My Ukrainian Fulbright Experience

My experience of Ukraine has certainly been a multidimensional one, in the sense that I experienced this colorful place at three distinct levels -academic/professional, socio-cultural, and private. Often, I could hardly tell when one type of experience ended and the other one began. Yet, my commitment to the scholarly aspect seemed to override all other concerns.

The topic of my dissertation, “Protestant Minorities in the Soviet Ukraine from 1945 to 1991,” required my spending a lot of time in the two major archives in Kyiv-TsDAGO and TsDAVO [The Central State Archive of Social Organizations and The Central State Archive of the Highest Organs of Power and Administration]. I examined hundreds of cases containing formerly classified “secret” and “top secret” documents of the soviet era. In the end, I collected nearly 2,500 pages of archival documents copied and organized by themes and subtopics of my research. Spending long hours daily in poorly lit reading rooms where quietude was optional and where I developed a passionate dislike of cell phones, I often felt that I was slowly metamorphosing into a giant archival rat-so unaccustomed I turned out to be to this self-imposed sedentary lifestyle. But, despite all inconveniences, I lived a historian's dream, and I knew that the greatest inconvenience would have been the non-availability of documents. In part, the archival findings helped me to better articulate some of the central concepts of my initial dissertation proposal and compelled me to establish a number of new lines of inquiry.

The combined soviet apparatus of upovnovazheni [government officials in charge of overseeing religious organizations], KGB and security agents, prosecutors, police, the Department of Ideology and the Administrative Department at the Central Committee of Communist Party, as well as a plethora of local soviet and party institutions left a rich paper trail in the archives. Working with the formerly classified soviet era documents, I often thanked the soviet officials who, unwittingly, provided me with priceless information that both sheds light on the government's intentions with respect to religion and helps to reconstruct the social life of Protestant communities. At the same time, I could never forget that all those meticulously compiled statistical tables and charts showing the composition of sectarian communities by age, gender, education and occupation, the personal dossiers on the prominent religious activists, and a multitude of other fascinating details came about as a result of an unprecedented and unscrupulous governmental interference in the lives of religious communities and individuals.

Another, and unfortunately under-fulfilled, part of my academic experience in Ukraine consisted of collecting oral histories-that is, interviewing Protestant believers who were actors, participants and victims of the soviet era. Meeting these old-timers was always a welcome change of scenery, and their stories provided me with valuable information that either collaborated the government data or filled in the blanks of my archival research.

Although I grew up in the Soviet Union, I had never been to Ukraine. I certainly have come to like Kyiv, its eclectic architecture, its beautiful parks and charming vistas that open to one's view from the high banks of the Dnipro River. Compared to the police ridden and xenophobic Moscow, that I had the misfortune of visiting not so long ago, Kyiv is a European city where a multilingual and multinational crowd mingles freely in a relaxed and hospitable environment.

The last Parliamentary Elections, in which I participated as an independent observer, convinced me that Ukraine is making a genuine effort to build a modern normative state. The lively civic activism that I frequently saw on the streets of Kyiv seems to be a spontaneous expression of political will and political awareness. I was pleasantly surprised by the tactfulness with which the Ukrainian government handled the simultaneous rallies of Ukrainian Nationalists and Communists in October 2007. It allowed supporters of both of these ideologies-however outmoded and extreme they may seem in the twenty first century-to express themselves freely, as it should be in an open democratic society. Both the law enforcement agencies and the demonstrators exercised enough restraint and discipline. There was no violence or disorder in the streets. The recent commemoration of the 1932-33 Famine, when thousands of Kyiv residents lit thousands of oil lamps in memory of 3.5 millions of their compatriots who were artificially starved so that Stalin could have his tanks, testified that Ukrainians were not going to simply forget or shun their totalitarian past, but face it and draw lessons from it. I think Ukraine's political culture is certainly maturing, and that the country's independence serves as a prerequisite for this positive process.

Ukraine is not a problem-free society, however, and social dislocations are rife here as in any other post-soviet country. One cannot help but notice that the run-down and decrepit tenements of the soviet era exist here side by side with the contemporary expensive high-rise apartments and sumptuous private mansions; that the exclusively well dressed members of the Ukrainian business, managerial and political elites drive their top-of-the-line SUVs on streets where drunks, homeless and impoverished pensioners are still quite numerous.

Personally, I am deeply perturbed by the plight of Kyiv's countless homeless dogs that roam the city in search of food and shelter against the backdrop of conspicuous consumption and status concerns that preoccupy many Kyiv residents. Right in the center of Kyiv, I discovered litters of puppies huddling together to stay warm in the cold wind. These images remain etched in my memory as the most negative experiences of Kyiv. I certainly tried to put a dent on this huge problem and took over the care of a homeless puppy Jessica, hastily adopted by my neighbors in Kyiv. These people had neither time nor willingness to take proper care of their adopted puppy and left it chained to a tree for weeks, giving this poor doggy occasional leftovers, but no attention whatsoever. I had to use presents to ingratiate myself to these people and thus gain access to the dog. For five months I religiously walked this dog twice each day, played with her, and provided her with proper dog food and other necessities. I think, my example eventually made an impression on these people, and I hope that when I am gone they will treat Jessica differently-as a wonderful loving living being that has a need not only for food and shelter, but also for human companionship.

Another Ukrainian experience that I am not going to miss is the dearth of public bathrooms compounded by the unwillingness of most restaurant owners to extend their restroom facilities to non-customers. To complicate things still further, many overcrowded Kyiv bars where beer flows lavishly have tiny restrooms capable of accommodating one customer at a time, which often leaves an unfortunate beer drinker with only two options-to wet his pants while waiting in line or run outside and relieve himself behind the nearest tree (if there is a spot secluded enough in the neighborhood).

In terms of my social and professional life in Kyiv, I often felt as if I had fallen into some sort of generational and occupational gap. As a forty-four year old male whose wife stayed behind in the States, I could not quite fit in with either my younger single fellow Fulbrighters or the scholars who came here with their wives. To make things worse, my independent research condemned me to a secluded colleague-less existence in the quietude of archival reading rooms where everyone minds his/her own business and then leaves at closing time. It would have been highly inappropriate to treat these rooms as places to make acquaintances. Of course, there was the Department of Religious Studies at the Institute of Philosophy with which I maintained formal ties. However, I was not doing anything on a regular basis at this institution, and going there simply to socialize would mean losing hours, if not a whole day, of my productive work in the archives. Since my most valuable primary sources were in the archives and not in the Institute of Philosophy, I naturally chose the former. Fortunately, the Fulbright Office in Kyiv periodically arranged some social events that rescued me from my social oblivion. I am also thankful to my fellow Fulbrighters in Kyiv, with whom I could get together on occasions for a few drinks and a friendly chat.

Ultimately, this Fulbright experience helped me to discover a wholly different Ukraine-not the Ukraine of the old soviet textbooks and traditional Russian misconceptions, but a unique and vibrant country where most people are earnestly trying to sort out things in the debris of its tsarist and soviet past, free themselves from illusions, and build a modern multiethnic but sovereign state that would eventually occupy its rightful place in the European Union. Meeting people in such diverse places as Kyiv, Lviv, Kharkiv, or Mykolaiv and having friendly conversations not only with members of academic or religious circles, but with representatives of all walks of life: from the construction engineer having a shot of vodka at 6:00 a.m. on Kontraktova Ploshcha to a Ukrainian army colonel, who had just returned from Kosovo and who thought it was quite appropriate to shoot his rubber bullet pistol out of the windows of his palatial apartment in the Kyiv downtown area (it was a good thing that he did not use his army issue AKM assault rifle), to the very talented performers and socialites of the trio ”Lybid” whom I met at a birthday party on Kostolna Street, to the bright multilingual students of the

Mykolayiv State Petro Mohyla Humanities University convinced me that if one only gets past the initial impression of omnipresent mercantilism in the bustling streets of Kyiv, one would inevitably discover that most Ukrainians are cheerful, hospitable and soulful people.

Lastly, I would like to express my sincere gratitude to the Fulbright staff in Kyiv, whose help, support and friendship made my Ukrainian experience as productive and comfortable as it could be.