Oleksandr Karasov. A Response to Anna Ivanova's Essay on (Un)freedom in Ukrainian Academia

Abstract: This letter is a response to Anna Ivanova's essay, "Can Academia Speak about Ukraine?", which is particularly notable for daring to explore the negative consequences of Russia's aggression from the perspective of academic freedom in Ukraine. However, the author points out several significant flaws in Ivanova's argumentation. The core claim is that the essay underplays the causal link: Ukrainian unfreedom is treated as a phenomenon in itself, somewhat independent of Russia's threat as a political power, whereas it is a direct, defensive reaction to aggression. The author critiques the idealistic call for peace, which overlooks just war theory and the reality of Russia's imperialistic ambitions, as well as the superficial application of Marxist theory. Special attention is given to the case of Marta Havryshko, which the author argues is presented one-sidedly, omitting the context of her rather propagandist public activism, thereby weakening the argument about the suppression of academic freedom. The author concludes that, while raising important questions, the essay fails to offer a constructive vision for the future and instead targets a narrow audience, rather than fostering a broader, more productive debate.

Keywords: academic freedom, Russian aggression, Ukraine, militarisation, propaganda, Marta Havryshko, Ukrainian Studies.

Author: Oleksandr Karasov, postdoctoral researcher at the Department of Built Environment, Aalto University (Finland). Email: oleksandr.karasov@aalto.fi

Александр Карасёв

Ответ на эссе Анны Ивановой о (не)свободе в украинской академии

Аннотация: Это письмо является ответом на эссе Анны Ивановой «Может ли академия говорить об Украине?», примечательного своей смелостью исследования негативных последствий агрессии России в контексте академической свободы в Украине. Однако, автор указывает на ряд существенных недостатков в аргументации Ивановой. Ключевая проблема заключается в том, что эссе недостаточно учитывает причинно-следственную связь: украинская несвобода критикуется как бы сама по себе, без учета угрозы российской политической власти, в то время как она является прямым оборонительным ответом на агрессию. Критикуется идеалистический призыв к миру, который игнорирует теорию справедливой войны и реальность российских империалистических целей, а также поверхностное использование марксистской теории. Отдельное внимание уделяется анализу кейса Марты Гаврышко, который, по мнению автора, представлен в эссе однобоко, без учета контекста ее скорее пропагандистской публичной деятельности, что ослабляет аргумент о подавлении академической свободы. В заключение делается вывод, что, поднимая важные вопросы, эссе не предлагает конструктивного видения будущего и направлено на узкую аудиторию, вместо того чтобы способствовать более широкой и продуктивной дискуссии.

Ключевые слова: академическая свобода, российская агрессия, Украина, милитаризация, пропаганда,Марта Гаврышко, украинистика.

Автор: Карасёв Александр Олегович, постдок кафедры искусственной среды, университет Аалто (Финляндия). Email: oleksandr.karasov@aalto.fi

Anna Ivanova's essay is a valuable and provocative text that forces readers to confront uncomfortable truths about the costs of war, even for the nation fighting for its survival. I appreciate the introduction, which details the personal losses she has suffered, effectively grounding the abstract discussion of "unfreedom" in tangible, human tragedy. This positionality ensures authenticity and provides emotional weight to her arguments. I am not an expert in the sociological frameworks, but I acknowledge the intellectual depth of her arguments. The essay transparently compares the decline of academic freedom in both Russia and Ukraine; while unequivocally identifying Russia as the aggressor, it points to parallel processes of state militarisation, ideological control over curricula, and the weaponisation of the social sciences. This is a brave and intellectually honest comparison. As a Ukrainian of Russian heritage, born in Donbas, I generally share the liberal spirit of the essay.

However, the essay is not free from significant flaws. Ivanova underplays the causality: Ukrainian unfreedom is a direct, defensive reaction to Russian aggression. While she accurately draws parallels between weaponising humanities and social sciences in Russia and Ukraine, and explicitly states that she does not equate aggressor and its victim, Russia's militarisation is an instrument of aggression and imperial expansion. Ukraine's militarisation is a tool for national survival. By focusing on the similarity of the mechanisms (e.g., patriotic education, veteran appointments), the essay risks obscuring the profound difference in their purpose.

Conceptual issues

For Ivanova, the "state of exception" is a theoretical concept that warrants critique. For the Ukrainian state, it is a practical necessity. Restricting Russian-language media, banning pro-Russian political parties, and controlling the information space are not just infringements on abstract liberal freedoms; they are viewed as essential measures to counter a fifth column and resist a genocidal invasion. The essay analyses these measures as a problem of academic liberty without sufficiently weighing them against the alternative: state collapse and the gradual assimilation of Ukrainian survivors into Russian society.

The author explicitly names herself 'Marxist'; however, her arguments are mostly focused on the erosion of liberal norms, such as freedom of speech, human rights, etc., rather than the economic or class-based analytics. I could expect that a robust Marxist analysis could explore the role of capital in fueling the war of aggression in Russia, or the role of the Russian working class in the provision of human resources for the Russian army, even without forced mobilisation, like in Ukraine, or the underrepresented role of the Ukrainian working class in Ukraine's political culture. Instead, Marxism is largely used for expressing the author's personal identity, rather than as an applied research framework.

The essay's broad conclusion towards the "unacceptability of war in general" is a significant rhetorical and philosophical flaw. By concluding that the war in Ukraine is just one of many military conflicts and that the ultimate goal is to foster dialogue and peace, the essay collapses the critical distinction between a war of aggression and a war of national defence. This inadvertently aligns with a pacifist stance that, in this specific context, can be seen as undermining Ukraine's right to self-defence under international law. I do not want to go into depth on philosophical debates on this matter, but the theory of just war is more intellectually grounded and less controversial than the simple denial of any war under any circumstances (therefore, it is accepted in contemporary international law).

Practical issues

The call for "dialogue across ideological divides" and an "academia committed to fostering peace" is clear. However, in the current context, it sidesteps the reality that one side, Russia, has shown no interest in a just peace, defining its war aims in maximalist and eliminationist terms. The conclusion places the onus on a vaguely defined "academia" to solve a problem created by a specific state's imperial ambitions, which feels both naive and analytically weak. The author, in this way, places herself in an uncomfortable position - her moral claims about peace are understandable; however, she does not propose a realistic way to achieve peace without sacrificing Ukraine's existential interests, and without countering Russia's imperialistic ambitions. Now it sounds like her pluralistic 'recipe for success' is to re-establish former media controlled by Medvedchuk, enrich the telemarathon 'experts' with Anatolii Sharii, or Diana Panchenko, and praise diversity with Russian TV channels coming back into broadcasting like in the 1990s, when my parents used to watch 'Vremya' from Moscow in the evening as a key information source. An essay could consider an alternative reality in which Ukraine resembles Belarus in its role as Russia's satellite. What about academic freedom in Belarus? What about resembling Stalinist practices of control in contemporary Russia? The essay does not dare to go this far.

About famous Marta Havryshko - the essay fails to mention the very context that makes Havryshko a controversial figure. Much of the backlash stems not from her peer-reviewed academic publications but from her social media activism, her selective focus on far-right elements within the Ukrainian Armed Forces while largely ignoring their prevalence (and state-sponsorship) in the Russian military, and her engagement with Western commentators who often promote pro-Kremlin narratives, such as Glenn Diesen, who has been a regular commentator on the Russian state-controlled international television network RT for several years, and legitimised Kremlin's narratives as Western expert. By omitting this information, Ivanova frames Havryshko as an academic martyr being silenced by an intolerant state. An alternative, and arguably more complete, interpretation is that Havryshko is a highly politicised actor who uses her academic credentials to engage in activism that many Ukrainians perceive as detrimental to the national war effort. Condemning the threats against her is necessary, but presenting her as a simple victim of academic suppression without acknowledging the political nature of her public interventions is a serious misrepresentation. This omission significantly weakens her use as a prime example of academic unfreedom in Ukraine and reflects the author's own bias.

Ultimately, the essay raises more questions than it answers. While it succeeds in highlighting the fragility of academic freedom, it does so by downplaying the brutal realities of Ukraine's fight for survival and by presenting a partial and polemical view of its key examples. I could conclude that it serves as a powerful starting point for a necessary debate, but we have already seen enough debatable essays from both left-wing and right-wing sides in Ukraine. There may be time for a positive vision of the future in Ukraine and, especially, Russia as an aggressor, and proposing pathways towards it from Marxist or whatever other positions. This analytical task would be more ambitious, but also way more productive than yet another complaint about academic unfreedom in Ukraine for a specific target group of leftist readers, who already support everything stated there. The author could be way more successful if her arguments were not prepared for those living in the information bubble of 'Historical expertise' or 'Jacobin', if you like, but for a more diverse audience of Ukrainian and Western academia.

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