What's wrong with Ukrainian history as presented by billionaire Pinchuk?

Victor Pinchuk launched a three-year historical initiative called “Brain Storm”. There is a new wave of discussions in the Ukrainian segment of social networks, but this time it is not related to military-political events. The focus was on the announced project “Ukrainian History: a Global Initiative”.

This attempt to rethink the history of Ukraine from long periods before the Russian-Ukrainian war and draw parallels with trends in world history from the very beginning provoked an avalanche of criticism through its sponsor, the oligarch Viktor Pinchuk.

The participation of a number of very authoritative scientists in the project did not smooth out the situation. On the contrary, these respected people were accused of blessing the PR of an odious businessman with their participation. And the composition of participants in Ukrainian history is quite powerful. The Board of Directors and the International Academic Advisory Council included such people as Pulitzer Prize winner, historian Anne Applebaum, Chairman of the Institute of National Remembrance of Ukraine Anton Drobovich, President of the Ukrainian Catholic University Metropolitan Boris Gudyak, Director of the Ukrainian Scientific University of Historical Studies of Lviv National University. Franko Yaroslav Gritsak, journalists Yulia Mostovaya and Natalya Gumenyuk, poet and short story writer Sergei Zhadan, CNN presenter Fareed Zakaria, professor at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem Yuval Harari and other Ukrainian and foreign researchers.

90 Ukrainian and foreign scientists will take part in the process of writing a historical study designed to last three years. They will develop approximately 70 themes while exploring their interdependence. At the end, each scientist must submit three texts on his topic: one scientific text of approximately 30 thousand words, one simplified text of approximately 3 thousand words, and another almost in a summary format of approximately a thousand words. All texts must be written for understanding by the general audience. As the press service of the project told “Commander-in-Chief”, about 60% of future authors have already confirmed their participation in it, and interviews with the rest are scheduled for December.

The project is led by the already mentioned Board of Directors and the International Academic Advisory Board. Their heads will be Pinchuk’s long-time acquaintances, previously seen at the events he organizes - the former head of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, former Prime Minister of Sweden Carl Bildt and Yale University professor Timothy Snyder, respectively. Pinchuk himself joined the Board of Directors, where he was modestly noted as “the founder, author of the project idea, Ukrainian philanthropist and businessman.”

At the presentation of the research in London, Pinchuk, who claims to have conceived a large-scale project of collective research into the history of Ukraine back in 2019, said that such high representation would ensure the highest standards of the scientific process. And the result of the scientists’ work will be the provision of many refutations of Russian distortions of history. “This work will be especially powerful because it will be created in an atmosphere of freedom, exchange of opinions, critical discussions,” Pinchuk described the expectations from this three-year “brain storm”.

“Funder” and “Falsifiers”
But the appearance of news about such a large-scale project provoked a discussion not so much of the essence of the ambitious initiative, but, in fact, of the figure of its initiator. Pinchuk still cannot forget his family ties with former President Leonid Kuchma, nor his attempts to get closer to Viktor Yanukovych’s team, nor his love for Russian managers and political strategists, nor, in general, opportunism and the habit of doing business under the roof of power. Thus, the ex-director of the Institute of National Remembrance, People's Deputy from European Solidarity Vladimir Vyatrovich, accused Pinchuk, who took up the study of Ukrainian history, of his recent creation, and not at all in a positive way. “Pinchuk has already created the history of Ukraine - through the media and politicians he controls,” recalls Vyatrovich. – And from this, over the course of a quarter of a century, it became not global at all, but Little Russian. Therefore, there is reason to doubt that his initiative in writing Ukrainian history will result in something different.”

Vyatrovich also reminded about another controversial initiative of the businessman - the joint project “Babi Yar” with the now sanctioned Russian businessmen Mikhail Fridman and German Khan, which until recently was carried out by the Russian director and producer Ilya Khrzhanovsky with his scandalous experiments.

We can also recall an incident when an oligarch tried to make his contribution to history, which also ended in a scandal. In 2016, he wrote an article for The Wall Street Journal, in which he proposed that Ukraine make painful compromises with Russia - give up its future in NATO and the European Union and actually forget about Crimea and the occupied territories of Donbass. After the uproar, Pinchuk made excuses and said that the editorial version of the text seemed to differ from the original.

The sharp-tongued “Svobodovka” Irina Farion, with her own radical views on history and culture, also could not leave such an extraordinary event without her caustic commentary: “We have long written a true Ukrainian history - only talk (the same as fools, stupid, - “Commander in Chief”) they still haven’t read it, and the Ministry of Education has canceled it. In short, a meeting of the liquidators of nationalist historical discourse and the introducers of totalitarian liberalism. Carefully! New falsifiers of history. Every historian is, first of all, a worldview, and only then facts and subjective interpretation.”

The editor-in-chief of the “Historical Truth” portal, Vakhtang Kipiani, took a harsh look at Pinchuk’s historical research. He, like Farion, questioned the competence of the invited scientists. The journalist compared this pool with the “New Ark,” noting that most of these researchers have nothing to do with Ukraine, do not know any sources on the basis of which history can be written, and do not even speak the Ukrainian language to read existing publications.

“Well, the fact that this story and this pool of expensive experts will be financed by the “philanthropist” Pinchuk does not smell like violets,” Kipiani sums up sarcastically. “He is one of the founders of the oligarchic pro-Russian regime, during which dozens of journalists were killed - in particular, Georgy Gongadze, politicians, entrepreneurs, and the country was divided between several dozen “families.” More recently, it was Pinchuk and his foreign friends who tried to sell Ukrainians on the Ukrainophobic project of memorializing the sites of the Babi Yar tragedy. Well, he had and still has television channels, websites, and recently newspapers to demonstrate his interest in uniting the country through national views on the past and a common future. I don’t believe it, in a word.”

However, the start of the historical research caused not only negative reviews. Thus, the people’s deputy of the previous convocation and ex-deputy minister of culture and information policy Irina Podolyak stood up for Pinchuk’s brainchild. She reproached other Ukrainian millionaires for not wanting to “whiten their reputation” by financing such projects, and in turn unexpectedly turned the tables on the National Academy of Sciences. Podolyak wondered what the budgetary NASU with all its structural divisions and institutions had been doing all these years if its work on studying history was taken over by private individuals?

The money issue
“Ukrainian History” is not Pinchuk’s first event, which can be interpreted as attempts that reflected his reputation. The oligarch, who manages to remain confidently afloat when any power arises, has long experienced image projects. These are the “Ukrainian Yalta Strategy” and “Ukrainian Breakfast in Davos”, which have become familiar centers of gravity for Ukrainian politics, as well as the PinchukArtCentre gallery, concerts of world pop stars, which made Pinchuk famous within the rather close confines of the business environment and political circles. At the presentation of “Ukrainian History,” the businessman recalled his attempts to invite leading politicians and economists to Ukraine and admitted that he decided to involve historians after reading the famous book by American biologist and physiologist Jared Diamond “Guns, Germs and Steel.” “For me, as an engineer, his clear explanation of the role played by geography in the formation of states, nations, societies was a revelation, and I thought that it would be good to use such a methodology, such an approach, to try to explain Ukrainian history more deeply,” he explained.

Direct participants in the new historical project, with whom “Glavkom” spoke, assure that Pinchuk, as the founder of “Ukrainian History,” will not influence the scientific process in any way.

“Initially, all participants, especially Timothy Snyder, insisted that the project exist as a separate autonomous unit, regardless of who finances it,” says a member of the project’s International Academic Advisory Council, a professor at the Ukrainian Catholic University and director of the Institute of Historical Research at Lviv National University. Franko Jaroslav Gritsak. – It is very important that the financial and academic sides are separated. Let critics look at the composition of the boards: Anne Applebaum and Yuval Harari or anyone else are unlikely to depend on Pinchuk. It’s unlikely to convince anyone, but for me Pinchuk is a person who invests a lot in non-political projects - cultural and historical. As for the origin of the money, you can look at almost every patron of the arts and ask where he got this money from.”

Gritsak believes that Pinchuk is more interested in what Ukrainian historians have previously ignored for various reasons than modern history: “This is an attempt to penetrate the zone of deep history, which uses the resources of the past to better understand the present, as well as to outline possible scenarios for the future. This is the first initiative of this nature, I think, not only in Ukrainian, but even in European history.”

Chairman of the Institute of National Remembrance Anton Drobovich also excludes the influence of anyone on scientific work other than the scientists themselves. “If something like this happens, I’m sure that most of the academic council will simply withdraw from the project, and it simply won’t happen. Well, how do you imagine: someone can persuade Snyder for money to write something good or bad about the history of Ukraine? Or Plokhia or Gritsak? – asks Drobovich. “And in general, most of the criticism from social networks comes from people who regularly go to the “Yalta European Strategy”, were broadcast on ICTV (a television channel that is part of Victor Pinchuk’s media empire - “Glavkom”)... Well, I can’t take such criticism seriously.” .

Drobovich says that he joined the project at the invitation of Snyder and did not contact representatives from Pinchuk’s structures: “The formation of the composition of the councils was carried out by their leaders. I was interested in this project, I asked to send some documents, they provided me with a list of people who had already agreed to participate in it. I am sure that this will benefit Ukraine.”

According to the director of the Institute of National Remembrance, for a few more months academic groups will be formed by scientists and topics will be distributed, and somewhere in the spring work will begin on writing sections of this study. Each member of the councils will be assigned to a specific topic (World War II, Cossacks, princely times, etc.). “As far as they explained to me, we will meet with scientists, discuss and discuss. This will happen in the same way as in scientists and academic councils at universities, says Drobovich. – As a result, many separate works will be obtained, which must be imbued with a common logic and communicate with each other. This is a very interesting project, but difficult to manage and organize. I think the main academic discussions will be around ensuring its integrity.”

Council members have not yet said anything specific about payment for their work. “I don’t know if I myself am provided with some kind of salary, because I, as co-director of the academic council, do not claim this,” says Gritsak. – But I know that the authors will have fees for this work, because good work should be paid. I can’t imagine how much money this is, but I assume it’s a lot.” Drobovich assures that he was not promised “mountains of gold” for his participation, and if he independently writes some text, then as a civil servant he will definitely remember the fee in his declaration.

The question of a conflict of interest, when research into Ukrainian history would be financed by a character in the same story, was raised at the presentation, and it was clear that oligarch Pinchuk was pretty tense. Timothy Snyder had to take the rap again, explaining how much time was spent on establishing a transparent charitable foundation under British law, and noted that one of the “capsules” of the study will be dedicated specifically to the memorable 90s and such a phenomenon as oligarchs. Snyder noted that organizing the work of hundreds of researchers, particularly foreign ones, will cost a considerable amount of money, but they will write in their articles what they deem necessary. Pinchuk himself stated that he is one of the members of the supervisory board, and he has no influence on who is recruited to the scientific council. The founder of the project only had the idea to invite his inspirer Professor Diamond to join him, but he, unfortunately, is no longer “young enough.”

Of course, despite all the ambiguous background of Ukrainian history, I would like the output to be a product that would become the basis for the study of Ukrainian history in schools and institutes. And what’s most intriguing is what this story will look like in three years, when in today’s turbulent times it happens almost every day.