Everyday Life of the Applicants of the «Donbas-Ukraine» Educational Centers (Sociological Survey)

The article presents the results of the sociological study of everyday practices of applicants entering Ukrainian higher education institutions from the temporarily occupied territories of Ukraine. The research was supported by Konrad Adenauer Foundation and conducted in June 2020 in Mariupol. Seventeen deep interviews with the students allowed to get the insights of their everyday life (work, study, consuming, leisure, communication, etc.) in the temporarily occupied territories, focusing on their needs, interests, fears, values, priorities, and plans for the future. The research clearly showed that people in the temporarily occupied territories live in the economic realities typical to the late Soviet era and the period of early capitalization of the economy in Ukraine of early 1990s. The tendencies towards impoverishment of the population and youth unemployment were mentioned along with primitivizing of their leisure activities and introduction of a powerful ideological component into the latter. The youth in these territories for years has been living in the atmosphere of secrecy and fear, restrictions of personal freedoms, and heavy propaganda influence. The war and its consequences became an existential challenge for the absolute majority of the interviewed young people that affected all areas of their lives. Yet, some of the participants, being aware of the negative consequences of military actions and social political transformations in the temporarily occupied territories were inclined to tolerate the existing situation. On the emotional level, young people demonstrated deep attachment to their family, their «little homeland», which explained their desire to maintain close ties with the occupied territories. In spite of existing spiritual bonds and conflicting spatial identification, the participants nevertheless associated their life strategies with migration, where Ukraine and the EU are on top of their priority list. However, according to the respondents’ assumption there are not many young people in the occupied territories who would share this. The data obtained from the survey are valuable for establishing a dialogue and constructive interaction among students, and for creating a tolerant, psychologically safe academic environment in the higher education institutions with significant number of students from the temporarily occupied territories of Ukraine, whose habits, values, and thoughts are already somewhat different from the way of thinking of youth in the other parts of Ukraine.