University and War in Ukraine

The war in Ukraine has not only affected the political, economic, social and cultural systems, but also education and schooling system. The full-scale assault of the Russian Federation on the Ukrainian territory on 24 February 2022 disrupted the teaching and research systems. It caused the mass emigration of students and academics as well as the suspension or change of the operations of the universities. It has thus affected not only the situation of universities in Ukraine, but also in foreign countries.

For the universities in the neighbouring countries, the period of war, has been characterised by efforts to support endangered Ukrainian universities, and a test of solidarity of the academic community. The academics became involved in helping the Ukrainian citizens, moreover, they launched scientific studies on the problems of the Ukrainian university community, which require monitoring, diagnosis and research. They started to organize meetings, debates, conferences hand in hand with the Ukrainian scientists, involving both those who left the country to undertake research and teaching work in foreign countries and those who remained in Ukraine and, under difficult circumstances (including the lack of electricity, a necessity to stay in shelters, to teach using distance learning), made an effort to develop and then implement remedial programs and mechanisms to continue scientific and educational activities in the environment struck by crisis. The war and the sanctions imposed on Russia, inter alia, the exclusion of Russian universities from research and teaching projects carried out by the universities, has opened space to rethink the status of studies on Ukraine. To date, they were linked integrally to the East European studies, and often subordinated to the studies on Russia. Only the outbreak of the full-scale Ukrainian-Russian military conflict exposed the inadequacy of this approach, which had previously seemed an inviolable structure.

A necessity to find answers to tough questions about the situation of the universities – their academic staff and students – during the war, the solidarity attitude of universities in foreign countries and the status of Ukrainian Studies led to the arrangement of a conference entitled “The University and the War.” It was no coincidence that it was held at the Jagiellonian University, a university that closely cooperates with the Ukrainian universities and is located in the territory of the country neighbouring Ukraine, which has provided the highest humanitarian support to war refugees. During the conference, scholars from the Polish and foreign universities, mainly Ukrainian citizens, took a closer look at the above questions. The result of their work is this monograph written by multiple authors.

The monograph is divided into several thematic sections.

The section on Ukrainian Studies and War addresses the issue of the institutional and scientific functioning of studies that deal with the studies on Ukraine. These primarily concern the humanities, mainly historical and cultural approaches, both in Poland and in the international arena. The key issue here is the problem of the appropriation of the Ukrainian cultural legacy by Russia, and the unfavourable change to this approach, the lack of numerous strong, opinion-forming institutes carrying out the Ukrainian studies (research and education) independent of the Russian studies.

Part Two of the monograph titled University in Ukraine and War: Situation, Problems, Solutions attempts to determine the state of universities in the first year after the outbreak of full-scale war. Attention is focused on the problems of universities in Ukraine: russified in the occupied territories, demolished, relocated, and the challenges this poses to the authorities of the hardest-hit research and educational units in the areas involved for a long time in the continuous combat operations, and the issues of legal education adapted to the new war situation in Ukraine.

Part Three titled University and War: Mission, Counteraction and Support deals with the mission of the university in crisis and the phenomenon of academic emigration, mainly practical actions taken to support refugees (fund raising, volunteerism), aid programs (including scholarships, grants, etc.) that were implemented both in Ukraine and around the world bearing in mind, inter alia, the requirements of the academic community. The topic of student involvement in the reconstruction of the education system and in artistic forms of protest against the war and the aggressor is also raised.

The monograph is closed by Part Four titled About the War: Voice from University in which researchers from Ukraine and Poland address the issue of fascist and anti-humanitarian ideology represented by Russia and the relationship between social roles in crisis.

In the monograph, the authors raise a myriad of topics, signalling the most significant issues of the academic life that emerged or intensified in the first year after the war outbreak. All topics require further in-depth research.

The value of the volume is that the authors of most of the articles are specialists and theorists of the subject, at the same time observers and witnesses of the events and processes described, often actively involved in them. Therefore, in the monograph many articles represent a preliminary analysis of valuable, because newly acquired sources, which will certainly serve subsequent researchers, representatives of the social sciences and humanities, representatives of numerous research disciplines, including political scientists, cultural scientists, anthropologists and educators.

The idea of co-authoring the monograph, as well as the conference preceding it, emerged somewhat naturally from the very mission of the university, whose community is not indifferent to contemporary social challenges. The researchers want to participate in the development of a new and better world jointly with their partners from other universities. They want to support researchers from Ukraine executing jointly projects, but also to serve students and social partners with their knowledge, enabling them to understand processes, which are underway. Therefore, they are consolidating forces in an effort to reach the common consciousness with, inter alia, truths usually jammed effectively by propaganda, and seizing an opportunity that its power has paradoxically weakened with Russia’s decision to attack Ukraine on 24 February 2022.

The Editors

Alicja Zofia Nowak

Abstract

This article focuses on the “University and War” project, which has been implemented since spring 2022, and its important element, i.e. an international interdisciplinary academic conference.

The work involved scholars from Poland, Ukraine (online and onsite) and Austria. The main objective of the meeting was to discuss the role of university in crisis situations, and make a preliminary assessment of the state of Ukrainian universities and the situation of Ukrainian academics and students in Ukraine and abroad. The next thematic block concerned the reaction of Polish universities to the Russian aggression: scholarship and aid programmes implemented, volunteering activities of the university community. One of the current issues after Russia’s armed attack is the attitude of the academic community in Poland and worldwide to these events, i.e. an adequate evaluation of the aggressor’s policy, including in social media, and above all the institutional and conceptual reconstruction of Ukrainian studies, which is necessary to finally break with the remnants of the “Russian world” concept.

An important objective of the project was to involve students (mostly from Ukraine). The students prepared exhibitions: photographs of the destroyed Kharkiv, war-themed posters, poems inspired by the events, and took part in an international (with students from the Kyiv Academy of Fine Arts) scientific student seminar, during which they presented papers, analysed a questionnaire about their own situation after the outbreak of war, their involvement in aid and volunteering.

The project was also an expression of solidarity, a form of support that Polish academics wanted to give to students and academics from Ukraine.

Keywords: university, war, Ukraine, project, conference, propaganda

Introduction

The Russian-Ukrainian war, which has been ongoing since 2014 and reached full-scale proportions on 24 February 2022, has exacerbated the problems that universities, especially those relocated from eastern Ukraine, have been struggling with for years. It has also put those universities that until then had not been directly affected by the hostilities in a difficult position.