Cambridge Ukrainian Studies Podcast

Russia has amassed an estimated 150,000 troops along Ukraine's borders. To come to grips with this dramatic escalation of Europe's eight-year undeclared war, we focus on the vulnerabilities of Ukraine's southern border and the broader questions of Black Sea security, especially in the context of Turkish-Ukrainian-Russian relations. How does Nato member Turkey view Russia’s escalating aggression against Ukraine? What is the importance of occupied Crimea to this crisis, and how does it relate to the war in Donbas and the threat of further violence? Renowned experts from Ukraine and Turkey tackle these questions and more in this discussion. Our panelists included Asli Aydıntaşbaş (European Council on Foreign Relations), Petro Burkovskyi (Democratic Initiatives Foundation), and Volodymyr Dubovyk (Mechnikov National University, Odesa). The discussion was moderated by Rory Finnin (University of Cambridge) on Monday, 31 January 2022. The event was part of the free, public webinar series organised by Cambridge Ukrainian Studies, an academic centre at the University of Cambridge.

In 2020, a new book was published by Indiana University Press: 'The Burden of the Past: History, Memory, and Identity in Contemporary Ukraine', edited by Anna Wylegała and Małgorzata Głowacka-Grajper. Wulf Kansteiner has described the book as 'a milestone of the scholarship about Eastern European politics of memory and a compelling plea for the need to further de-Westernize the field of memory studies'. Olenka Pevny (Director, CUS) discussed the book with four of its contributors: Olesya Khromeychuk (Kings College London), Daria Mattingly (University of Cambridge), Matthew Pauly (Michigan State University), and Anna Wylegała (Institute of Philosophy and Sociology, Polish Academy of Sciences). The conversation took place in July 2020.

This CUS conversation provides an update on the political scene in Ukraine and focuses on the reforms enacted under Prime Minister Oleksiy Honcharuk in 2019-2020. Oleksiy Honcharuk is a lawyer and politician who served as Deputy Head of the Office of the President of Ukraine, Volodymyr Zelenskyi, and as the youngest Prime Minister of Ukraine, from August 2019 until March 2020. Mr. Honcharuk spoke with Dr Olenka Pevny and Andrii Smytsniuk of the University of Cambridge in June 2020.

In this podcast Olenka Pevny and Andrii Smytsniuk speak with Olesya Ostrovska-Lyuta about cultural politics in Ukraine and on the role that art institutions play in its cultural policies. Olesya Ostrovska-Lyuta is the Director of Mystetskyi Arsenal Art and Culture Museum Complex. She is also former Vice-Minister of Culture of Ukraine. ‘Mystets'kyi Arsenal’ (‘Art Arsenal’) is a public cultural institution, museum, and art exhibition complex which occupies a historic 60,000 square metre space in the centre of Kyiv. The mission of ‘Mystets'kyi Arsenal’ is to raise public awareness of the social and cultural issues facing the nation and to serve as a conduit for cultural exchange with the international community.

In this podcast, Serhii Plokhii -- Mykhailo S. Hrushevs'kyi Professor of Ukrainian History at Harvard University and Director of the Harvard Ukrainian Research Institute (HURI) -- spoke with University of Cambridge students enrolled in Paper (course) SL9 (Introduction to the Language, Literature and Culture of Ukraine) and in Paper SL12 (Socialist Russia from 1917-1991). Collectively, these Cambridge students have read Plokhii's books 'The Gates of Europe: A History of Ukraine', 'Lost Kingdom: A History of Russian Nationalism from Ivan the Great to Vladimir Putin', 'Tsars and Cossacks: A Study in Iconography', and a number of his scholarly articles. Professor Plokhii has written extensively on such topics as the origins of Slavic nations, the Cossak period in Ukraine, the history of Russian nationalism, the Cold War, the Yalta Conference, Chornobyl', and the figures of Mykhailo Hrushevs'kyi and Stepan Bandera. Professor Plokhii has won numerous awards for his publications, all of which position Ukraine in the cultural framework of European history. The conversation was recorded on 18 May 2020.

In this webinar, Olenka Pevny and Andrii Smytsniuk speak with Yelyzaveta Yasko, a graduate of the Blavatnik School of Government at Oxford University, Ukrainian MP, and the Head of Ukrainian Delegation to the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe. They discuss Ukrainian international relations, Ukraine’s position in PACE, and the Minsk Trilateral Contact Group. The discussion was recorded on 14 May 2020.

In this conversation, Olenka Pevny and Andrii Smytsniuk talk with Professor Serhiy Kvit about the current state of the Ukrainian education system as well as the 2020 COVID-19 lockdown and its impact on the education process and Ukrainian education policy in general.

An online conversation between Dr Alexander Rodnyansky (University Lecturer in Economics at the University of Cambridge and former Chief Economic Adviser to the Prime Minister of Ukraine), Dr Olenka Pevny (Director, Cambridge Ukrainian Studies), and Andrii Smytsniuk (Language Teaching Officer, Ukrainian). The interview was recorded on 15 April 2020.

Natalie A. Jaresko -- Ukraine's former Finance Minister (2014-2016) -- delivers the Fifteenth Annual Cambridge Stasiuk Lecture in Contemporary Ukrainian Studies. Her presentation at Robinson College, Cambridge on 24 February 2017 was entitled 'Ukraine in Transition'.

The Annual Cambridge Lecture in Medieval and Early Modern Slavonic Studies was launched in 2016 to examine key questions of early Slavonic Studies, with a particular focus on the lands of present-day Ukraine. It features leading scholars who study the ever-changing cultural landscape of the Ukrainian lands and the varied composition and character of their inhabitants from the medieval period to the late eighteenth century. In line with current trends in scholarship, the series moves beyond deep-rooted national paradigms and adopts a transnational approach to the study of the Rus and Ruthenian past and to the early modern history of Ukraine and its neighbours. It casts Ukraine as a multifocal centre for the formulation and transformation of political notions, social paradigms and cultural identities. In March 2017, the Second Annual Lecture was delivered by Dr Yury Avvakumov, Assistant Professor of Theology, University of Notre Dame. His topic was 'The “Uniates” and the Invention of Eastern Orthodoxy: Late Byzantine and Kyivan Advocates of Church Union in the Crossfire between Rome, Constantinople, and Moscow'. Prior to joining the Department of Theology at Notre Dame University, Dr Avvakumov taught at the Ukrainian Catholic University in Lviv where he taught Historical Theology before becoming the Rev. Basil Galyarnyk Professor of History, Dean of the Humanities Faculty and Founding Director of the Classical, Byzantine and Medieval Studies Department (2003-2009). He also was Visiting Professor in Church Slavonic at the Ukrainian Free University (2002-2007), Munich, and Lecturer in Latin and Greek language and Patristic literature in the Russian Orthodox Theological Seminary and Academy in Leningrad (1984-1991).

Particularly since the appointment of Mikheil Saakashvili as regional governor in May 2015, the Black Sea port of Odessa has become an epicentre of Ukraine’s campaign for political and economic reform. In this public lecture, Professor Volodymyr Dubovyk (Director of the Centre for International Studies, I. Mechnikov National University, Odessa, Ukraine) positions Odessa as a prism through which to analyse Ukraine’s experience of revolution and war and its ongoing struggle with corruption.

In this podcast Professor Timothy Snyder (Yale) considers the politicized history and the historicised politics related to Russia's war in Ukraine, with special attention to the the enduring legacy of the Holocaust and the Kremlin's rehabilitation of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact. He also previews his forthcoming book Black Earth, which will be published by Bodley Head in September 2015. His presentation, entitled 'The Fog of History: From the Great Fatherland War to Russia's Invasion of Ukraine', was delivered in King's College, Cambridge on 27 February 2015. Professor Snyder is introduced by Dr Rory Finnin, Head of the Department of Slavonic Studies, University of Cambridge.

In this podcast, three scholars discuss the relationship between academic knowledge of Ukraine and state propaganda about Ukraine in Germany, France and Russia, respectively. The presentations were a part of the conference 'Ukraine and the Global Information War' organized by Cambridge Ukrainian Studies, an academic centre in the Department of Slavonic Studies at the University of Cambridge. Andriy Portnov, Tetyana Ogarkova, and Tanya Zaharchenko participate. Rachel Polonsky chairs the session, which took place on 31 October 2014 at King's College, Cambridge.

In this podcast, a group of prominent journalists debates the position of Ukraine as an object of Western journalism. The panel discussion was part of the conference 'Ukraine and the Global Information War' organized by Cambridge Ukrainian Studies, an academic centre in the Department of Slavonic Studies at the University of Cambridge. Sabra Ayres, James Marson, Simon Ostrovsky, Peter Pomerantsev and Michael Weiss participate. Anne Applebaum and Rory Finnin moderate the exchange, which took place on 31 October 2014 at King's College, Cambridge.

On Friday, 28 February 2014 renowned scholar George Grabowicz (Harvard) delivered the Twelfth Annual Stasiuk Lecture in Contemporary Ukrainian Studies at the University of Cambridge. His presentation, part of Cambridge's Shevchenko2014.org bicentennial celebration, was entitled 'Taras Shevchenko: The Making of the National Poet.' George Grabowicz is the Dmytro Cyzevs’kyj Professor of Ukrainian Literature at Harvard University. Among his most well-known publications are The Poet as Mythmaker: A Study of Symbolic Meaning in Taras Sevcenko (Harvard UP, 1982) and Toward a History of Ukrainian Literature (Harvard UP, 1981).

Ukraine is engulfed in revolution. In this briefing, held on 24 January 2014, Cambridge Ukrainian Studies offered the UK public insights and analyses from political scientists Olexiy Haran and Andreas Umland (Kyiv Mohyla Academy), historian Yaroslav Hrytsak (Ukrainian Catholic University, L'viv), writer and civic activist Serhii Zhadan (Kharkiv), and analyst Orysia Lutsevych (Chatham House, London). Cambridge students involved in the EuroMaidan movement also shared their experiences. This English-language event was free and open to the public. Rory Finnin (University of Cambridge) moderated.

Oksana Zabuzhko delivers the Eleventh Annual Stasiuk Lecture in Contemporary Ukrainian Studies, entitled 'Being a Writer in Contemporary Ukraine: Drawing the Landscape While Standing on a Powerboat'.

In this podcast, Dr Andrii Portnov seeks to understand the paradoxes of post-Soviet pluralism, exploring Dnipropetrovsk (imperial Yekaterinoslav) as a laboratory in which to study the coexistence of, and conflicts between, different ethnic and religious groups in Ukraine and Eastern Europe. His presentation was the Tenth Annual Stasiuk Lecture in Contemporary Ukrainian Studies at the University of Cambridge.

In this video podcast, Professor Timothy Snyder of Yale University offers a fascinating, provocative, and at times unsettling view into the tension between history and memory in Ukraine and Eastern Europe today.

In this video podcast, Professor Simon Franklin (Head of the School of Arts and Humanities) offers an introduction to Kyivan Rus', the first polity to emerge among the Eastern Slavs. Topics include Volodymyr the Great, Yaroslav the Wise, the Law of the Rus', the Primary Chronicle, the Tale of Ihor's Campaign, the Novgorod birch-bark letters, and the treasures of Kyiv's Monastery of the Caves (Pechers'ka Lavra) and Saint Sophia.

In this podcast, writer, journalist and linguist Svitlana Pyrkalo discusses the evolution and development of Ukrainian slang with Rory Finnin, Lecturer in Ukrainian Studies, University of Cambridge.

This podcast features the Eighth Annual Stasiuk Lecture in Contemporary Ukrainian Studies delivered by Dr Gwendolyn Sasse, Professorial Fellow at Nuffield College, Oxford and Reader in Comparative Politics in the Department of Politics and International Relations and the School for Interdisciplinary Area Studies, University of Oxford. She is author of the prize-winning book, The Crimea Question: Identity, Transition, and Conflict (Harvard 2007).