My university’s online newspaper reported earlier today that the Rectors of Russian Universities (their presidents/chancellors) have posted a statement of support for Putin’s war. Below the fold you find the translation that Deep-L made for us from Russian to English. (I don’t read Russian but my other experiences with Deep-L are pretty good).
So, the Rectors support the war, and adop the rethorics of the need for the “denazification” of Ukraine. The give their support to president Putin, and say they “support our President, who has made perhaps the most difficult decision of his life, a hard-won but necessary one.” Sadly, they also see it as their “fundamental duty, … to teach our students to be patriotic and to strive to help their motherland.”
I only hope that the Rectors had to do this because they could not do otherwise – a scenario so bad that, say, they would be put in prison and tortured, or their students endangered and universities put on fire. If no threats and coercion as serious as that made them write such utter horror, they should ashamed of calling themselves ‘academics’. Not just because they support Putin whose regime is massively violating human rights, not just because they support a brutal and unnecessary war, but also because they have not understood what the University is for.
Translation below the fold.
Address by the Russian Union of Rectors
04.03.2022
Dear colleagues!
Events are taking place before our eyes that concern every citizen of Russia. It is Russia’s decision to finally end the eight-year confrontation between Ukraine and the Donbas, to achieve the demilitarization and denazification of Ukraine and thereby protect itself from the growing military threats.
We, the rectorial corps of the Russian Federation, have developed and strengthened Russian-Ukrainian scientific and educational ties for many decades, cherishing each other. Our joint research has made a huge contribution to world science, which is why the long-standing tragedy in Donbas has a special pain and bitterness in our hearts.
It is very important in these days to support our country, our army, which defends our security, to support our President, who has made perhaps the most difficult decision of his life, a hard-won but necessary one.
It is important not to forget our fundamental duty, which is to teach our students to be patriotic and to strive to help their motherland.
Universities have always been a pillar of the state. Our priority goal is to serve Russia and develop its intellectual potential. Now more than ever, we must demonstrate confidence and resilience under economic and information attacks, effectively rally around our President, setting an example of optimistic spirit and faith in the power of reason in our youth, and instilling hope that peace will soon come.
Together we are a great power!
{ 60 comments }
DavidtheK 03.07.22 at 10:23 pm
Another possible spin is poisoning by Russia’s fully captive propaganda press, And people do tend to become patriotic in wartime. This in no way excuses the moral failure here. A person who claims to be thoughtful is obligated to go to lengths to ascertain the truth.
Kien 03.08.22 at 12:46 am
Hi, I understand that the Russian Ukrainians in the Donbas region have in fact been attacked for many years by Ukrainian nationalists (who effectively control the Ukrainian government). This is a factual issue, and I am happy to be corrected. But if this is true, it certainly changes the way we (or at least I) view Russia’s actions.
I am also aware that the Western media does not report on Russia objectively. So I don’t take Western media reporting on Russia and Ukraine at face value. Perhaps we should all just take an open mind, be open to the possibility that Russia is exercising its “responsibility to protect” the people of the Donbas region.
BTW, I myself don’t like the idea of “responsibility to protect”. I’m not sure if I support Russia’s intervention in Ukraine. But this is the kind of “intervention to protect” that the US has undertaken for the majority of its history, right from “intervening to protect” European settlers from American indigenous tribes, to now “intervening to protect” Libyans from the Gadaffi regime. (Libya today is in a greater mess than it was under the Gadaffi regime, with sub-Saharan Africans actually being sold as slaves at one point.)
Anyway, just keep an open mind. At least talk to the Russian university rectors and ask them to explain their position.
J-D 03.08.22 at 2:29 am
I hope Ingrid will correct me if I have misunderstood her, but I think part of what she is saying is that even if you believe everything the Russian government is saying, it is still not the function of a university to support the state.
William Berry 03.08.22 at 3:47 am
The only thing that might be surprising about this is that anyone would be surprised (not suggesting that you, Ingrid, or anyone else in particular, would be surprised, just saying).
These folks are all Putin’s men (yes, surely nearly all of them) or they wouldn’t be within cruise missile distance of a major university presidency.
Michael Feltes 03.08.22 at 4:15 am
Setting aside the statement, a self-abasement entirely unworthy of discussion, I am interested in the assertion “Universities have always been a pillar of the state.” Does the Russian Orthodox Church sponsor institutions of higher education? I would presume that the church runs seminaries, but is there anything like a Jesuit university? I wonder whether there’s any institution that can nurture independent thought in Russia, waiting for an opportunity under the protection of an authority that doesn’t originate in the state.
Sean 03.08.22 at 6:25 am
As a child I picked up a used copy of a sourcebook on WW I with a printed copy of one of the open letters signed by a long list of luminaries from one country justifying the latest slaughter.
I find that social scientist Dr. Jeremy Morris gives a range of Russian perspectives outside the Anglophone, universitied class in Peter and Moscow https://postsocialism.org/ Putin is going full authoritarian nationalist: prison for anyone in Russia who calls the war anything but a special operation, massed rallies of people wearing shirts with a Z on them and shouting patriotic slogans, having schoolteachers collect the names, home addresses, and draft registrations of male students. Many urban universitied Russians are fleeing to Armenia, the Central Asian republics, and anywhere else that does not demand a visa and still accepts their flights.
Ingrid Robeyns 03.08.22 at 6:53 am
Kien @2 – sure, always keep an open mind. But always also have a critical mind, and trust the resources that are least likely to be captured by manipulation. Based on that attitude, my information is:
– in 2014, Russia invaded the Crimea and occupied it;
– Putin has been killing his political opponents, supressing dissidents, making life of critical journalists difficult, and maniuplating elections; if a strong opposition leader like Navaldy challanges him, he tries to eliminate him;
– It is documented that the media are not free to do their work in Russia – in fact Putin has closed down the remaining free media over the last two weeks (only dictators do that).
– It is documented that civic and political rights, including the right to peaceful protest, have become increasingly surpressed in Russia – this is reported by Russian human rights organisations as well as international ones like Amnesty INternational;
– War or no war, Universities should be independent. Universities do not exist to appease rulers, or to create patriotic young adults.
– I used the original sources here, no intermediator, so there is no risk of being deluded by propaganda.
So let’s be careful not to use the guidline “keep an open mind” as “let’s not speak up against a dictator who is dominating his own population and invading another country”. Because if we do that, propaganda would have reached is goal.
Ingrid Robeyns 03.08.22 at 7:01 am
J.D.@3 – yes, you are right, I think universities have a role in society to be independent (or, as independent as possible) from all pressure groups – from the State/government, from industry, from angry mobs, and so forth. That holds for the very institution of the University, hence ideally should apply in all countries at all times. Clearly, there will always be pressures on that ideal (in my country my biggest worry would be indepdence from industry); but what the Russian Rectors do here is a total disgrace. And we know that many (most?) individual professors working in Russia also would like to keep the university free of outside interference, so I feel very sorry for our colleagues in Russia who are working in an institution in which very nature of that institution is undermined from within… (so no surprise that there are in Europe right now not only inititiaves being developed to welcome Ukrainian refugee-scholars, but also those from Belarius and Russia.
nastywoman 03.08.22 at 7:26 am
@7
‘So let’s be careful not to use the guidline “keep an open mind” as “let’s not speak up against a dictator who is dominating his own population and invading another country”. Because if we do that, propaganda would have reached is goal’.
In @2 Putins Propaganda -(and I wrote ‘Putins’ as Putin is NOT Russia) has reached is goal in the utmost stereotypical sense.
Starting with:
‘Hi, I understand that the Russian Ukrainians in the Donbas region have in fact been attacked for many years by Ukrainian nationalists (who effectively control the Ukrainian government).
NO!
A democratically elected ‘European’ Ex Comedian and his friends effectively control the Ukrainian government and as they got blamed for their wish to join Europe and Europe is the exact opposite of ‘one nation state – this is ‘a factual issue’, and Kien – BE happy to be corrected.
And as it is NOT true what you wrote and it doesn’t change at all the way a Brutal War Criminal invades a country and kills it’s people –
and PLEASE don’t call that ‘Russia’s actions’ as a lot of the young Russians who were sent into this criminal invasion weren’t even aware of it.
AND
PLEASE! –
be aware that in the case of this ‘invasion’ nearly ALL FREE Western media reports and reported on Russia objectively -(with the HUUUGE exception of US Right-Wing FOXTV and a HUUUGE part of the Internet – which still believes in Putins Propaganda)
So –
NO –
YOU can’t take such Putin Propaganda reporting on Russia and Ukraine at face value. Perhaps we ALL should just take an open mind, be open to the possibility that Putin is NOT even ‘exercising its “responsibility to protect” the people of the Donbas region by invading the rest of the Ukraine.
BTW, I myself don’t like the idea of “responsibility to protect” either. If a Brutal War Criminal uses such… words as some kind of excuse for brutally invading a country and killing it’s innocent people NOBODY in the world can support such and invasion and NOT ‘intervention’ in Ukraine. As trying to redefine the ‘invasion’ into ‘intervention’ is one of the major propagandist efforts of Putin.
(as we ALL very well know)
Or in other words – Kien?
Really?
Who are you? – as what you wrote is such a…. a ‘perfect’ example of Putins Propaganda that it could have been written by somebody I should not name here in order to make sure that my comment will be published?
AND I’m willing to keep a very open (European) mind!
J-D 03.08.22 at 7:52 am
In the kind of conflict which has been taking place in the Donbas region, what typically happens is that there are allegations of atrocities against both sides and that some of these allegations are true and some are false. So the baseline expectation is that some but not all of the stories about atrocities committed against ethnic Russians in that region are true. However, even if it is demonstrated that atrocities have been committed against ethnic Russians in the Donbas region, that is not enough to justify Vladimir Putin’s decision to launch a conflict on a much larger scale, a conflict which is certain to result in much greater suffering and almost certainly more atrocities: and it was his decision, one for which the culpability is his alone, or nearly alone.
This would be true even if it were not the case (but it is the case) that Vladimir Putin is also substantially culpable for the initiation of the Donbas conflict.
TM 03.08.22 at 8:56 am
Folks, Kien is a troll. Don’t start this again please. Put that “trolls welcome at CT” sign down.
TM 03.08.22 at 8:59 am
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manifesto_of_the_Ninety-Three
The “Manifesto of the Ninety-Three” is the name commonly given to a 4 October 1914 proclamation, originally titled in English “To the Civilized World” by “Professors of Germany” that was endorsed by 93 prominent German scientists, scholars and artists, declaring their unequivocal support of German military actions in the early period of World War I. These actions were elsewhere called the Rape of Belgium. The Manifesto galvanized support for the war throughout German schools and universities, but many foreign intellectuals were outraged.
Why do we always think these kinds of things don’t happen any more?
Ingrid Robeyns 03.08.22 at 10:12 am
OK, friends of the blog, Kien has been given enough of a response, and let’s re-rail the discussion. I’d love to hear from those of you who have contacts in Russian academia and how they experience the current situation.
Also, TM@ 12 – thanks for that link, helpful to get reminders. Last night after I put on this post, I was also reminded of the tiny booklet that Thimothy Snyder published when Trump rose to power, and one of his lessons was: “Defend Institutions” – including the press, independent judges, and universities. He was right – and in fact, in the Netherlands the biggest attack on the Universities, media and judges over the last years has come from a far-right wing political party that now is the only one not to condemn Putin’s war…
Matt 03.08.22 at 10:16 am
Does the Russian Orthodox Church sponsor institutions of higher education? I would presume that the church runs seminaries, but is there anything like a Jesuit university?
It does not. Of course, one reason we might thing this was so was that during the Soviet Union, it would have been impossible for the Russian Orthodox Church to do so, and then inertia might have kept things mostly the same. But, that idea is made less plausible by the fact that the Russian Orthodox Church also did not sponsor higher education (or much education at all) in pre-Soviet Russia. It also doesn’t run hospitals, or many other charitable things like the Catholic Church. The services are beautiful (though way too long – the beauty doesn’t last four hours) but otherwise, as I used to joke, the Russian Orthodox Church is a lot like the Catholic Church, if you got rid of all the things that make the Catholic Church good.
Matt 03.08.22 at 10:24 am
(I might add, I’m sad, but maybe not especially surprised, to see the rector of a university where I strongly considered taking a job – the Higher School for Economics, in Moscow – on the list, even though it had a reputation for being “liberal”. I am glad that the university I worked at when I lived in Russia doesn’t seem to be listed (though the medical university in the same city is), though perhaps that’s just an indication that it wasn’t seen as important enough.)
J-D 03.08.22 at 10:39 am
I can’t figure how a general rule saying ‘defend institutions’ can be implemented without including within its scope the rule ‘defend the actions of institutions’, which has to mean ‘defend the actions of the people who run institutions’, which means ‘defend actions of powerful people’, which is a bad rule. How can I implement a rule about defending the press without defending Rupert Murdoch, and why would I want to make that my rule?
If the rule is the more specific ‘defend institutions against attacks on them by the right wing’, I don’t have the same problem with it, but I’d follow that rule not because of who it would have me lining up with (the institutions), but because of who it would have me lining up against (the right wing). I wouldn’t have to worry that following the rule ‘defend institutions against attacks on them by the right wing’ would be likely to have me defending Rupert Murdoch, because he’s hardly likely to be attacked by the right wing.
‘Defend institutions against the people who run them’ might also be an okay rule, since it would then be clear in the case of universities that the idea is not to defend their rectors, presidents, vice-chancellors and so on, but rather to defend against them, which is not equally clear if you just make the rule ‘defend universities’ (likewise, it would clearly mean defending newspapers against their proprietors rather than defending the proprietors).
But then wouldn’t a better rule be ‘defend those who are under attack by the right wing and the upholders of the hierarchy of power’? That would of course include instititutions some of the time, but not only institutions.
I haven’t read Timothy Snyder’s booklet, so I don’t know whether it covers any of these points.
Ingrid Robeyns 03.08.22 at 11:10 am
J-D – I should have explained this better – Snyder shows that in order for democracies not to slide into tyrannies, there are a number of crucial institutions that fulfil certain functions to keep the democracy healthy – including a free press, independent judges, independent universities etc. It is those institutions, who perform that specific role in preventing societies to become despotic, that he argues we should defend. Snyder’s ‘On Tyranny’ is a tiny pamflet, without much depth, but what I like about it is that it doesn’t let anyone of the hook to not stand up for the protection of the institutional preconditions for a free society. The entire pamflet is organised around 20 lessons he has learnt from his research on despotic regimes, and this is only one. But if we focus on the university in which independent, free, thinking is made possible, I think it is the most important one.
nastywoman 03.08.22 at 11:16 am
@’I’d love to hear from those of you who have contacts in Russian academia and how they experience the current situation’.
I don’t have contact in ‘Russian academia’ –
or I have? –
by having two (new) Russian ‘Sisters’ who have contacts in ‘Russian academia’ and the ‘secret of our success’ -(in a very lose matter of speaking) is that we NEVER speak about ‘politics’.
ALL of our communications about Russia –
and now ‘the war’ is done by non verbal signs – look gestures and a lot of exchanged feelings.
Do the other day the daughter of a Russian Academic – herself NOT being an ‘Academic’ cried a lot?
Does that help?
Thomas P 03.08.22 at 2:30 pm
People keep talking about how Putin kills his enemies, but let’s not forget that the largest killing took place during his predecessor, Yeltsin, in the constitutional crisis of 1993 where 150 people were killed as Yeltsin blew up the Russian parliement. As those were mostly communists the West cheered Yeltsin on. That’s how they reverted to a strongman leader.
Trader Joe 03.08.22 at 4:15 pm
“I only hope that the Rectors had to do this because they could not do otherwise – a scenario so bad that, say, they would be put in prison and tortured, or their students endangered and universities put on fire.”
I think this phrase from the OP is likely to run close to the heart of the matter. A particular rector would likely have had the choice of having his name signed to the statement or being fired/tossed in prison and they would have found someone else to put their name to the document – either way, all the universities were likely to be signing up.
Its nice to imagine that put in that position any one of us would have had the courage to be an imprisoned martyr rather than a free lemming that said one probably can’t know their own heart until faced with it.
Point taken on the “freedom of university” but its likely that Russian universities haven’t been ‘free’ in the way we think of it for some time and this example is only an exclamation point. I’d sooner condemn the system that put these rectors in this position than to assume they all signed up of their own free will and truly believe that which they’ve signed against.
Ebenezer Scrooge 03.08.22 at 5:01 pm
I suppose we can key the future sanctions of the universities to their rectors’ tenure.
nastywoman 03.08.22 at 5:02 pm
BUT – as a long time ago I had contact with a lot ‘German academia’ –
who a long time ago was in a very much similar situation as Russian academia right now
and there are a lot of very extensive ‘explanations’ and I even would call them excuse why
‘academia’ in general might post statements of support for Right-Wing Fascistic War Criminals –
I could post all of that –
or excerpts –
as TM kind of hinted – the explanations -(and excuses) might read a lot… similar.
Ray Vinmad 03.08.22 at 6:01 pm
It is very common for people to support any war their nation wages–especially at first.
I don’t mean to excuse it. We should know better and do better.
But we’ve seen this ourselves if we are old enough to remember the US Iraq War..
Of course Russians are in a more intense disinformation space than we are but they may also have prior intellectual commitments and beliefs that shape their willingness to offer support. There are some framings of geopolitics there that create a sense of imminent catastrophe for Russia at the hands of the West. Perhaps people who are amenable to that view find themselves promoted up the university ladder.
Americans are much more free to scrutinize American foreign policy. And many Americans that are admired now, substantially free and too educated not to know what they are doing–such as Samantha Power and many others– did not morally object to that war.
Unfortunately, many people make a calculation that one cannot stop a war by refusal to approve–so why not save your own hide? What’s the point of being a martyr? The consequences of any perceived opposition will be seen as a refusal to show loyalty. Those in power always value loyalty more than moral uprightness so even after you are proven correct in your assessment a war is wrong, you will be penalized for speaking out. Even if you don’t get sacked or punished, the negative outcome for oneself is guaranteed to be substantial even after the power structure changes. Perhaps you know you are condoning injustice. You then tell yourself that someone ambitious will take your place if you speak out, they will go along with things and will be even worse than you are.
That’s always the most grotesque and inexcusable explanation but probably plays as significant a role in Russia as it does in the USA.
People who get to the top in an unjust power structure partly do so because they are comfortable with this kind of self-interested reasoning. An unjust society always has a way to incentivize moral corruption in individuals..
Omega Centuri 03.08.22 at 6:33 pm
I had the impression that Russia had a relatively low degree of censorship until recent times. I think it is highly correlated to -and indeed driven by the level of insecurity felt by Putin. Given that he must escape the consequences of his mega-blunder it’s likely being amped up to level thirteen (on a scale of 0 to 10).
hix 03.08.22 at 8:03 pm
Got no clue how many Russian academics are crazy right wingers, or how many of the non crazy right wingers managed to become rectors. Either way, the outcome all people who are still rectors sign seems overdetermined. If nothing else helps one can still define away all rectors that could not be pressured to sign and also not correctly removed in time . The pressure point is more likely family than students or personal harm. Also seems unlikely the crazy right wingers literarily believe that Ukrainian government consists of drug dependend Nazi nonsense. Russians have learned to be alot more cycnical than that descripiton for a long time, so that declaration should also make little impression. We need a lot more background than the declaration as such to know anything about academics opinions or their willingness to suffer for them.
Alex SL 03.08.22 at 10:01 pm
I find it difficult to agree with statements to the effect of universities and researchers in general aren’t supposed to support the state. It would be more correct to say that they should serve the state, but that they should do so in their role as a neutral, trusted advisor by providing factually correct, reliable research without party-political bias and without taking a prescriptive stance. In other words, the role of the researcher is to say, “if you do A, B will happen” instead of signing letters saying “we should not do A”. (Can still sign those letters while wearing the private citizen hat, but not while wearing the trusted advisor hat.)
That is, of course, impossible under a totalitarian regime that will demand ideological commitment to A.
nastywoman 03.08.22 at 10:32 pm
@
‘We need a lot more background than the declaration as such to know anything about academics opinions or their willingness to suffer for them’.
Not in Germany –
as I mentioned before –
all the data we have from similar – may I call them:
‘I’m f…’
‘Akademiker’ -(or even ‘Rectors’ from Universities) actually are NOT ‘more brave’
than just ‘the folks’.
KT2 03.09.22 at 12:19 am
Ingrid, thanks, yet isn’t – “It is important not to forget our fundamental duty, which is to teach our students to be patriotic and to strive to help their motherland.” – at odds with “The Freedom of the University”?
And perhaps this swayed the Rectors:
“Russian Duma passes law giving 15-year prison sentences for spreading ‘false information’ about military”
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/ukraine-war-latest-russia-law-b2028440.html?src=rss
Or perhaps it’s KT2’s corollary: Sufficiently advanced fear, is indistinguishable from survival.
jwl 03.09.22 at 12:34 am
Thomas P,
A lot of Putin’s enemies seem to turn up dead, like Boris Nemtsov. He’s started multiple wars during his tenure, so we can lay at his feet some responsibility for the tens of thousands killed in the 2nd Chechen War, tens of thousands in the War of the Donbass plus the unfortunate airplane passengers unfortunate enough to pass through the area and paid with their lives, and the yet unknown numbers who are losing their lives in Putin’s current War of Choice in Ukraine. So his total death toll responsibility seems to be larger than Yeltsin’s.
J-D 03.09.22 at 12:43 am
In that case, I would distinguish between defending an institutional function and defending the institution itself. Defending academic freedom is not synonymous with defending universities; defending journalistic freedom is not synonymous with defending newspapers. A commitment to defending genuine journalistic freedom is unlikely to lead to defending Rupert Murdoch in the way that a commitment to defending the press as an institution might do; a commitment to defending academic freedom means defending the actions of university rectors/presidents/vice-chancellors when they are themselves defending academic freedom, but not when they are the ones attacking it.
John Quiggin 03.09.22 at 3:45 am
This is very depressing. Perhaps even more depressing is the thought that came to me immediately “of course, these are university bosses, what else would you expect from them”. If Australia launched an unjust war, with support from both major political parties, I wouldn’t be surprised to see something similar, though I’d hope for some holdouts.
Turning to the real university, as opposed to its managers, things remain depressing. I’ve seen posts from fellow economists, who have been writing to Russian colleagues (in Russian) urging them to oppose the war. Not many responses, and those responses about evenly divided between support and opposition. That’s a bit worse than I would expect, but only a bit.
J-D 03.09.22 at 4:54 am
Ursula Le Guin, The Left Hand Of Darkness (Chapter 5, ‘The Domestication of Hunch’)
I think it’s better not to call it ‘serving the state’, because there’s not much doubt how that slogan would be interpreted and pressed into service by those who run the state.
Should the researcher report, factually, ‘If you conduct your purges and your propaganda in accordance with the guidelines set out in the attached schedule, you will maximise your chances of retaining power indefinitely’?
J-D 03.09.22 at 5:11 am
The key fact about university bosses, as a category, is that they are bosses.
nastywoman 03.09.22 at 6:11 am
@
‘If Australia launched an unjust war, with support from both major political parties, I wouldn’t be surprised to see something similar.
with the difference that the difference would be that such Australian Rectors would do it … ind of… voluntarily? –
and NOT because they would be afraid to lose their Lives.
Right?
And I’m wondering – wouldn’t that be even more… more?
more….?
TM 03.09.22 at 1:25 pm
I have no idea how enthusiastic Russians in general, and Russian academics in particular, are about this war. The fact that Putin is trying to prevent people from even calling it a war suggests that it cannot be very popular. Nevertheless, I brought up the WWI reference as a reminder how smart, educated, “cultivated” people even without totalitarian coercion can become sincere supporters of barbaric war.
You can read in memoirs such as Stefan Zweig’s The World of Yesterday (1942) how lonely and desperate the few intellectuals who rejected the war enthusiasm felt during that time. War euphoria and ultranationalism were rampant even without much state pressure, even among intellectuals whom Zweig admired, and those who refused to take part were mostly ostracized.
TM 03.09.22 at 3:36 pm
Just heard on the radio an interview with Thomas Sanderling (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Sanderling). He just resigned from his post as Chief Conductor of Novosibirsk Philharmonic Orchestra in protest of the war. He’s almost 80 and probably doesn’t face much personal risk but his story is special. His father Kurt Sanderling was a German Jew who was forced to emigrate to the Soviet Union and became principal conductor of the Leningrad Philharmonic in 1942. The orchestra was evacuated to Novosibirsk during the siege and Thomas Sanderling was born there. Both became friends with Shostakovich.
TM 03.09.22 at 6:18 pm
Meanwhile: “More than 13,000 people have been arrested in antiwar protests in Russia since its invasion of Ukraine began on Feb. 24. While the majority of arrests have taken place in Moscow and St. Petersburg, Russia’s two largest cities, protesters have been detained in more than 150 cities in a sign of the pent-up anger about the war that is felt across the country.”
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2022/world/europe/ukraine-maps.html
Wow.
PatinIowa 03.10.22 at 2:50 am
It’s been a depressing day. This didn’t help, but it seems to me to provide some excellent context, including beginning to answer questions about how much to take into account bad actors, including neo-Nazis from the Ukrainian side. (Meeks’s answer is “not much.”)
If we wanted to see how university leadership would respond to the US launching aggressive, unnecessary war against a sovereign country, creating millions of refugees, committing atrocities, and causing an unquantifiable, but huge number of deaths, we have lots and lots and lots of data, right? We could start with March 2003. I don’t recall university presidents saying anything. My guess would be that they hunkered down and hoped the students didn’t get too excited.
https://www.lrb.co.uk/podcasts-and-videos/podcasts/the-lrb-podcast/putin-s-mistake
nastywoman 03.10.22 at 8:53 am
what a welcomed ‘fair’ explanation of the history of ‘the Ukraine Situation’ by Mr. Meek
and listening to it I really wondered –
AGAIN –
how so many of my fellow Americans got fooled by Putins Propaganda into believing that
the Ukraine is ‘Nazi’ -(as an Internet Idiot explained to me the other day)
And perhaps? AFTER the Ukrainian people will finally have defended their country successfully, also the Internet Idiots will understand that even with the utmost Evil
Propaganda a War Criminal Monster can’t hold back any people who want to join
– may I say…
My Beautiful Europe?
(including ‘France’ Prof. B)
SamChevre 03.10.22 at 1:13 pm
AS PatInIowa said above, it’s worth considering what US college administrations would do in a similar situation. I’d suggest, though, that a better test would be public events and public pressure in a direction that they are inclined to agree with, and whether they take a position on the “good, right” answer as an institution, or actually support and sustain the freedom of the university. So I’d say, “If we wanted to see how university leadership would respond to an attempt to make reality better aligned with their ideals, look at the institutional responses to the BLM protests of 2020.”
stostosto 03.10.22 at 2:56 pm
Interesting. I googled “Russian Union of Rectors” and the first link that came up is this text ostensibly posted on March 2nd, i.e. two days prior to the text that Ingrid Robeyns cites. This March 2nd statement is very different from the March 4th statement, to the extent that I wonder. Is it conceivable that the rectors put out their first statement of concern (“Adopted on March 2 at an expanded meeting of the Council of the Russian Union of Rectors”).
The March 2nd statement is hardly an indignant protest against the invasion but its tone is one of deep concern and a commitment to “maintain the unity of the University community and its culture of trust, the high quality and accessibility of higher education, and the atmosphere of mutual assistance and understanding among students and professors.”
One might hypothesize the following sequence of events:
1) The authorities demand a statement in support of the war from the rectors
2) The rectors convene, cobble one togehter, adopt it and put it out on March 2nd
3) The statement is found by the authorities to be insufficiently supportive and they “suggest” another one
4) The statement of March 4th is produced
stostosto 03.10.22 at 2:57 pm
Oops. Forgot the link: https://english.spbstu.ru/media/news/other/statement-by-the-russian-union-of-rectors/
Ingrid Robeyns 03.10.22 at 4:06 pm
Stostosto @ 41/42 – that’s truly interesting! For our readers, I copy/paste the statement from the link @42:
Deeply esteemed colleagues!
For thirty years, the Russian Union of Rectors in accordance with its Charter preserves and develops the traditions of national education in the domestic and international scientific and educational space.
The events of recent days leave no one indifferent. President of Russia V.V. Putin has exhaustively explained the reasons for the difficult but forced decision to conduct a special military operation.
We are keenly aware of what is happening, but we are convinced that we must go through this period with dignity, following the principles of high academic culture and ethics. Throughout its centuries-long history, universities have undergone various trials, always maintaining their high humanistic ideals.
The present situation calls for the consolidation of the university community. The most important thing is to maintain the unity of the University community and its culture of trust, the high quality and accessibility of higher education, and the atmosphere of mutual assistance and understanding among students and professors.
We must support each other and those who need it most — our students. Particular attention should be paid to international students studying in Russia and to Russian students who have encountered unexpected difficulties in a number of foreign countries. Our country’s leading universities are ready to accept Russian students from abroad to study.
We have a clear action plan to help Russian universities steadfastly overcome all difficulties, including those related to the implementation of international projects, the development of scientific infrastructure, and the publication of articles in foreign scientific journals. We must be close to each other, feel each other’s shoulder, then we will overcome all difficulties.
Russian universities should not break their international ties, which have been formed over decades, convincing reliable partners of the need to continue working together to find answers to global challenges and in the name of preserving the world scientific heritage.
The Russian Union of Rectors expresses its confidence that the university corporation will ensure the continuity of educational and scientific processes and will do its best to achieve the national development goals of Russia!
Adopted on March 2 at an expanded meeting of the Council of the Russian Union of Rectors
Ingrid Robeyns 03.10.22 at 4:11 pm
… and I think, stostosto, that you’re speculations @41 are very plausible. But one of the questions then is how strong the pressure is they might be under, and which types of pressure they are under. I read on Twitter that the State University of St. Petersburg is removing from the university those students who have been arrested after [illegal] protests against the war. That’s really a very strong form of repression. My view is still that rectors should try to resist such measures to the extent possible (of course, one possible scneario is that they are putting strong pro-regime talk on their websites but that it is merely to please Putin, but then don’t really take those strong measures; how are we to tell?)
PatinIowa 03.10.22 at 7:56 pm
Sam Chevre @ 40
“If we wanted to see how university leadership would respond to an attempt to make reality better aligned with their ideals, look at the institutional responses to the BLM protests of 2020.”
The university president of my university in 2020 gave the maximum donation to George Bush’s presidential campaign in 2004, according to OpenSecrets. I suspect that tells us what we need to know about his attitude toward US war crimes. And massive incompetence, when it comes to that.
I’d guess that most of the faculty, staff, and students of color at Iowa would say that the ideals of the university leadership aligned far more closely with the Iraq War than they do with BLM, especially BLM’s “incivility.” I would say the same.
At the end of the day, I would say university leaders’ predominant position is terror that the right-wing nitwits in the state legislature will pay attention to what the faculty and students (less so the staff) are up to. (I live in Iowa. Think Steve King.)
I wouldn’t bet a nickel on their taking an adversarial position if things were as bad as they are in Russia. They have a tough enough time with worrying about their pet projects’ funding.
In all honesty, I don’t know what I or anybody would do in the face of extreme Russian threats. I know what I’d hope to do. Still, the boxers’ dictum seems relevant, “Everybody has a plan until they get punched the face.”
EWI 03.11.22 at 5:30 pm
I only hope that the Rectors had to do this because they could not do otherwise – a scenario so bad that, say, they would be put in prison and tortured, or their students endangered and universities put on fire.
Having seen the Western media and government response, and the pressure being applied to universities who haven’t fallen in line with the war fever, I can now well understand how the simple phrase ‘plucky little Belgium’ was used to send so many to their deaths in WWI.
nastywoman 03.12.22 at 5:36 am
but that can’t be
THE END
(of this thread)
‘Having seen the Western media and government response, and the pressure being applied to universities who haven’t fallen in line with the war fever, I can now well understand how the simple phrase ‘plucky little Belgium’ was used to send so many to their deaths in WWI’.
As nearly the Entire Western Media -(with the exception of a few Right-Wing Racist Science Denying FOXes) are fighting the War Fever of the Brutal War Criminal Monster.
Right?
Everybody!
EWI 03.12.22 at 12:00 pm
“As nearly the Entire Western Media -(with the exception of a few Right-Wing Racist Science Denying FOXes) are fighting the War Fever of the Brutal War Criminal Monster.
Right?
Everybody!”
You appear to be highly – what’s the phrase I’m looking for? – oh, ‘confused’.
Sean 03.13.22 at 3:46 am
@nastywoman: The response of the overseas left to this war also helps me to understand how many people in 1938-1948 could not believe stories about German atrocities, because they had been fooled by stories about German atrocities in 1914 and the news coming out of Central Europe seemed so outlandish.
But I agree that many soft people are speaking tough talk in the US and UK right now, and that just because someone was right about Putin does not mean they are right about what to do next.
Mikhail Shubin 03.13.22 at 8:54 pm
I think it is important to mention here that 7000+ Russian scientists (including myself) signed an open letter agains the war. Unfortunately, the letter was removed by censorship, but you can found its traces, eg here
https://www.chemistryworld.com/news/more-than-600-russian-scientists-sign-open-letter-against-war-with-ukraine/4015292.article
It is also important to note that university rectors rather belong to the ruling bureaucracy class rather than academia. Russia’s Academy of Sciences’ Reform of 2013-2018 ensured that.
Ingrid Robeyns 03.14.22 at 9:21 am
Mikhail @50 – thanks so much for that information. That’s very encouraging to read – and also presumably very brave from all those scholars and scientists to speak out against the war (all I read is that those who do so, are at risk and high probability to be detained). Thanks to all 7000 who made the decision to sign nevertheless!
For those of us with no connections to Russian academia (like me), it’s also very helfpul to know about where the university rectors come from; it’s very unfortunate that Russian academics are ruled by bureaucrats, rather than genuine academics.
TM 03.14.22 at 10:19 am
We should pay more attention to those who speak out against the war than to cowardly university administrators. That probably tens of thousands of people in Russia have risked arrest for protesting is quite amazing. A number of public intellectuals have also spoken out, in some cases resigned from positions (e. g. 36). (Some oligarchs have also demanded to end the war, let’s take …) I wonder whether somebody tracks these protests? I also wonder @Mikhail Shubin whether any of the signatories have already suffered consequences?
Re 46 It’s not clear whether EWI is alleging here that “pressure being applied to universities who haven’t fallen in line with the war fever” refers to Western governments and universities? If yes, this sounds like another troll. Or is there any evidence of “war fever” and “pressure” at universities outside Russia?
nastywoman 03.14.22 at 1:31 pm
@EWI
‘You appear to be highly – what’s the phrase I’m looking for? – oh, ‘confused’.
As nearly the Entire Western Media -(with the exception of a few Right-Wing Racist Science Denying FOXes) are fighting the War Fever of the Brutal War Criminal Monster
PUTIN –
as we are STILL talking about ‘PUTIN’
Right?
and just a very few Right-Wing Racist Science Denying FOXes try to divert and deflect to ‘something completely different’ –
You appear to be highly – what’s the phrase I’m looking for? – oh, ‘confused’.
PEACE
(out!)
Ingrid Robeyns 03.14.22 at 1:32 pm
TM @ 52 – yes, I agree that we should pay more attention to those who speak up against the war, and more in general against all those within Russia who are trying to defend basic civic liberties (such as the right to protest) and human rights. I’m in the process of pulling together information for a post on how we can help Russians who speak up for free press and human rights, and (in the current circumstances) against the war.
oldster 03.14.22 at 7:39 pm
“It is also important to note that university rectors rather belong to the ruling bureaucracy class rather than academia. Russia’s Academy of Sciences’ Reform of 2013-2018 ensured that.”
I wish I could say that it is different in the US, but the people in control of the state university systems here are now all party-appointed apparatchiks whose allegiance is to the Governor rather than to knowledge. And the situation at the private universities is far too similar — the presidents and provosts who run big private universities are not political appointees, but they are staunch members of the oligarchic donor-class with whom they wine, dine, and socialize.
I don’t want to say “it’s just the same here!,” which could minimize how bad it is in Russia. But I also don’t think we have any grounds for complacency, much less moral superiority, when it comes to the upper administration of US universities.
J-D 03.14.22 at 11:22 pm
There may be exceptions in the case of small institutions, but in any large institution (including academic institutions) the people who run the institution, regardless of their previous background, almost inevitably become primarily bureaucrats/administrators and behave as such. It’s their job. There’s no inevitability about their performing their bureaucratic/administrative functions in a way which is inimical to the goals preferred by the rest of the people in the institution or by people outside the institution who deal with it; they can perform their functions in a supportive and positively valuable way; but bureaucratic/administrative functions are the ones they are there to perform. A university doesn’t need a rector (or president, or vice-chancellor) to perform academic functions, because the academic staff are already there to perform those; the head of the institution is there for a different purpose.
EWI 03.15.22 at 10:09 am
TM @ 52
‘Re 46 It’s not clear whether EWI is alleging here that “pressure being applied to universities who haven’t fallen in line with the war fever” refers to Western governments and universities? If yes, this sounds like another troll. Or is there any evidence of “war fever” and “pressure” at universities outside Russia?’
Yes there is. There’s been pressure applied in recent years on Irish universities to conduct an academic boycott against links with Russia and China (curiously, no such concerns ever gets applied to the more numerous, well-funded and long-running British ‘soft power’ initiatives here, many with roots in the Troubles and pushing revisionism and southern loyalism).
As to your scurrilous ad hominem about ‘another troll’, I’ve been commenting on here since the mid-2000s, as the mods will verify.
oldster 03.15.22 at 11:37 am
“…bureaucratic/administrative functions are the ones they are there to perform…”
JD, that’s a little too bloodless and tautological.
Granted that administrators are hired to administer, there is still a question of how they conceive the ultimate goal of their organization.
When academics lead universities, they are more likely to remember that the goal of the university is the growth of knowledge, not the growth of the endowment or the football coach’s salary.
When people from corporate backgrounds run universities, their training leads them to assume that the end product must be an increase in shareholder value, and failing an exact analogue, they attempt to minimize costs per student and maximize extraneous values like US News ratings or endowments.
When political appointees administer, they assume that the purpose of a university is to propagandize for their party and against the other party.
Treating all of these activities as “bureaucratic functions” flattens the most important distinctions.
J-D 03.16.22 at 1:01 am
I observed previously that
It is not the case that the way they perform their functions will be determined simply by their previous backgrounds. Their previous backgrounds will have some effect (how could they not?) but so will other factors, including the new contexts they find themselves in when they take on their new (senior administrative) roles. Sometimes people with no previous academic background will take on a new sympathy with the academic perspective as a result of being exposed to it in a way they’ve never previously been; sometimes people with an extensive previous academic background will nevertheless find themselves shifting away from an academic perspective as a result of new (non-academic) contacts and new (non-academic) demands taking up more of their time and attention.
There’s a plausible argument that on balance an academic background is an advantage for somebody who is going to run a university; but it’s a mistake to suppose that it’s guaranteed to outweigh other factors.
The proposition could be tested by asking academics working in universities which are run by people with extensive academic backgrounds what they think about the way those universities are run. I’m reasonably confident you’d get a lot of complaints about senior administrators, despite their academic backgrounds, driving bureaucratisation and administrative creep and losing sight of universities’ academic purposes–much like senior administrators who don’t have academic backgrounds.
TM 03.16.22 at 8:35 am
EWI 57: Where is the “war fever” at universities outside Russia and where is the “pressure being applied to universities who haven’t fallen in line with the war fever”?
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