Language will lead away from Kyiv

The appointment of Dmitry Tabachnik as the Minister of Education of Ukraine again split the country into two irreconcilable camps

In the record book of the new Ukrainian Minister of Education and Science, Dmitry Tabachnik, there are solid fives. The subjects, however, are a little strange: Ukrainophobia, political clowning, bribery, the theory of applied Ukrainian division and falsification of history. And there are too many signatures of teachers: about three hundred. And the record book is unformatted: one and a half meters in length. But it says that education was received in several cities at once: Lviv, Ternopil, Lutsk, Kirovohrad and Kyiv.

The action “Minister's record” was invented by students from these cities in order to protest against the appointment of Dmitry Tabachnik to the post of minister in the new government of President Viktor Yanukovych. They glued sheets of drawing paper, attached a photo of the minister, entered a list of subjects in which, in their opinion, he could become an excellent student, and took her around the country to collect signatures. Last Wednesday, the “record book” was brought to Kyiv. The activists wanted to give it to Tabachnik personally, but when they arrived at the building of the Ministry of Education, they found their ideological opponents there - a mass rally in his defense was under the minister's windows. Opponents and supporters of Tabachnik held a few meetings - they were separated from each other by a police cordon - and went home.

It seemed that after the fight between Viktor Yanukovych and Yulia Tymoshenko, it would not be possible to split Ukraine into two even more irreconcilable camps, but Dmitry Tabachnik succeeded. He received the ministerial portfolio on March 11 and immediately became the most discussed person in the Ukrainian press. Rallies for his resignation and in his defense do not stop for a day, virtual battles of his opponents and fans from the Internet spill over into the streets of Ukrainian cities, becoming real fights, and recently it came to shooting. True, they shot with rubber bullets, and only at a scarecrow depicting the minister, but he himself is already receiving text messages with threats.

Last Tuesday, supporters of Tabachnyk from the Party of Regions and their coalition partners for the first time measured their strength in the Rada with "anti-tobacco" - parts of the pro-Yushchenko NU-NS faction and the bloc of former Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko. Vyacheslav Kirilenko, MP from NU-NS, initiated a vote on the resignation of the minister. The idea failed - only 202 deputies out of 424 present voted for the resignation, but Kirilenko has already filed an application for registration of a new draft on the minister's resignation. Ukrainian political scientist Volodymyr Fesenko is confident that the newly minted opposition will certainly continue to launch an information and political campaign against the Minister of Regions. “The Tabachnyk case is the first touchstone for the ruling coalition for them,” the expert says.

Tabachnik himself, meanwhile, insists that he is not going to leave anywhere. The 46-year-old native of Kiev has a lot of experience in government: a historian by education, he worked as the head of the administration of President Leonid Kuchma, was a member of the National Security and Defense Council, and was a member of the Constitutional Commission. In the first premiership of Viktor Yanukovych, he was responsible for the humanitarian and social spheres. An ambiguous attitude among fellow citizens, especially in the west of the country, Tabachnik evokes with his political and ideological position. He is a consistent fighter for the status of the Russian language, stands for the federalization of Ukraine and friendship with Russia. The minister is an ardent opponent of ex-president Viktor Yushchenko and all his political initiatives: from the idea of ​​joining NATO to the rehabilitation of the OUN-UPA and the glorification of Stepan Bandera.

Tabachnik also regularly writes books and articles, and they always make a lot of noise. The most famous one - “Ukrainian Duck Soup” - was dedicated by the author to “a serious illness of the Ukrainian supreme power, the illness of nationalism and Russophobia”. The sharpest controversy was caused by his statement about the Galicians - residents of western Ukraine. “The Galicians have practically nothing in common with the people of Great Ukraine, either mentally, or confessively, or linguistically, or politically,” he wrote in the article “From Ribbentrop to Maidan.” We have different enemies and different allies. Moreover, our allies and even brothers are their enemies, and their “heroes” (Bandera, Shukhevych) for us are murderers, traitors and accomplices of the Nazi executioners.”

Announcing a campaign against the new minister, Yulia Tymoshenko's fellow party members urged not to allow "a frank Ukrainophobe with Ukrainian-hating views on positions in the government, on which the upbringing, education and formation of the spirituality of Ukrainian youth directly depend." By the way, Tabachnik has already promised to deal with textbooks on the history of Ukraine rewritten during Yushchenko's presidency and announced a language reform in education. Soon it will be possible to study in Russian in the west of the country, and take tests in almost seven languages.

Anatoly Pikul, a 25-year-old Kiev graduate student, sees Tabachnyk's endeavors as a threat to Ukrainian identity and statehood. He has only been participating in the “Anti-Smoking Movement” for only three weeks - the one that collected signatures in the record book - but he has already suffered for his beliefs. On the day when Tabachnik met at Shevchenko University with the rectors of Ukrainian universities - most of them support him, at least officially - Pikul was handing out leaflets for the minister's resignation nearby.

He managed to distribute no more than four, as the police approached him and took him to the police station. He spent about two hours there until a group led by a deputy from the NU-NS, 27-year-old Lesya Orobets, came to rescue him, whom the graduate student notified about his detention on Twitter . Opposition politicians are very active in supporting the student protests, although they claim they are not leading them.

Pikul says that the fight against Tabachnyk is “a matter of honor” for him - “I am offended for future generations of Ukrainians” - and that, contrary to the words of the minister, he did not receive money from anyone for participating in actions. Meanwhile, the minister himself said that he would not leave the cabinet even if the students went on a hunger strike. However, they are not going to give up food yet, preferring more “creative” actions: either they will cover the garbage cans with photographs of the minister, or they will seal their mouths with plasters with the inscription “Get out of the Tabachnik!”. Lviv students who hit the effigy of the minister with a gun were given pies as a prize. And the Sumy activists of right-wing youth organizations sent Tabachnik's effigy to Moscow altogether - by train No. 117, in a reserved seat car, in the upper place. At the departure, the march "Farewell of the Slav" sounded. Nothing is known about the further fate of the effigy.