ABSTRACT The paper deals with the vagaries of linguistic “colonization” of Russian-ruled Ukraine from the mid-seventeenth century to 1914. The author discusses the major stages in the implementation of the colonialism policies, starting with first bans on books printed in Church Slavonic of the Ukrainian recension via the decrees and edicts issued by Peter I together with the Holy Synod to the punitive measures taken by the tsarist regime against new literary Ukrainian in the second half of the nineteenth century. The author distinguishes three languages (Church Slavonic of the Ukrainian recension, Ruthenian, and new literary Ukrainian) which were consecutively exposed to various forms of colonialmanagement by the tsarist administration. Based on these three languages, a new periodization of linguistic colonization is substantiated. The material analyzed with the help of this new periodization proves that Russia’s rulers had special reasons for treating Ukraine more severely than other non-Russian colonial territories, resulting in a constant, consistent, and long-lasting policy aimed at the linguistic “colonization” in Russian-ruled Ukraine

ABSTRACT

All of Hryhoryj Skovoroda's (1722-1794) works are an effort of combining different philosophical and religious world views towards their ultimate uniting. Such syncretism is only possible when key terms of different theories can be shown to be synonyms in designating the same concepts. Skovoroda, while pursuing logical arguments to give his writings a composed, consistently progressive order, is quick to use two terms as synonyms for demonstration, that thinking on different paths would ultimately lead to the same end. This, we could say, mixed method of Skovoroda gives his writings a rhetoric quality, which somehow is unexpected or even not at place in philosophical debates, but efficiently supports Skovoroda's didactical engagement. Our paper aims to demonstrate the "mixed method" of Skovoroda's writing, as a starting point for, firstly, putting Skovoroda's method within the (mostly confessionally shaped) didactical Literature of Europe's age of enlightenment, and, secondly, showing the theoretical problem which is at stake in trying to combine idealistic and processual thinking. We will do so by searching within the works of Skovoroda for collocations of the term 'obraz' (model, idea) like in the sentence Сей наш День есть Икона и Картина, есть Образ Дня онаго, море и Кит, Їону отрыгающїй = "this our Day is the Icon and the Picture, is the Model of that Day (= first day of creation), is the sea and the Whale, retching out Jonah".

ABSTRACT

Ukrainian shows considerable dialectal diversity in the spoken language, and its written traditions are equally diverse prior to the rise of Modern Standard Ukrainian. After an introduction to these two key features of Ukrainian, the talk will focus on continued variation in the modern standard language. A frequently held view attributes this to ‘western’ vs. ‘eastern’ usage. However, the actual origins and distribution of variants are more complex. This calls for a variationist approach that considers factors beyond regional variation, as the talk shall illustrate with reference to some instances of morphological and syntactic variation.

ABSTRACT

In the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, Ukrainian magistrates, having similar laws against witches as German cities, exhibited reluctance and unwillingness to investigate cases related to witchcraft accusations. Consequently, only 5 percent of witchcraft cases resulted in the death penalty. This lecture will explore whether Ukrainian witchcraft trials differed from those in Central and Western Europe. We will delve into the specifics of Orthodox demonology, examine situations that triggered conflicts leading to witchcraft accusations, and attempt to identify patterns associated with cases ending in the death penalty.

ABSTRACT

In 1939, as the West Ukrainian region of Eastern Galicia came under the Soviet rule, the new authorities presented the annexation of the region as a national, social and religious “liberation” of local Ukrainians from the “Polish yoke”. The Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church (UGCC), a Byzantine-rite Church in union with Rome, was equally considered a remnant of the alleged colonial past. At the pseudo-council of Lviv (1946), the Soviet regime outlawed the UGCC by forcefully merging her with the Russian Orthodox Church (ROC). Similar to the Russian tsarist regime, the Soviets used the ROC as an instrument of imperial power to homogenise the religious life in the newly annexed territories.

The scholars usually regard the abolition of the UGCC in the context of the Soviet religious and nationalities policies. Yet many contemporaries, both among the Ukrainian nationalists and the Greek Catholic clergy, viewed the Soviet attempt to bring the Ukrainian Church under Moscow as an act of colonialism. Based on the sources from the period of the liquidation of the Church, as well as the post-1991 interviews with the former members of the clandestine UGCC, the proposed paper analyses the discourses of coloniality in the narratives of the Ukrainian Greek Catholics.

ABSTRACT

After the literary predecessor was reformed into Shevchenko Scientific Society in 1892, the association in Habsburg L’viv became a transimperial center of Ukrainian science and scholarship, simultaneously the only institution pursuing, promoting and supporting academic activities in Ukrainian language for more than a decade. The organization facilitated the scholarly exchange and mobility from all Ukrainian lands, from the respective imperial capitals, and in emigration, bringing together fairly heterogenous cultural and political orientations.

Under the presidency of historian Mykhailo Hrushevs’kyi in the years from 1897 to 1913, the Shevchenko Scientific Society worked towards the definition and institutionalization of ‘Ukrainian science’, ‘national science’, or ‘Ukrainoznavstvo’ (literally: Ukrainian Studies). Hrushevs’kyi was frequently criticized for his narrow conceptions of Ukrainian scholarship, such as the systematic inclusion of legal studies or the marginal funding dedicated to natural sciences.

This paper traces debates on how such a ‘science’ (in the broad understanding of ‘nauka’) should look like and how it related to the notion of a specifically Ukrainian knowledge culture. A special emphasize is given on the dialogue between ‘Western’ and ‘Central’ Ukrainian approaches. How did Hrushevs’kyi’s opposition imagine and conceptualize Ukrainian ‘national science’, and how were these concepts renegotiated after his departure from L’viv?

ABSTRACT

Ling Lee will look at the aesthetics of the film and the film language itself. She will also give an insight into the universal storytelling structure of the film. How does this film attract an international audience and what is the message that is communicated?

Maksym Balaklytskyi is going to analyze Vasyl Slipak's esthetic views, political considerations and his probable legacy. Slipak's experience of performative actions lives on and is heavily utilized during the full-scale Russian invasion. Also, the speaker will present a list of other Ukrainian artists killed by Russia since 24th February 2022.

ABSTRACT

Olha's presentation focuses on three recent books by contemporary Ukrainian poets, specifically, Oksana Lebedivna's The Book of Births (2023), Oleksandr Averbuch's The Jewish King (2021), and Marianna Kiyanovska's The Voices of Babyn Yar (2017), exploring their engagement with the collective memory and trauma of the many peoples of Ukraine during the perilous twentieth century. Lebedivna gives voice to the Hutsul people as well as to Ukrainian soldiers who died defending Ukraine against Russians in the ongoing war, Averbuch ventriloquizes the voices of Ukrainian Ostarbeiters in Nazi Germany, and Kiyanovska voices the Jews murdered in Babyn Yar in Kyiv in 1943. All these voices are mediated through the individual lens of the poets, who undertake a complicated mission of talking for the dead, often employing documentalist poetics to revive the voices of the deceased. Olha's presentation demonstrates how each of these selected books contributes to a broader literary trend of grappling with collective memory and trauma through documentalist poetics creating a poetic account of polyphonic memory rooted in empathy.

ABSTRACT

OL and OJ will read poems from their collections. They both address memory and history, bringing these phenomenon into the present moment. Their conversation will focus on how their work intersects and how the inspiration they provide one another leads to plans for the future. They both will read translations they do for one another. Their talk will circulate around the peculiarities of English-Ukrainian translation, that is, both selecting appealing poems and linguistic challenges.

ABSTRACT

The talk focuses on the visual cultural inheritance of Ukraine, which is currently under threat of annihilation. It addresses the deeply inscribed coloniality of knowledge that characterises the study of Kyiv’s medieval visual culture through the consideration of three monuments: the eleventh-century Cathedral of St Sofiia, the twelfth-century Church of St Cyril of Alexandria, and the medieval Church of the Saviour in Berestovo that was restored in the seventeenth century. It also reflects upon the restoration of Rus′ monuments in Ukraine during the Russian Imperial and Soviet periods. The aim is to entice a reconsideration of the way we approach the study of Central-East European culture, to make apparent the medieval and early modern inheritance of Ukraine’s capital city, Kyiv, and to highlight the multiplicity of concerns, fluidity of identifications, and interconnectivity of discourses, that are rendered invisible when we subject medieval and early modern culture to preconceived narratives of modern imperial and national identity. In short it calls for epistemic decolonization of medieval and early modern Central-East European Studies from the historical ideology of Russia.

ABSTRACT

In this talk, Dr Jonathon Turnbull discusses his research on the return of nature to the Chornobyl Exclusion Zone. From dogs to wolves to wild horses, the Zone has become associated with nature's resilience in the face of anthropogenic destruction. But radiation is still affecting nature at Chornobyl according to some. This talk explores the environmental impacts of the Chornobyl nuclear catastrophe and their relevance to debates in conservation more broadly.