>> From WXXI News.

This is.

Connections.

I'm Evan Dawson.

>> Our connection this hour was made in February of 2022 when Russia invaded Ukraine.

Immediately, Ukrainian schoolchildren were forced to flee their classrooms.

Some schools were able to move to an online learning model for Ukrainian students.

Some students dropped out entirely.

One of the early predictions of the war was that if Russia was going to occupy Ukraine and continue bombing Ukraine for years, the Ukrainian education system could collapse.

Four years later, 11 academic institutions have been destroyed, according to the Ukrainian Ministry of Education and Science, 278 institutions have been damaged by missiles and other bombs, many in and around Kharkiv.

But something else has happened.

The number of Ukrainian students applying to higher education institutions in that country has now increased since before the war.

According to the Ukrainian review, Ukraine is hungry for knowledge that is relevant.

This past weekend, I read a piece in the New York Times about how Ukraine has become one of the teachers of the world on innovation during wartime, designing robots and drones that can do the work of humans on the battlefield.

Now, clearly, Ukraine did not choose this war, but their scientific innovation is already a lesson for other countries.

This week, rector Edward Balashov from Ostroh Academy in Ukraine is visiting Rochester and staying at Nazareth University.

They have a long held partnership that we're going to be talking about.

This partnership between Rochester and Ukraine.

We'll talk about that, the state of education and what can be done to prepare students everywhere for a very uncertain future.

Let me welcome our guests now.

And to my right is Dr.

Edward Balashov, a professor and rector of the National University of Ostroh Academy and Ostroh, Ukraine.

Welcome.

Thank you for being here.

>> Thank you so much.

It's a pleasure to be here.. >> And next to Dr.

Balashov is Dr.

Eric Ensley.

Eric is director of Rare Books and Special Collections and Preservation at the University of Rochester, River Campus Libraries.

Welcome.

Thanks for being here.

>> Thank you for having me as well.

>> Across the table.

Welcome to Dr.

Olena Prokopovych, who is associate professor of political science, director of the Political Science Undergraduate Program in History, Politics and Law at Nazareth University.

Welcome back to the program, Elena.

>> Thank you for having this conversation.

>> And Dr.

Timothy Kneeland, professor and director of the Museums Archives and Public History Program, director of the center for Public History at Nazareth University.

Tim, nice to see you.

Thank you for being here.

>> Happy to be here.

>> So we're going to talk to Edward in just a second about what is happening in Ukraine.

Elena, just a little bit of a backdrop here because you and I have spoken on this program a number of times about not just the war, but the effects on people.

This hour, we're going to talk about this partnership that I think a lot of people, maybe in our region don't know exists.

Students coming from Ostroh to Rochester, a partnership that spans a long time.

So what's the backdrop here?

How important is this partnership and how would you describe it to people who didn't even know it is happening?

>> This partnership is extremely important, very meaningful, more meaningful than ever before.

Um, it makes us appreciate international Connections through culture and education.

Um, like really no other partnership at this time.

Um, the partnership has developed and taken roots over 15 years ago.

And it was, it was an honor and a pleasure for us to take over the work, the foundations for which were established by the Rochester's Ukrainian community.

And then the community has found a receptive, interested partner in then Nazareth College and now Nazareth University.

Um, and we have tremendously expanded the kind of contacts and the scope of contexts that, um, that, that we have had with this absolutely unique renaissance institution.

I will let Dr.

Balashov talk about the absolutely unique status and character of the university, but we were privileged to be able to establish a program funded in part by Rochester's Ukrainian community and in part by Nazareth University to receive one exchange.

Students from Ostroh every spring semester and before the war, the full scale, um, uh, assault broke out.

We were able to host four such students who brought tremendous richness.

Um, also before the full scale war, but, but already during the occupation of eastern Ukraine and Crimea, annexation of Crimea, we were able to take a group of Nazareth faculty, staff and students to Ukraine.

And that was one of the most enriching, eye opening, life transforming visits that our students and faculty and staff have had to see how Ukraine was already functioning as a society, partly in war and yet developing tremendous cultural, diplomatic, scientific resources at that time and taking care of its veterans, which we thought then was already an amazing task.

And that was before the full scale attack.

Actually, our trip focused on rehabilitation of veterans in large part, as well as many other historical, political and cultural aspects.

Um, but we learned so much at that point how much we could have learned since then.

As you said, Ukraine has made actually tremendous strides.

In addition, of course, to have to suffering losses, how much we could have learned if we could take our students right now.

But alas, until active hostilities, you know, um, stop, uh, we must focus on receiving our, you know, colleagues and our student and students from Ukraine here at Nazareth and hosting them at U of R now, um, but, but, but we still have hope that we can continue.

>> Yeah.

And we're going to be talking this hour about how this kind of a partnership, of course, can benefit students from Ukraine, but also Americans who are forming new partnerships and Connections.

And, and Tim will have a lot to say about that.

Let me just follow on one point before I turn to your colleagues here.

Early in the war, I remember seeing I was like, probably like a lot of Americans who I could find Ukraine on a map, but I would not have been able to tell you, where's Lviv in relation to, Mariupol and Kharkiv?

And and so now we're seeing the bombing happening.

I remember seeing images of Kharkiv University and the beautiful structures there, sort of half bombed out and thinking what a tragedy for the people of Ukraine, to state the obvious, but also what a challenge for education that Edward will talk about.

If I remember, you're from Chernihiv.

>> Chernihiv, Chernihiv.

>> Okay.

Thank you for the pronunciation error.

But I remember talking to you and you said Russia has is not going to come in in three days and take over Ukraine.

Ukraine is not going to roll over.

And Ukraine is not going to lose this war, no matter how long it takes.

We're more than four years in and as resilient as Ukraine is, are you surprised at how strong the institutions and the educational institutions in particular, have been with students staying in the classroom, more students applying for classes, and some of the strides that those institutions are making despite living under bombing.

>> I am surprised and tremendously proud to have grown up in Ukraine.

Um, millions of people left.

Um, young people, teenagers, their families had a chance to leave and many did leave.

But I think even those who left are bringing the energy and the learning from abroad back to Ukraine.

Ukraine has not only retained a great deal of its young, of its educated, of its motivated, uh, you know, population.

It has attracted a great deal of interest from young and older people from abroad who actually have flocked to Ukraine to do cultural work, to learn Ukrainian language, to, to, to learn technologies at this point, to, to, to, to benefit from the experience that Ukraine is working up frantically during this most challenging times in a variety of fields, from cultural diplomacy to rehabilitation and prosthetics.

And of course, you know, military production.

So Ukraine is actually, I think, attracting students, young people, professionals and others, journalists from from abroad.

So proud, surprised, all of those.

>> Yeah.

It is a remarkable story.

Dr.

Balashov setting again for the Americans who are learning the map of Ukraine.

Uh, Ostroh, I believe is it's west of Kyiv, and it's about halfway to Lviv.

Is that about right?

Yes.

That's correct.

And with a tremendous history at Ostroh, how is the institution doing today?

How are you doing?

How is the institution doing?

>> That's a good question.

Thank you so much for asking this.

I can be going for hours and hours if we talk about history of Ostroh Academy.

And I'll tell you why.

Because it's the the first higher educational institution of Ukraine.

And this year we are actually celebrating 450th anniversary of of the University Foundation.

Uh, 500th anniversary of Prince Vasily Ostrovsky, the founder of Ostroh Academy and 450 45th anniversary of translation of Ostroh Bible, which was the first Bible in Slavonic language and also translated and printed in Ostroh in the 16th century.

So those three dates we are celebrating this year, throughout the year, and we are proud of that.

Uh, we are located, uh, you are correct.

We are located in between Kyiv and we in Rivne region, which is one of the western regions.

We are located in a small, uh, rather small town of Ostroh of 25,000 population.

And the university plays a vital role for the region.

But also we have become an important player player in, in higher education in Ukraine and internationally.

And we are proud of that because it's been just 30 years after reestablishment of Ostroh Academy, as it didn't exist for a few centuries and was reestablished in 1994.

>> In terms of the students who are attending both at higher education and in general, younger classrooms across Ukraine, what does that look like today compared to before the invasion four years ago?

>> Uh, it seems to me that those students who stayed in Ukraine nowadays, uh, that's the future of Ukraine.

Uh, those who wanted to leave, as Olena said, they already left and they, they leave permanently or temporarily, uh, outside of Ukraine.

They might be coming back in future, which we hope, of course, because it's Ukrainians.

Uh, we are working with the students in the schools and universities, those who stayed in Ukraine consciously.

They are there with their parents.

And, uh, we in Ostroh Academy actually are trying not to just teach the students to become highly professionals on the labor market, but we also are following the rule of Humboldt University, Old Humboldt University to teach the professionals and to serve for the society.

So that's very important.

And most of the Ukrainian universities are trying to to follow this mission.

In Ostroh Academy, our slogan is tradition that creates the future, and that's why we are not only teaching, we are upbringing.

And we sincerely hope that those those students, those graduates will, will be the future of Ukraine.

They are already.

Future of Ukraine, but in the nearest future they will start rebuilding.

Uh, Ukrainian sovereign country.

>> You're here in Rochester for the week.

Can you describe to Rochesterians why you are here and how this partnership began in your mind?

Maybe take us back to your first visit to Rochester and what that was like for you.

>> Thank you.

That's a great question.

And I'm I wanted to express my sincere gratitude to personally, uh, Mrs.

Tom Arceneaux Saracho and all the Ukrainians, Ukrainian community in Rochester as that's their initiative to actually start everything, to start it back in 2013, when we signed the memorandum with Nazareth College at that time.

And since then, it's been 13 years of, uh, from my standpoint, very successful cooperation as we had a chance to host our colleagues from the states and we, we are sending our students one, one student per semester to study here to get knowledge and to bring it back to Ukraine.

I must say that every student that studied here came back to Ukraine and now is working for for the better of Ukraine, which we are proud of, of course, and we have many Connections with the Ukrainian community as well here.

Uh, our library has a collection of books of Professor Nawrocki.

We have, we have many, many Connections with the Rochester Federal Credit Union and many other projects.

So I'm really happy to be here.

It's my third visit, I believe, and all the time, uh, all the times, all these times I, actually, uh, welcomed so warmly by the Ukrainian community, by the Nazareth University representatives that I want to come back next year, maybe.

>> And as you say, there are so many things we could talk about that would be its own hour long conversation.

I'm just going to ask you one thing that I hope doesn't derail us too much, but I'm very curious because yours is an institution.

If our listeners missed it, that have been been there for almost 500 years.

I mean, tremendous history.

And you talk about tradition, paving the future.

The future is uncertain in more ways than I would have said four years ago.

I could even imagine.

Yes, starting with the fact that Ukraine is a very innovative society.

As I mentioned at the outset, didn't choose this war, but is now educating the world in how to handle warfare.

When you are the underdog, drone warfare, robotics are really sort of a remarkable, um, layer of technology and innovation and defense.

On top of that, you're preparing students for a world that, you know, we're going to talk, I think on a separate program coming up here with Elena about art and, and the liberal arts and, and the way we appreciate all those things.

And AI might change a lot of that artificial intelligence might change a lot of that.

How do you prepare students for a world that again, this is going to sound cliche, but it is so uncertain now with warfare, with artificial intelligence, you've got 500 years of history, but how can you predict what students will need in five, ten, 20 years?

>> Uh, I would mention that Ostroh Academy is the classical liberal arts institution.

So that is why we are following the principles of classical liberal arts.

Uh, trying to implement, um, the principles not only in teaching, but in everyday life of every student that we have.

One of the Ukrainian pedagogues educators, he said he used to work in the boarding school back in the 1960s.

And he said, I know the shoe size of every of my students.

So that's probably about me.

We are a small institution and we are trying to, uh, to, you know, to, to, to know the details about every, our students and to help become cautious member of the Ukrainian society.

Artificial intelligence is great, but maybe not really.

It has two sides which we can discuss also about, uh, Ukrainian universities are resilient and very much resilient during these times because to, to teach when, you know, bombs or air raid alerts are happening every so often is not an easy task.

And that's why it seems to me that, uh, those students studying in Ukraine nowadays and not choosing not to leave the country, they, they are here to build, to build the next, uh, next Ukraine or to build the future Ukraine that they want to see.

And it's, it's going to be, uh, the country that has lived through the history that has lived the history on its own territory that would value, uh, what we have, uh, as we actually have done for many centuries because Ukraine have done so for many, many centuries.

But now it's the time of changes.

And, uh, uh, all that artificial intelligence, robotics and, uh, you know, uh, informatics, information technologies, they are supposed to be just instruments in developing human society and society.

AM I talking like a psychologist here?

>> Yes.

Well, listen, you're talking my language.

>> Good.

>> I, I, I'm, I am concerned about the human role in the future, but again, let's not derail too much.

One other point on this before I turn to your colleagues, there would be an understandable, um, shift or even emphasis in Ukraine to prepare students for a world in which there is always seemingly the possibility of warfare.

You have a neighbor next door who is committing atrocities every day, and to me, it is tragic to think that of all the beautiful things students can learn, we may have to prepare students for spending more time on self-preservation, survival, and the tragedies of life.

Do you see a future where we can find a way where we are not always thinking about who is next door, who could be an enemy, who is a threat to us?

Does that exist in the future?

In your mind.

>> It does.

It does exist in my mind.

Uh, I'll tell you why.

We are humans and we always choose good over evil.

Uh, as you said, our crazy neighbor, uh, has has been behaving like that for centuries.

And Ukraine has always survived and kept things better.

That's why it seems to me that, uh, we are strong enough to, to stay strong for, for another few centuries, many centuries, Ukraine just got its independence, uh, a few decades ago.

And actually, we are just starting to build our own countries.

Of course, the obstacles and the problems that we have, we need need to be overcome, overcome.

Uh, of course, we, we are talking about internal problems that we had before the war.

They, they keep be there.

But at the same time, we, are conscious of the fact that we are now, uh, shield of the Europe of the democratic world.

Right.

And it seems to me that, uh, the democratic world or Western Europe start to understand this too.

So it seems to me that only united Europe will will be strong.

And Ukraine, Ukraine will be the leader in many processes.

Sometimes they are afraid of this.

In Europe, it seems to me.

But uh, times, uh, time is changing.

And it seems to me that Ukraine will play a great role in the united Europe in the nearest future, and the evil will be stopped.

I have no doubt in that.

>> Well, let me, uh, let me ask Dr.

Kneeland and Dr.

Ensley about the roles of their institutions in these partnerships.

Tim Kneeland, uh, professor and director of the museums Archives and Public History Program and director of the center for Public History at Nazareth University.

So what's your perspective on this partnership and what's the role of Nazareth here?

>> You know, Nazareth has played a key role in, um, having Ukrainian students on campus and having them work with our students.

But and also Ukrainian students who are on scholarships provided by the Ukrainian community who are not from Ostroh, but from, you know, displaced from the diaspora.

Um, and, you know, they have contributed a great deal to the campus.

Our students are really interested in Ukraine.

Elena teaches a course on Ukraine that my museum students, I encourage them to take because she talks about things like historic memory.

The construction of identity through history.

And these are very powerful tools, as we can already see domestically, how the way we shape our history, how we tell our history, shapes who we think we are.

And I think that that's an important lesson that my students are learning.

And in terms of the, um, the archives that we're going to talk about from U of R, this is phenomenal in terms of the collective identity of the Ukrainian community here.

Ukrainians came here in four successive waves, right?

They and they came and they didn't necessarily situate, for example, as maybe the Italian community or the Polish community in one specific area.

So having a community archive started by one person and becoming then sort of the the collector of memory, what was it like?

Who are we that created a kind of group cohesion that you can see in this community?

That's a valuable lesson for my students, both in terms of the politics of memory, but also just engaging and encouraging community archives.

So that's certainly something that I teach in my public history classes.

And we encourage in the archive class that they take, uh, top of the great Julia Novakovic, uh, who is now at Saint John Fisher, but still teaches for us.

So.

>> And how do your American students, the non-ukrainian students you teach, how do they benefit from this partnership?

>> Uh, well, okay.

For example, um, look, American students, um, often have a fairly simplistic view of the world.

Anytime they can sit down with somebody from another country and actually have an engaging conversation.

And I don't mean a lecture, I mean somebody who's a student in the class doing a group project.

I have a Ukrainian student now.

I'm teaching a class called 1970s to now.

And, um, they're talking about Ukraine and the Ukrainian war, and they're engaging students in material that they wouldn't have sought out on their own, because now there's an empathy and a sympathy that didn't exist before, because now they have a real person, a tangible person who's gone through this conflict, and this is going to create a more deeper sense of how they are global citizens.

I could preach all I can from the lectern, but it's really the engagement and the experience.

I think that's going to drive our students to understand the globe better.

>> And I think it's really interesting when you talk about American students who sometimes have a simplistic view of places they've never been.

Um, and I don't hear you saying that to malign students.

It's just an observation that is maybe an understandable outcome.

Um, for students maybe raised in a certain place or a certain set of advantages or educational system.

So what are, what are some of the simple ideas that you, over time, you see nuance being added, complexity being added?

What do they come in with?

Like in terms of the simplicity of the world?

Is it sort of good or bad?

Is it, you know, simple cultural?

>> I think that students tend to want to have a narrative of good and evil.

They want to come into a study of the globe where they can identify, um, this group of people or that group of people who were allies of the US or in many cases were unfortunate recipients of U.S.

Imperialism or colonialism.

Um, they don't understand the interaction between people, groups or of the sophisticated way that some of these actions play out.

Um, so for example, our, the way we teach social studies, our students come in knowing, um, well, there was a war in the Middle East in this year, and then there was a war 20 years later.

But they don't always make the connection that these are one of a piece.

Just as the struggle Ukraine is having with Russia is one of a piece.

And if you really wanted to understand the history, you've got to get away from this simplistic chronology, but also this idea that, you know, this happened and it's not connected to that.

I think, again, bless our our social studies teachers, bless our educational system.

But again, we have a tendency to teach things.

Um, and in a way that's both learnable because we cut it up, but at the same time maybe lacks that coherence whole.

But that's what college is for.

>> And briefly, Elena, to, to your colleague's point there, what changes do you see in your American students when they have more interaction with Ukrainians and they can ask direct questions and they can have a better understanding of both the war that's happening now and the history that precedes it.

>> If I may broaden the question a little bit, um, I heard from my students, particularly my Ukraine class, how regretful they were that they were not taught about certain aspects of Ukrainian history.

For example, when they first learned about Euromaidan through a documentary which won many, many awards, they say to me, how come you know, how come this wasn't part of and I understand again, bless the teachers in the secondary system, they have to cover so much prescribed material, really, but they all of a sudden such a shift happens in their understanding of how people can rise up, how they can, uh, defend democracy, how can they how they can actually win that they begin to feel that it was something very important missing in their education, having Ukrainian students or really any international students in the classroom and is absolutely beneficial.

Now, something to say.

Our students go abroad at record numbers and Nazareth University makes it one of our, you know, chief educational goals is to provide international education to as many students as possible.

So I think we're making up quite well both in the classroom and outside of the classroom.

And Dr.

Kneeland, in fact, is leading a number of trips himself, um, every single year.

So, um, so students over time in four years at Nazareth University, they expand their worldview tremendously, but the students from abroad who sit in a classroom just provide personal experience that you really cannot replicate.

And sometimes you can't even get through trips, which are usually very intense affairs of trying to grasp as much as possible.

But here, week after week, somebody tells you, for example, you know, how how they made their decisions to stay in Ukraine or to leave or what career to pursue.

You know, what, what degrees, how to imagine life, how to deal with the possibility of being drafted.

You know, if it's a, you know, how, uh, you know, how they've lost, you know, relatives or friends, I mean, that kind of personal, um, experience just cannot be replicated really.

And so we really tremendously, each and every student that came on our very first students, uh, is actually, um, serving in the military right now.

He, he had tremendous talent as a photographer and digital storyteller.

And I connect with him through the social media.

And I see tremendously allegic, I would say also realistic coverage of the war from, from the inside of being a member of Ukrainian armed forces.

And that's a the very first student.

And now we have our fifth student.

And and we continue to be in touch.

And I highlight even our prior students in my conversations with our current Nazareth University students.

And there's no substitute for that.

>> So if I may add to this point, yes, Metro is a bright example of, of the Ukrainian students.

Actually, he decided to go to the war and he's serving now.

Unfortunately, even for my small university, we have a number of, uh, those who students, graduates or professors who already died at the war.

Even in my university, 38 students, professors, graduates who served for the Army died already.

So you can imagine the scale of the tragedy for the country.

And that's that brings me back to the question about the future of Ukraine.

Having paid such a price.

Uh, each family has paid a price.

Each household, each university, each school.

We will not, uh, let something bad happen to Ukraine in future.

The future of Ukraine is seem to be very bright for me.

And it's going to be like that.

>> How many students attend?

Ostroh?

>> Just 4000.

>> 4000.

And you've had 38 current and former.

And that's a huge number.

>> And a number of them are still serving.

And we hope that they will return back home.

>> Uh, Dr.

Eric Ensley, director of Rare Books and Special Collections and Preservation at the University of Rochester River's campus library.

So we've been talking about the the Nazareth connection here.

What is your connection and your institution's connection?

>> So our connection, we are very fortunate at the University of Rochester and our special collections to hold the Ukrainian Rochester community archives.

So what this means is this is an archive of what the community of Rochester has looked like in the four successive waves that Dr.

Kneeland just mentioned to the group.

And so this community goes way back to the early 1900s, over 100 years of history.

And Dr.

Kneeland also mentioned that the archive is really coming from one single person who put this together, and that's Mirko Palazhchenko, who sadly passed a number of years ago.

But before that, he had this vision of what an archive that brought together those various waves of community might look like, and tracing back the history of this community and putting it into something that would be preserved for memory.

We.

So I've only been in Rochester for just over just over a year now, but one of the things that I've been taken with is just the amount of history and how many exciting archives that we do have.

Things like Frederick Douglass, Susan B Anthony.

But I think what's really kind of most heartening and where you see this as an active, reminding people that archive is a present tense verb, is where the communities and the archives intersect with one another.

So we started taking them this archive when America was alive.

And we're excited to continue that tradition of taking in materials.

The archive continues to grow.

And what that archive looks like is collections of community organizations.

It looks like collections of the various churches across the city.

It looks like women's organizations, youth organizations, journals, experiences of what it was like to immigrate into this community.

Going back sometimes into the early 1900s.

As we said.

>> I appreciate certainly the point that archive is a present tense verb.

I like that, and it's an ongoing archive.

It's an we do sometimes compartmentalize and think, well, archive is past only.

Now, having said that, what are some of the really interesting things in there that goes back all of these decades there?

>> Oh my goodness.

So I actually was able this morning to spend some time with the archives as I was pulling out materials for our guests to take a look at.

And you know, you can go all the way back to the 19 teens and find journals of people talking about their experience crossing the ocean.

One group actually ended up in the Great Lakes, arriving in Rochester on the Great Lakes and talking about this interesting experience of transitioning from cities like New York, and then ending up in this kind of, you know, freshwater lake that was kind of strange to them.

And this kind of cold, snowy city that reminded them of home.

That was something that struck me from one of the journals.

I was looking at.

>> Wow, wow.

>> On a snowy day like today, right?

That's.

>> I think the weather in Ukraine's got to be better than today in Rochester.

>> I was hoping for better weather.

>> Coming.

It's not usually like this.

In April.

>> I don't want to lie.

After we take our only break here to build on the point that you just heard from Eric Ensley, I'm going to ask Elena about cultural memory and, um, you know, the value of this historic preservation because there's no guarantee that these kind of archives have to exist or will exist or will be preserved.

And it is always remarkable when you find out what you can learn from those personal stories that Eric shared, to seeing how the different waves of immigrants or sometimes refugees come to communities and what they bring with them.

We're going to come right back and continue the conversation after this very short break.

Coming up in our second hour, we bring back a recent conversation with one of the most requested show guests on Connections, astrophysicist Adam Frank, one of the great science communicators in the country.

Joining us to talk about his review of Project Hail Mary.

Artemis has us all thinking about travel in the stars.

And we're going to talk about the most popular film in the country with Adam Frank.

We'll bring that conversation back next hour.

>> Support for your public radio station comes from our members and from Mary Cariola center, supporting residents to become active members of the community from developing life skills to gaining independence.

Mary Cariola, center.

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>> Org.

>>.

>> This is Connections.

I'm Evan Dawson Eric Ensley at the River Campus Libraries.

The director of Rare Books, Special Collections and Preservation.

What is going on during that?

Perhaps that we should emphasize here as Dr.

Balashov is here.

What's happening today?

>> So after we wrap up this conversation, we're going to head over to the University of Rochester Libraries and take a look at the Ukrainian Rochester collection together.

Have some talks about ongoing work with the archives.

There's some really exciting things that are happening right now.

Um, some of those are that we actually have a very large Ukrainian student population at University of Rochester with an active Ukrainian student organization, and we have hired Ukrainian students to work in our archives.

One of the things that we're really keen on doing is getting our finding aids.

How you access those archives online into both Ukrainian and into English.

So one of the things that we see with diaspora communities is that sometimes the archive is presented as being for the diaspora community, right?

That it's for the Italian Americans to learn more about their heritage in Italy.

But we also want to be able to share this with the world so that this archive goes back to Ukraine as well, and so that they can see what it looks like when a community established itself, what remained of Ukraine, what changed, and what became sort of a cultural amalgamation of different parts.

And so we actually have a Ukrainian student who is doing that translation work for us right now, and she is from Kharkiv herself, and so has this really had a really rich experience learning more about this diaspora that has happened over the past 125 years?

>> Remarkable.

Um, and tied to that, Dr.

Prokopovych is not only the value of this historic preservation, but an understanding of cultural memory.

How do you define cultural memory?

>> I define it as a stock of human achievement across groups, within groups, and across groups that we want to pass on to the future generation, something that is valuable, something that holds the lessons, holds the tremendous value, the uplifting value, the inspiration for us to do better.

Um, the kind of cultural memory, for example, that we cherish here of Frederick Douglass, Susan B Anthony and that we see at work in this community being passed on despite difficulties and challenges.

But we see it in a variety of ways, everything from the mural at the airport to statues around the teaching that's going on there, to then conceptualizing American history like this.

So cultural memory is what we want to make of our experience in order that the future be better, to be worthy of, of, of who we can be at our best.

Um, so, you know, in the age of quick communication, AI digitization, which, you know, Eric would know even better, offers both promises, but also some challenges and threats to the transmission of cultural memory.

I think it's more important than ever to get a basis to get our processes straightened out, and to keep talking about what we have, what we've done and where we're heading.

The role of diasporas all over the world, not just Ukrainian diasporas, but diasporas writ large in shaping international relations and the goodwill among the people cannot be overstated.

Countries are interpenetrated and interweaved with each other.

There's Ukraine, there's little Ukraine or even big Ukraine in the United States.

In South America, in Europe.

Um, and now they're Americas and Americans in Ukraine.

Um, they're, they're even graves of Americans who went to serve and died in this current war in Ukraine.

Now.

So there's, there's no American community per se in Ukraine.

Not yet.

Maybe there will be.

I think Ukraine is such a tremendously interesting and fascinating place at this time.

But but there's certainly doctors that have done a lot for the preservation of Ukraine.

Um, diasporas have really saved a number of traditions as well as the language, um, from, from even further destruction during the times of colonial domination over Ukraine.

Um, and that cultural memory of resistance from afar, of resistance over decades and generations is something that especially democratic societies, societies that are committed to freedom, want to preserve and showcase to succession of students over and over again.

We want to tell that story of resilience, cooperation and hope.

And in fact, of course, diaspora studies are very important in Ukraine itself.

At Ostroh, we had a pleasure of meeting Professor Alla Atamanenko, who studies diaspora there.

When we were hosted in Kyiv, we got great, you know, show of the city and the university by Professor Olga Bokova, who runs a very accessible Ukrainian diaspora Facebook page and highlights various and multiple Connections of Ukrainian immigrants and Ukrainian, um, Ukrainians who have come to North America, South America, et cetera.. So that is the cultural memory that should remind us all how connected we are.

Um, how much we, how many bases we have to care for one another, not divide ourselves, but to come together, keep our allies, expand our ally ships and go forward as a peaceful humanity.

>> And Dr.

Balashov maybe connected to that question is whether there is a risk of losing cultural identity when there is an intentional aggressor.

Vladimir Putin has talked about the fact that he doesn't really believe that Ukraine is its own independent state.

His intention is to to create, perhaps by force, a reality in which Ukrainian means Russian.

It doesn't mean Ukrainian.

That means maybe the blending of or the elimination of language, or certainly cultural memory, you know, and one of the most probably historical examples of what is lost to the world when we have the physical aggression and destruction is, you know, the burning of the Library of Alexandria.

And the question of what was lost to history, what kind of books and texts will we never see?

Well, now it's intentional on the on the part of Vladimir Putin to try to erase this kind of cultural memory, to erase this history.

Has he succeeded at all?

Or do you think that in a in a strange way, this has cemented Ukrainian cultural identity?

>> Actually, I just said my point that I was going to mention just cemented.

It makes us stronger because when we are talking about, uh, our neighbor.

They even stole the name of their country from Ukraine, which means Ukraine existed a long time before them.

Kievan Rus, that was the first establishment, like, uh, organizational establishment back centuries ago.

Rus, Russians.

That's the name of people.

So they stole it and they called themselves Russia, which is not correct.

They are not Russians.

Rusyns lived a long time ago and they were Ukrainians.

So this this brings me to the point that actually, uh, you cannot erase, uh, you cannot erase the identity, the cultural identity, historical identity of the nation that has been there for ages.

And that has been, uh, adding to, to value, uh, each next generations for many centuries, Ukrainians are very strong nation, uh, and they actually are passing the knowledge, are passing the traditions in, uh, in the families, in the generations and the matter of having its own country, its own sovereign state, uh, played a big role.

And now we are just building, uh, on the top of what has been there for, for generations.

And I think we will definitely succeed in that, um, their goal of destroying Ukraine, of course, is not realistic.

And it seems to me that sooner we will see that Russia will stop existing as a Russian federation, will stop existing as a one unique country.

And there will be more countries, more new states on the territory of of the current Russian Federation, rather than destroying Ukraine.

Of course.

>> Again, I'm going to ask you to put your psychologist hat on.

Why do you think the Kremlin is is threatened by the idea of individual identities.

Take Ukraine, but you could take others.

Lithuania, Latvia.

Why are they threatened by by that?

>> Uh, that's been it's nothing new.

It's nothing new.

It's been there for centuries.

They've always, uh, tried to invade their neighbors.

They've always tried to cut the pieces from different countries.

And now they want to get back to the idea of the empire of Soviet empire, to bring back all the all the, you know, sovereign states that actually arose or have arisen on the territory of the former Soviet Union.

I'm sure they have plans for for Baltic countries as well to of invasion of the Baltic countries.

They've started to do so with Georgia.

They've continued that with Ukraine.

Uh, if you look into the history, there are there is a long list of, of invasions or at least tries of Russia to invade their neighbors.

It's been their lifestyle.

It's, you know, uh, there is not really the idea of, of a state of Russian state.

It seems to me the idea is just like, you know, to make evil to the surrounding you.

It seems to me.

>> But looking at some of, uh, what maybe Putin would chalk up to success, 11 academic institutions destroyed in Ukraine since the start of the war, 278 institutions damaged.

This is according to, uh, Ukrainian Ministry of Education and Science.

Can those institutions rebuild and sustain despite the ongoing war and bombing?

>> That's what we call university and societal resilience.

They've already been rebuilt.

Some of them some of the facilities and campuses are being rebuilt.

And those located on probably captured territories.

We cannot rebuild them now, but, uh, it seems to me that we will be even stronger after after the end of the, of course, we believe in the victory of Ukraine.

And of course, everything will be rebuilt.

So I call it resilience.

>> And Eric, I often think about the, the strange bifurcation in collecting history that went from physical objects to digital.

So, you know, if all of the collection of Seward's letters were destroyed, I mean, obviously, if you've digitized or saved them, that's one thing, that's one thing.

And hopefully that their memory can be preserved, but the physical objects would be gone.

Well, now a lot of our communication is digital.

And when you're creating an ongoing archive, um, I in a weird way, I would have said years ago, well, now everything will be preserved, but there's oceans of digital information.

And how do you sort of create archives when you don't have physical objects?

Does that is that that question sensible?

>> Oh, that's a very good question for right now in this very moment.

So one of the things I would say is to go back to the question of libraries being outright physically destroyed, which is a huge issue right now, obviously, in Ukraine, there are, you know, less violent issues also with the preservation of cultural memory.

For example, Mirko Palazhchenko.

What if he had gotten up one day and decided, I'm not going to do this archive?

We would have lost so much of this cultural memory for Rochester and also nationally.

It's a standout archive in terms of that diaspora.

So really, one of the things I really want to emphasize to listeners is if you're thinking of preserving the history of your particular diaspora, your cultural history, do it.

You know, there may not be somebody else out there who is doing that.

Coming back to the question of the born digital material is what we call this in the archives world.

So materials that never had a physical instantiation except on a hard drive, it's a massive pressing issue.

You know, magnetic hard drives only last 50 years.

So that computer you have from 40 years ago, that hard drive is on its way out.

USB sticks 20 years maybe.

So one of the things that we're constantly thinking of is how do we get this material off of hard drives?

We do have machines that will pull that information off of it, but it is accessed in a digital format.

Without that physical, physical material, as we call it.

And then there are also other threats that accompany this.

As we were just talking about AI earlier, this is a massive question for archives that we are actively talking about.

You, Rochester and other institutions.

What happens when a corporation comes to you and says that they want to train their AI model on your archive?

Archives are already getting those questions, and we have to figure out an answer to that.

A group of us are doing that, including University of Rochester and University of Virginia and others, but it's a pressing question.

>> Well, and I want to ask Dr.

Kneeland before the hour is up here, and I'm so grateful for all four of our guests and sharing this story here.

I, I want to go back and I want you to put your professor's hat on, but I want you to respond to a younger student.

So you teach college students.

But when my son was nine, when the invasion happened, um, you know, he's kind of a history buff now.

He's 14, but he was nine years old when the invasion happened in Ukraine.

And he said, I thought we were moving towards a world where like, we don't invade anybody anymore.

And, you know, which is a beautiful, naive statement, but what do you say to a nine year old?

What do you say to a student who says to you, is this just the state of man?

Is this always going to be the state of man?

Is there any reason to believe that we've evolved in a way that can get past that?

>> Well, absolutely, because the very fact that we can stand and look at the invasion of Ukraine and make a moral judgment about it, that says a lot about humanity, that we know right from wrong.

And it is, in fact, our changing nature of war that may be different, but humankind has always risen up above, as Edouard said, right?

He believes in hope, that there is hope that out of the the ashes of World War Two came the United Nations.

Out of the ashes of the current international system that seems to be eroding before our eyes.

I think there's going to be something even better, because what we've learned is the system was fragile in a way we didn't know.

And so now we have a better idea on how to rebuild it.

And, and I think that's where memory comes in.

Like memory is not fixed.

It is constantly being changed, which is why that archive is living.

But also as we, as we think about, we can't just think about the past in one way.

We have to constantly re-envision it because that teaches us about ourselves, but also then promotes a better future.

So power to archives and, you know, power to the resilience that we're seeing in the educational systems.

And our thanks to Ukrainian community for making sure that material is available.

And yes, other archives should follow suit.

Um, we have digital archives only at the Casa Italiana Oral History Project, but we also have hosting archives like the Polish Community Archive, the Polonia archives.

So, um, I think this is a project worthy for all the institutions to do.

>> Yeah, it just does.

Someone in the lay public.

I'm grateful for it.

We're down to our last minute.

Dr.

Balashov, you heard some of your colleagues talk about the benefits to American students when they can interact with your students.

Last minute here.

What do your students from Ostroh gain when they come here?

>> Um, they probably understand that they are members of the global world.

We share the same values as you guys do here, and that's why we are in the position where we are now defending the democracy on the outskirts of Europe, being the shield of Europe.

And if it's our last minute, I would like to use this chance.

And actually, uh, express my sincere gratitude to Nazareth University.

Uh, Neven Fischer personally for actually making this happen for so many years.

Dr.

Prokopovych.

Dr.

Kneeland for being part of it.

That's one thing.

Second thing I would like to really thankful to, to really thank you to the Ukrainian community and personally to Tamara and late Vladimir Denisenko for also making this happen.

This is very important for us and it's really appreciated in Ostroh Academy and in Ukraine.

And the last thing, but not least, I would like to mention it's, uh, the Ukrainians, uh, words of sincere gratitude to the American nation for actually supporting us during these dark times.

Uh, we will win and we truly appreciate what you do to support Ukraine.

Thank you so much.

>> I hope you're enjoying your time in Rochester.

And I hope that we can talk again.

Dr.

Balashov, thank you.

Thank you very much.

Edward Balashov, professor and rector of the National University of Ostroh Academy and Ostroh, Ukraine.

With a 500 year history and a remarkable partnership with these Rochester institutions, including with Dr.

Eric Ensley, director of Rare Books, Special Collections and Preservation at the University of Rochester, River Campus Libraries thank you for being here.

Thank you.

And from Nazareth University, doctor Tim Timothy Kneeland, professor and director of the museum's Archives, Public History program, director of the center for Public History.

Thank you for being here.

Glad to be here.

Dr.

Prokopovych, associate professor of political science, director of the Political Science Undergraduate Program in History, Politics and Law at Nazareth University.

Thank you for being here.

>> Thank you.

>> And we're going to be coming back in just a moment with more Connections.

Stay with us.

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