"UKRAINE REPORT"
In-Depth Ukrainian News and Analysis
"The Art of Ukrainian History, Culture, Arts, Business, Religion,
Sports, Government, and Politics, in Ukraine and Around the World"
"Once you find yourself in the Carpathian Mountains, something happens
inside, you begin to marvel at the beauty of life, the land, love...Is it
the intoxicatingly clear air with the pungent pine fragrance or being closer
to the sky? After visiting these places once, you will always want to
return." [article one]
"UKRAINE REPORT" Year 2004, Number 28
U.S.-UKRAINE FOUNDATION (USUF)
www.ArtUkraine.com Information Service (ARTUIS)
morganw@patriot.net, ArtUkraine.com@starpower.net
Kyiv, Ukraine and Washington, D.C., Friday, February 20, 2004
INDEX OF ARTICLES
1. "CARPATHIAN HOTELS: NO VACANCIES"
Tourist boom in the Carpathian Mountains
By Iryna Yehorova in Lviv, Ukraine, The Day, Kyiv, Tues, Feb 17, 2004
2. AGRICULTURE AND AGRIBUSINESS WILL BE THE HOSTAGE
OF THIS YEAR'S PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION IN UKRAINE
ANALYSIS by Yuriy Mykhaylov, Agricultural Journalist, Kyiv
Published by "UKRAINE REPORT" 2004, Number 28, Article Two
Kyiv, Ukraine, Friday, February 20, 2004
3. ENERGY ALLIANCE COMPANY SETS UP $10 MILLION LINE OF
CREDIT WITH EBRD TO FINANCE ENERGY EFFICIENCY PROJECTS
Energy Alliance, Kyiv, Ukraine, Thursday, February 19, 2004
4. PUBLIC RALLY HELD IN KYIV TO PROTEST THE PRESSURE
IMPOSED ON MASS MEDIA BY THE AUTHORITIES
By Vlad Lavrov, Journalist, www.ArtUkraine.com Information Service
Kyiv, Ukraine, Thursday, February 19, 2004
5. "JUST PLAIN WRONG"
"Closing down media outlets of opponents is just plain wrong."
By Prof. James Mace, Consultant to The Day
The Day Weekly Digest in English, Kyiv, Ukraine, Tues, Feb17, 2004
6. UKRAINE RADIO STATION SAYS ITS SIGNAL WAS JAMMED
WHEN IT CARRIED INTERVIEW WITH INTELLIGENCE OFFICER
Interfax-Ukraine news agency, Kiev, in Russian, 19 Feb 04
BBC Monitoring Service, UK, in English, Feb 19, 2004
7. OWNER OF UKRAINIAN OPPOSITION TV CRIES PERSECUTION
Ukrayinska Pravda web site, Kyiv, Ukraine, in Ukrainian 18 Feb 04
BBC Monitoring Service, UK, in English, Feb 18, 2004
8. "IN UKRAINE, A RUGGED CROSS"
The Ukrainian Catholic University has fought long odds
By Bryon Macwilliams, Lviv, Ukraine
The Chronicle of Higher Education, Washington, D.C., Feb 20, 2004
9. VATICAN, ORTHODOX HIERARCHY TALK IN MOSCOW
By Judith Ingram, The Associated Press (AP)
Moscow, Russia, Tuesday, February 17, 2004; 9:30 AM
10. VATICAN: CATHOLIC, ORTHODOX RIFT SHOULD END
By the Associated Press (AP), Moscow, Russia, February 18, 2004
11. ANTI-COMMUNIST ART, WRITING EXHIBIT OPENS IN BUDAPEST
Arts & Culture: by Stefan Bos, Voice of America
VOA News.com, Budapest, Hungary, 14 Feb 2004
=========================================================
UKRAINE REPORT-2004, No. 28: ARTICLE NUMBER ONE
=========================================================
1. "CARPATHIAN HOTELS: NO VACANCIES"
Tourist boom in the Carpathian Mountains
By Iryna Yehorova, Lviv, Ukraine, The Day Weekly Digest in English
Kyiv, Ukraine, Tuesday, February 17, 2004
Once you find yourself in the Carpathian Mountains, something happens
inside, you begin to marvel at the beauty of life, the land, love...Is it
the intoxicatingly clear air with the pungent pine fragrance or being closer
to the sky? After visiting these places once, you will always want to
return.
At present, after instituting visas, many Ukrainians no longer cross the
Polish, Slovak, or Austrian borders, but prefer to go on skiing vacations in
the Ukrainian Carpathians. This has produced a heavy influx of tourists. All
the ski resorts, tourist lodges, and other tourist accommodations in the
neighboring villages (known these days as agrarian settlements, perhaps as
a tribute to agrotourism) are filled to capacity.
In Lviv oblast, for example, tourism has increased by 10% this year and
there is every indication that it will continue to grow. Of course, reaching
this increment was not easy. Attracting tourists requires considerable
promotional effort, information support, and a coordinated action plan. Two
years ago, Lviv opened a tourist information center courtesy of the Lviv
Tourist Association for the Development of Tourism. Shortly afterward, its
offices opened at Lviv Airport and at the border customs checkpoint of
Krakivka (recently yet another one started functioning in Zhovkva).
Tourists, on crossing the border, want to know about the itineraries, hotel
accommodations, service, and so on. Lviv was the first to introduce such
information centers, because there was no alternative, tourism being the
only source of income in most such populated areas.
In March 2003, Lviv oblast adopted one of Ukraine's first resort, tourism,
and recreation development programs, for 2003-07, worked out by the regional
administration's resort and tourism department jointly with the National
Academy's Institute for Regional Studies. Still later appeared the National
Tourism Development Program, the Resort Business Development Program.
The cabinet is deliberating the next resort business priorities program.
Lviv oblast was also among the first to sign a cooperation agreement between
the Tourist State Administration of Ukraine and the regional administration,
and to work out a tourist itinerary marking and coding system that was
officially examined, coordinated with the State Committee on Standards and
Certification, and is currently recommended all over Ukraine. Incidentally,
the tourist business consists of what appear to be minor things, like
regularly supplied clean rushnyk embroidered towels, tasty meals, good
lighting, and polite guides. At present, young specialists are trained for
the tourist industry by fourteen higher schools at various levels of
accreditation.
Large and small hotels have been certified. Although only two big ones have
received four stars, tourists often prefer smaller and homelike ones. This
means, of course, that the latter must have all the expected amenities,
including interior design, service, and cuisine. There are many such small
hotels in the vicinity of Lviv and along all major highways. In fact, they
need little advertising, as their publicity is secured by word of mouth.
Last year, thirty of them were certified and their number grows every year.
However, what makes Lviv oblast such a tourist attraction these days? People
want to see places of interest and be in scenic environs. They find all this
in Galicia. Where else can one celebrate Christmas in a more exotic
atmosphere, with countless marketplace puppet shows, with whole villages
joining in the festivities, when one is drawn in a whirlpool of songs and
dances?
I am looking through the 2004 Tourist Calendar of Lviv Oblast. It contains
plenty of information. This small brochure helps every domestic and foreign
tourist choose an itinerary and event that will be especially interesting,
like climbing Mt. Pikui, the highest elevation point (in the village of
Bilaovytsia in Zhovkva district), or February 24, or the Ukrainian
Palianytsia [unleavened bread] Festival in Zolochiv district. Some will be
eager to attend the Women, Fashion, and Cars auto show as part of the
Coffee Bean Mystery Fest.
The calendar was first issued in 2003 and helped the local budget receive a
14% returns increment (mostly from the local tourist business). At present,
the tourist industry makes up only 11% of all budget receipts. Lviv
residents sincerely hope that with time it will be the lion's share. People
visiting Lviv more often then not decide to spend their vacations at Skole
or Slavsk, rather than going to the Carpathians.
They invariably climb Mt. Tysovets to marvel at the panorama opening from
its peak, something one will remember long after. Tourists now stand in
lines for the two sit-down car cableways, although many prefer rope tows (24
available). Unfortunately, the thirty alpine skiing tracks are not enough.
Also, the sit-down car cableways have long outlived their service lives
(each has been in service for thirty years), which is another factor to keep
in mind.
However, those living in Skole District, particularly those responsible for
its economic growth, are in good spirits Mykhailo Hnatyshyn, head of the
district administration, says there is a real investment boom and that it
will quickly change the local lifestyle, adding that, "Previously, the whole
infrastructure was focused on Slavsk and Tysovets, but now we are trying to
spread things throughout the whole district.
In other words, hotels and cottages for vacationers have started being built
in a number of villages; mineral springs are prospected (there are 64
springs in the district). Hopefully, the water supply, sewage, and road
construction problems will be solved soon. Villages are being revived.
Take, for example, Volosianka. The village is eight kilometers from Slavsk
and once considered a depressed zone, slowly but surely dying out. At
present, two hotels and a sit-down car cableway are under construction. The
construction of an elementary school is being completed at the village
council's expense. A gas pipeline is also slated to be installed.
The village of Orivachyk is another example. Ukrainian Airlines has built a
hotel complex of five cottages and a rope tow. The company did it for its
own people, of course, but it means jobs and a better living for the locals.
Investors will soon appear in Pidharka, Sopit, and Urych. Kyiv firms plan a
three-star hotel, rope tows, skiing tracks, and tennis courts nearby.
Everything will be done in keeping with the required formalities: allocation
of plots, paperwork, and payments. It is true, however, that the current
legislation has many gaps, including the rope tow as well as alpine skiing
track design and technical requirements. Now these problems are being
solved with the aid of local specialists.
Private housing construction has received fresh impetus over the past
several years. Large cottages lining the road are in most cases so- called
agrosettlements. Currently the district boasts 83 resorts, with 38
functioning throughout the year. No one knows the exact number of such
agrosettlements; perhaps some seventy, each offering amenities matching a
small country hotel. There one problem, however; the current legislation
does not provide for green tourism, just as there are no clear provisos on
how their owners should pay taxes.
Skole authorities found a solution to the problem. A session of the local
council decided to levy UAH 100-150 a month on every proprietor, and the
people received this with understanding. Likewise, all those many tourist
lodges, being branches of business entities located all the way from Lviv to
Kyiv, must become taxpayers, but this problem is too difficult to be solved
by Lviv oblast without state support.
TYSOVETS, GEM OF CARPATHIANS
Visiting the Carpathian Mountains without visiting Tysovets would mean
depriving oneself of a memorable experience. The place is very special. Here
even the air is therapeutic. Foreign tourists insist that it looks and feels
like a scenic Alpine spot, although we think that it even better, for it is
our native land. Homes are scattered on the slopes - 36 in all - and there
is a sports base. All this is Mount Tysovets. One can get there only by car;
there is no public transport, so the place looks like it is somewhere at the
end of the world.
The sports base of Tysovets has a long and eventful history. Ukraine's top
athletes have trained here and famous people have spent and continue to
spend vacations. It was here that a round of a world freestyle skiing
championships was held in the Soviet Union for the first time. Sportsmen and
tourists can use a ski stadium with a biathlon shooting range, slopes as
though custom-made for freestyle, slalom, and giant slalom events (in
summer, roller skiing tracks are equipped), and rope tows.
Too bad the ski jump stays idle, as its repair and renovation cost a huge
sum. Under the Soviets, the place was a military base and later converted
into a sports one. Many facilities were added, but fortunately, it remained
under military jurisdiction. Fortunately, because it saved the local forest
from being felled.
One of the recent attachments, a boiler room, laying a gas pipe to it, and
supplying gas to all the structures cost UAH 4 million. This is serious
money, of course, but the expenses will be recouped in two and a half years.
Previously, liquid fuel was used for heating and it cost UAH 1.8 million a
year. Gas will cost UAH 222,000. Moreover, the pipe was laid by the
military, and it has a diameter of 159 mm, allowing supplies to all the
neighboring villages. And so the locals regard Tysovets as a symbol of
civilization soon to come, along with employment and medical assistance.
The sports base is not new, but it is always filled to capacity. There is a
heavy influx of students, attracted by the opportunity to ski and then have
a hot shower at 24 hryvnias per 24 hours (by comparison, a single
accommodation at any of the nearby agrosettlements costs $30, rising to $50
on New Year's Eve. This explains why Tysovets remains practically always
packed. Of course, people of means can have a room at a cottage for 300
hryvnias a day.
It gets dark early in Tysovets, and the evening can be spent training in the
capacious gym, but after the day's skiing one tends to relax without any
extra physical exertion. Most tourists spend the evening outdoors, under the
starlit sky that seems very close at this altitude, adding a touch of
enchantment to the atmosphere.
There is also a discotheque and bar, a poolroom, and a television set. So
much for the nightlife. The fact remains that perhaps half of the customers
come here not for entertainment but for serious skiing. These are athletes
training for their next competition or various tournaments, invariably
including Ukraine's winter and summer championships, the Ukrainian Cup,
junior qualifiers for international ski competitions. Tysovets hosts the
winter biathlon championships.
"Do you like skiing here?" I asked Olena Petrova, Meritorious Master of
Sport and silver medal winner at the Nagano Olympics.
"Here the skiing tracks are always kept in excellent condition, as they have
two retracks. And they may well have all the rest. It's no match for
Khanty-Mansiysk, of course - as I think that place is the world's best
sports base - but the local conditions are gradually improving. They serve
better meals and a cafÎ will open soon. The shooting range has some flaws
and the roller skiing track has to be renovated. It used to be in an
excellent condition, but it's thirteen years old... They also need a snow
gun, the kind you have at Protasiv Yar in Kyiv. If they install it, training
sessions will start earlier, with the first snow. Several salvos and the
track is ready," she told me.
Volodymyr Melnykov, base manager, dreams of making Tysovets the world's
best winter sports facility. In fact, his dream could come true if Tysovets
came to be regarded by the authorities as a strategic national project and
the military would no longer have to shoulder all the expenses. After all,
it is an Olympic training ground.
The cabinet and the head of state issue resolutions and edicts stressing the
need to advance culture and sports. Words should be followed by deeds
which, in turn, will be followed by tourists. (END) (ARTUIS)
NOTE: To see photographs of the area and of the 2003 Hutsul festival
click on the two links: http://www.artukraine.com/travel/carp_mount2.htm
and http://www.artukraine.com/travel/carp_mount.htm.
========================================================
UKRAINE REPORT-2004, No. 28: ARTICLE NUMBER TWO
Daily News Gallery: http://www.artukraine.com/newsgallery.htm
========================================================
2. AGRICULTURE AND AGRIBUSINESS WILL BE THE HOSTAGE
OF THIS YEAR'S PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION IN UKRAINE
ANALYSIS by Yuriy Mykhaylov, Agricultural Journalist
Published by "UKRAINE REPORT" 2004, Number 28, Article Two
Kyiv, Ukraine, Friday, February 20, 2004
This year opens the sequence of the most disastrous year for Ukrainian
agriculture and agribusiness since the country's independence 14 years ago.
The main cause of this years disaster will be not be extremely bad weather
as last year but instead the cause will be political, the principal reason
will be the upcoming presidential election.
Since a majority of the voters live in urban areas the present power
structure in Ukraine will do all it can to control, regulate and maintain
very stable and very low prices for the main foodstuffs such as bread, milk
and dairy products, meat and pasta.
Since there are no food assistance programs in Ukraine such as food stamps
or school breakfasts as well as any other kind of support for agriculture
from the governments budget the one and only donor (political victim) to
provide for the low prices on food will be agricultural producers and food
processors, especially those who operate in the main foodstuffs area or
are partially owned or controlled by some level of government.
One may ask why? The answer is simple enough. The government will force
producers and processors to provide foodstuffs at very low prices for the
urban population, and the only way to do this is to find a way to buy
agricultural commodities at the farm gate at very low prices.
Since June of 2003 the government has allowed local authorities to set the
prices at will on the principal foodstuffs regardless of the real market
conditions. Local authorities have drastically limited the potential
profitability of such enterprises as bakeries to only 5 percent.
Governmental bodies in the fall of 2003 began to expropriate grain
from growers at arbitrarily set low prices and in many cases they have
not yet even paid for the grain.
The grain crop last year suffered major loses due to the extremely cold
weather and was only 20.2 million tons (the supply of milling wheat was only
3.6 million tons). But not the last reason of the poor crop was the
widespread negligence of the agricultural technologies: most growers used
low-quality seed, their application of fertilizers and pesticides was
minimal, and their agricultural machinery fleet is almost completely
deteriorated.
The majority of agricultural producers could not pay back their operating
loans. In most cases bankers agreed to extend loans for one year more so
in 2004 agricultural producers will have to pay back their loans from 2003
as well as from 2004.
With the government's negative intervention in the marketplace again in 2004
it is predicted that the prices paid at the farm gate will be very low and
when combined with the necessity to pay back farm operating loans for two
years the result will be a very disastrous financial condition for the most
Ukrainian agricultural producers by the end of the 2004 crop year.
The government states there will be no further price increases on bread and
as a result of these rigid governmental controls the types of bread on which
authorities have set fixed prices are for the most part now not available in
a except for those who do not understand the market places.
A possible solution for the government will be to force grain trading
companies to buy, for example rye, at the market price and then to sell it
to mills at a very low fixed price. The traders who decline will be chased
by the authorities, for example, by the tax administration, whose deputy
head is now the brother of the head of the Administration of the President
of Ukraine.
And the most recent events are fully acknowledging the above. The
Ukrainian government set a number of so called "notes of understanding"
with the 15 public associations that represent interests of grain traders
and processors of principal foodstuffs (bread, dairy products, vegetable
oil, sugar, meat products etc).
According to these"notes" processors promise not to increase wholesale
prices. Under the conditions where energy and fuel tariffs go up and the
tax level is going up the only way for processors to survive will be to
decrease the input prices on agricultural commodities purchased from
agricultural producers.
The number of working agricultural machines and implements continues to
decline. Last year Ukrainian producers of grain harvesters manufactured only
41 combines. In 2003 they produced only 4,500 tractors while Ukrainian
agriculture urgently needs a total of around 240,000 tractors (there are now
only available 213,000 tractors of which only 70 percent are in operational
condition).
Even in case Ukrainian farm machinery manufacturers would produce the
necessary amount of machinery Ukrainian agricultural producers do not
have the funds to buy such equipment or the assets needed to borrow
the necessary funds.
Since independence Ukraine has not put in place the basic organizational
and business structures needed and necessary to support the mid-size to
small agricultural producer. Ukraine does not have a working commodity
market, or a crop insurance program, does not have a small farmer
operating loan program or a farm real estate loan program, or any kind
of an effective equipment leasing structure, or a commodities futures
exchange and on and on.
The Ministry of the Agrarian Policy of Ukraine forecasts the crop for the
year 2004 about 34.5 million tons. But though the winter this year is mild
enough there has begun to arrive information about damage to the crop. It
means only one thing: in the fall of 2003 there was a huge falsification of
the statistical data about the areas planted. Local authorities reported
that everything is OK to show their efficiency and now they begin to make
steps for an explanation in the summer as to why the expected crop has
not been produced.
The situation will get worse when Ukraine joins the World Trade
Organization (WTO). The consequences will be disastrous. The main reason
will not be the inherited disadvantages of the WTO but instead will be the
fact that since 1994, when Ukraine applied for the WTO membership,
practically nothing had been done to adjust Ukrainian agricultural and food
processors to the world's quality standards.
On January, 1, 2005 the ban on buying and selling agricultural land will be
lifted. At that time millions of rural Ukrainian households, faced with huge
losses and debts, will be forced to sell their plots of land as the only way
for them to survive. Family farms will basically be out of business and
large scale, monopolistic agricultural structures will take over controlled
by the oligarchs and others in power. (END) (ARTUIS)
========================================================
UKRAINE REPORT-2004, No. 28: ARTICLE NUMBER THREE
Historical Gallery: http://www.artukraine.com/histgallery.htm
========================================================
3. ENERGY ALLIANCE COMPANY SETS UP $10 MILLION LINE OF
CREDIT WITH EBRD TO FINANCE ENERGY EFFICIENCY PROJECTS
ENERGY ALLIANCE, Kyiv, Ukraine, February 19, 2004
Kyiv, Ukraine - Energy Alliance, one of the pioneers of innovative on-site
cogeneration systems in Ukraine, announced the signing of a $10 million line
of credit with European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD).
The line of credit will be used to finance energy efficiency projects in
local industrial companies.
This is the second-round of financing secured by Energy Alliance over the
past four months. In October 2003 Western NIS Enterprise Fund (WNISEF),
the region's leading private equity fund investing in small- and
medium-sized private companies in Ukraine and Moldova, provided $2 million
of equity financing toward the company's capitalization. Raising additional
capital from the EBRD will leverage Energy Alliance's ability to meet the
expanding demand for its products and services.
Peter Hobson, Senior Banker in EBRD's Energy Efficiency Team, stated that
the EBRD is very pleased to support industrial energy efficiency investments
in Ukraine, since there exists a significant scope for such activities in
eastern Europe.
"We're proud of the fact that Energy Alliance, which has recently debuted on
the Ukrainian market, has managed to attract the EBRD's funds within such a
short period of time", said Energy Alliance's Chief Executive Officer Maxim
Burtovy. "The EBRD's decision to earmark the loan money underscores a
heightened appreciation of the value of these new energy efficiency
technologies for a large segment of Ukraine's industrial companies."
Energy Alliance is owned by a group of companies, including Western NIS
Enterprise Fund (WNISEF); Hostomel Glass Plant; and Turbo-Spektr.
WNISEF is the largest private equity fund in the region, investing in
securities of private companies with outstanding growth potential and the
ability to build competitive advantages in the marketplace. Since inception,
the cumulative investment commitment of WNISEF totals $85.5 million to
27 companies in Ukraine and Moldova, employing over 15,000 people.
In this transaction, Zenith Capital, an independent financial advisory firm
represented by Roman Matkiwsky, advised WNISEF. Zenith Capital assisted
WNISEF and Energy Alliance in the preparation and execution of attracting
international debt financing.
For additional information, please contact:
Maxim Burtovy, Chief Executive Officer, Energy Alliance
Phone: +380 (44) 537-2517, Fax: +380 (44) 537-2517
E-mail: mburtovy2003@yahoo.com (END) (ARTUIS)
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UKRAINE REPORT-2004, No. 28: ARTICLE NUMBER FOUR
Build Ukraine Gallery: http://www.artukraine.com/buildukraine/index.htm
========================================================
4. PUBLIC RALLY HELD IN KYIV TO PROTEST THE PRESSURE
IMPOSED ON MASS MEDIA BY THE AUTHORITIES
By Vlad Lavrov, Journalist
www.ArtUkraine.com Information Service (ARTUIS)
Kyiv, Ukraine, Thursday, February 19, 2004
KYIV........A 45-minute long opposition meeting to protest the extreme
pressure exerted by the authorities on the opposition related mass media was
held on Kyiv's Maidan Nezalezhnosti on February 19, 2004. There were around
500 people present, a good crowd for a noon rally on a work day.
The rally was organized by the All-Ukrainian Union "Svoboda" (Freedom),
formerly the Social-Nationalist Party of Ukraine, in response to the recent
court order to close down the opposition related "Silski Visti" newspaper,
the decision of the new owners of 'Dovira' FM network to discontinue
rebroadcasting the Radio Free Europe/Radio Freedom (RFE/RL) programs,
and the increasing pressure being exerted on the only opposition TV channel
in Ukraine "Pyatyj Kanal".
The Svoboda Union claims in an appeal leaflet distributed at the rally that
all of the above actions are signs of a return to the previous times when
there was total censorship of the mass-media. Svoboda Union believes the
actions are directly linked to the upcoming presidential election on October
31, 2004.
They blamed the recent decision to stop rebroadcasting the RFE/RL programs
by the 'Dovira' FM network on Ukrainian President Leonid Kuchma, since this
decision was made immediately after the radio station became part of the
media-holding controlled by the Social-Democratic Party (united) headed by
the Head of the Presidential Administration Viktor Medvedchuk and a party
closely affiliated with President Kuchma.
"Ukrainians," the appeal leaflet reads, "we have the right to receive
complete and truthful information, and not have the selection of so-called
"positive" news edited by the Presidential Administration. That is why we
will not let them deceive us with the traditional pre-election brainwashing
about how everything is fine. Remember, today they force the journalists to
be silent, tomorrow, we will all be silent as well."
The Head of the Svoboda Union, member of Parliament Oleh Tyahnybok in
his speech emphasized how important it was for the opposition forces in the
Parliament to remain united on the eve of the elections, and called on the
people at the rally to support the opposition in their struggle.
=========================================================
UKRAINE REPORT-2004, No. 28: ARTICLE NUMBER FIVE
Travel and Tourism Gallery: http://www.ArtUkraine.com/tourgallery.htm
=========================================================
5. JUST PLAIN WRONG
"Closing down media outlets of opponents is just plain wrong."
By Prof. James Mace, Consultant to The Day
The Day Weekly Digest in English
Kyiv, Ukraine, Tuesday, February 17, 2004
Politics is not about designing some ideal computer program, feeding in all
the data, and coming up with the "optimal" solution to every conceivable
question of public policy. According to what criterion was slavery bad when
the American Civil War started? After all, Southern planters were making big
money feeding cotton produced with slave labor to the British textile
industry, and "King Cotton" in the first half of the nineteenth century was
as economically important to that region as hydrocarbon "black gold" is to
some OPEC member states today.
For this reason the argument can certainly be made that slavery was good for
the American economy to the extent that it brought money into the country.
Still, most Americans in the North decided it was just plain wrong to allow
other Americans in the South to own still other people of a different race
as though the were cattle and elected a president who advocated a policy of
what might be called the containment of slavery. The South left the Union,
and the North forced it back in at the cost of a bloody Civil War, freeing
the slaves in the process. Few today would question the value judgment that
people owning people is just plain wrong, even if there is no way to
demonstrate this empirically.
Regardless of where one sits on the political fence, closing down media
outlets of opponents is also something that all those who place some value
on the freedom of expression have to condemn as just plain wrong. Of course,
limiting the expression of opposing ideas can lead to more effective
government policy, at least temporarily. After all, Mussolini did make the
trains run on time, Hitler pulled Germany out of the Great Depression, and
Stalin industrialized the Soviet Union, albeit inefficiently, but all three
experiments ultimately turned out less than successful.
If we decide that we have certain rights - a collective subjective value
judgement not subject to being empirically proven or disproved - and we
think it important to secure those rights for our posterity, then we have to
defend those rights even for our opponents with only one argument: the
violation of such rights is just plain wrong.
With this writer's prejudice, produced by having been brought up in the
spirit of the American Constitution and its Bill of Rights, what has been
happening in terms of media policy in Ukraine recently includes a number of
episodes that have to be considered just plain wrong. The latest such event
is the February 11 announcement by Radio Dovira to remove the Ukrainian
Service of Radio Liberty from its schedule, thus making it possible for the
listeners of that program to find it only on short-wave.
Dovira, had long put up with official harassment and was even named RFE/RL
Affiliate of the Year in 2001. When harassment failed to work, those closer
to the figures being criticized seem to have bought it and announced a
"commercial decision" that RL did not fit into its format, although the
latter had worked amicably and fruitfully for years with the station's
management to make its format more FM friendly.
Coming on the heels of the drive to close the mass-circulation newspaper,
Silski visti, through the courts on dubious charges of anti-Semitism,
Chairman of the Verkhovna Rada Committee on the Freedom of Expression
Mykola Tomenko commented on the Doviria action, "It is a pity that active
purging of the national mass media has started on the eve of presidential
elections... [T]he government is using a primitive but effective approach to
fighting opposing mass media. All mass media that aim to provide truthful,
objective, and critical information are downsized and taken off the air by
force." Maybe my old friend is wrong, but his case is strong enough that
some fairly important people also believe it.
Even Washington, which had wanted to cut US broadcasting in Ukraine to the
bone, has begun to take notice, and RFE/RL President Thomas A. Dine has
condemned the move as "a political act." Perhaps Radio Canada, which was
planning to cut its Ukrainian programming altogether, might also reconsider.
Indeed, Ukraine's reputation in terms of media freedom is viewed as far from
adequate anywhere except perhaps in countries where the situation is worse.
In any case, when those with the power to do something decide that something
is just plain wrong, they have a tendency to try to make things, if not
right, then at least better, or, if that is not possible or not worth the
trouble, simply go somewhere else.
In a free society, those in power are always aware that the media will often
criticize them. "If you can't stand the heat, get out the kitchen" is an old
Washington maxim. If Ukraine is serious about joining the Euro-Atlantic
community, it must play by the rules already agreed upon by that club's
current members. Otherwise, the latter will decide that there is something
just plain wrong here and that they do not want any part of it.
And what about the millions who tuned into Radio Liberty on their short-wave
radios even when the broadcasts were jammed? The radios are still there, as
are the jamming towers. The former will certainly be turned on. And the
latter? (END) (ARTUIS)
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UKRAINE REPORT-2004, No. 28: ARTICLE NUMBER SIX
Ukrainian Culture Gallery: http://www.ArtUkraine.com/cultgallery.htm
=========================================================
6. UKRAINE RADIO STATION SAYS ITS SIGNAL WAS JAMMED
WHEN IT CARRIED INTERVIEW WITH INTELLIGENCE OFFICER
Interfax-Ukraine news agency, Kiev, in Russian, 19 Feb 04
BBC Monitoring Service, UK, in English, Feb 19, 2004
KIEV......A rebroadcaster of the Deutsche Welle Ukrainian Service in Kiev
has said its signal was jammed on 19 February when it carried a Deutsche
Welle interview with a fugitive intelligence officer who accused the
Ukrainian secret services of spying on opposition leaders.
Radio Kontynent, which rebroadcasts Deutsche Welle (DW), the BBC Ukrainian
Service and Voice of America in the popular FM band in Kiev, said problems
with reception of its signal were reported from all around Kiev during the
1030 (0830 gmt) DW news bulletin, according to the Interfax-Ukraine news
agency.
"We believe that our activities are being hampered by methods used back in
Soviet times, which violate the constitutional right of Ukrainian citizens
to receive information," the radio's statement said.
Maj-Gen Valeriy Kravchenko, an officer of the Security Service of Ukraine
[the SBU], walked into a DW studio in Berlin on 18 February and said during
a live interview he had evidence that the Ukrainian security services were
spying on opposition politicians and government members. He said he was
prepared to hand over documentary evidence to the Ukrainian parliament and
prosecutors. The allegation was denied on the same day by the SBU.
Radio Kontynent has frequently complained of government pressure, which it
says is politically motivated. It suffers from constant interference from
another FM radio station, which makes the quality of reception quite poor
most of the time.
Earlier this week the Ukrainian service of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty
lost its Ukrainian FM rebroadcaster Radio Dovira in what it believes was a
case of government persecution against the free media. Dovira says its
decision to end rebroadcasting Radio Liberty programmes was commercial,
and denies any political motives.
Another opposition-leaning station, Radio Roks, had its transmitters
switched off by the local health authorities in January.
The Ukrainian opposition and Kiev's Western partners have repeatedly voiced
concerns over the freedom of the media in Ukraine in the run-up to the
October presidential election. (END) (ARTUIS)
=========================================================
UKRAINE REPORT-2005, No. 28: ARTICLE NUMBER SEVEN
Genocide Gallery: http://www.artukraine.com/famineart/index.htm
=========================================================
7. OWNER OF UKRAINIAN OPPOSITION TV CRIES PERSECUTION
Ukrayinska Pravda web site, Kiev, Ukraine, in Ukrainian 18 Feb 04
BBC Monitoring Service, UK, in English, Feb 18, 2004
The State Tax Administration intends to hold a tax audit of the 5 Kanal TV
over a period in 2003, the press service of the Solidarity Party [which
belongs to the opposition Our Ukraine bloc] has said. This period coincides
with the time when a new owner assumed corporate rights to the TV channel,
the press service said. In addition, the tax police began an audit of
agreements on the transfer of the corporate rights to the new owner of 5
Kanal.
"After the change of the owner, 5 Kanal became popular thanks to unbiased
news coverage. Even inexperienced viewers could see the difference between 5
Kanal news and the official propaganda on the other channels. Now Ukraine's
only independent channel has found itself in the clutches of political
pressure," the statement said.
Our Ukraine's political coordinator MP Petro Poroshenko is expecting the
further mounting of tax repression against the opposition. "The fate of 5
Kanal is one of many facts of using the tax administration for political
persecution," Poroshenko said.
Poroshenko expressed satisfaction over the fact that Ukrainian President
Leonid Kuchma on 17 February had said that "in no case should this
instrument be used for political persecution". Poroshenko also expressed
hope that the Prosecutor-General's Office would react to these facts
appropriately. Poroshenko is one of 5 Kanal's co-owners. (END) (ARTUIS)
========================================================
UKRAINE REPORT-2004, No. 28: ARTICLE NUMBER EIGHT
========================================================
8. "IN UKRAINE, A RUGGED CROSS"
The Ukrainian Catholic University has fought long odds to
find a place in a formerly atheist country
By Bryon Macwilliams, Lviv, Ukraine
The Chronicle of Higher Education, http://chronicle.com
The Academic World's Number One Source of News and Information
National Weekly Newspaper, Section: International, Volume 50,
Issue 24, Page A35, Washington, D.C., February 20, 2004
LVIV - Fifteen handwrought iron crosses hang suspended at varying heights
above a tarp littered with building debris and dirt. It is an installation,
a piece of art situated between parallel staircases in a hall with high
ceilings. And it is more.
The crosses are all that remain of Ukrainian Catholic churches that were
burned to the ground in the early 1900s. They shouldn't be here, not if the
totalitarian government of the time had done its job right. Nor should the
university in which they hang.
That symbolism is not lost on the students and staff at Ukrainian Catholic
University. Here, there is a depth of belief that cannot be ascribed to
simple religious faith, a sense of something transcendent. As the first
Catholic university in the former Soviet Union, it has fought some awfully
long odds.
It became a university in 2002, springing from the L'viv Theological
Academy, which was founded in 1994 by a group of exiled Ukrainian Catholics
who had experimented with a prototype in Rome. The institution, partially
housed in a building once slated to become a Communist Party headquarters,
seeks to be a unifying force in a county passionately divided along
religious, political, and ethnic lines. It also hopes to become a center of
Eastern Christian thought while adhering to Western secular academic norms.
'A UNIQUE INSTITUTION'
Ukrainian Catholic has already amassed an impressive library and recruited
professors and students from around the world. Although the government has
been slow to recognize its programs, the university has gained the respect
of academic institutions here and abroad.
"It is a unique institution for Ukraine," says Vyacheslav Bryukhovetskyy,
president of the highly regarded National University of Kiev-Mohyla Academy.
"Its approaches to education are Western style. Its graduates are very
well-educated young people. ... It is a very, very good institution."
Oleh Luchkovskyy is one of about 500 full-time students here. He is in his
seventh and final year. He began his studies at the theological academy, but
upon graduation will hold a degree in theology from Ukrainian Catholic with
a double major in literature and foreign languages. He is considering the
priesthood but isn't certain about that path.
He is certain, though, that society needs him. The cure for the post-Soviet
hangover, he says, is a Christian lifestyle. "I think it's quite natural
that the [Iron Curtain] has come down," he says, "followed by a new splurge
into religion and a return to one's roots." "The students who are graduating
now are like the first generation," says Antin Sloboda, also a seventh-year
student. "They will make civil society a reality."
A civil society built by graduates of a religious institution is not a non
sequitur. The university's mission is not only to train future clergy, but
also to be a model of broader educational reform. Ukrainian Catholic offers
one degree -- in theology -- but it is taught as a purely academic
discipline, not as preparation for the priesthood. Students also study other
subjects, such as history. Male students who wish to become priests study
for two to three more years at a seminary affiliated with the university.
DEEP: DIVISIONS
"We're small," says the Rev. Borys Gudziak, the rector. "We'll never be big.
And we can have no pretense of changing Ukrainian education. But we can help
expand the realm of the possible by showing that it can happen, in a small
way." The university occupies a small campus in this poor yet
architecturally rich city of 830,000 near the Polish border.
>From its hillside perch, cobblestone alleys wind down to a central park
where wooden benches are lined with books for sale, on such topics as
Ukrainian nationalism, Russian imperialism, religions in Ukraine, and
conflicting histories of the recent past. Ukraine is a country divided on
many fronts.
The university has run up against these divisions. The country's Education
Ministry has yet to recognize the diploma offered by Ukrainian Catholic, in
part because Ukraine has no established standards for theological-education
programs. Ukrainian Catholic is the first institution in the country to
offer theology as a university-level discipline.
Yet the university continues to train students in theology, which doesn't
sit well with the government. "The university is issuing diplomas that it
doesn't have a right to issue," a supervisor for the Education Ministry's
department of licensing and accreditation said on condition of anonymity. He
insists that Ukrainian Catholic is not being unfairly bridled, yet some of
the ministry's actions are inscrutable to those on the campus.
The university recently learned that a government accreditation commission
in Kiev, the capital, had declined to recognize Father Gudziak, the rector,
as a doctor of science, even though in 2002 he defended and published in
Ukrainian the dissertation that had earned him a Harvard doctorate. The
local board of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine gave him a
unanimous recommendation, but to no avail.
"There's a kind of mind-boggling absurdity involved," says Jeffrey Wills, an
American who is vice rector for information technology at the university.
"One has to come to the conclusion that there are nonacademic factors
involved."
The reasons are both obvious and obscure. The university has alienated some
established institutions by hailing itself as a "corruption-free zone" that
emphasizes academic honesty, combines teaching with research, and uses a
teaching system that pulls from American and European models. Elsewhere in
Ukrainian higher education, corruption is rampant, few resources are devoted
to research, and the teaching system is based on a Soviet model that rewards
learning by rote.
Ukrainian Catholic's professors say their curriculum confuses Soviet-era
politicians who cannot envision theology as anything other than
indoctrination. The university also upsets some members of the clergy by
offering theology to women, for whom the discipline has been off limits.
Many on the campus believe the government's ambivalence toward the
university is a reflection of the Ukrainian Catholic Church's long and
tortured history. Also known as the Greek Catholic, Uniate, or
Byzantine-Rite Church, the church was banned by the Union of Soviet
Socialist Republics in 1946. It was legalized only in 1989, and members
began to worship openly.
The lack of government recognition for Ukrainian Catholic University has
hurt students and graduates. Unlike students elsewhere in Ukraine, students
here are not entitled to public-transportation discounts, nor do they
qualify upon graduation for government jobs. Efforts to collaborate with
other universities are hampered.
"You can't maintain permanently a semi-dissident status," says Father
Gudziak. "That's unrealistic. But we've done it for nine years, so far. And
our students, with various difficulties, are inserting themselves into
society."
The rector was raised by Ukrainian émigré parents in a bilingual, bicultural
household in Syracuse, N.Y. He studied theology in Rome before earning his
Harvard doctorate in 1991 in Slavic and Byzantine cultural history. He then
moved here and founded the Institute of Church History to document Soviet
persecution of Ukrainian Catholics. He was ordained in 1998.
AN INTERNATIONAL CAMPUS
Father Gudziak's path to the university is not unique. Ukrainian Catholic
was founded by members of the Ukrainian diaspora -- first- and
second-generation immigrants, dissidents, and exiles -- who ardently
preserved their heritage abroad while the Soviet government poisoned the
roots of Ukrainian identity in their homeland.
"The tragedy of the diaspora is turning out to be a resource right now," Mr.
Wills says. "We're trying to hire people of the new generation. ... We can
pull from many different places."
And so they have. The rector of the university's affiliated seminary hails
from Poland. The director of its Catechetical-Pedagogical Institute is from
Brazil, and the head of its Institute of Canon Law, from Belgium. The
director of the ecumenical institute comes from Britain.
Antoine Arjakovsky, a history lecturer and research fellow from France, says
he left a government job in foreign affairs to help introduce Western
academic traditions to Ukraine. "I think there are very great possibilities
here," he says.
Not all of the 70 full- and part-time faculty members are Ukrainian
Catholics. The university has made room for atheists and those of the
Jewish, Orthodox, and Protestant faiths.
The institution is governed by a nine-member Senate, the rough equivalent of
a board of trustees, comprising Ukrainian Catholic bishops and priests, as
well as several Orthodox and Roman Catholic scholars. The Senate appoints
the rector. Church officials do not have any direct control over university
operations but retain the power of veto over some administrative
appointments.
The church exercises no financial control because it contributes no money.
The prime sources of financing are members of the Ukrainian diaspora,
Catholic charities, and international foundations.
Difficulties with the government haven't slowed down the university's
expansion. The university attracted international attention in 2001 when
Pope John Paul II blessed its grounds and cornerstone during the first visit
to the country by a pope in centuries.
The university recently restored the former elementary school in which it is
housed. Workers are constructing a $5-million building at a second, 30-acre
campus for the philosophy and theology department as well as a new seminary.
The project is expected to be finished by the summer of 2005. And the
university has purchased an unfinished, 150,000-square-foot brick and
concrete edifice that was once slated to become a tax office and
headquarters for the Communist Party, to convert into a third campus by
2006.
Meanwhile, the university has quietly graduated its fifth class. Its
Institute of Church History has recorded more than 1,500 interviews with
former members of the Ukrainian Catholic underground. The library is the
fastest-growing college library in Ukraine and holds some 100,000 volumes,
among them the largest collection of theology texts in the country.
The library's influence extends beyond the campus. Among the 4,000 people
registered to use it, only 30 percent are affiliated with the university.
Ukrainian Catholic's press is among the largest publishers of new Ukrainian
books anywhere -- an important distinction, in that the first Ukrainian
electronic dictionary was started only last spring.
But university administrators say such progress has had its price. "We've
had to basically earn everything," Father Gudziak says in his spacious,
high-ceilinged office, where the steady taps of distant hammering can be
heard through the walls.
OBTAINING KNOWLEDGE
Along with its 500 undergraduates, the university teaches 500 part-time
students -- some of whom have transferred from state institutions.
Khrystyna Shpynda, a first-year linguistics major from the Chernobyl region,
transferred from Ivan Franko National University of L'viv because, she says,
the quality of instruction at Ukrainian Catholic is higher. "Here they study
to obtain knowledge, there they study to get a diploma."
She is no longer forced to endure the 30 hours of lectures per week required
by law at state institutions. Professors here teach about seven and a half
hours of classes in a week, unlike their colleagues elsewhere who lecture
between 13 and 17 hours per week.
Many graduates go on to conduct research in one of the university's eight
research institutes: Church History, Religion and Society,
Catechetical-Pedagogical, Marriage and Family Life, Liturgical Studies,
Canon Law, Neo-Latin Studies, and Theological Terminology and Translation.
Tuition is heavily subsidized by the university. Each student pays only 20
percent of the $1,500 in annual costs, and the university has to make up the
difference with fund raising. Professors are paid about $200 a month, well
above the average monthly income in western Ukraine, $30.
Last year only nine of the 41 lay graduates -- those who didn't go into the
seminary -- were male. All students are required to spend 20 hours each
semester volunteering at an orphanage for mentally ill children, a
psychiatric hospital, and an old-age home.
"It's more honest here," says Yuliya Hohol, a first-year journalism student
already employed at a local newspaper, Express. "The students and teachers
are more honest. ... We don't study as many subjects as at state
universities, but we study those that we need. "Our [religious beliefs], I
think, are not all that important. I'm Greek Catholic, but it doesn't
matter."
ACADEMIC, NOT CONFESSIONAL
The religious diversity of the student body speaks to the success of
policies meant to ensure that the secular is not overwhelmed by the
spiritual in the university, even though students and faculty members greet
each other with "Slava Jesusu Khristu," or Glory to Jesus Christ.
"We do not want to be a confessional institution; we want to be an academic
institution," says Myroslav Marynovych, vice rector of external affairs and
director of the Institute of Religion and Society. "Thus far, we've been
successful in keeping it within a golden mean. I would immediately
relinquish my position if Christianity were to be placed here as a doctrine,
an imposition, something obligatory."
Mr. Marynovych spent seven years in labor camps in Siberia, where he went on
a failed hunger strike for 18 days for the right to obtain and read the
Bible. He had been convicted of libel and subversive activity as a member of
the Helsinki Group, an unauthorized human-rights organization. In 1987, he
was freed while in his third year of exile in Kazakhstan, in Central Asia.
He was not always a religious man. As a former dissident, and atheist, he
underwent a sort of revelation while in a KGB holding cell in Kiev.
"Reverend Borys was interested in me because I had some knowledge from both
worlds," he says. "I understood that our society hadn't known the church for
quite some time. We only had known the Communist Party." To many students,
such history is irrelevant. They only want a good education.
"A lot of people just want a modern university that does what other
universities do, which isn't so easy in itself," says Mr. Wills, the vice
rector. "Maybe that's the most flattering thing you can say about anything
in Ukraine, 'It's normal.' We're just trying to make an ordinary university
here." (END) (ARTUIS)
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http://chronicle.com/temp/email.php?id=pqwi1d5j980tc6obr0x3cbfo019jwnfn
Our thanks to John Drobnicki for sending us this article.
========================================================
UKRAINE REPORT-2004, No. 28: ARTICLE NUMBER NINE
Arts Gallery: http://www.artukraine.com/artgallery.htm
=========================================================
9. VATICAN, ORTHODOX HIERARCHY TALK IN MOSCOW
By Judith Ingram, The Associated Press
Moscow, Russia, Tuesday, February 17, 2004; 9:30 AM
MOSCOW - A top Vatican official arrived in Moscow on Tuesday for sensitive
talks with the Russian Orthodox hierarchy, which accuses the Catholic Church
of aggressive proselytizing in traditionally Orthodox lands. Cardinal
Walter Kasper, head of the Pontifical Council for the Promotion of Christian
Unity, arrived a day later than originally planned.
There was no explanation for the delay of the highest-level visit by a
Vatican official in four years, but it occurred amid complaints by the
Russian Orthodox Church over Vatican proposals to elevate the Greek Catholic
presence in Ukraine into a full patriarchate.
On Tuesday, the Moscow Patriarchate posted on its web site what it said were
responses from 14 Orthodox churches in the Ukraine to the Vatican plans. All
were negative, with some saying the shift was an attack on Orthodoxy that
would damage relations between the two churches.
Kasper said he did not want to start his visit with debates, and said, in a
world torn by conflict, two churches that share such similar values should
get along better. "We don't want polemics. We want friendship between the
two churches," he told reporters after his arrival. "I've come here to turn
the old page and open a new page of friendship and love in the history of
the two churches."
Tensions between the Orthodox Church, the dominant Christian faith in Russia
and Ukraine, and Roman Catholicism have deep historical roots. But they have
deepened markedly since the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991 and communist
restrictions on religion faded.
In particular, the head of the Russian Orthodox Church, Patriarch Alexy II,
has accused Greek Catholics in western Ukraine, who retain Eastern-rite
rituals but recognize the pope's supremacy, of having increased their
expansion into traditionally Orthodox eastern and southern Ukraine. Latin
and Eastern Rite Catholics are a large minority of some 6 million in
Ukraine, a predominantly Orthodox nation of 48 million.
The Vatican rejects the Orthodox accusations of proselytizing. Catholics
have sought to recover churches that belonged to them before the 1917
Bolshevik Revolution and attract new followers.
A Vatican official said Tuesday that Catholic bishops in Ukraine had asked
Pope John Paul II to elevate the status of the Greek Catholic church in
Ukraine to a full patriarchate. Kasper was probably going to discuss the
issue during his visit as a matter of courtesy, the official said, speaking
on condition of anonymity.
When the Vatican first announced Kasper's trip Jan. 22, it said he would be
received by Alexy II as well as Metropolitan Kirill, who heads the church's
foreign relations department. But on the eve of his visit, Vatican Radio on
Monday spoke only of a meeting with Kirill, indicating the Moscow
Patriarchate was no longer confirming a meeting with Alexy II.
Alexy II has been the main opponent to a long-sought visit to Russia by the
pope. The Vatican official said, however, the original plans for an audience
with Alexy II remained valid - even though he acknowledged that the
issue of the Ukraine church probably had complicated Kasper's visit. "We
know of the difficulties that there are ... but we hope they will meet," the
official said.
A scheduled visit by Kasper two years ago was canceled because of Orthodox
outrage over the naming of archbishops in Russia by the pope. As recently as
last month, Alexy said relations with the Roman Catholic Church must improve
before he would agree to a papal visit. Russian President Vladimir Putin,
who met with John Paul at the Vatican in November, has indicated he favors a
visit by John Paul but would not pressure the Orthodox Church to agree.
(END)(ARTUIS)
========================================================
UKRAINE REPORT-2004, No. 28: ARTICLE NUMBER TEN
Support Ukraine Gallery: http://www.artukraine.com/uasupport/index.htm
=========================================================
10. VATICAN: CATHOLIC, ORTHODOX RIFT SHOULD END
By the Associated Press, Moscow, Russia, February 18, 2004
MOSCOW (AP) -- A top Vatican emissary on Wednesday said the Catholic
and Russian Orthodox churches should establish a telephone hot line to
defuse differences that have kept the two faiths at odds for centuries.
Cardinal Walter Kasper, head of the Vatican's Pontifical Council for the
Promotion of Christian Unity, also said he hoped the churches could solve
differences ``in the spirit of ecumenism and not rivalry.''
Kasper arrived in Moscow on Tuesday for sensitive talks aimed at bridging
the gap between the churches. Strained ties have prevented Pope John Paul
II from fulfilling his dream of traveling to Russia.
It was the first high-level visit by a Catholic representative in four
years, and Kasper told congregants at Moscow's Cathedral of the Immaculate
Conception on Wednesday that it should ``give a new impulse'' to the
churches' ties.
Tensions between the Orthodox, the dominant Christian faith in Russia and
Ukraine, and Roman Catholics have deep historical roots. But they have
increased markedly since the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991 and communist
restrictions on religion faded.
In particular, the head of the Russian Orthodox Church, Patriarch Alexy II,
has accused Catholics of aggressive missionary activity in Russia and other
predominantly Orthodox former Soviet Republics. He also alleges that Greek
Catholics in western Ukraine, who retain Eastern-rite rituals but recognize
the pope's supremacy, have accelerated their expansion into traditionally
Orthodox eastern and southern Ukraine.
The Vatican rejects the accusations. Catholics have sought to recover
churches that belonged to them before the 1917 Bolshevik Revolution and
attract new followers.
Kasper said Wednesday that the Catholic Church did not have a "purposeful
policy'' of bringing the Gospel to Orthodox believers, but he said his
church "has the right to exist in the countries of Eastern Europe, with
their Orthodox majority, and fulfill its mission.''
"Both sides must respect religious freedom and freedom of conscience,'' he
said. "However, this respect differs from active missionary work among
Orthodox believers.'' He suggested setting up a commission to work on what
he called common rules of behavior, as well as a hot line allowing each
side to inform the other promptly of problems.
"It's impossible to resolve problems when after every mistake the other
side breaks up the dialogue,'' Kasper said. Hinting that Communism had
sapped the Orthodox Church of energy, he expressed hope that the
Orthodox would become increasingly active.
"Our missionary responsibilities must be fulfilled in the spirit of
ecumenism and not rivalry,'' he said.
Father Igor Vyzhanov, an official in the Orthodox Church's foreign
relations department, said the two churches had to go beyond talk. "Problems
remain, in particular, missionary activities in Russia and the problems
between the Greek Catholics and the Orthodox in Ukraine,'' he said in
response to Kasper's talk.
Alexy, the patriarch, has said repeatedly that relations with the Roman
Catholic Church must improve before he would agree to a papal visit.
Russian President Vladimir Putin, who met with John Paul at the Vatican in
November, has indicated he would favor a visit by John Paul but would not
pressure the Orthodox Church to agree. (END) (ARTUIS)
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UKRAINE REPORT-2004, No. 28: ARTICLE NUMBER ELEVEN
Current Events Gallery: http://www.artukraine.com/events/index.htm
=========================================================
11.ANTI-COMMUNIST ART, WRITING EXHIBIT OPENS IN BUDAPEST
Arts & Culture: by Stefan Bos, Voice of America
VOA News.com, Budapest, Hungary, 14 Feb 2004
BUDAPEST - An unprecedented exhibition has opened in Budapest featuring
anti-Communist art and writings that were banned when Hungary was part of
the Soviet sphere of influence. The event opens amid renewed debate on
freedom of expression in Hungary. A type of alternative music fills the
exhibition hall of Budapest's Millennium Park.
The musicians are using tools and factory equipment to create music, making
fun of the old obligatory socialist marches and long live labor songs from
the Soviet era.
Under Communism they would have been arrested, along with any other artists
or authors who dared to criticize the authorities. Such artistic resistance
was known as the Samizdat Movement, and now it is part of an exhibit called
"Samizdat: Alternative Cultures in Central and Eastern Europe from 1956
until 1989." The term "samizdat", or "self-published," was coined in the
1950s by Russian poet Nikolai Glazkov. He published his own works after
several Soviet publishers refused to do so.
Samizdat artists were persecuted by the authorities throughout the region.
In some cases they were simply detained and questioned by the feared secret
police. But many of them suffered worse fates.
In this exhibition in democratic Hungary, one artist is displaying a
faceless bloodstained mummy lying on a bed with red colored water dropping
to the ground. The work portrays the torture and suffering endured by those
who opposed the communist regimes.
That display, along with writing smuggled out of labor camps, punk music,
and paintings featuring workers villages and death certificates, all tell
the story of the counter-culture that thrived behind the Iron Curtain.
The exhibition was put together by the University of Bremen, and has also
been presented in Berlin, Prague and Brussels. It will close May 2, the day
after Hungary joins the European Union.
German Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer, who opened the event, says he still
remembers the Hungarian freedom struggle, which was crushed by Soviet
soldiers.
Minister Fischer, who grew up in divided Germany, said the Hungarian
revolution was one of the most impressive memories of his childhood. He said
he was just eight years old at the time, but he still remembers his parents
listening to the radio to hear the latest news about the revolution. Mr.
Fischer added that he is pleased that the division of Europe will disappear
on May first, when the EU will welcome 10 new members, most of them
former Communist countries.
For some, the exhibition is a reminder of their own role during the
communist era. One of the visitors is 55-year-old Andras Domany, now a
senior editor at Hungarian Radio.
As he looks at Samizdat publications Mr. Domany admits he was a member of
the Communist party. The journalist explains that despite the shortcomings
of the Communist regime he liked some things about it. He says he felt loyal
to the government because Hungary was his home country. Mr. Domany says
joining the Samizdat movement or buying its publications would have ended
his career as a journalist in communist Hungary.
"Just because I was working with an institution like this, a public official
institution, I was not in the situation to go to the so called boutique of
Laszlo Rajk and buy some [Samizdat papers] because they were taking photo's
there, the police, and next day I would have been fired probably," he said.
"So I didn't dare to go there and buy some."
Some right wing groups and previous center-right governments have suggested
that media officials with a Communist background, like Mr. Domany, should
make way for a new generation. But others say Hungary should look to the
future, and that divisions in society will only slow the country's
advancement.
Whatever the outcome of that debate, 28-year-old exhibition organizer Nora
Somlyody hopes young people will not forget Hungary's recent history. "Among
young people there is a lack of interest rather," said Nora Somlyody. "If
you don't talk about young historians who take up the topic again and bring
different perspectives, my opinion is that the young generation is not
really interested in things that happened before 1989."
The exhibition comes as Hungary is engaged in a national debate about just
how far press freedom should go. The parliament is considering legislation
to ban hate speech, which some see as a violation of press freedom. But
others say there is no guarantee of freedom to be irresponsible and to
incite hatred.
As people stroll through the exhibit, propaganda films play nearby, showing
thousands of people waving Soviet flags and singing old Communist songs,
providing a sobering counterpoint to the anti-communist art.
Budapest Mayor Gabor Demszky, who secretly helped publish critical works
during communist times, is ecstatic about the exhibition. He has said that
Hungary's upcoming EU membership demonstrates that, "underground publishing
was not only a bridge to the citizens of dictatorship, but also to those of
the West." (END) (ARTUIS)
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EDITOR'S NOTE: Anti-communist art is very difficult to find in Ukraine.
This is especially true concerning the HOLODOMOR, the famine terror, death
by famine in 1932-1933. We have been searching for such art now for seven
years with very limited success. It is also very difficult to find any art
in Ukraine related to the tens of thousands of Ukrainians who were sent to
the gulag in Soviet Russia. It has also been almost impossible to get
present day artists in Ukraine interested in the subject of anti-communist
art.
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ARTICLES ARE FOR PERSONAL AND ACADEMIC USE ONLY
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NEW BOOK: Three Hundred Eleven Personal Interviews, Famine 32-33.
"UKRAINIANS ABOUT FAMINE 1932-1933," Prof. Sokil, Lviv, Ukraine
http://www.artukraine.com/famineart/sokil.htm
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New Issue Just Published...Year 2003, Issue 3-4
FOLK ART MAGAZINE: NARODNE MYSTETSTVO
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INFORMATION ABOUT "UKRAINE REPORT" 2004
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