History

Philosophy has always played an important role in the history of the University, beginning from its prehistory. We have at least four more or less plausible narratives if not mythologems about that.

One is the Skovoroda narrative and consists approximately in the following. The philosophic lifestyle of H. S. Skovoroda, the spiritual effect resulting from his interaction with numerous friends and admirers, his prophecies about Kharkiv’s (“The City of Zachariah”) mission of the “sun” (evidently meaning a source of education) finally succeeded in creating an atmosphere for Kharkiv community not only to approve the idea of establishing a university, but also to support it financially, which was equally important for implementing it.

This narrative seems to be the source for the next one — the Karazin narrative. The thing is that V. N. Karazin as H. S. Skovoroda’s student advocated the philosophic ideal of a teacher that consisted in the unity of thinking and living, and therefore worked out and realized a colossal (by A. I. Gertsen) idea of Kharkiv having the first University in Ukraine founded and modelled after the modern Western European example. For this purpose, he had Alexander I approve the idea, persuaded Kharkiv citizens to accept and support it quite enthusiastically, completed the University Statute with provisions concerning its autonomy, found and invited the best western professors primarily specializing in philosophy.

The Karazin narrative blends into the Fichte and Schad ones. Clearly, it is about inviting J. G. Fichte to Kharkiv University, which was not at all accidental. It is not only indicative of V. N. Karazin’s awareness of the philosophical thought development in the European world and his good philosophical taste, but is also evidence in a way of his ambition to be a theorist in his own practice. V. O. Abashnyk believes that, influenced by Fichte’s ideas since 1801, Karazin was the first to promote them in Russia. Moreover, he attempted to integrate them in his reform projects. In this case scenario, the following assumption seems plausible as well: Skovoroda-Fichte understanding of philosophy and its purpose inspired Karazin to have the University Statute of 1804, which was the basis for the University’s initial structure, provide for a separate department of philosophy named “Department of Theoretical and Practical Philosophy”, or to be more precise “Department of Speculative and Practical Philosophy”. The then Russian translation from Latin and German for the “theoretical” was “speculative”. This translation was also used in other similar cases, namely in the course of “Speculative” (read: “Theoretical”) and “Empirical” (read “Experimental”) Physics. Anyhow, Fichte was never to teach at Kharkiv University.

Professor J. B. Schad became founder of Kharkiv University school of theoretical and practical philosophy. Schad’s multifaceted and fruitful work at Kharkiv University is known to have been abruptly and brutally interrupted at the end of 1816 when he, half-dead, was force-convoyed out of Russia. So, the dubious honor to be the first in the martyrology of the University philosophers persecuted in Russia belongs to Kharkiv and to its University. This story of reprisals against the philosopher, which was then a rather big international scandal, tangles the shifting political winds, ideological battles, international frictions, University intrigues based on commonplace human passions and envy. However, by its consequences, Schad’s exile meant crushing free philosophizing at Kharkiv University in the bud. Moreover, it became a real “birth trauma” for the future of philosophy and philosophical education at Kharkiv University. It is quite possible that this “birth trauma” was the contingent failure point that entailed numerous displacements and even structural effects, which turned into a sort of traumatic modus of philosophy existence at Kharkiv University. Of course this statement requires more explicit reasoning, but in such a case it is enough to review it in the context of distressful history of establishing the School of Philosophy at Kharkiv University. Over two centuries this story remained the story of the School that was never created.

The main milestones in the history of the School, “almost non-existent” for so long, can be sketched out in five attempts.

Attempt One

When designing Kharkiv University, V. N. Karazin provided for it to have the School of Philosophy. Documentary evidence to that is his letter to Archpriest Fotiev dated May 2, 1802 saying that the newly created University is to have four schools: School of Philosophy, School of Law, School of Medicine and School of Theology. This is a “standard set” for a classical university of that time, especially in Germany. (My first-year students get acquainted with Kant’s “The Conflict of the Faculties” where the philosopher explains why every university must have a School of Philosophy, despite the fact that it is “lower” for the government, while the other three are “higher” for it). However, the Statute of 1804 had no place for the School of Philosophy in it. Instead, the University provided for a Division of Morale and Political Sciences (to be more precise, in Russian it was “Division of Ethical and Political Sciences”), its first dean being Professor J. B. Schad. That division could eventually grow into the School of Philosophy, but Schad’s exile made it impossible at the very least because the School of Philosophy could not exist without the right to award the degree of Doctor of Sciences, which, after Schad’s elimination, was not grounded for a long time to come.

Attempt Two

According to the Statute of 1835, the School of Philosophy was most likely though formally created at Kharkiv University, as in fact it united two separate divisions: the Division of History and Philology (verbal) which included the Department of Philosophy, and the Division of Physics and Mathematics. Moreover, persecution continued, though this time it was philosophy rather than philosophers that was persecuted. The University President I. Kronenberg considered teaching History of Philosophy to be dangerous, and therefore it was excluded from the curriculum not to be reinstated till 1860. Philosophical education at Kharkiv University, which hadn’t yet fully recovered after Schad’s deportation, suffered a new blow in 1850, the year marked as dark for the whole University philosophy in Russia. It was then that all the departments of philosophy were closed at all the universities (including Kharkiv University). All philosophical courses were forbidden. That legitimate elimination of philosophy at universities lasted 23 long years. Yet, even when the departments of philosophy were reinstated at Kharkiv University by the Statute of 1863, it didn’t happen in Kharkiv where the vacancy of professor at the Department of Philosophy remained unfilled till 1874. This forced pause for philosophy at Kharkiv University lasted almost 25 years, which is why it does not come as a surprise that in the XIX — early XX century no professor of the Department of Philosophy (except for Schad) had an opportunity to become either a relatively outstanding philosopher in the true sense of the word, or a more or less famous in the wide scientific circles scholar authoring fundamental works or founding his own school. To avoid misunderstandings, it should be emphasized that it is philosophers per se that the University lacked, not famous scientists whose works reach the philosophical level and have a special philosophic value (like the distinguished linguistic theorist and philosopher O. Potebnia). So, it would not be right to think that the history of the Department of Philosophy fully coincides with that of Kharkiv University Philosophy, though the latter is much defined by the former.

Attempt Three

The revolution is known to have led to radical transformations in public education that cannot be ignored if the traumatic way of existence of University philosophy in Kharkiv is to be illustrated. These transformations resulted in closing of Kharkiv University along with other universities of Ukraine on July 5, 1920, and it happened with philosophers taking an active part in the process. It was not without reason that Professor Ya. Bludov was appointed the first President of the renewed Kharkiv University during the Soviet period. Although, he did not remain in office for long before he was repressed. The School of Philosophy and History was indeed listed among the eight Schools supposed to function at the University under the Decree of the Ukrainian SSR Council of People’s Commissars as of March 10, 1933 “On organization of state universities in Ukraine”. Yet, the Department of Philosophy must have failed to fully start working for lack of qualified faculty members. It seems clear what part in that was played by the repressions against the so-called “alien elements”, which soon turned into mere reprisals against the undesirable competitors who fell prey to ordinary envy and hatred.

Attempt Four

In pre-war 1940 the Board of Kharkiv University appealed to the USSR Committee of Higher Education and the People’s Committee of Education as to enrollment in the School of Philosophy, but the war changed the plans dramatically.

Attempt Five

It is preceded by long preparatory work that lasted several decades. It is worthwhile pointing out once again that the crucial changes for implementing the idea of the School of Philosophy are made under the guidance of Professor Ya. Bukhalov.

And now about the circumstances of this attempt realization. These are the years of independent Ukraine taking shape. They are marked by noticeable qualitative changes in the activity of the Department of Philosophy. The most important driving forces here are the processes of denationalization and deideologization of philosophical awareness, review of the outdated or excessively politically motivated ideas about philosophy and its purpose. The faculty members start carrying out their independent creative research, and forms of teaching all philosophic disciplines at the University are updated and diversified. It is highly useful to get rid of the dictate of too dogmatized and vulgarized dialectical and historical materialisms, to give up groundless claims to exclusive possession of philosophic truth and trying to impose it on others. Gradually people consciously tended to pluralize philosophic discourse and to cultivate free and open philosophic communication.

Since March 1991 the Department is headed by Professor O. Mamalui, Doctor of Philosophy. The faculty members concentrate their efforts on working out and implementing a modernized model of the Department according to the considerably new opportunities and tasks.

This new modern Department of Philosophy is planned to be created on the basis of unity and interaction of socio-humanitarian philosophy, history of philosophy, other special philosophic disciplines, theory and history of culture as close to the particularity of humanitarian cognition as possible. The Department is charged with teaching all philosophic and culturological disciplines at humanitarian schools and departments of the University, namely: General Philosophy, History of Philosophy as a special course of study, History and Theory of the World and National Culture, History of Religion and Freethinking, Ethics, Aesthetics, Logic, as well as lectures and Ph. D. exams for postgraduate and degree-seeking students of the humanitarian profile.

1990s are a turbulent time full of trying, contradictory problems and various tendencies. The University together with the Department of Philosophy lives the same life and experiences the same events, concerns, and hardships as the whole country and its higher education.

The USSR breakup results in tectonic shifts with unprecedentedly destructive consequences. This is mostly triggered by the phenomenon of “overlapping” or even “clashing” of really urgent, though differing in their vectors and time, tasks. The desire to achieve the newest forms of freedom, democracy and openness to the world is overruled by the passionate yearning for complete national and state independence. This aim is typical for the Modern age, but for different reasons never reached in Ukraine for centuries. A successful attempt to build independent Ukrainian is finally made, but it happens when the institution of state-nation is already plunged into an irreversible crisis by the post-national and supranational flow of globalization whirl. So the Ukrainian independence is established mostly irrelevantly to the imperative challenges of globalization, i. e. without adapting to the modern European and world integration transformations, but rather in the troglodytic spirit of reviving the national sovereignty in its “full” uncurtailed and “distilled pure” form at any cost, come what may. This results all-embracing destruction of almost all spheres of life with particularly heavy consequences for the economy, defense, medicine, culture, science, and education. Total devastation, suspension of production, unprecedented hyperinflation, which suddenly turned most of the population into depauperated “millionaires”, state and nomenclature capital accumulation methods, predatory privatization, humiliating failure to pay monthly salaries, miserable (on the verge of life and death) pensions, rolling power outages, an outburst of banditry and corruption, permanent redundancy, shamelessly populist demagoguery are, like “shock therapy”, not only the external general conditions, factors and background for existence of the University, Department, and any other institution of the country, but the object of daily internal concern and anxiety of each faculty and staff member. The top-priority task for everyone — the University, the Department and each faculty member — is to survive. However the Department is clearly aware of another thing: limiting creative people to simply surviving is dooming them to failure, to losing competitiveness and the necessary perspective. It is necessary not only to keep experienced and qualified professionals employed, but also to find ways in these hard times to rejuvenate the cadres and qualitatively develop the educational and scientific potential of the Department. First of all, it is highly important not only to preserve the valuable experience of postgraduate training in philosophical sciences but also to brisk up the training of doctoral degree-holders, to involve promising scholars (mostly young and talented PhDs graduating from the postgraduate programs and proving to be good researchers and lecturers) in working on their monographs and doctoral theses. To do this, a plan is devised and approved to enroll faculty members in the doctoral programs or transfer them into senior researchers so that they could complete their theses. This plan, supported by the University administration, resulted in a number of faculty members advancing their professional qualification through the doctoral programs in 1990-s (O. Burova, V. Husachenko, T. Zhurzhenko, S. Zavietnyi, I. Karpenko, N. Korablova, O. Fisun, O. Yurkevych).

The idea of opening the School of Philosophy at Kharkiv University is important and even inspiring for the faculty to intensify their efforts.

At the beginning of the 1992-1993 academic year, on behalf of the faculty, the head of the Department, Professor O. Mamalui addresses University President I. Tarapov with the “Office Memorandum” grounding the necessity to open the School of Philosophy for the purposes of adequate institutionalization of philosophical education at Kharkiv University. Brief analysis of previous failed attempts and complete sufficiency of the existing preconditions for opening the School of Philosophy ends with the following words: “Kharkiv University is approaching its 200-th anniversary. It’s very important that it reach this date having filled in the blanks it failed to fill during all the previous years of its existence. Among them, the absence of the School of Philosophy is most noticeable. We are convinced that opening the School of Philosophy is perspective for the University development in general.” Later, the same “Office Memorandum”, with a more detailed analysis of the quantitative and qualitative faculty membership as well as justification of the demand for graduating philosophers, is sent to Kharkiv University Council of Humanitarian Education. It is supplemented with a curriculum project for the School of Philosophy in the Philosophy speciality approved at the Department meeting on October 29, 1992. In December 1992, this matter is discussed at the meeting of Kharkiv social scientists. It supports the idea of the University Vice President, Deputy Head of Kharkiv University Humanitarian Education Council M. Sazonov that the School of Philosophy is long due to be opened and that it will not be built from scratch because of having all the necessary basis for successful work. Finally, on January 29, 1993, in his report at the meeting of the Academic Board dedicated to the University’s 188th anniversary University President I. Tarapov announces that there are all the conditions for establishing the School of Philosophy, traditional for a classical university, and that this School will play an important role in depoliticizing social science with prospects of future fruitful work in the direction of dramatically exchange changing social and humanitarian education at the University. The final step seems to be not far off. But unfortunately even this time, despite the apparent readiness and successful licensing of the corresponding speciality, the School of Philosophy fails to be opened. After I. Tarapov’s leaving his office this process slows down. And though the new University Administration does not brush aside the idea of creating the School of Philosophy, the attempt to unite sociological, philosophic, culturological and politological specialities under the same philosophical roof turns out to be non-viable, especially considering the fact that the School of Sociology has not finished shaping itself yet and is only getting ready for the first graduations. However, the Department of Philosophy loses neither hopes, nor zest to reach the set goal. The “Development Conception of the University Department of Philosophy (prospective estimate-plan)” is developed (with active participation of Associate Professors I. Karpenko and S. Holikov) and accepted for implementation. It provides for organizational, structural, and content reconstruction of the Department’s work both in preserving the general University functions and functioning as a department of the future School of Philosophy.

With the University President position taken by Professor V. Bakirov, whose firth thesis (for the PhD degree) is written and defended at the Department of Philosophy, the matter of opening the School of Philosophy is not only set in motion, but is also successfully implemented.

At the beginning of 2000 the University Academic Board considers the proposition of the committee consisting of M. Yabluchanskyi, M. Azarenkov, O. Laktionov, A. Holikov, V. Nekos about the prospects of opening new specialities and schools at the University, including the School of Philosophy. Stating that there are all the necessary conditions met for this at the University, and that the decisions in this regard are long overdue, the Academic Board finds it reasonable to begin the process of creating and opening the School of Philosophy along with other schools. Soon afterwards University President V. Bakirov appoints Associate Professor of the Department of Philosophy I. Karpenko responsible for all the preparation and organization in this direction. Together with Associate Professor S. Holikov, he prepares the necessary documents, primarily the curriculum and the syllabi of the courses. In spring 2001 Associate Professor I. Karpenko, Professors O. Mamalui and I. Tsekhmistro thoroughly discuss the possibilities and the format of the future School of Philosophy at the meeting with the then Minister of Education and Science of Ukraine V. Kremen.

Finally, upon completion of all the ministerial procedures, Order of the Minister of Education and Science of Ukraine No. 527 as of July 18, 2001 on creating the School of Philosophy at Kharkov University is issued. At first, the School comprises four departments: Department of Philosophy, Department of Theory of Culture and Philosophy of Science, Department of Political Science and Department of Ukrainian Studies. The special meeting called by University President V. Bakirov discusses candidatures for the position of the dean of the School. The First Vice-President V. Aleksandrov, Head of the Department of Ukrainian Studies V. Kravchenko, Head of the Department of Philosophy O. Mamalui and Head of the Department of Political Science M. Sazonov speak in recommendation of Associate Professor V. Karpenko considering his contribution to the organizational preparation, his professional qualification and personal qualities. This is followed by the University President Order appointing Associate Professor V. Karpenko Dean of the School of Philosophy. After almost two centuries of efforts, the fifth attempt to open the School of Philosophy is at Kharkiv University is successful at last.