Spanish students at the Taras Shevchenko national university of Kyiv: the late 20th and early 21st centuries

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Spanish students at the Taras Shevchenko national university of Kyiv: the late 20^th and early 21^st centuries

Nataliya Shevchenko,

Ph.D (History), Associate Professor Taras Shevchenko National University of Kyiv, Kyiv, Ukraine

Yuliia Shemeta,

Ph.D (History), Associate Professor Taras Shevchenko National University of Kyiv, Kyiv, Ukraine

Abstract

The issue of academic mobility based on analysis of documents and biographies of Spanish students at the end of the 20^th and the beginning of the 21^st century as an important component of educational process of the Taras Shevchenko National University of Kyiv has been studied. The purpose of the study was to investigate why Spanish students found themselves in the University, circumstances of their apprenticeship and stay there, as well as specifics of their everyday life in Kyiv. It has been found out that despite the seclusion of the Soviet society, students from capitalist countries, in particular Spain, were studying at the University of Kyiv. Background of such phenomenon is analyzed and assumptions are made as to why this became possible, as well as the ways how Spanish students could enter the University are described. In particular, based on available documents in the University's archive, it has been brought to light, that all Spanish citizens who studied at the University of Kyiv, were guided by both ideological and material needs, expressed their wish to come to the USSR for study and carried it out with a help of the Union of Soviet Friendship Societies and Cultural Relations with Foreign Countries. The most popular specialties that Spanish students aspired to acquire were identified, such as Russian philology, philosophy, economics, and law.

With a disruption of former communication models in the Taras Shevchenko National University of Kyiv, new ones based on students exchange have been established according to cooperation agreements signed between universities. As of the beginning of the 21^stcentury there is information about internship of Spanish students and postgraduate students for a certain time, however unfortunately there is no possibility to study their personal files.

The University of Kyiv is confirmed to have long traditions of academic mobility, which history assumes further development prospects.

Key words: the University of Kyiv, Taras Shevchenko National University of Kyiv,Spanish students, students ' everyday life, classes, academic mobility.

Наталія Шевченко,

канд. іст. наук, доц.

Київський національний університет імені Тараса Шевченка,

м. Київ, Україна

Юлія Шемета,

канд. іст. наук, доц.

Київський національний університетімені Тараса Шевченка,

м. Київ, Україна

ІСПАНСЬКІ СТУДЕНТИ В КИЇВСЬКОМУ НАЦІОНАЛЬНОМУ УНІВЕРСИТЕТІ ІМЕННІ ТАРАСА ШЕВЧЕНКА: КІНЕЦЬ 20 - ПОЧАТОК 21 СТОЛІТТЯ

Анотація

Досліджено актуальну та важливу складову освітнього процесу Київського національного університету імені Тараса Шевченка, а саме - проблему академічної мобільності - на підставі аналізу документів та біографій іспанських студентів кінця 20-го - початку 21 століття. Метою дослідження було з'ясувати, яким чином іспанські студенти опинялися в університеті, дослідити особливості їхнього перебування тут, навчання, а також, за можливістю, висвітлити особливості їхнього повсякденного життя у Києві. З'ясувалося, що, попри замкнутість радянського суспільства, в Київському університеті навчалися студенти з капіталістичних країн, зокрема й з Іспанії. Проаналізовано причини такого явища та зроблено припущення, чому це стало можливим, а також розкриваються механізми, за допомогою якого студенти потрапляли до університету. Зокрема, на підставі наявних в архіві вишу документів було виявлено, що всі громадяни Іспанії, які навчалися у Київському університеті, керуючись як ідеологічними (майбутні студенти виявляли прихильність до російські культури та радянського способу життя), так і матеріальними потребами (зокрема, неможливістю сплачувати за отримання вищої освіти вдома і розрахунки на безкоштовну освіту в СРСР), виявили бажання поїхати до СРСР на навчання та реалізували його. Відбувалося це за підтримки Союзу радянських товариств дружби та культурного зв'язку із зарубіжними країнами (російською мовою - СССР). Визначено найбільш затребувані спеціальності, здобути які прагнули студенти-іспанці, зокрема, це були російська філологія, філософія, економіка, право. Досліджено особливості їхнього навчання і повсякденного життя, зв 'язки всередині земляцтва. З'ясовано, що зі змінами, що настали на початку 1990-х рр. і з руйнуванням старих типів зв'язків в КНУ, згодом, на основі угод про співпрацю, укладених між українськими та закордонними університетами, було створено нові типи міжнародної співпраці. Вони базувалися на обміні студентами і часто не передбачали повного циклу навчання студентів-іноземців. Станом на початок ХХІ сторіччя є відомості про проходження стажування іспанських студентів та аспірантів в Київському університеті протягом певного часу, проте, на жаль, немає можливості вивчити їхні особисті справи. На прикладі навчання студентів-іспанців підтверджено, що Київський університет має давні традиції академічної мобільності та, виходячи з їхньої історії, перспективи розвитку.

Ключові слова: Київський університет, іспанські студенти, повсякденне життя студентів, навчання, академічна мобільність.

Introduction

Academic mobility is an important part of university life. It has become very important for the Taras Shevchenko National University of Kyiv (hereinafter referred to as the KNU) at the present stage due to active involvement of the University into global educational processes. However, it should be noticed that the origins of this phenomenon date back to the Soviet era, and then it had a few specifics, in particular an ideological content.

Of particular interest is the analysis of such academic mobility with Spanish side in the late 20^th - early 21^st centuries in terms of the prospects for deepening cooperation. For example now the KNU has contacts with the University of Granada and the University of Cadiz.

Some aspects of this topic have been discussed in a number of articles of Ukrainian researches[21; 22]. educational academic students

The issue of apprenticeship training of foreigners in universities of the former USSR [24] and after the restoration of Ukraine's independence still remains an understudied topic in national historical studies. We should mention Vasyl Hrutsyak's research [20] on the formation and development of preparatory faculties in universities of the Ukrainian SSR and of independent Ukraine. For the first time in national studies this research has suggested a periodization of pre-university apprenticeship training of foreigners. As a practitioner and organizer of educational process for foreigners, Tetyana Tabenska studied the history of development of preuniversity apprenticeship training in the University of Kyiv [26]. Issue of international cooperation is touched in a number of studies which concern anniversaries, as well as a few specialized publications [23] which analyze education of foreign nationals in the University of Kyiv [27; 28].

Despite some development in research of organization of educational process of foreigners in national universities, there are many issues still unresearched, such as specifics of education of national groups of foreign students. However, there was no comprehensive analysis of the staying of Spanish students at the University of Kyiv.

While writing this article the authors used documents of the KNU's archive, in particular the personal files of students and postgraduates as well as materials of the International Office of the University of Kyiv.

Meeting protocols of the Academic Council of the University, orders of the Department of International Cooperation of the University, which contain a lot of statistical information, were also used.

The purpose of the article is to investigate the specifics of studies of students from Spain at the University of Kyiv in the late 20^th and early 21^st centuries.The tasks of the authors were to explore motives of the students to study in the USSR and Ukraine, including circumstances that contributed to this, to analyze how exactly Spanish students found themselves in Kyiv, to trace the specifics of their studies and everyday's life.

How they applied to the University

Admission of foreign students to the University of Kyiv has a long history and has been initiated in the Soviet period. The first cases of mobility in this direction can be considered the contacts in 1955, when three students from Spain have attended our university having a high scholarship - it almost equaled a teacher's salary. We also know that a professor of the Faculty of Geography Petr Zamorij was scheduled to participate at the Fifth International Congress of the International Association for Study of the Quaternary Period in Madrid and Barcelona in 1957.

Until beginning of the 1990s, the USSR has been ranked as a third in the world by the number of foreigners who received education there [27, p. 1020]. It is known that during the Soviet era, "non-currency" students exchange have been practiced, and within one year 200-300 students of both sides were involved in such exchanges under framework of the University of Kyiv.

During 1986-1988 our university planned to conclude an agreement with universities of Oviedo (Asturias), Valencia and Santiago, the Madrid University (Complutense). Unfortunately, some of these negotiations were unsuccessful (for example, with Valencia and Oviedo) [1, p. 171]. In 1990 a cooperation agreement with the University of Granada was signed, then successfully renewed several times and is still valid now. According to this agreement the maintenance of Spanish students should be carried out by the Ukrainian side, including accommodations, meals, and scholarships. Spanish students who studied in Kyiv in the mid-1990s have been here most likely based on other agreements, not related directly to our university. These agreements were concluded by the USSR with various social and cultural organizations. A special organization founded in the USSR in 1925 has been transformed in 1958 into the "Union of Soviet Societies of Friendship and Cultural Relations with Foreign Countries" (hereinafter referred to as the SSOD). Friendship societies in other countries cooperated with this Organization. In Spain, it was a society "Association of Spain - the USSR". Representatives of this Society had ties with the Soviet Union and they had right to decide whether to recommend people who wanted to study in the Soviet Union for a scholarship. Members of the SSOD in the USSR followed their recommendations [7, p. 7].

We assume that the intensity of contacts between the USSR and Spain increased after the World Festivals of Youth and Students hold in 1957 (6^th) and in 1985 (12^th). They contributed to popularity of the USSR in the world and in Spain. It has also been influenced by the restoration of diplomatic relations in 1977, which became possible after Franco's death. The first intergovernmental agreement for cultural and scientific cooperation between the USSR and Spain has been signed in 1979 [24, p. 111].

In 1976 the Faculty of International Relations and International Law has been reformed. It incorporated a so called "Preparatory Faculty". Its main task was to prepare foreign students for their studies at Soviet universities. They studied Russian language and specialized disciplines related to their future specialties there. The Center for Preparation of Foreign Citizens was founded at the University of Kyiv in 1992, and in 1998 - the Preparatory Faculty, which educated foreigners on commercial basis.

In the 1970s - early 1990s those Spanish students, who wanted to study in the Soviet Union, had to submit their applications to substantiate their wish to the "Association of Spain - the USSR" [2, p. 18-19; 4, p. 33]. As a rule they should have had a higher education and a bachelor's degree according to the Spanish education system [2, p. 11; 5, p. 6]. Sometimes they began to study in Spanish universities and decided to change their plans. Besides, most of them studied the Russian language for 1-2 years. They did it at language schools or courses in Spain or courses organized by the radio "Moscow" [4, p. 8; 10, p. 13]. Some candidates were members of the Association. Some of them became members of the Communist Party of Spain (Izabel G. Q. [in order to keep confidentiality, names from archive files are given in abbreviated form]; Emilia C. E.; Fernando C. G.) [3, p. 15; 14, s. p.; 4, p. 33]. After receiving a scholarship for studying in the Soviet Union they prepared required applications (certificate of secondary education, medical certificate, a certificate stating which discipline they plan to study etc.) and sent them to Moscow. The Soviet Ministry of High and Secondary Education studied them and decided to which city and which university Spanish students should be sent for further studies. Actually after arriving to the USSR Spanish students were obliged to study at the Preparatory department where they were specifically learning the Russian language.

After they graduated the Preparatory Faculty at the University of Kyiv, they were sent for further studies to various high schools in Kyiv and other cities according to a special order. For example, it is known that Emilia C. E. from Valencia who graduated the Preparatory Faculty at our university continued her studies at the Kyiv Polytechnic Institute majoring in "Applied Mathematics" in 1989-1990. According to files, she did not like her specialty and asked for a transfer to the University of Kyiv to continue studying the "Russian philology" [14, [s. p.].

Students drafted curriculum vitae sometimes in Spanish and sometimes in Russian. From those, we learn that a part of Spaniards came from families, which parents were factory workers. Sometimes they came from families of officials, economists, doctors, and teachers [4, p. 23; 7, p. 16; 8, p. 6]. There was no representative of an aristocratic family except for one trainee from the group of 10 interns in 1989. That group studied Russian at 5-months courses. It was Juan Luis M. del C. G, born in 1948, a native of Cadiz [17, s. p.]. He was educated in Switzerland.

We need to mention that students who studied here did not obtain education outside of Spain. The only exception were these trainees. Out of ten, only two persons studied in Switzerland and the UK.

Almost all students came from large families. While substantiating their wish to study in the Soviet Union, they pointed out that lack of financial resources did not allow them to study in their country. Therefore it means that some of Spaniards went to the Soviet Union to obtain education, as we would say nowadays, due to grants from the USSR. Part of them was guided by ideological motives: they wanted to deepen relations between the USSR and Spain or become better acquainted with advantages of socialist way of life (Maria Jose M. B., the son of a farmer and a housewife) [13, [s. p.]. Some Spaniards showed interest in Slavic studies and said that they could not obtain such education in Spain (Cristina L. A.) [10, s. p.]. Some of them pointed out several reasons that prompted them to go to the Soviet Union for study.

After graduating the Preparatory Faculty Spanish students went to study a chosen specialty showing various degrees of success - from excellent to sufficient. The most popular faculties for Spaniards were Philosophy, Philology, and the Faculty of International Relations. Other faculties were less popular. Some students after finishing a full 5 years course of study obtained Master's Degree of the University of Kyiv, although Master's Degree for Ukrainian students has not been provided yet. Some students were dismissed for various reasons. Very often dismissals happened in the early and mid-1990s, when old system of relations was destroyed and Spaniards could not continue their studies without payment.

Students' accommodations and studies

During their studies Spanish students received a scholarship of 80-100 rubles [9, p. 3; 11, s. p.]. This amount was larger than an average salary in Ukraine, however, in the early 1990s their scholarships were devaluated by inflation. Apart from that they also received a place in a hostel, however not a very comfortable one in those times. Most likely they paid costs of accommodation, meal in a canteen, public transport (which was small) from their scholarships. They were also provided with warm clothes and some household items (for example jackets, hats, scarves, gloves, socks, boots, soap, detergent were among them) [2, p. 17; 4, p. 9; 7, p. 11]. Such things were often imported and were difficult to buy in the USSR. The cost of such supply equaled approximately 3-4 salaries of a librarian with higher education.

Stay of Spaniards in the USSR was strictly regulated. They could not go home or to another city in the USSR without a special permission. If they received a permission to go to Moscow to visit their Embassy, they could only reside in dormitories of the Moscow University. If they went to visit friends, they had to name their home address where they can be found by Security service. They could go on a trip to various cities of the USSR. They also invited friends from Moscow or Leningrad but such action required a special permit too. A trip home was long and uncomfortable - by train to Poland or Bulgaria, and then by airplane via Greece to Spain, alternatively they could fly via Moscow [6, p. 24; 5, p. 23].

Spanish students created a community here which coordinated all their actions. Every 3 months they could receive parcels from home on favorable terms (for a small fee). If there were two parcels they had to pay a full fee.

For many of them a poor knowledge of Russian language was still an issue. They wrote with mistakes, some students could hardly speak, and this caused troubles in education. At the same time there were Spaniards who spoke and wrote Russian very well (Fernando G C. read Russian literature in original language) [4, p. 33].

Since the late 1990s the situation with Spanish nationals has somewhat changed. Since then they came to Ukraine according to agreements, Spanish government paid for their trip both ways (the same did Ukraine for its students in Spain). The University of Kyiv provided students with accommodation on the territory of Ukraine. Students were picked up at the Boryspil airport by car, provided with accommodation at the University's hotel, paid for meal (in full or in part) and for travelling by public transport, as well as seen off to the airport (Paloma S. M., 2000, Daniela K., 2005) [19, [s. p.]. They received an increased scholarship without tax deduction, but unfortunately it was small. Then they took internships of the disciplines they were interested in, which lasted between a few months and a full year. It means they did not complete a full course of study. However we had a double diploma agreement with the University of Granada, and a student Simon Jose Suarez Costa., Slavicist was the first who received a bachelor degree in Granada and Kyiv of the specialty "Ukrainian Philology" in 1999 [25, p. 3].

As for graduate students, there is a piece of information about 3 post-graduate students who drafted their theses at the KNU in the early 1990s, but according to our data, none of these students defended them.

It is not possible to accurately define the number of Spanish students during early 1990s. We currently have files of 14 students, 3 postgraduate students, 10 interns, but we assume there were more. We have information about such persons from other sources, however their personal files are absent in the KNU archive. Moreover, there is no access to personal files of those students who are studying at the University of Kyiv now.

Conclusions and directions for future research

Consequently it can be noted that tradition of relationships between the University of Kyiv and Spain have, albeit not a too large, but a long history, and that they changed according to requirements of time. Based on available sources it has been defined that the main motives for education in the USSR were of ideological and material nature. It is studied out that students came to Kyiv thanks to the Friendship Society between Spain and the USSR, later in the 1990s - based on cooperation agreements concluded between Ukrainian and Spanish universities. It is defined that Spanish students have chosen mainly such specialties as economy, philosophy, philology and law, as well as had internships as philologists at the University of Kyiv. Living conditions of Spanish students in Soviet times have been analyzed, and they have been proved as relatively good. A mandatory pre-study of the Russian language, obtaining a master's degree if students complete a full course of study, expulsions of students in the early 1990s can be mentioned among specific features of their studies.

In this paper we merely presented an interesting point of view to the history of relations in the academic sphere between Spanish and Ukrainian universities using the example of the Taras Shevchenko National University of Kyiv. As a summary we can state that this experience of academic mobility in the KNU is useful in deepening cooperation with Spanish universities in future. Moreover, whereas Spanish students chose the faculties according to ideological and propaganda motives in the past, there are prospects of cooperation in areas of mutual interest now: underwater archeology, history, high technologies etc. Continuing this research it would be also interesting to study the issue of stay of Spanish students at other universities of Ukraine as well as of Ukrainian students in Spain.

Spanish students at the Taras Shevchenko National University of Kyiv, whose personal records are available in archive