Ukraine: The Battle in the Field of Education.
In: Russian Education & Society, Jg. 42 (2000-10-01), Heft 10, S. 69-89
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Zugriff:
Any study of the problems of Russian-Ukrainian relations is, as a rule, confined to the sphere of interstate policies, while research tends to ignore questions of the interaction between cultures, which, in our opinion, are decisive factors in the creation of the psychoemotional foundations for relations between the two peoples. Yet there can be no doubt that at the present time a deliberate campaign is being waged to pit not just the states but also our two peoples against one another. The apostles of "The New World Order," as expounded by Z. Brzezinski (The Great Chess Board: America's Dominance and Its Geostrategic Imperatives [Velikaia shakhmatnaia doska. Gospodstvo Ameriki i ego geostrategicheskie imperativy], Moscow, 1998) have set forth quite openly the motives of such actions: "Without Ukraine, Russia will never be an empire" (read: will not be able to withstand the dictatorship of "the world community"). It is for this reason that the practice of "divide and conquer" lies at the basis of the policy of shaping the New Man in Ukraine-one who does not remember his history, one who perceives Tolstoy, Chekhov, and Pushkin as foreigners, Russia as an alien and even hostile state, and the Great Patriotic War as a clash between two predators-the USSR and Germany-in which Ukraine was nothing more than a victim, and so forth. Realizing that the older and middle generations are not very receptive to the new ideological dogmas, those who would achieve "perestroika of consciousness" are placing their main hopes on shaping the worldviews of young people, and their entire system of education is directed toward this. Myths instead of history, and the conversion of black into white and vice versa, have come to be characteristic features of the teaching of the social sciences. A particular role in the process of the creation of the new citizen of Ukraine has been assigned to the assimilation of the "non-natives," and for this reason language policy has become the cornerstone of "democratic transformations." The elimination of education in the Russian language has been elevated virtually to the rank of state policy (see "On the Institution of Integrated Measures for the Comprehensive Development and Functioning of the Ukrainian Language" [Pro zatverdzhennia kompleksnykh zakhodiv shchodo vsebichnogo rozvytku i funktsionuvannia Ukraiins'koii movy], Ukrainian Cabinet of Ministers Decree No. 998, dated 18 March 1997 (with supplement). Kiev, Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine, 1997), a policy that is being conducted by bodies of executive authority, with gross violations of existing legislation and even of the few skimpy provisions in the Constitution that guarantee at least some rights to the Russian language. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
Titel: |
Ukraine: The Battle in the Field of Education.
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Autor/in / Beteiligte Person: | Alekseev, V. G. |
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Zeitschrift: | Russian Education & Society, Jg. 42 (2000-10-01), Heft 10, S. 69-89 |
Veröffentlichung: | 2000 |
Medientyp: | academicJournal |
ISSN: | 1060-9393 (print) |
DOI: | 10.2753/res1060-9393421069 |
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