Date:
Location:
Oleksandra Gaidai, Postdoctoral Fellow, Department of History, American University, Washington, DC
Moderated by Serhii Plokhii, Director, Ukrainian Research Institute, and Mykhailo S. Hrushevs'kyi Professor of Ukrainian History, Department of History, Harvard University
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Abstract
Spurring unprecedented challenges for Ukrainian society, 2022 was also a year of exceptional international attention toward Ukraine. As Russia's aggression in Ukraine hit the headlines, the Ukrainian flag became a recognizable symbol worldwide.
Extraordinary media attention would seem to create opportunities for Ukrainian studies to rise to new levels, but does it? How has the full-scale war affected Ukrainian academia? What role do Ukrainian academics play in the nation's response to the invasion?
This presentation discusses a recent report evaluating the current state of Ukrainian and Crimean Tatar studies around the world, which was prepared by Nadiia Koval, Oleksandra Gaidai, Mariia Melnyk, Mariia Protsiuk, Denys Tereshchenko and Maryna Irysova as a part of analytical work of the Ukrainian Institute. Together with an interactive map, the report presents a broad picture of Ukrainian studies and its most pressing problems, and it identifies opportunities and challenges following the Russian Federation’s full-scale aggression in February 2022, including the issue of decolonizing Russian/ Slavic studies.
The presentation also addresses the current situation inside Ukrainian academia and its role in developing Ukrainian studies abroad. Since February 24, 2022, Ukrainian scholars, like all Ukrainian citizens, had to make many difficult choices. Some left the country, making Ukrainian studies ‘physically’ closer to the international academy. But will that be followed by changes in the field? And what does it mean for the academic and educational system within Ukraine? The wartime situation has created new possibilities for Ukrainian academia but simultaneously has deepened problems that existed before the invasion.
About the Speaker
Oleksandra Gaidai is a postdoctoral fellow in the Department of History at American University (Washington D.C.) and a guest lecturer in the Department of History at the National University of Kyiv-Mohyla Academy (Kyiv). She is a graduate of the National University of Kyiv-Mohyla Academy with a major in History. She earned her Ph.D. in History at the Institute of History of Ukraine, National Academy of Science of Ukraine in 2016. From 2019-2022, Gaidai was a Head of Academic Programmes at the Ukrainian Institute, Kyiv. She was granted a fellowship at the Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies (Geneva) and is an alumna of the Harvard Ukrainian Summer Institute. Gaidai specializes in memory studies and the contemporary history of Ukraine. She wrote Guest Stone: Lenin Statues in Central Ukraine (Kyiv, К.І.С., 2018).
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