Eine internationale wissenschaftliche
(Online-)Konferenz an der Lesya Ukrainka Volyn National University, in Luzk (englisch: Lutsk, westliche Ukraine) fand am 14.10.2022
im Rahmen des Projektes der Jean-Monnet-Abteilung "EU-Studien an der Universität von Lesya Ukraininka" des Erasmus+Programms der Europäischen Union statt.
Sie stand unter dem Thema:
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| University Building with Taras Shevchenko Statue (wikipedia.en) |
im Rahmen des Projektes der Jean-Monnet-Abteilung "EU-Studien an der Universität von Lesya Ukraininka" des Erasmus+Programms der Europäischen Union statt.
Sie stand unter dem Thema:
EUROPÄISCHE INTEGRATION UND GRENZÜBERSCHREITENDE
ZUSAMMENARBEIT
Der ÖkonomieprofessorDr. Eckhard Freyer, Bonn, nahm als westlicher Referent über Zoom daran teil (s.u.).
Hier seine Erläuterungen zur Konferenz insgesamt:
"Der
Rektor, Anatoly Ts ʹos, Experte des nationalen Erasmus+Büros in
der Ukraine und Petro Krajník, stellvertretender Rektor sowie Prof'in Ljudmila Eliseeva richteten herzliche Willkommensworte an die Teilnehmenden. Sie gratulierten zum Feiertag Mariä Schutz, gleichzeitig Tag der Verteidigerinnen und Verteidiger der Ukraine, hoben die Aufmerksamkeit der Anwesenden auf die
Relevanz des Veranstaltungsthema hervor, und sicherten ihre Unterstützung für die
Euro-Integrationsaktivitäten aller Teilnehmer des pädagogischen und
wissenschaftlichen c-Prozess zu, einschließlich der Aktivitäten, die AIT-Xia im
Rahmen der Umsetzung von Zuschussprojekten organisiert.
Vertreter von 12
Hochschulen der Ukraine und im Ausland sprachen auf der Sitzung mit
thematischen Berichten. Hier das detaillierte Programm (in ukrainischer Sprache - http://surli.li/diqty) mit etwa 80 Teilnehmenden.
Das Thema der Reden war recht vielfältig und
interessant, was durch die Fragen an die Reporter und durch die Diskussion bestätigt
wurde. Zum Abschluss teilte der Moderator der Veranstaltung,
Prof. Andriy Boyar, mit, dass in den nächsten zwei Wochen eine elektronische Zusammenstellung von Konferenzmaterialien erstellt und veröffentlicht werden soll, die auf der Projektseite https://eenujeanmonnet.wordpress.com gelesen werden kann."
Prof. Andriy Boyar, mit, dass in den nächsten zwei Wochen eine elektronische Zusammenstellung von Konferenzmaterialien erstellt und veröffentlicht werden soll, die auf der Projektseite https://eenujeanmonnet.wordpress.com gelesen werden kann."
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| Konferenzteilnehmer und Sprecher Weitere Konferenzinformationen und Fotos (in ukrainischer Sprache) >>> |
EUROPEAN UNION INTEGRATION AND RECONSTRUCTION OF UKRAINE
ging Eckhard Freyer auf die nicht zu unterschätzenden Interdependenzen und Folgewirkungen im geopolitischen Rahmen von Europäischer Union, Ukraine und Russland ein. Im Zusammenhang der aktuellen Ukraine-Debatten betonte er u.a.: "Das heutige Territorium der Ukraine gehörte im Laufe der Geschichte zu
mindestens 14 verschiedenen Staaten, darunter das Königreich
Polen-Litauen, das Russische Reich, die Habsburger Monarchie und die
Sowjetunion. Im Spannungsfeld zwischen Ost und West gelegen, hat es sich
häufig gegen seine Nachbarn behaupten müssen. Schon der historische Hintergrund legt nahe, dass das ukrainische Volk das souveräne Recht hat, seine eigene Zukunft zu bestimmen."
Freyer bezog sich dabei auch auf Leibniz, der noch 1716 glaubte, dass sich Russlands Kultur formen ließe und darum für westliche Einflüsse offen sei. Dies wird sehr schön in einer Buchbesprechung, erschienen in "WELT online" (11.03.2022) aktualisierend hervorgehoben:
Mark Reichwein: Was uns Leibniz über Russland lehrt.
Freyer bezog sich dabei auch auf Leibniz, der noch 1716 glaubte, dass sich Russlands Kultur formen ließe und darum für westliche Einflüsse offen sei. Dies wird sehr schön in einer Buchbesprechung, erschienen in "WELT online" (11.03.2022) aktualisierend hervorgehoben:
Mark Reichwein: Was uns Leibniz über Russland lehrt.
In einem Editorial der Washington Post, das Eckhard Freyer etwas redaktionell bearbeitete, wird dieser Zusammenhang im Kontext Russlands weiter verdeutlicht:
How
Russia emerges from this disaster could shape the world for a long
time. In addition to Russia’s own destiny, its course will affect
Ukraine’s struggle to survive as a democracy, whether Belarus frees
itself from a tyrant, whether China and Russia can sustain an alliance
of despots, the fate of a global economy dependent on Russian energy
exports, and much more. As Mr. Navalny put it, even if Ukraine is
successful in repelling the Russian invaders, “where is the guarantee
that the world will not find itself confronting an even more aggressive
regime, tormented by resentment and imperial ideas that have little to
do with reality?”
Putin
to power. He was the handpicked choice of an ailing President Boris
Yeltsin and his entourage. When Yeltsin announced his resignation at the
end of 1999, he entrusted all that he stood for to a little-known
former KGB officer with no experience in, nor affinity for, the
democratic striving of the previous decade and who eventually reversed
it. Mr. Putin then constructed a very personalized kind of dictatorship
around his own power and whim.
One dark scenario is that Mr. Putin’s anti-Western, authoritarian kleptocracy, mixing crony capitalism and despotism, will endure with or without him. A significant part of Russia’s population remains enamored with him, angry and inchoate, making it a ready constituency for a demagogue. As analyst Nikolai Petrov noted before the invasion, Mr. Putin’s anti-Western rhetoric “has taken a firm hold in the hearts and minds of many Russian citizens,” who are in a “state of deep resentment towards the West” and believe that it has prevented Russia from regaining great-power status.
Also reinforcing continuity are the powerful security and military structures that Mr. Putin has exploited and expanded for more than two decades. But key questions, impossible to answer now, surround the fallout a defeat in Ukraine would have: Would the military, humiliated and resentful, turn against the Kremlin power structure? Would the population at large?
Many citizens tolerated Mr. Putin’s thieving elite and political repression in exchange for a certain amount of private space in their own lives, as well as some prosperity and freedom to travel abroad. They have finally been motivated to object after Mr. Putin’s recent mobilization order disrupted their tranquility, but their alienation from politics and their passivity remain.
A third cohort, much smaller, are the professionals and middle class, educated, experienced, well-traveled and democratic. Many in their 20s and 30s, they have left Russia in droves since the war began — but perhaps not forever. Those who are older witnessed Mikhail Gorbachev’s glasnost and perestroika and saw the 1990s as a brief window of freedom in a long Russian history of autocracy. Thousands of this group are stuck in Russia’s prisons for protesting in support of Mr. Navalny or against the war and mobilization.
Navalny correctly notes that a super-presidential system was created for Yeltsin in Russia’s 1993 constitution. “Giving plenty of power to a good guy seemed logical at the time,” he wrote. Mr. Putin inherited Yeltsin’s powers but not his commitment to the constitutional guarantees of freedom.
Mr. Navalny advocates a parliamentary republic that would result in “a radical reduction of power in the hands of one person.” Such a change would require a new constitution, no small task, and much more. In a report last year for the Atlantic Council, Anders Aslund, an economist and specialist on Russia, Ukraine and Eastern Europe, and Leonid Gozman, a politician and commentator long active in Russia’s democratic movements, sketched out what might be needed to build a democracy in Russia. They advocate a parliamentary system and a new democratic constitution but add a long list of must-do tasks: restoring full freedoms of speech, assembly, belief and others; releasing political prisoners; cutting out the “cancer” of oligarchs who milked the state for their own enrichment; establishing genuine rule of law; dissolving the pernicious existing security services and starting over, which would be extremely difficult; rebuilding a functioning parliament; holding free elections and decentralizing power to the regions and cities, another thing that would be hard to accomplish.
After the Soviet collapse in 1991, genuine attempts were made to build a market democracy and emulate the West. As scholar Maria Lipman noted recently, “People in early post-Communist Russia yearned for their country to become ‘normal’, which implied ‘as in the West.’ The West was proclaimed a political role model. For the first time in its history, Russia was emulating not just Western culture or technology, but the Western political system. The framers of the post-communist Russian constitution drew inspiration from Western charters. No more shielding Russian citizens from the West: censorship was abolished, borders open, foreign travel unlimited and foreign trade no longer the exclusive domain of the state.”
Yeltsin created a warped oligarchic capitalism, a proto-democracy, a nascent civil society, and he failed to instill rule of law. To many Russians, it was a disorienting time. Ms. Lipman wrote, “Not unexpectedly, the emulation of the West failed to deliver Western living standards. The first post-Soviet decade brought political turmoil, the collapse of the accustomed safety net, deep insecurity and profound disillusionment.”
Mr. Putin exploited that disenchantment deriding all the 1990s as chaos — while riding a rising tide of prosperity, lifted by oil exports, in the years that followed. He sidelined the oligarchs of the Yeltsin years and subordinated them to his will, while enriching his own cronies. Gradually, he stamped out the tender shoots of democracy. They’re now completely gone. Mr. Petrov said last year the conditions needed to achieve democratic change “are not present in today’s Russia.”
One dark scenario is that Mr. Putin’s anti-Western, authoritarian kleptocracy, mixing crony capitalism and despotism, will endure with or without him. A significant part of Russia’s population remains enamored with him, angry and inchoate, making it a ready constituency for a demagogue. As analyst Nikolai Petrov noted before the invasion, Mr. Putin’s anti-Western rhetoric “has taken a firm hold in the hearts and minds of many Russian citizens,” who are in a “state of deep resentment towards the West” and believe that it has prevented Russia from regaining great-power status.
Also reinforcing continuity are the powerful security and military structures that Mr. Putin has exploited and expanded for more than two decades. But key questions, impossible to answer now, surround the fallout a defeat in Ukraine would have: Would the military, humiliated and resentful, turn against the Kremlin power structure? Would the population at large?
Many citizens tolerated Mr. Putin’s thieving elite and political repression in exchange for a certain amount of private space in their own lives, as well as some prosperity and freedom to travel abroad. They have finally been motivated to object after Mr. Putin’s recent mobilization order disrupted their tranquility, but their alienation from politics and their passivity remain.
A third cohort, much smaller, are the professionals and middle class, educated, experienced, well-traveled and democratic. Many in their 20s and 30s, they have left Russia in droves since the war began — but perhaps not forever. Those who are older witnessed Mikhail Gorbachev’s glasnost and perestroika and saw the 1990s as a brief window of freedom in a long Russian history of autocracy. Thousands of this group are stuck in Russia’s prisons for protesting in support of Mr. Navalny or against the war and mobilization.
Navalny correctly notes that a super-presidential system was created for Yeltsin in Russia’s 1993 constitution. “Giving plenty of power to a good guy seemed logical at the time,” he wrote. Mr. Putin inherited Yeltsin’s powers but not his commitment to the constitutional guarantees of freedom.
Mr. Navalny advocates a parliamentary republic that would result in “a radical reduction of power in the hands of one person.” Such a change would require a new constitution, no small task, and much more. In a report last year for the Atlantic Council, Anders Aslund, an economist and specialist on Russia, Ukraine and Eastern Europe, and Leonid Gozman, a politician and commentator long active in Russia’s democratic movements, sketched out what might be needed to build a democracy in Russia. They advocate a parliamentary system and a new democratic constitution but add a long list of must-do tasks: restoring full freedoms of speech, assembly, belief and others; releasing political prisoners; cutting out the “cancer” of oligarchs who milked the state for their own enrichment; establishing genuine rule of law; dissolving the pernicious existing security services and starting over, which would be extremely difficult; rebuilding a functioning parliament; holding free elections and decentralizing power to the regions and cities, another thing that would be hard to accomplish.
After the Soviet collapse in 1991, genuine attempts were made to build a market democracy and emulate the West. As scholar Maria Lipman noted recently, “People in early post-Communist Russia yearned for their country to become ‘normal’, which implied ‘as in the West.’ The West was proclaimed a political role model. For the first time in its history, Russia was emulating not just Western culture or technology, but the Western political system. The framers of the post-communist Russian constitution drew inspiration from Western charters. No more shielding Russian citizens from the West: censorship was abolished, borders open, foreign travel unlimited and foreign trade no longer the exclusive domain of the state.”
Yeltsin created a warped oligarchic capitalism, a proto-democracy, a nascent civil society, and he failed to instill rule of law. To many Russians, it was a disorienting time. Ms. Lipman wrote, “Not unexpectedly, the emulation of the West failed to deliver Western living standards. The first post-Soviet decade brought political turmoil, the collapse of the accustomed safety net, deep insecurity and profound disillusionment.”
Mr. Putin exploited that disenchantment deriding all the 1990s as chaos — while riding a rising tide of prosperity, lifted by oil exports, in the years that followed. He sidelined the oligarchs of the Yeltsin years and subordinated them to his will, while enriching his own cronies. Gradually, he stamped out the tender shoots of democracy. They’re now completely gone. Mr. Petrov said last year the conditions needed to achieve democratic change “are not present in today’s Russia.”
The
United States and Europe, major players in promoting democracy during
the 1990s, must prepare for what comes next in Russia with clear eyes.
There won’t be a stampede for Western values. The American tool kit of
the post-Soviet period won’t necessarily be useful. It is imperative to
start thinking now about how to reach a society that is chastened and
hardened by the past two decades.
Keeping
channels open to the Russian people will be vital no matter who comes
to power. Ideally, after the war and after Mr. Putin, Mr. Navalny will
be free of shackles and a leading voice in anchoring Russia in a
democratic system. This outcome is worthy of our hope. But it would also
be prudent to expect Russia to take other paths, perhaps steered by
another singular strongman. The country might be humbled by defeat in
war, but that will not necessarily make it exuberant about freedom.
Unter Zugrundelegung des Originalbeitrags aus der Washington Post online (12.10.2022) -
leichte redaktionelle Bearbeitung für den Blogbeitrag "Focus Ukraine" in "Dokumentationen und Diskurse" durch Prof. Dr. Eckhard Freyer, Bonn
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