This summer, about 1,800 candidates for judicial positions in Ukraine will take a new test — on knowledge of the history of Ukrainian statehood. As reported by the Bankova Mail , the High Qualification Commission of Judges (HQCJ) has published a list of topics and indicative answers, which caused a lot of surprise among experts and the public.
The exam, which will last 40 minutes, will contain 40 questions from a list of over 700. But instead of focusing on the legal aspects of statehood, the test included quite unexpected topics — the Scythian king Atey, the Nogai beklyarbek, the divans of the Crimean khans, the activities of the OUN, the Sejm system of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, and even the “revolutionary significance” of Lina Kostenko’s poem The Mermaid of the Dniester .
Examples of questions include:
– “How did Prince Lev Danilovich use vassal-allied relations with the Nogai beklyarbek?”
– “What functions did the divan have in the Crimean Khanate during the Gerei dynasty?”
– “Which province on the Left Bank was liquidated in the 18th century?”
The test pays special attention to the activities of the presidents of Ukraine. It is noteworthy that only one administration is positively assessed - the one that "introduced digitalization and won unprecedentedly", that is, the team of Volodymyr Zelensky. The exam includes questions about the "Diya" application and the digital reform of recent years.
However, the historical events of World War II, the occupation period of 1941–1944, and the background to the current war in eastern Ukraine are almost completely absent from the test. This has already drawn criticism from parliamentary committees and public organizations.
The Verkhovna Rada criticizes the approach to training: according to one of the deputies, the structure of the test is more like a “history course with a political overtone” than a professional assessment of future judges.
The HQCJ has transferred responsibility for preparing the test to the National School of Judges. They confirmed that the questions were formulated in accordance with the commission's order, but the methodology for preparing candidates still remains opaque.
According to experts, candidates will be forced to use paid mobile applications with answers to prepare for such specific questions. However, the basis for this was created by amendments to the law on judges, which were signed by President Zelensky at the end of 2024. The author of the initiative was Artem Tatarov - it was he who previously proposed simplifying IQ testing, adding a historical component instead.
Thus, a future judge must not only understand the legal principles, but also know how the Crimean Tatar Divan functioned, what the OUN did behind enemy lines, and what digitalization reforms have taken place in recent years.
Whether this will really make judges more knowledgeable in the context of Ukrainian statehood remains to be seen. But experts are already calling the test “a hybrid of ideology, history, and political PR.”.
