The students made a pleasant gift to Mikhail Poplavsky – they presented the film “Be the Director of his Life!”, In which, through his thoughts from archival interviews, they captured 30 years of rectorship in 10 minutes. In the video distance, which Mikhail Poplavsky posted on his Instagram page, statements from 1995 to 2025 are presented.
Video: Mikhailo Polovyki / YouTube
“The team and I made a big jerk to create a university of the future. I dream that young people study at Ukrainian universities!
This is my Ukrainian path and my most successful project!
Thoughts that have passed the test of time from 1995 to 2025. They help to look at life differently, taking into account the challenges of time and today's realities.
Believe in yourself!
Attack life!
Implement your creative healthy ambitions!
Be leaders and directors of your life!
We keep the Ukrainian wave together. “
Some of the statements became fateful for Mikhail Poplavsky and characterize him as a top manager, visionary, innovator with extraordinary strategic thinking, radical reformal vision of the development of education and culture of Ukraine.
The first 10 years of the rector of Mikhail Poplavsky were marked by the rapid development of the university, structural reorganization, and the beginning of radical reforms in the system of training specialists for the sociocultural sphere.
The rector developed the “Concept of Prospective Development of the University”, according to which new competitive and promising specialties were discovered, an elite scientific and pedagogical composition was formed, and the educational process was modernized. Mikhail Poplavsky became the initiator of the development of the analytical model “University of the XXI century.” – One of the first experimental projects of higher education. And already in 1999, Kyiv State University of Culture and Arts was assigned the status of national.
The formation and development of the university has become the work of the life of Mikhail Poplavsky, who constantly seeks to be ahead of time.
The thoughts of Mikhail Poplavsky, collected in 30 years, are relevant today. Among them:
“Culture is a big policy. There is no nation without culture and there is no state without culture” (1996).
“Life is a big show, the director of which is a person himself. There is no need to think that fate will smile somewhere, someone will help something there. Today is the fate of everyone in his hands, and a person should fight for his life. To set some goal, although it is difficult, but to go to it. To be persistent in its achievement” (2001).
“Each of us is the builder of our country, and each person is measured by specific projects. We need to pose the question: what did you do for Ukraine, and not what Ukraine has done for me? We owe it for Ukraine. And when we are these” bricks “together – there will be strong, independent, beautiful, free Ukraine” (2010).
