The “intellectual weighing” procedure

The 13th Den’s Summer School of Journalism has completed its studies at the newspaper office. During the month, students from all over Ukraine had held 21 meetings with the “special lecturers” from different spheres of political, social, and cultural life – Major League players, who now undeservedly found themselves on the bench. The last meeting, which was symbolically called the “intellectual weighing” procedure, the students had in the dialog with Den’s editor-in-chief, Larysa Ivshyna.

The discussions began with the revision of drawings from the 1990s by Anatolii Kazansky, Den’s cartoonist; these drawings have encrypted some issues, which are topical even today: ochlocracy, national idea, the apartheid policy against the intellectual audience, corruption and “criminal privatization,” and also decentralization. “The search for the national idea is a kind of duplicity, because the idea was always here, it is now, and it will always be. We formulated it as ‘identity and modernization’ – i.e. the strengthening of our people and the learning of our history,” said Larysa Ivshyna. “One needs to be themselves and to live by the rules of the competitive world, constantly improving. What else is needed for this dynamic balance – to be a Ukrainian and a person of the world?”

AS LARYSA IVSHYNA POINTED OUT, DEN AND ANATOLII KAZANSKY’S CARTOONS GIVE A WISE INDIVIDUAL NO CHANCE TO AVOID THINKING / Photo by Artem SLIPACHUK, The Day

Summarizing the summer intensive, Den’s editor-in-chief advised the future reporters: “The fresh nuances of personal perception are always important – the reader needs to hear your voice. Never speak with another’s voice, speak with yours.”

IMPRESSIONS

Dmytro PLAKHTA, Ivan Franko Lviv National University:

“From all the lectures at the Summer School of Journalism, every student has learned something for themselves. And then, at the final meeting with the editor, it was important to discuss everything in the warm editorial atmosphere. Now we need to draw the right conclusions and to never stop improving ourselves as citizens of our Ukrainian state. The foundation for this development now, thanks to Den, had been made even stronger. A month is already behind... It is hard to believe, frankly. But this month of intensive course does not complete our training at the Summer School of Journalism. We continue to learn and it is of utmost importance that our learning yield good results.”

Marta FRANCHUK, National University of Kyiv Mohyla Academy:

“This meeting became a kind of apogee for me, a revelation which I had waited so long for. Transformation, progress, movement, and most importantly, honesty – these were the vectors of the meeting. The conversation was so deep, in fact, that one unwittingly begins to rethink everything, to feel ‘the flavor of the soul’ of everyone else. Indeed, as Larysa Ivshyna noted, ‘one can witness with their own eyes the newspaper stars of a mature caliber growing.’ ‘Not only to take, but also to give’ – this is what happened this month with everyone, as Den gave to each of us so much, that perhaps the participants of Summer School are not fully aware of it at the moment.”