This whole Zvarych thing reminds me of one NGO director I used to know in Kyiv: on his business card it said he had a Ph.D., while in reality he held a master's degree - and I'm still wondering whether the office manager who had ordered those business cards made this mistake deliberately, to please her boss, or not. He didn't seem to mind the embellishment, of course, even though he was smart enough to realize how ridiculous this ego trip appeared to some of his colleagues.

***

I've just noticed that there's a good editorial on Zvarych's education in the Kyiv Post, and also that the original Ukrainska Pravda piece has been translated into English.

Abdymok's got lots of links and leads, in all three languages.

And Korrespondent.net has a piece (in Russian) that sort of confirms that Zvarych does have a master's in international relations from Columbia University, but no Ph.D., and that he did teach at NYU.

Still, if you read the Ukrainian Weekly, a Diaspora publication, you'll know that Zvarych holds a Ph.D. in philosophy. And from his Parliament bio, you'll learn that he's a "Master of Philosophy" (in English) and "a sociologist, psychologist, politologist" (in Ukrainian). His Cabinet of Ministers English-language bio will tell you that the minister of justice is a "holder of a master's degree" - but has also produced "Ph.D. thesis 'Ontological bases of Plato ethics'."

***

It's confusing, and this is exactly why it reminds me of that cheap NGO director guy: Zvarych didn't seem to mind the confusion until it began to threaten the very nice chair he's sitting on.