Born in America to Ukrainian immigrants, I explore the meaning of growing up and living as a Ukrainian in the US and Europe, yet never having been to Ukraine. It's an interesting conundrum.
Why were 2400 children taken from Ukraine to 13 centres across Belarus? Why were some 19,000 taken from Russian-occupied territories? Some of the children as old as 17 are going to remember this. Some of the younger ones may assimilate but they too may remember losing their loved ones.
Yale University has published this research and specialists are developing a plan to prosecute those responsible in international criminal courts. I hope I live long enough to see this through.
Meanwhile, three Ukrainian teenage girls who developed apps for children who have fled the war have been awarded this year’s International Children’s Peace Prize at a ceremony in London.
Today’s The Life Academic examines the mental toll war is taking on Ukrainian academics.
THE LIFE ACADEMIC
Working in higher education is a struggle even in the best of times. With massive workloads, constant pressure to publish, and a frustrating lack of administrative support, it’s no wonder academic staff around the world are grappling with burnout.
For academic staff in Ukraine, where residents have been wrestling with the impacts of full-scale war for nearly two years, professional burnout seems inevitable. A recent study published in Scientific Reports found soaring rates of emotional exhaustion, depersonalization, and feelings of professional inadequacy among faculty and staff at Ukrainian universities, all of which have increased as the conflict drags on.
Some of these issues are universal. In their latest edition of the International Classification of Diseases, The World Health Organization describes professional burnout as both a “syndrome” and an “occupational phenomenon,” placing it somewhere between the status of workplace hazard and medical disease. Symptoms include exhaustion, indifferent or negative feelings toward one’s job, and reduced productivity. Though mainly regarded as a psychological condition, chronic work-related stress can disrupt sleep, mess with the immune system, and even increase the risk of heart attack. Large-scale crisis events, such as the global COVID-19 pandemic, can exacerbate burnout by increasing overall stress.
War may be an even greater stressor. As military operations continue to devastate Ukraine, the nation’s academic staff face constant threats to their work and personal safety. The Russian occupation has forced many researchers to flee, with some finding refuge at universities in other countries. Others have remained in Ukraine and kept on working, usually without reliable internet access and often in the face of missile attacks.
Officials at national and institutional levels must take immediate action to improve the mental health of academic staff, the authors of the new study say. This will no doubt be an uphill battle, as employees struggle to avoid burnout even in nations not at war. Studies show that, when academics attempt to maintain a healthy “work-life balance,” they actually end up increasing their mental load. In the context of full-scale war, when healthcare workers are stretched thin and experiencing burnout themselves due to trauma, many typical “self-care” strategies simply aren’t feasible. “You can't tell someone to go see a therapist when there are no new therapists taking patients,” one physician working in Ukraine told MedPage Today.
But although the Scientific Reports study paints a sobering picture of the state of higher education in Ukraine, the authors also seek to highlight the incredible courage, perseverance, and ingenuity of the nation’s academics, who continue to perform their duties even in the face of seemingly insurmountable obstacles. “Despite these extraordinary circumstances,” the authors write, “universities and academic staff persist in fulfilling their main mission of delivering high-quality, modern education, steadfastly holding their line.”
In a talk by Dr Edmund Gilbert, Royal College of Surgeons of Ireland, titled 'The Irish DNA Atlas: providing a map of Irish genetics in and out of Ireland', he presented the Irish genetic pre-history. In Neolithic period, DNA evidence shows that the settlers arrived from the Middle East. In the bronze era, the DNA brought new ancestry predominantly of settlers from the Eurasian Steppes, and that ancestry forms the basis of modern Irish genetic makeup.
I asked the following questions:
I believe you said that the DNA of the modern Irish genome originated in Eastern Europe -- the Eurasian Steppes. Is that the area that would now be Ukraine?
Would you now be looking at the shared features of the current Ukrainian migrant population and the ancient Irish DNA?
But they didn't answer questions being asked online. Very interesting.
IMIRCE: MIGRATION & IRELAND THROUGH TIME
Presented by the National Monuments Service of the Department of Housing, Local Government and Heritage and organised by Archaeology Ireland
By WORDWELL GROUP
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Date and time
Sat, 7 Oct 2023 08:30 - 16:45 IST
Location
The Printworks Event and Exhibition Centre
Dublin Castle Dame Street 2 Dublin 2
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Refunds up to 7 days before event
About this event
•8 hours 15 minutes
•Mobile eTicket
Imirce: migration and Ireland through time
From the voyages of the first Mesolithic colonisers to the present day, the island of Ireland has seen many new arrivals coming for many different reasons. Archaeology can provide unique insights into how these people adapted to their new surroundings. Imirce: migration and Ireland through time will investigate how identities were negotiated within these new contexts.
Imirce—migration, the overall theme of this programme—looks at the evidence for arrival in Ireland, alongside examples of Irish arrivals elsewhere, as a means of exploring and revealing the multiplicity of identities that have contributed—and continue to contribute—to Irish society through time. This evidence ranges from the growing body of ancient DNA evidence that is beginning to answer some lingering questions about Irish prehistoric populations to the legacy of new or introduced artefacts, burial or settlement types that give us some insight into the lives of these new arrivals. Equally, such evidence has an important role in telling us about Ireland’s connections with the wider world. During the ages of exploration, colonisation and transplantations, ships crossed oceans to trade, raid or transport. Irish people were on board. The emigrations of the nineteenth century following the devastation of the Famine witnessed a population shift from Ireland to distant lands, where broader connections were forged and where the Irish diaspora expressed their identities in different contexts and emerging new communities.
Me, circa 1959, greeting the Ukrainian National Football Team in the US. My favorite player was Noha (a name meaning 'leg') standing to my right.
My father, Marian Korzeniowski, was coach of the Ukrainian National Football Team in the US, Philadelphia to be exact, in the late 1950s, early '60s. Theirs was a powerful team that traveled the country and occasionally the world to play 'футбол' or 'копаний мяч' or kick ball as my father called it. They were considered the best in America, not that soccer was very big in America at the time.
Tato recruited players from all over the world, including Brazil, which meant he had to learn all their languages. My father told me he spoke 13 languages. I know he spoke Ukrainian, Polish, German, Austrian, Italian, Chech, Slovakian, Portuguese and English. I don't know what the others were, perhaps Spanish and Russian among them.
It was the Ukrainian diaspora's way of kicking it to the Soviets who kept them from returning home after the war. They made their way the only way they knew, by being the best, the strongest, the most fit and ready to defend their honour, their liberty and their freedom.
I am going through such revelations with the Ukrainians in my circle here. The Russian speakers don't believe that I do not understand Russian because everyone in Ukraine understands both languages. They think I am pretending to make a point. So many words the Ukrainian-speakers use are Russian without them knowing it. They have very little understanding of Ukrainian history before the Soviet Union. Fortunately, I kept all my books from Uki school, and I am sharing my Encyclopedia for Young People so they can study pre-soviet history. It includes history, culture, archeology, anthropology, sociology, literature and more. Such a fascinating and heart-breaking journey. We have about 60,000 displaced Ukrainians in Ireland, none of whom wanted to leave their country, all of whom are grateful to be welcomed here.
I feel for the youth of Ukraine. But what Russia doesn't understand is that they've cemented the resolve of the Ukrainian people to relearn what it means to be Ukrainian and to maintain freedom and sovereignty at all cost. The people born under the Soviets were not permitted to speak their language or practice their religion. They were not taught their own history, only some fabrication of untruths. They lived their lives in relative harmony with their reality.
They are now searching out and relearning all the things the Soviets tried to stamp out. We in the diaspora are the keepers of the culture. In my classes, I am not just teaching English to Ukrainians, I am sharing what I learned about Ukrainian history and culture, and I am teaching what I know about Ireland. The past, the present and the future carry equal weight. And the youngest of them are very hopeful. They are determined to create a strong Ukraine for their future. It is their duty.
I haven't written in some time and so much has happened. I have started teaching English to Ukrainians in Newport on Tuesdays and Westport on Thursdays. It's interesting that the Russian speakers do not believe that I cannot understand Russian. They have, however, started to respect that I do not wish to understand Russian, even though I really cannot understand most of it. What is also interesting, is that the Ukrainian language has evolved so differently in Ukraine. They use many more Russian words, like Da instead of Tak, and ponimayu instead of rosumiyu, and harasho instead of dobre.
So I asked ChatGPT, the AI chat box what the difference is between Russian and Ukrainian. I have often told people they have different letters in their alphabets to start. Russian has also many more gutteral and Asian sounds as it had a lot of Far Eastern influence. Here's what AI had to say.
"Russian and Ukrainian are two closely related Slavic languages that are spoken in Eastern Europe. They are both members of the East Slavic subgroup of the Slavic languages and are therefore closely related to each other, with a high degree of mutual intelligibility. However, they are distinct languages and there are some important differences between them.
One of the main differences between Russian and Ukrainian is the alphabet that they use. Russian uses the Cyrillic alphabet, which is an alphabet of 33 letters that was developed in the 9th century based on the Greek alphabet. Ukrainian, on the other hand, uses the Cyrillic alphabet, but it also includes some additional letters to represent sounds that are specific to Ukrainian.
Another important difference between Russian and Ukrainian is their vocabulary. Although the two languages share a common Slavic root, they have developed a number of distinct words and phrases over the centuries. For example, Ukrainian tends to use more Ukrainian-derived words, while Russian tends to use more Russian-derived words.
There are also some differences in pronunciation and grammar between Russian and Ukrainian. Ukrainian tends to have a more complex grammar, with more cases and verb forms, and it also tends to use more nasal vowel sounds. Russian, on the other hand, has a simpler grammar and tends to use more palatalized consonants.
Overall, while Russian and Ukrainian are closely related languages, they are distinct and have their own unique characteristics and features. It is important to recognize and respect these differences, and to use the appropriate language when communicating with speakers of Russian or Ukrainian."
The modern Russian alphabet consists of 33 letters: twenty consonants (⟨б⟩, ⟨в⟩, ⟨г⟩, ⟨д⟩, ⟨ж⟩, ⟨з⟩, ⟨к⟩, ⟨л⟩, ⟨м⟩, ⟨н⟩, ⟨п⟩, ⟨р⟩, ⟨с⟩, ⟨т⟩, ⟨ф⟩, ⟨х⟩, ⟨ц⟩, ⟨ч⟩, ⟨ш⟩, ⟨щ⟩), ten vowels (⟨а⟩, ⟨е⟩, ⟨ё⟩, ⟨и⟩, ⟨о⟩, ⟨у⟩, ⟨ы⟩, ⟨э⟩, ⟨ю⟩, ⟨я⟩), a semivowel / consonant (⟨й⟩), and two modifier letters or "signs" (⟨ь⟩, ⟨ъ⟩) that alter the pronunciation of a preceding consonant or a following vowel.
In the modern Ukrainian alphabet, twenty letters represent consonants (б,в, г, ґ, д, ж, з, к, л, м, н, п, р, с, т, ф, х, ц, ч, ш, щ), ten vowels (а, е, є, и, і, ї, о, у, ю, я), and one semivowel (й/yot). The soft sign (ь), which appears only after consonants, indicates that the preceding consonant is soft (palatalized).
Note: When I responded to what I thought was an error in the AI answer, "I would argue that it is Russian that has additional letters to represent sounds that are specific to Russian rather than the other way around. Otherwise, it's pretty accurate." here's what it said:
Thank you for your feedback. You are correct that I made a mistake in my previous response. Ukrainian uses the Cyrillic alphabet, but it includes some additional letters to represent sounds that are specific to Ukrainian. Russian, on the other hand, uses the standard Cyrillic alphabet, which consists of 33 letters. I apologize for the error in my previous response. Thank you for bringing it to my attention.
Russian and Ukrainian, at first glance, look very similar. This is not so. In reality, they have more differences than similarities. In fact, Ukrainian does not use the letters Ёё, Ъъ, Ыы, Ээ, but does have Ґґ, Єє, Іі, Її, which are not present in Russian.
The following table visually shows how much closer the basic vocabulary of Modern Ukrainian is to other Eastern European languages and how far it is from Russian.
Russian, Ukrainian, Belarusian, Polish, Slovak, and Czech (Note: all country names are in Russian) https://folkways.today/different-russian-ukrainian-language/
It's not just the alphabet and words that diverge, but also grammar. Ukrainian is more closely related to other European languages than to Russian in grammatical structure. My Ukrainian friends who thought they could get by easily by studying Russian in school often were tripped up by Russian grammar.
Addendum: "For example, English and Dutch are 63% similar as to their lexical composition, which is more than Russian and Ukrainian. Modern research has shown that Ukrainian is more similar to other Slavic languages: to Belorussian (29 common features), Czech and Slovak (23), Polish (22), Croatian and Bulgarian (21), but as to Russian there are only 11 common features.
Proceeding from this, some linguists even question the unification of Russian and Ukrainian into one language group.
According to statistics, only 62% words are common in these languages. These characteristics rank Russian fifth after Polish, Czech, Slovak and Byelorussian. For example, English and Dutch are 63% similar as to their lexical composition, which is more than Russian and Ukrainian."
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