[MaFLa] Fwd: Appeal Concerning the Latest Events in Ukraine and in Kharkiv

[Kristof Fenyvesi]

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Arvydas Grišinas <a.grisinas at gmail.com>


Dear friends,
I am sending you the text of the appeal to the world community of
intellectuals by the Kharkiv Historico-Philological Society. Please
circulate it among your contacts.

Serhii Vakulenko

Шановні друзі,

надсилаю Вам текст відозви Харківського історико-філологічного
товариства до світової інтелектуальної спільноти англійською мовою для
поширення серед Ваших контактів.

Сергій Вакуленко


APPEAL CONCERNING THE LATEST EVENTS
IN UKRAINE AND IN KHARKIV
 To all scholars of the world, learned societies,
university staff, men of letters and arts
 The Kharkiv Historico-Philological Society, founded in 1886 by the
leading professors of the University of Kharkiv, addresses the
following message to the scholarly community of the world.

On the 1st of March 2014, a violent clash was staged in Kharkiv
between the supporters of Ukraine's European integration and the
so-called ralliers "for stability and restoration of order". The
supporters of the Maidan for Europe, numbering a little over 100, most
of them university freshmen, were peacefully located in the premises
of the Provincial Administration to which they had been invited on the
23rd of February by the Deputy Governor Vasyl Khoma. They were
demanding the appointment of a new Governor instead of the deeply
compromised Mykhailo Dobkin, a long-time henchman of the ousted
President Yanukovych.

That same Dobkin, together with his accomplice Hennadii Kernes, the
Mayor of Kharkiv (a former criminal convict, backed by Yanukovych's
Party of Ukraine's Regions) orchestrated a pro-Russian rally to which
about two thousand participants from the nearby Russian city of
Belgorod were brought across the border. To avoid any clashes, the
Co-ordinative Council of the Maidan for Europe cancelled its own
rally, previously summoned at the same time and place. After the end
of the pro-Russian rally a large group of well-trained fighters, armed
with bats, compliance weapons and tear-gas attacked the building of
the Provincial Administration and severely beat its defenders,
throwing them afterwards in the midst of the enraged pro-Russian (and
largely imported from Russia) crowd striking and kicking them. The
police, corrupted by the Mayor Kernes, did not intervene.

Among the injured defenders of the Provincial Administration were
Serhii Zhadan, a writer of international renown, and one of the
members of our Society Valerii Romanovskyi, PhD, Assistant Professor
in the Ukrainian Academy of Culture in Kharkiv.

Russian official propaganda and media try to portray the supporters of
democracy and freedom in Ukraine as nationalist nazi-like radicals and
extremists that menace the existence of the Russian-speaking
community. This Goebbelsian rhetoric has nothing to do with the
Ukrainian reality. The nazi tendencies can rather be observed on the
other side. Suffice it to say that the person who put the Russian flag
on the top of the building of Provincial Administration of the
Ukrainian city of Kharkiv, Mika Ronkainen, is a Russian citizen and a
Moscow dweller, exhibiting his overt admiration for Adolf Hitler on
the web.

There is sufficient evidence to affirm that this was a part of the
aggression against Ukraine which is now carried out on the order of
the Russian President Vladimir Putin.
In this connection, we confidently declare that the pretext of
defending the rights of Russian-speaking population in Ukraine, used
by the Russian propaganda, is a pure invention. The Russian language
has always been freely used in the Ukrainian media, schools and
universities, and everyday life. Ukraine has one of the best
legislations in the world ensuring the rights of ethnic minorities,
including state-run schools using not only Russian, but also Crimean
Tatar, Hungarian, Polish, Rumanian as languages of education. In many
areas, including Kharkiv, it is the Ukrainian language that indeed
needs protection and support.

The attempts to play the ethnic and linguistic card in order to
destabilize the situation in Ukraine come from abroad. During the 22
years of independence, Ukraine has learnt to handle its ethnic and
linguistic problems in a responsible way. Unlike many other
post-Soviet states, it has never had conflicts on ethnic grounds. In
case of need, we solve all our problems by means of open discussion
resulting in a viable compromise. No intervention from outside is
necessary.

We launch an appeal to the world scholarly community to help
promulgate truthful information concerning the real state of affairs
in Ukraine. Those of you who can address the general public through
all kinds of media, please do it as soon as possible. The
disinformation campaign engineered by the Kremlin must be thwarted. We
want the world to know the truth. The savage rampage, inspired from
Russia, that took place in Kharkiv last Saturday is part of it.

On behalf of the whole Society
 President
       Professor Ihor Mykhailyn, PhD, DLitt.
 Permanent Secretary
Assistant Professor Serhii Vakulenko, PhD
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