Welcome to the Harvard Ukrainian Research Institute!
The Ukrainian Research Institute (HURI), an integral part of Harvard University, is the leading academic institution in the United States dedicated to the support of scholarship and the dissemination of knowledge about Ukraine and its neighboring countries of Eastern Europe.
These are difficult times for the Institute, for the broader community of scholars and students in the field of Ukrainian studies, and, first and foremost, for the people of Ukraine.
In February 2022, Ukrainians found themselves under an unprovoked, full-scale attack by Vladimir Putin’s Russia. Under these circumstances, when interest in Ukraine, its history, its language, and its culture has grown exponentially, and the need for reliable information, academic integrity, and sound judgment have become more important than ever before, we are doing everything we can to produce and disseminate what the authors of the Harvard mission call “good knowledge” to inform and educate communities at Harvard and beyond. In this regard, we have relied and continue to rely on your understanding, participation, and support.
The Institute was founded in June 1973 through the generosity of the Ukrainian-American community, and, under the academic leadership of Professors Omeljan Pritsak and Ihor Ševcˇenko, it helped to put Ukraine on the map of the world academic community.
The Institute works closely with Harvard’s three endowed chairs in Ukrainian studies: history, literature, and philology, and has developed a number of academic programs including a weekly seminar series, international conferences, and other forums on Ukrainian studies, as well as a publications program that comprises source editions, a monograph series, literary translations, and the academic journal Harvard Ukrainian Studies. We are also proud of our academic projects, like MAPA: The Digital Atlas of Ukraine and Ukraïnica: The Primary Database of Ukrainian Studies, which seek to provide resources for scholarship on Ukraine utilizing modern technology.
The founding of our Temerty Contemporary Ukraine Program in 2019 turned out to be unexpectedly timely; with Russia's 2022 full-scale invasion, the program has been a driving force of our response to the war. The program comprises original research, yearly conferences, and a number of substantive and innovative digital resources: reports, commentary, video briefs, and an online book club.
As a whole, the Institute serves as a meeting ground for ideas and people interested in the study of Ukraine and Eastern Europe. HURI provides a temporary, but hospitable, home to scholars from countries all over the world. Since 2001, the Institute has hosted more than 160 fellows, who come to Harvard to do research in humanities and social sciences. In response to the unprecedented conditions caused by Russia’s war, we have also established non-residential fellowships in cooperation with the Institute for Human Sciences (IWM), and we are working with Ukrainian scholars who need to defer their HURI fellowship appointments.
Our activities would not be possible without the generous support of many organizations and individuals — in particular, the Petro Jacyk Educational Foundation, the Ukrainian Studies Fund, Dr. Jaroslaw and Nadia Mihaychuk, and the Temerty Family Foundation, whose gifts and endowments support our academic research programs.
Our faculty, associates, and experienced and dedicated staff help to create a rich intellectual environment and advance the Institute’s mission as a major academic resource on Ukraine’s culture, language, literature, history, and politics.
As we return to campus this fall, we look forward with great anticipation to the vibrant conversations and encounters that in-person activities provide. We welcome you to visit the Institute, attend our public events, and reach out to us for information and ways to get involved in our mission. Our hearts are with Ukraine as our minds stay focused on fruitful academic exchanges about Ukraine’s past, present, and future.
- Serhii Plokhii