Russian higher education: the dreadful sound of silence

I was born in Lutsk, Ukraine. My family is there now. Ukraine was also where I spent the first 20 years of my life. I spent the next 10 in Russia, seven of them helping higher education institutions the country inherited from the Soviet times transform into bona fide universities: leading a group of analysts and researchers at the SKOLKOVO School of Management, taking part in strategy sessions as an expert, designing training programmes for university managers, as well as the MA in Experimental Higher Education programme, and, finally, speaking and writing about the future of higher education extensively.

I cited Magna Charta Universitatum, spoke of autonomy and academic freedom, internationalisation and liberal arts education and the roles and responsibilities of universities in society.

We felt the institutions starting to wake up. Liberal arts education was reappearing in Russia, like elsewhere on the continent. Honest straightforward dialogue between university leaders was being normalised. Institutional agency was forming.

Last November, I was delivering a lecture and the questions and comments I got made me think: “Wow. We are getting somewhere!”

Rising threats

But we also felt other forces stirring. In Russia, guarantees of academic freedom for students and professors have always been unreliable at best. Being a university leader has always been downright dangerous. Forging a case, arresting and replacing a rector or a vice-rector can be done in under 24 hours.

Last year saw a rising number of threats. A prominent sociologist and an education scholar left Russia: the former after search warrants were issued and his colleagues were arrested, the latter after an insider warning. Michael Fries, a professor at the faculty of liberal arts and sciences, St Petersburg State University, was deported from Russia because he oversaw academic exchanges with Bard College, a liberal arts institution in the United States which was deemed “an undesirable organisation”.

Liberal arts and sciences, which almost got to have their own FSES (Federal State Education Standard – a standard which regulates requirements for study programmes), became a dangerous endeavour.

Shaninka (Moscow School of Social and Economic Sciences, one of the most free-spirited universities) was taking hit after hit. Its accreditation was revoked in 2018 and reinstated in 2020 after dedicated ministrations from the university and its friends. But in 2021, Sergey Zuev, the rector, was arrested for dubious reasons. The list goes on.

We kept a close, anxious eye on this and treaded carefully, fighting as many demons as we could. Previously, we had won on more than one occasion. The quality assurance system had become significantly more conducive to creativity. The advocacy for liberal arts education (in spirit and paradigm, if not in name) was strong. We were hoping that fledgling university associations, forming state-wide, would strengthen individual institutions.

International collaboration was on and off the state’s priorities, but top institutions themselves could not imagine not collaborating any more. Fear was there, but so was hope. The forces of darkness would become stronger or weaker, depending on the general climate, but we kept inching forward.

Three weeks ago, mere days before the war started, a senior state official offered to review the regulations for export control in science to make foreign scholars feel more welcome and to make collaborations easier. He didn’t know about what was coming.

The new state rhetoric

What came was an aggression, a crime against humanity, a crime against universities, knowledge, science, collaboration and trust.

Universities in Ukraine are being bombed: Kharkiv National University, modelled after the Humboldtian ideal in the 19th century, was severely damaged by a blast and it is but one case among many.

Universities in Russia are being fascistised, thrown into the dystopia where one walks between threats and the absurd.

The latter is worse: there are two realities, the one you believe in and the one constructed by the new state rhetoric. You must either abstain from calling the war “the war” or face a punishment with up to 15 years in prison.

Facebook and Twitter have been blocked. Liberal media, such as Echo of Moscow, Dozhd or Meduza are off print and air. There are rumours of shutting down the external internet. They are not unfounded.

A friend commented: if previously walking on thin ice was a part of the job of a top manager at Russian universities, now it is the job. Speak the truth and you are done. You will become a cautionary tale. More importantly, you will not be able to protect anyone.

Don’t speak the truth, and you are also done, spiritually. This is the reason behind the divide you see.

Hundreds of letters condemning the war, with thousands of signatories from members of the higher education community (graduates, students and faculty of top universities, scientists and science journalists as well as disciplinary academic communities: anthropologists and ethnologists, mathematicians, instructional designers and many others), and yet there are no official institutional positions of the same nature.

Statements from rectors (such as from the Russian Union of Rectors) and universities in support of the “special operation” have, however, been released. These are meant for a domestic audience. Internationally, Russian universities are silent.

The sound of silence is dreadful. If the communication lines with Russian universities are cut, it will become harrowing.

Propaganda and pressure are already undoing universities, turning them into something else entirely. Russian universities, state-funded and state-regulated institutions, have never had a chance to become fully autonomous. This is not only their predicament. It is notable that there has only been one letter of protest, signed by five solitary academics, from China.

We must do everything in our power to ensure that this never happens to a higher education system again. Constitutional protection of university autonomy, internationalisation, diversified funding can work in democratic states, but they are not enough to safeguard universities against totalitarianism. We must figure out what is.

Dara Melnyk is an independent consultant.