EUSTORY Academies in 2006: Lviv, Kiev/Ukraine
24.09. - 01.10.2006
"Ukraine - the unknown European neighbor between legacies of the past and current democratic challenges"
In cooperation with: Nova Doba, Lviv
Personal Impressions
Christoph Delcker from Germany
Ukraine is an impressive country and the Ukrainian people are exceptionally hospitable. I was particularly impressed by the city of Kiev. In the centre of the city, there is this special and unique atmosphere, caused by the immense architecture and the extremely broad streets. However, once you leave the centre of the city, everything looks different. Housings are in bad condition, you can actually see that Ukraine is a very poor country. I got the impression that this gap between the rich and the rest of the society, who by Western European standards would be considered the poor is typical for Ukraine. Thinking back to my expectations before going to Ukraine, I can say that I now look at the country from another, closer point of view.
While attending the award ceremony of the Ukrainian history competition, I saw that it is quite a new thing in Ukraine to research and question the history of your own country, family or origin. In Germany, due to our history, there has been a progress of coming to terms with the past for more than 60 years. In Ukraine, the progress of coming to terms with the past is just about to start. Petro Kendzor, the organizer of the Ukrainian history competition, gave a history textbook to us which he had developed together with a team. This book was the first one based on Western European standards, and starts to be used in Ukrainian history teaching now.
I really enjoyed being part of this international group of students. First of all, the participants were really nice and we had a lot of fun, so it was easy feeling comfortable. Additionally there was a really good and productive working atmosphere. And, of course, I also gained some insight into the culture of the countries the other participants came from. I thought that it was, for example, very interesting to get to know how other countries deal with the topic of the Holocaust.
This week in Ukraine showed me once more that we have to learn from our history. I was particularly impressed and touched by the visit of the location where the horrible Babi Yar ravine took place. There is this saying that history always repeats itself. I don't want to agree with that. It is important to learn from the cruel things which have happened in the past in order to take care that they will never happen again. I would like to finish quoting the great Albert Einstein: "Learn from yesterday, live for today, hope for tomorrow. The important thing is not to stop questioning."
Karolina Kaleta from Germany
The academy in the Ukraine was my first choice and I am glad it was. I had just very few expectations going to the Ukraine because I do not like to be disappointed. One of the few expectations I had was to increase my knowledge about the Ukraine, especially the Western part of the country, where my grandparents grew up when that part still was Polish and the second expectation was to meet a few nice people from other European countries. These two major expectations I had were not just fulfilled but exceeded! In just one week, I learned more than in three months at school and I had the honour to meet wonderful European youth!
This success was caused by the program which was well organised and contained a lot of different aspects about the Ukrainian history and culture. It allowed the participants to get to know each other through group work.
First I got to know a lot about the multicultural background of Western Ukraine on the example of Lviv, where my grandparents came from, so I had the possibility to do some research on parts of my roots. Secondly we learned a lot about the "most recent" Ukrainian history in Kiev - about the Orange Revolution! In the end we also dealt with the topic of the Holocaust in the Ukraine. This particularly sad part of European history which unfortunately affected almost all European countries was also a matching point for all the participants.
In our international group of 13 people with 9 different nationalities (Bulgarian, Danish, Estonian, German, Latvian, Polish, Romanian, Slovakian and Slovenian) we had the chance to share the experience of "living history"- to me that means learning about history not only by listening to a teacher but by doing research oneself.
I enjoyed working in this group not only because of the great people, but also because of the international environment. I think that approximately half of my newly gained knowledge comes from the other participants.
For the first time in my life I got to know why one speaks about "language families"- for all the participants English was the second language, so no one spoke it perfectly. Sometimes, when we really missed the English words we just said it in our own language and most of the people understood because in their language they have similar words. This is, for example, especially the case for Polish and Slovak language.
A different topic was communicating with Ukrainian youth, because unfortunately hardly any Ukrainian spoke English. This really surprised and shocked me because nowadays you have to speak English when you want to achieve a better standard of living. The lack of language skills maybe also was the reason why Ukrainian teenagers were not able to actively take part in our discussion about the Holocaust or the meaning of history.
I personally liked these discussions very much. I learned how other countries deal with the topic of Holocaust. To a German, this is very important. All this work in the group and with the Ukrainian winners of the history competition showed me that even when you do not know the language you can communicate, solve problems and become friends. So I do not understand why it is often so hard for politicians to find a common language.
Anna Sidorenko from Latvia
It was not my first visit to Ukraine, but this time I explored a different country from the one I saw before. The biggest impression for me was Lviv. This city has always been considered as multicultural, however during our stay there I felt a real Ukrainian atmosphere! People living in Lviv seemed amazingly hospitable, friendly and I simply admired their patriotism and the way Ukrainians take care of their culture and language.
During our Academy I found many similarities in the way Ukraine and Latvia - both former Soviet republics - are trying to save their national identity, especially, the language.
As a result it was very easy for me to understand the real importance of the "Orange Revolution" for the modern Ukrainian society. It was a great challenge to be a part of the international group. Most of the students were from European countries I already heard about. However all the information I got before the Academy could not be compared with the knowledge I gained in that one week! In the international projects I took part before there were always really huge groups and at the end of the first week working together we sometimes still felt like strangers.Whereas this autumn on the way back home I realised that I could write an essay not just about the person I had interwieved during our first working day, but about everybody in the group! We discussed topics connected with history, politics, the educational system, culture and other things which have a big impact on the life of young people in our countries. It was amazing to hear that the Bulgarians express the disagreement by shaking their heads and the Germans have even more grades at school than we do - 13. Moreover, the best mark for them is the worst for us - 1! The Polish and Slovak languages for me seemed very similar to Ukrainian and the Bulgarian - to Russian!
As far as conflicts in histrory are concerned, I gained a lot of information from different perspectives. So now I need time to sort it out. History is difficult because there are so many different perspectives on historical events. We all have to be good presenters and tolerant listeners at the same time. I think that only this way we can create mutual understanding.
Monika Moeller from Poland
Before our academy I had read some reports of other Polish people, who have been to Ukraine and also some books and tour guides about this country. The main thought of them was: "If you want to see how the life had been looking in the past, go to Ukraine, there you will see!". So I expected to see old cars, poor people on the streets, damaged buildings. Some people warned me that there is no permanent water supply in Ukraine. But these are all myths!!! It is impossible to see "the past" in Ukraine (oh maybe except the train?)). So it really surprised me that Ukraine is a really modern country (especially Kiev). Kiev has really impressed me: huge, beautiful, renovated buildings, modern, expensive cars, rich shops and churches with golden domes, traffic jams, big bridges, cleanness and tidiness everywhere, deep subways, and a lot of people around all the time. What I found really amazing was that there were no graffiti on the walls. But although Kiev is really modern city, there is an unexpected remainder from past times - the monument of Lenin.
There are some similarities and differences of transformation process between Ukraine and Poland. Firstly, in my opinion Poland's task wasn't so difficult, because our society wasn't so divided as the Ukrainian society. In Poland, most of the people supported Lech Walesa and Solidarnosc. One part of Ukrainians wants to be close to Russia, the other part feels close to the European Union. In Poland, all people wanted to join the EU. What impressed me most about the legacies of the past is that Ukrainians were able to recreate their national identity immediately after the changes in 1991, although they did not have their own independent country for many decades.
One of the greatest advantages for me was being in such an interesting, international group. I liked it very much and it was a pleasure for me to meet all these people. Now I still keep in touch with them and I hope we will meet again because they really became good friends of mine. They taught me a lot and I also could share my points of view with them. During my stay in Ukraine I realised that at school I learn things, which focus on knowledge about Poland, Polish problems, Polish politics, history, geography. And this really made me angry! I, for example, didn´t know the names of any Latvian or Estonian politician, writer or singer. Now, after our trip to Ukraine, I can even say some words in Slovenian, Bulgarian or Latvian. I got a lot of information about cultures and customs. Meeting these people was some kind of inspiration to study our world more in depth. To me, they were all like teachers and friends at the same time.
It was also very interesting for me to speak with Germans and about the Polish-German relations. It turned out that they are seen completely different in both our countries. Recently, Polish-German relation are a very popular topic in Polish media. They create the atmosphere of conflict between our countries. They write about Erika Steinbach, the gas pipe in the Baltic Sea, offensive publications about Lech Kaczynski in German newspapers, etc. After speaking to the German participants of our group it turned out that they didn´t know who Erika Steinbach is and that they didn´t feel anything like a German-Polish crisis! The only problem was our media which has made the problem bigger than it is in reality. Now I know that many Germans don't pay attention to Erika Steinbach's organisation and that Germans don't want to fight with us. So in my opinion talking about conflicts is very important and it is the only way to solve them.
