems to me everybody knows me. My chief profession today is politician and public figure. My main achievements in life are my family, my team, and my sporting gains. This year I lost a very dear person, my father, so I more and more appreciate every minute I spend with my mother, brother, and children. I am grateful to Wladimir for being my best friend. And the person who understands me best of all is my wife.
Ihor PASICHNYK, Rector, National University of Ostroh Academy; Hero of Ukraine:
1. The events that occurred in Ukraine and the world in 2011 have perhaps left not a single thinking individual indifferent. This applies to political, economic, and cultural life of our society. What is important for me, a higher school academic, are events and reforms in the field of education and research. The public may be taking a somewhat dim view of them, but I still hope that, if our leaders take a sound approach, show professionalism, and rally around a common idea, we will still manage to make considerable progress in the development of democratic educational traditions and overcome all difficulties and differences. Regrettably, in 2011 Ukraine failed, as it did in the previous years, to frame a clear-cut concept of national education. While the neighboring Russians have clearly decided whom they are going to form, we still do not know what kind of personality and on what traditions we want to educate.
I will not analyze the political events in our state and the world as a whole because they received ample coverage in the mass media, including Den/The Day. Let me focus on the events that are directly linked with our university. By tradition, the Ostroh Academy devotes every year to honoring some well-known historical figures, Ukrainian traditions, customs, and values. It must be common knowledge that the Ostroh Academy pronounced 2011 as Year of Tribute to the Ukrainian Song. Students and professors organized a lot of events dedicated to this date. What impressed me personally was the record our students set in preparing the largest written tribute to the Ukrainian song, which was entered into the Ukraine’s Book of Records. It was symbolic that People’s Artist of Ukraine, Nina Matviienko, and representatives of business and governmental circles were also involved in this event. Another important event of 2011 was the initiative of Ostroh Academy students to mark the 1,160th anniversary of Ukrainian statehood, which drew support from political, public, and cultural figures.
Thank God I work at the Ostroh Academy as part of a good and closely-knit team. It is only by joint efforts that we can create a future for Ukraine and show the example of being able to build a strong bridgehead for the development of our state on the basis of exalted moral and spiritual principle, purposefulness, unity, and farsightedness.
2. What I consider Deed of 2011 is sponsorship of the Ostroh Academy by our sincere friend from Canada, Erast Huculak, with whom we got acquainted, incidentally, thanks to Den/The Day four years ago. When he visited the Ostroh Academy last spring, he offered, for a third time, financial aid worth 100,000 dollars for the construction of a new building at our university, which will add inimitable beauty to Ostroh and be a modern architectural masterpiece in the literal sense of the word. I also appreciate the deeds of the Ukrainian patron Vitalii Haiduk who allotted funds to buy a student bus and the equipment for our university’s research library and, what is more, gifted the famous Osroh Bible to our academy. I think these deeds are sort of investments in the development of Ukrainian education, culture, and spirituality. They should also become a good tradition among Ukrainian millionaires. Whenever I speak with students, I tell them a well-known and profound biblical maxim: “Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself.” If we love and respect one another, there will perhaps be far more good deeds.
3. In spite of being busy as rector, I managed this year to read a lot of books and visit various scholarly and cultural events. I recently reread the latest Den/The Day’s Library book – The Power of the Soft Sign. In my view, this book comprises the best publications on historical topics and allows readers, in an interesting and unobtrusive way, to learn the truth about the sources of Ukrainian statehood. Incidentally, the Ostroh Academy is already extensively using this intellectual product in its teaching process. And I hope Larysa Ivshyna will soon visit us to communicate with students and hear their impressions of the book they read. The year 2011 will be also remembered for the publication of the unsurpassable books by our Professor Petro Kraliuk whom I jokingly call “walking encyclopedia.” It is the novella The Good Tidings from Princess Zaslavska. A History of the Peresopnytsia Gospel and The Strong and Lonely, a novel about Stepan Bandera. Besides, the hard work of our university’s academics made it possible to publish this year the encyclopedia Ostroh Academy in the 16th -17th Centuries. What was a pleasant surprise was the discovery of the exhibits of sculptures by Petro Kapshuchenko and Mirtala Kardynalovska-Pylypenko in the Ostroh Academy’s underground art gallery, which I think could be an event of nationwide importance. I was also pleasantly surprised by the results of a Universitas analytical center’s survey that shows that Ostroh is Ukraine’s second best small city in terms of the quality of life.
4. I am sincerely pleased that Den/The Day has opened an interesting historical web project, Ukraina Incognita. I am still more pleased that the editor of this website is our graduate, Master of Arts (History) Artem Zhukov. I also take pleasure in rereading the publications of our female graduates Olha Reshetylova, Viktoria Skuba, and Alla Dubrovyk, who deal with high-profile subjects and prepare profound and well-documented publications. Naturally, I am still impressed with the publications of Den/The Day’s regular contributors Oxana Pachlovska, Igor Losiev, Yurii Raikhel, Ihor Siundiukov, Ivan Kapsamun, Maria Tomak, etc.
5. All I care for is, naturally, the Ostroh Academy and all that is connected with it because I have devoted a considerable part of my life to its revival and restoration. Clearly, as a family man, I extremely value my immediate relatives. As my daughters live abroad, I look forward to seeing them and my grandchildren. What can be called a symbolic this year’s family feast is a concert program of my daughters Olha and Natalia at the Rivne Oblast Philharmonic, for they are going to play, for the first time in Ukraine, at the Mozart Gala Concert. I am going to hear their concerts with awe deep in my heart. I am grateful to fate for managing, together with my wife, to bring up so talented children.
