Dear Students,
The situation in your country is becoming critical and I hope it is evident that now the usual cliché that young people are the country’s future is no longer a cliché but expresses a truth at this moment of insurgency.
I have been to Ivano-Frankivsk’s EuroMaydan on Friday evening, Saturday evening and this afternoon. Other than the people by the tents, most of the people there are elderly, largely men, with identical black flat caps.
The lack of students, or young people generally, is concerning.
Please compare these two websites, Lviv Franko University and ours: http://lnu.edu.ua/ versus http://www.pu.if.ua/
I think it is unnecessary for me to comment on the differences.
Please, yourselves, without waiting for the Student Council or some other internal organisation, place pressure on the leaders of our university to make an official statement on their position regarding Ukraine’s European future. You can also use the facebook page of the university to express your opinion.
For me, you can be pro-Europe, pro-Russia, anti-Europe, anti-Europe, pro-Ehtiopia, or even indifferent – whatever you want. But I would hope that you take up your position, even if it is indifference or passivity, CONSCIOUSLY.
Equally, it is important not to believe that simply “liking” things or reposting things on facebook or VK will change anything.
Thus, if you do opt to attend a Euromaydan (or anti-Europe) meeting in IF, Lviv or Kyiv, your “enka” – or absence – from my lesson as a result of being active in deciding your country’s future will be circled, so it will not count on your record. So I am giving you permission to miss class in the next two weeks, if you are involved actively in the current events. (Please send me a photo with you in it of you at a protest/demonstration etc. and an email informing me of your absence for political reasons.)
I will of course still be at work, unless things get really radical, so classes will go ahead as normal.
Good luck and be brave,
Paul
Revolution, lecturing and life in western Ukraine 