30.11.2023
Dr. Pavel Alipov, Associate Professor of the Faculty of History of RSUH, shared with the President and fellow scholars his impressions of the restoration and normalization of the educational process in the new territories, and also made a proposal to hold an annual conference in Mariupol
I would like to tell you about our interaction with the new territories, in particular with Mariupol State University.
The fact is that in general this interaction began in an absolutely miraculous way. At one time, this was the personal initiative of our professor Galina Ershova, a leading expert on Mesoamerica. And the first thing she encountered when she began to communicate with colleagues, first of all, she tried to contact historians, it turned out that there was only one historian left there, because all the historians who had worked before had all moved to Kiev. Why did they relocate? Well, because for decades they have been building a completely different picture of the world, explaining that we are completely different peoples, that nothing connects us.
A new school year lies ahead. How do we teach history to students? The textbooks, the manuals were impossible to use, because the picture of the world is completely different.
And this is where the University stepped up, because we are a liberal arts university, it’s a matter of honor, we collected textbooks, manuals, equipment and many chipped in personally. When I arrived, the picture was dismal: there were holes in the walls and there was no heating. Naturally, we didn’t see the students yet, because they had all been attending remotely.
We decided to organize some kind of round table so that our students could meet with their Mariupol counterparts.
It turned out to be a competition, as many people wanted to go.
And when we were already in Mariupol and met with those guys, it turned out to be an absolutely normal, interesting conversation, that is, they wanted to meet, to communicate. And the most important thing is that the campus is already being rebuilt, the building has already been put into operation.
And I would like to ask you, Vladimir Vladimirovich, to allow us to plan a large annual conference, if not a congress, for the future. We need to make it comprehensive, so that it could be attended by international affairs specialists, political scientists, in addition to historians, because it is the liberal arts component that is now important.
We have Latin America, we have Serbia. And within the framework of this conference, another dream was to create a school for young humanists, historians, anybody. This idea was proposed to me by Larisa Sivolap. Rector of the University of Mariupol.
I think that a comprehensive event needs to be implemented for the city, for the entire Donbass: it would be a major, event that would allow the city’s infrastructure to develop it, because people would come to such an event. All this will entail some other economic things”.
The broadcast of the meeting with is available here.
