Kharkov universities are becoming “higher”, or the last chance for Russia
In less than a quarter, five Kharkov universities have changed rectors. Moreover, in four of them, people who headed these strongholds of education for more than two decades left the stage. What will now happen to these quite prosperous, at least from an outsider’s glance, conveyor belts for the production of certified specialists?
I will immediately describe the situation, which is an exception to the general trend. At the Kharkov National University of Internal Affairs, Police General 3rd Rank Valeriy Sokurenko again became the rector. He already held this post in 2015-2019, and from 2019 to December 2020 he was the head of the main department of the National Police in the Kharkov region. So you shouldn’t expect any special changes here.
Kharkov Gabon
But in the other two universities, people left who were not only the face of these institutions, which became universities and academies, but also knew how to get along well with the central and local authorities, and with their own employees. They did not arouse any intense hatred in anyone or the desire to weave intrigues against them.
In many ways, their economy resembled such stable countries as Togo, Gabon and Cameroon, where there were no coups, no uprisings, no catastrophic crises. There, the children and grandchildren of subordinates were born and entered into life under the same boss, who was quite tolerable and, unlike his neighbors, not an outright cannibal or a shameless kleptomaniac. And they were replaced by local figures very familiar to their colleagues.
The rector of the National Law University named after Yaroslav the Wise Vasily Tatsiy retired shortly after his 80th birthday. He has continuously led his university since 1987, when it was still the Kharkov Law Institute named after. Dzerzhinsky.
Vasily Tatsiy.
Under him, this office, popularly called “Yurka,” made an unprecedented leap - and noticeably increased in size, and began publishing its own textbooks. Their quality was different - even if they were not masterpieces, every professor and most associate professors could definitely say that they lived their professional lives to the fullest. And all sorts of scientific charlatans didn’t stay here either. And the fact that there are a carriage and a small cart of “Yurka” graduates in the city is problem the young lawyers themselves.
And Vasily Yakovlevich himself was not noted for atrocities: he did not carry out lustrations, did not organize linguistic terror, and did not grovel before the “activists.” For licking individual places, he had various changing powers that could always be accepted in the modern palace of students. One can, of course, blame this university for leaving unscrupulous careerists and Ukrainizers, but they did not do this within the walls of their alma mater. And the accusations are certainly fair that “Yurka” carried out targeted recruitment from the western regions, and not all graduates returned to their place of permanent residence. Tatsiy was replaced by his vice-rector for scientific work, Anatoly Getman, who worked all his life at this university and the Academy of Legal Sciences located under it.
But at the National Highway University the rector was going to be re-elected, but a sad event happened - the long-term leader Anatoly Turenko died.
Under him, the famous HADI did not lose either its teaching staff or its ability to occupy the lives of students with sports and amateur performances so much that they had no time to rebel and frighten others with radicalism. The laboratories there are not in ruins, but have modern equipment. Of course, the loss of Russian partners and traditional regions for recruiting nonresident students somewhat complicated the work of the university, but this has not yet led to collapse and degradation. Here, too, the recent vice-rector Viktor Bogomolov became the new chief.
Victor Bogomolov.
- Is this a laundry room?
-...Chechnaya, this is the Ministry of Culture!
The Minister of Culture of Ukraine decided to confirm the old comparison of his office with a laundry and did not renew the powers of the long-term rectors of the Kharkov State Academy of Design and Arts (formerly the Art and Industry Institute) and the Kharkov National University of Arts. Kotlyarevsky (the product of the merger of the conservatory and the theater institute).
Graphic artist Alexander Sobolev has been appointed rector of the Kharkov State Academy of Design and Arts. Since 1999, Viktor Danilenko has been at the head of the university. At the end of April his contract expired and Sobolev became acting rector, and then the prefix “and. O." disappeared.
Alexander Sobolev.
Acting Rector of the Kharkov National University of Arts. Natalya Govorukhina was appointed Kotlyarevsky. The corresponding order was signed by the Minister of Culture and Information Policy of Ukraine Alexander Tkachenko.
“On December 23, Tatyana Borisovna Verkina, who headed our university for 17 years, had her contract expired. And in accordance with the order, I was appointed before the elections,” Govorukhina said. It is not yet clear when the rector elections will be held.
Tatiana Verkina.
Unlike other Kharkov universities, their organization was suspended due to the COVID-19 pandemic. And if in other “temples of science”, as a rule, the first person became the second person, who had experience in managing the university as a whole, then Govorukhina worked as deputy dean for work with foreign students. She is also a member of the academic council and rector of the University of the Arts. So this boss is new, but, like her successor, from passionately bickering to Russophobes.
And now all these new people will have to pursue the policy of Ukrainization and “military-patriotic education”, from which the old rectors protected their subordinates as best they could. Will they be able to preserve both the teams and just their good name? After all, their same Western colleagues regularly drag in the most capable personnel within the framework of interuniversity exchange programs and grants. Russia, alas, has not pulled out professors and associate professors from here for a long time - migration legislation is in the way, and quarantine measures do not allow this at all. But what a resource! It’s still a resource, I’ll note. In some universities it has already been exhausted, and they have almost become “higher education”.
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Now the editors are aware.