Did son of president plagiarize parts of his doctoral thesis?
Like father, like son.
Viktor Yanukovych Jr., the 30-year-old son of Ukraine’s president and a lawmaker in the pro-presidential Party of Regions’ faction in parliament, seems to have followed in his father’s footsteps with the written word – namely by inserting other people’s material in his own publication and claiming it as his own.
In other words, plagiarism.
Just by Googling several chapters of the dissertation defended by Yanukovych Jr. on June 17, 2009, the Kyiv Post discovered that substantial chunks – ranging from a few sentences to several paragraphs – were identical to previously published books written by other authors.
The “borrowed” parts were put into the thesis with no quotation marks and no reference to the original source.
In a written response to the Kyiv Post, Yanukovych Jr. said the allegations “are untrue and essentially libel, which can be prosecuted by the laws of our state.”
In his written response, he also said the text has references in cases where they are necessary. “The part of the text which, in its essence, has a completely different meaning, doesn’t require references,” he added.
Yanukovych Jr. also said that his thesis went through all necessary checks before its defense. In his letter, he inquired about the expertise used to conclude that parts of the thesis were plagiarized.
The Kyiv Post, however, discovered large portions of the thesis were copied with no references at all. The Kyiv Post closely reviewed roughly 10 percent of the 200-page document, stopping when it found several identical passages to other works.
The newspaper also showed its findings to Oleksiy Haran, a political science professor at Kyiv Mohyla Academy, who called parts of Yanukovych’s thesis “undisguised plagiarism.” Haran added: “For things like that at Kyiv Mohyla Academy, undergraduates get kicked out of their bachelor thesis defense.”
A Kyiv lawyer who analyzed parts of the thesis and compared them with the other published works said that the portion reviewed “contains signs of plagiarism.” The lawyer asked not to be identified, fearing reprisals.
President Viktor Yanukovych, meanwhile, faced similar accusations of plagiarism recently for parts of his recently authored English-language book “Opportunity Ukraine,” which was published in Austria last fall.
The book, portraying Ukraine as an investor-friendly country, turned out to be an embarrassment for the president, who is known for his linguistic slips.
The book has since become hard to find. Advisers close to Yanukovych denied the allegations and the Presidential Administration refused to comment on the issue.
The thesis authored by the president’s younger of two sons is entitled “Formulation and Implementation of State Social Policy.” It is about ways to improve the government’s social policy and make it more efficient.
It was written and defended at the Donetsk State University of Management, where President Yanukovych, who also holds a Ph.D. degree in economics, used to teach while at the same time serving as governor of Donetsk Oblast.
The president also says he has a master’s degree in international law and that he obtained both post-graduate diplomas while serving as governor from 1997 to 2002.
As for Yanukovych Jr.’s doctoral thesis in state management, in one instance he inserted two paragraphs verbatim that originally appeared in the Russian book “Foundations of Social Management,” which was published 10 years ago in Moscow.
The thesis also contained portions of a textbook called “State Regulation of Economy,” which came out in Kyiv in 2006, with no attribution. There are several other examples of plagiarism in the work.
In the West, politicians who are caught plagiarizing can be forced out of office. The offense can be more career-killing than even a sex scandal.
Last March, German Defense Minister Karl-Theodor zu Guttenberg left his post after the discovery that parts of his doctoral thesis were plagiarized.
“It was a major political blow for his [Guttenberg’s] political career,” said Andreas Umland, a German professor who teaches political science at Kyiv Mohyla Academy.
Guttenberg not only resigned, but his university also deprived him of the Ph.D. he earned unfairly. Umland said that, at Western universities, when a student is caught using someone else’s thoughts in their papers without providing proper acknowledgment, it can lead to expulsion from a university.
In America, U.S. Vice President Joe Biden withdrew from his 1988 presidential bid after he was discovered to have plagiarized the speeches of then British Labor Party leader Neil Kinnock.
In Ukraine, however, politicians seldom suffer any adverse consequences for plagiarizing.
Last summer, Raisa Bohatyryova, secretary of the National Security and Defense Council, used parts of the Stanford University commencement address by the late Steve Jobs, the co-founder of Apple, when she addressed graduates of the National University of Kyiv Mohyla Academy last June. She did not comment on the accusations.
In 2002, Volodymyr Lytvyn, now the speaker of the Verkhovna Rada, was discovered to have translated into Ukrainian an entire article written by Thomas Carothers, a noted American analyst on democratization, and simply put his name on it.
Eventually, Lytvyn acknowledged he did not write the article, but did not resign his post as chief of staff to then-President Leonid Kuchma.
Umland said Ukrainians have grown accustomed to such cheating because it is so commonplace. “In Ukraine everything is corrupt anyway with people paying for their [universities] degrees,” he said. “It’s like with corruption.
As everybody does it, so it’s not a big thing.”
Previously, Viktor Yanukovych Jr. has been caught in unflattering situations.
In parliament since 2006, he has been videotaped voting on behalf of other members of parliament, a practice prohibited by the constitution but commonplace in the Verkhovna Rada.
Also in a video posted on YouTube in July, Viktor Yanukovych Jr. was spotted unsteady on his feet, cursing and struggling to find his way home in Kyiv while his bodyguards tried to help him.
Yanukovych’s assistant did not respond to requests for comment about this incident.
During a press conference before the July incident, his father said he is “not ashamed of [his] children and grandchildren.”
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Kyiv Post staff writer Yuriy Onyshkiv can be reached at [email protected]
