Restoring an icon of academic identity

Fundraising efforts underway to protect the architectural inheritance of Ukraine’s most celebrated university

Kyiv Mohyla Academy restoration fundraiser: This January saw the launch of a new fundraising campaign geared towards financing the restoration of one of the venerable Kyiv academy’s oldest and most revered structures. The university’s Old Academic Building traces its roots back to the reign of Hetman Ivan Mazepa and remains one of the most enduring icons of Ukraine’s ancient academic traditions, having educated many of the country’s greatest minds. The building, which features on the nation’s 500 hryvnia bank note, is in need of considerable repair and friends of the academy hope to raise funds in time for planned 400th birthday celebrations in 2015.

An icon of Ukrainian education

Early 2011 saw the start of a new fundraising drive which is designed to finance the restoration of one of the university’s most iconic buildings – The Old Academy Building which houses the Kyiv Mohyla Academy’s immense book collection and which traces its roots back to the era of Hetman Ivan Mazepa in the early years of the eighteenth century. This venerable building is literally crammed from floor to ceiling with thousands upon thousands of books – many of them personal libraries donated over the centuries by prominent Ukrainian academics and politicians. The winds of ancient history continue to blow through the corridors of the Old Academy Building, offering a glimpse of the figures and events to have shaped Ukrainian identity over the centuries. This is the building  where luminaries such as Ukrainian philosopher Hryhoriy Skovoroda studied – indeed, while a portrait of Skovodora features on Ukraine’s current 500 hryvnia banknote, the flipside is dominated by a plan of the Old Academy Building itself.

The building is still in use today for postgraduate studies, but it is in a poor state of repair and is currently a mere shadow of its former splendor – a situation which university supporters and management argue is hardly in keeping with the prestige which the academy claims for itself within the context of Ukrainian academic history. It is hoped that the current round of fundraising will secure the necessary finance to pay for a complete renovation of the building in time for the university’s planned 400th birthday celebrations in 2015 – allowing one of Ukraine’s oldest seats of learning to continue providing top quality education for another few hundred years at least.

Patriotic project attracts corporate support

At the fundraising launch event in early January 2001, the man behind the reestablishment of Kyiv Mohyla Academy in the early 1990s – honourary university president Vyacheslav Briukhovetskiy – spoke passionately about this latest stage in the institute’s rebirth. He likened the university to a fortress of spirituality and expanded on its role as a symbol of Ukrainian continuity – a place where the nation’s history is preserved. Thanks to his work over the past 20 years, Briukhovetskiy can today count on the goodwill and support of many Kyiv Mohyla Academy graduates now working as executives and CEOs at Ukraine’s top companies. The restoration project has already attracted an impressive array of corporate sponsors including Dragon Capital, Raiffeisen Bank Aval, BDO and ITT investment group, alongside many of the country’s leading cultural and business publications including Tyzhden magazine, Den newspaper and Invest Gazeta. Kyiv embassies – led by the French and the Canadians – have also been loyal supporters of the Mohyla Academy over the past 20 years and are expected to continue this trend as preparations for the 400th birthday pick up pace.

Counting on diaspora donations

Kyiv Mohyla Academy also enjoys the support of an influential segment of the North American Ukrai-nian diaspora which has long been among the most financially generous supporters of the university, providing funding for the construction of a number of today’s most regularly used study areas and other student facilities. Kyiv Mohyla Academy has its own foundation in America, and as this latest restoration project kicks off the academy’s US foundation will play a key role in fundraising efforts throughout the Ukrainian diaspora. Generous diaspora support, together with the material and spiritual backing which can be expected from Kyiv Mohyla’s post-Soviet graduates and the university’s many admirers, should prove sufficient to ensure that the university is restored to its historic glory in time for its 400th birthday.

Paul Johnson, Business Ukraine

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