12.10.2015. www.delfi.lv
In the pre-war period, there was a „Bird’s House” in the centre of Donetsk – a wonderful bookstore having collection of the best children books in various languages, “smart” toys, materials for creative activities; groups of children were set up there to be involved in drawing, modelling, learning the English language, creating fairytales, staging plays. The organizers publicized the following declaration: “We are open for intellectual parents sharing our interests and values. For us, communication is one of the basic principles of successful work.” And that was true. Meetings of the members of parents’ club, various master classes, seminars, presentations of books, meetings with Ukrainian and foreign writers were held.
Now nothing like that is taking place in Donetsk. But there exist the “children of war”, not the previous one – World War II, but the still ongoing hybrid war with Russia. And manipulating the people’s consciousness, especially the children’s one, is an element of the war. Because, the organizers of the war are aware that children are our future, and they are hurrying to “work on” children. For example, teachers of some of the schools ask children to draw pictures reflecting the previous bad life in Ukraine, and when a child cannot understand what he should draw, the teacher “reminds” him of the “ban” on the Russian language, the terrible “Rightist Sector”, and tells the similar propaganda horror stories. At one of the schools (maybe it was not the only one), during a concert dedicated to the May 9, Victory Day, children performed on the stage a scene of killing the Ukrainians. And part of the parents – separatists and their supporters, also try to instil “fighting spirit” in their children as early as possible. Since the summer of 2014, there have appeared announcements on forming of units of teenager fighters, aged between 13 and 16, and they are mainly the children of the separatist combatants.
Therefore, much attention is paid to recruitment in the Military Lyceum (formerly Donetsk Lyceum, now – All-Republic Lyceum). On 5 September 2015, when the students had been ceremonially aligned, they were addressed by Eduard Basurin, deputy commander of the corps of Ministry of Defence of DPR, who, in his congratulation speech, while “inspiring” the students to fulfil military service, mentioned the “Tsar time, Soviet time” as the model example.
On 1 September 2015, ceremonial events were held also at the schools of Donetsk, including congratulation speeches. For instance, Minister of Communication of DPR Viktor Yatsenko attended the undertaking at the Secondary School No.9 (Voroshilov District, City centre). In his speech, he insisted that Ukraine was their former country which had allowed many mistakes in the last years (so, the period of Yanukovich’s administration was included!). And the journalist Dmitry Zynkovskiy, who was filming a story for the Novorossiya TV channel, expressed not only the 100% lies, but he also demonstrated his journalist’s “style” which might seem terrifying for any normal person and could be acceptable only for the pronounced yellow press: “An intoxicated and bad politician once said that the children of Donbas would sit in basements at the time when the other children would go to school. Today, our first-year students have proved to all the evil uncles that the good always defeats the evil, and the light of education defeats the darkness of obsessed ignorance”.
Of course, different teachers have remained in the schools – there exist both the separatists-manipulators, and the real pedagogues who protect children from the information warfare lies, teaching them to think, analyse and respect the values. Within closed groups in social networks, parents share their worries and joy, for instance: “Awful things happen at schools. During yesterday’s meeting, parents were told not to allow children to bring Ukrainian symbols to school. Otherwise the parents may be deprived of their parental rights. It was DPR’s directive”; “I deeply respect the teachers who continue teaching only in the Ukrainian language in Donetsk, who find arguments for not covering Ukrainian symbols in textbooks. Although their heroic deed is small, nevertheless it is very important. P.S.: Of, course, I must not mention the names, but it is true.”
The number of teachers who have not betrayed their country and who are protecting children from lies, is quite considerable. But the ongoing in “DPR’s” educational system processes are laying the foundation for, to put it mildly, a huge problem for several next generations. Now children are literally being stuffed with hatred toward Ukraine, aggression, militancy. During the television broadcast of 2 September 2015 on the channel “Oplot TV” (“Stronghold TV”), Larisa Polyakova (Minister of Education of DPR) presented amendments to the teaching program which, according to her, were designed “by our teachers, not by Russian ones”. But! You can draw your own conclusion from the following:
– “humanitarian convoy” has transported 515 tons of textbooks from Russia;
– new discipline – “History of Homeland” (Russia!) instead of “History of Ukraine” – has been introduced;
– the time of teaching the Russian language and literature has been increased;
– the time of teaching the Ukrainian language and literature has been decreased;
– discipline PMT (Primary Military Training), combined with medical-sanitarian training (same as in the former USSR), has been introduced.
New textbooks, designed by the local pedagogues, include such poems as the one, the main character of which considers separatist as his elder brother, and he feels pride toward this soldier; or tasks like “Draw a greeting card to separatist”. Also the book “Cities of New Russia” has appeared, which comprises names of Ukrainian cities.
The situation in Donetsk higher-schools is even worse. In the autumn of 2014, Donetsk higher-schools were transferred to the area under control on Ukraine’s part, but those which remained in “DPR”, were declared as illegitimate. But the “remainders” do their best to prove that they are the real higher-schools, they discuss the quality of education (how the quality can be improved, since most of the teachers and students have left the City?), they tell lies to the remained students (especially to the first-year students), promising them that they will receive real diplomas, acknowledged by the world’s community, that: DPR will soon be recognized by the whole world, and everything will be all right or, when Ukraine returns, it will forgive them, and the time of their studies in DPR will be included in the overall time of education, and they will be granted Ukrainian diplomas. But the level of quality of education is rapidly decreasing. Presently, it is very easy to enter a Donetsk higher-school, everyone who wishes, can do it, and this degrades the higher-schools to the level of professional schools.
According to L.Polyakova, in 2015, more than 36 thousand persons joined the higher-schools of Donetsk. Citizens, who have returned to Donetsk after a long period of absence, notice that there are many students in the streets. However recently I have heard an interesting comment expressed by an employee of a Xerox copying centre, saying: “I’m even disappointed. Last year, there existed a distance education system, but there were students who came here, copied books, printed some materials constantly. This year – there is no distance education any more, everybody studies on the spot, the higher-schools are seemingly fully recruited, but nobody comes here, there are no activities here, related to studying”.
And what can be expected from the students, when the higher-schools’ leadership and teaching staff include persons who can hardly be regarded as pedagogues. On 2 October 2015, the article “I Cannot Keep Silent” written by Olga Chernyshova, teacher at Donetsk National University and ideological supporter of DPR, describing cases of fraud, lack of competence and financial offences at the University, was publicized.
Many more things can be mentioned in the regard of this theme, and the number of collected facts is so large that they just cannot be covered in a single letter.
But this letter is the last one. No, I am not leaving, I stay in Donetsk, I continue to observe and memorize. The situation here is changing, and it is very important that each stage of changes is witnessed in order to prevent rewriting of history later on.
Maybe, one nice day I will continue the series of Letters from Donetsk. Unfortunately, we are facing occupation yet, it is dangerous to leave the underground, it is necessary to use nickname while writing letters. But I hope very much that soon I will be able to visit Riga in order to answer in person the questions of interest for you. For these letters are too short to include the numerous issues to be told about.
Veronica
This is eleventh and currently – the last article in the series “Letters from Donetsk”, within which some Donetsk resident (her real name is not disclosed because of security considerations) shares her on-scene views on the military conflict ongoing in Ukraine.