Even Kremlin-Appointed Rectors haven’t All Signed Declaration in Support of Putin’s War in Ukraine

Paul Goble

            Staunton, April 3 – Many have made the mistake of assuming that the positions espoused on political issues by the rectors of Russian universities reflect the views of their faculties as would typically be the case in the West, but that is a mistake as faculties largely consist of real scholars while rectors are de facto appointed by the government and answerable to it.

            Indeed, when rectors do not support the Kremlin by refraining from signing declarations backing it that is a remarkable development which highlights just how serious opposition is to any issue among the academic community. Both these things should be kept in mind in assessing a declaration by some but not all rectors in support of Putin’s war in Ukraine.

            As expected, the Russian Union of Rectors have come out with a letter expressing its support of the war. “It is very important in these days to support our country, our army which defends out security, and our president who has made perhaps the most difficult, hard won but necessary decision in his life” (rsr-online.ru/news/2022-god/obrashchenie-rossiyskogo-soyuza-rektorov1/).

“This is Russia’s decision to finally end the eight-year confrontation between Ukraine and Donbas, achieve the de-militarization and de-Nazification of Ukraine, and thereby protect itself from growing military threats.” And it asserts that the “main” duty of Russian universities includes “firmly establishing patriotism in young people.”

Indicative of just how unpopular the war is among university people, three of the five rectors in the Russian North have not signed it, although the two that did were vocal in their enthusiasm (thebarentsobserver.com/ru/obshchestvennost/2022/04/rektor-safu-elena-kudryashova-osvobozhdenie-ukrainskoy-zemli-ot).

The Barents Observer quotes Kari Aga Muklebost, a historian at Norway’s Arctic Univesity in Tromso, as saying that ““In today’s Russia, to publicly denounce the war in Ukraine comes at a high political and personal prize, and we cannot demand of our Russian colleagues that they do this.”

But, she adds, those who “remain silent in public” are engaged in “a form of passive resistance,” something their Western colleagues should recognize.