Past events

KIU BRIEFING ON UKRAINE/ 12:00 - 1:30 p.m. Lithuania stands out as one of Ukraine’s most ardent supporters – not only at the governmental level, but also through extensive civil society engagement. Dozens of Lithuanian volunteers and organisations are actively delivering humanitarian aid and medical support to Ukraine – often at personal risk.

UKRAINE LECTURE SERIES/ Monday, 7 July 2025, 6 pm, GD 102 EU External Action took its recent shape in 2009 when the Treaty of Lisbon entered into force. Since than the EU External Action has been seen as a successful tool for the EU to act as a global player and to promote its common values and its acquis via soft power, conditionality policy and EU enlargement. However, since 2014 the EU has faced a new world order where some superpowers annexed territories, launched brutal military aggression and consistently disregarded international law. Arrival of the Trump Administration in 2025 urges the EU and its Member States to consolidate mutual solidarity and to enhance their common foreign and security policy and to build up common defence mechanisms and to ensure justice and fair Peace Deal for Ukraine.

30.06.2025, 6 p.m. - 8p.m. | Jeffrey C. Alexander, Lillian Chavenson Saden Professor Emeritus of Sociology at Yale University, founder of cultural sociology and leading theorist of the civil sphere, will give a public lecture at the European University Viadrina in Frankfurt (Oder). His lecture, titled ‘Can Civil Peace Extend beyond the Nation State? Europe, NATO, and the U.S. in the Shadow of the Russia-Ukraine War,’ will take place in the Senaatssaal HG 109 (Große Scharrnstraße 59) and will be followed by a Q&A session and reception. Join us at the Viadrina for this special occasion!

On 30 June and 1 July, the conference ‘The civil sphere in Central and Eastern Europe’ will take place at the European University Viadrina. It features presentations and discussions with scholars from Europe and the U.S., focusing on case studies from Ukraine, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Serbia, Lithuania, Poland, Bulgaria, and post-socialist East Germany. The event focuses on the roots of special civic and social dynamics in the region and their implications for current political realities and Europe's broader geopolitical context. | Participation in the full conference or individual sessions is welcome. Registration: civilsphere@europa-uni.de

Saturday, 28 June 2025, 9 to 10 p.m. | The Competence Network Interdisciplinary Ukrainian Studies will also be represented for the first time at this year's Long Night of the Sciences: KIU coordinator Susann Worschech will speak about the history of protest in Ukraine from 1990 to the present day: While preparations were being made for reunification in both Germanys on 2 October 1990, 100,000 people took to the city's central square in Kyiv to demonstrate for independence, freedom and democracy in Ukraine. This first of several major pro-democracy revolutions was formative for the following decades: the ideas, symbols and tactics of the ‘Granite Revolution’ permeate Ukrainian history and can be found in the resistance against Russian occupation and terror. In her lecture, Dr Susann Worschech, academic coordinator of the Competence Network Interdisciplinary Ukrainian Studies - Berlin (KIU), will explain the background to the Ukrainian desire for freedom (suitable for audiences aged 14 and over). | Please note that the lecture will be held in German. Tickets are required for this event.

Online Event | 25 June 2025 | 3:00 p.m. (CET) | Registration Required Resilience Under Fire: How Universities in War-Affected Cities Adapt How do universities continue to operate when war reaches their doorstep? This online event explores how academic institutions in frontline cities—focusing on Kharkiv, Ukraine—have adapted to the challenges of war. Drawing on recent research and first-hand experience, our speakers will discuss the impact of war on universities, faculty, and students, as well as strategies for institutional survival, academic mobility, and the evolving motivations of educators. Organised by the Ukraine Research Network@ZOiS (UNET) in cooperation with the Competence Network Interdisciplinary Ukrainian Studies (KIU), the event offers a unique perspective on the resilience of higher education under extreme conditions.

Join us for an insightful discussion on the overlooked dimensions of Ukrainian resistance in occupied territories. Drawing on open-source data, political scientist Yuriy Matsiyevsky, KIU Research Fellow at Viadrina University, will explore the interplay of peaceful protest and armed partisan activity as core elements of Ukraine’s national resistance. His analysis sheds light on the resilience of Ukrainian identity and its implications for regional and European security.

Tuesday, 24 June 2025, 9 a.m., Guest lecture as part of the lecture ‘European and universal human rights protection’ by Carmen Thiele | This lecture presents the outcomes of the research project ‘The Impact of the European Court of Human Rights’ Practice on the Implementation of the Right to Freedom of Expression in Ukraine.’ The study investigates the extent to which the jurisprudence of the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) influences the domestic implementation of Article 10 of the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) in Ukraine. The findings advance a set of policy recommendations designed to reinforce the domestic implementation of Article 10 of the ECHR and to strengthen the capacity of Ukraine’s legal system to support sustained democratic transformation.

Monday, 23 June 25, 6 to 8 pm. | Ukraine Lecture Series | GD 102 | The 1990s were a key moment to understand the history of Eastern Europe, the post-Soviet space and Ukraine. Many of the problems that haunt the region until today first surfaced during the 1990s where some key decisions were taken, while other were postponed. The talk will take a ciritical look back at the 1990s and raise the question what they can teach us for today's dilemmas.

6 p.m. - 8 p.m. | The event will take place in German. | The anthology was originally translated, compiled, and introduced by Oswald Burkhardt in the 1940s. It has now been published for the first time in a bilingual edition by Arco Verlag (Wiesbaden–Vienna), edited, annotated, and newly introduced by Nataliia Kotenko-Vusatyuk and Andrii Portnov. At the Institute of Slavic Studies, the new edition will be presented and the history of the anthology will be discussed in a conversation with the editors.

On 16 June 2025, the first graduate programme for Ukrainian Studies in Germany will be officially launched at the European University Viadrina. We warmly invite you to join us in welcoming twelve doctoral students at the KIU!

6 p.m. - 8p.m., Institut für Slawistik und Hungarologie, Dorotheenstraße 65, Raum 5.57 // On Wednesday, June 11, KIU research fellow Alexander Dmitriev talks about his research topics at our KIU network partner university Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin. This study is devoted to the history of Ukrainian émigré scholarship and to the history of discussions about the specifics and independent development of Ukrainian science and culture, as well as a contribution to the history of interwar Russian Eurasianism (in four articles from 1927–1932). The main figures in this controversy were the Russian linguist Nikolai Trubetzkoy (1890–1938), the founder of Eurasianism, and the Ukrainian historian Dmytro Doroshenko (1882–1951). Dmitiriev tries to outline the historical context of the controversy, its main ideas and roots, and its key protagonists. The final part of the lecture illustrates the second life of the polemic and highlights its continued relevance today.

1 p.m. – 2 p.m. GD 206 // In this Lunch Lecture, Liudmyla Pidkiumukha will present her research project on the systematic erasure of language and identity in the occupied territories of Ukraine as a tool of colonial domination. Using qualitative content analysis, her research draws on official reports, media sources, and testimonies documenting Russian policies targeting the Ukrainian linguistic and cultural landscape. Cases of forced Russification in education, media, and public spaces, the destruction of Ukrainian books and libraries, and the removal of Ukrainian-language signage and memorials show the systematic effort to eradicate Ukrainian identity through linguistic suppression, aligning with historical patterns of imperial domination. Cultural erasure is further reinforced through the promotion of Russian historical narratives and the suppression of Ukrainian heritage. // Save the dates: our next Lunch Lectures will take place on 25 June and 9 July at the same location.

6 p.m. - 8 p.m. // In the development of European states, war has been a major driver of boundary and state formation. How does the emerging non-state polity of the European Union react to the Russian invasion of Ukraine? The lecture distinguishes to two major dimensions of polity formation: capacity building and community building. It shows that the EU’s response to the war and the changes in in its international environment has mainly consisted in a process of community demarcation, including Ukraine progressively in its in-group, without concomitant capacity building. These findings are in line with the EU’s developmental path as a regulatory polity but raise questions in light of the ongoing war and the transatlantic rift. This event is part of the Ukraine Lecture Series organised by the KIU in cooperation with the Jerzy Giedroyc Research Colloquium at the European University Viadrina.

In this lecture, Julia Langbein argues that during the Eastern enlargement of 2004/07 the European Commission (EC) did not leave the developmental consequences of the massive rule transfer to the forces of the Single Market. Based on the analysis of EU documents and on interviews with EU officials involved in the operationalization and implementation of the EU accession criteria during the fifth enlargement, Langbein shows that the EC built up foundations of a short-lived transnational developmental state (TDS) to shape economic outcomes. Her lecture will show how the EU, and the EC in particular, has done this, and why. These insights correct the limitations of many enlargement studies that focus on the mechanisms of rule transfer without considering its longer-term economic and political consequences. The analysis provides crucial lessons for the governance of EU accession of Ukraine, since the outcomes of market integration in this case are more than ever intertwined with longer-term continental security considerations. The main lesson from the short-lived TDS is that institutional entrepreneurship can create ad-hoc, flexible market correcting mechanisms in the EU without major institutional change. This event is part of the Ukraine Lecture Series organised by the KIU in cooperation with the Jerzy Giedroyc Research Colloquium at the European University Viadrina.

New Publication Presentation: Introduction to Ukrainian Studies at 6 P.M. at Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, Unter den Linden 6, 10117 Berlin, Hörsaal 2094. Join for a event, where Prof. Dr. Andrii Portnov will present his newly published introduction to Ukrainian Studies. This essential work offers fresh insights into Ukraine’s history, culture, and current challenges — an important contribution in today’s geopolitical context.

In this lecture, the former diplomat and political essayist will outline models and modes of Ukrainian approachment to EU membership. Although full membership is a political goal pursued by both the EU and Ukraine, numerous questions remain regarding the actual implementation of accession, not least the veto power of the EU member states themselves. What scenarios are possible if full membership remains difficult for the time being, and how can Ukraine be prevented from becoming a ‘permanent candidate on hold’? This event is part of the Ukraine Lecture Series organised by the KIU in cooperation with the Jerzy Giedroyc Research Colloquium at the European University Viadrina.

We recommend this event at the Berlin Brandenburg Academy of Sciences and Humanities: On 16th of May 2025, start 6 P.M. join a timely discussion on the legacy of World War II, exploring how war memory is shaped, contested, and mobilised across Europe—featuring a special focus on marginalised voices and Ukraine. Registration required!

Monday, 6 to 8 P.M. GD 102. Join us in the next Ukraine Lecture Series Session. The report from Georgiy Kasianov challenges long-standing narratives that have historically cast Ukraine as a passive frontier or buffer zone between competing empires. Tracing the evolution of Ukraine’s geopolitical identity from its portrayal as a “borderland” to its current role as a “frontline state,” the study critically examines how Western and Russian discourses have shaped Ukraine’s international positioning.

Join us for the Ukraine Lecture Series from 6 to 8 P.M. with speaker Andrea Gawrich (Justus Liebig University Gießen) to the topic: Eastern Partnership perspectives on Ukrainian EU integration As the liberal international order – underpinned by effective multilateralism, democracy, liberal values, and free trade – begins to show signs of decline, the focus of enlargement has shifted from highlighting the transformative potential of enlargement negotiations to viewing enlargement as a strategic investment. The EU membership application raised by Ukraine, Moldova and Georgia against the background of Russia’s full-scale invasion into Ukraine has not only opened up the possibility of accession for previously excluded Eastern Partnership countries, but has also shed light on so far not successful accession procedures with the Western Balkan countries. Various models of gradual integration are currently being discussed as the EU seeks to make the benefits of membership more tangible for candidate countries and to stimulate momentum for further reforms. Nevertheless, despite the EU's increased efforts, the European perspective remains contested in candidate countries as also within the EU. This domestic contestation provides fertile ground for strategic competitors outside the EU.  Hence, EU conditionality takes place in a new era of inside and outside contestation.

Since 2014, Ukraine has paid — and continues to pay — a significant price for its European choice. But who or what influenced this choice? How did various social groups perceive the European perspective during different periods of contemporary Ukrainian history? What achievements have been realized so far? Mykhailo Minakov will provide answers to these questions. He will examine the evolution of Ukrainians’ views on Europe and the European Union and offer insights into how a society can make a historical choice. (Lecture in cooperation with Viadrina Master of Arts in European Studies/DAAD, followed by a reception)

Join for an inspiring evening with acclaimed Ukrainian poet Iryna Shuvalova, featuring a reading and conversation in Ukrainian and English with Host Peggy Lohse in the Kukuryko Bar. Experience powerful contemporary poetry and an engaging discussion about language, identity, and Ukraine’s literary voice. Free entry – all are welcome!

Join us for the launch of the Ukraine Lecture Series at Europa-Universität Viadrina Frankfurt (Oder). The opening panel discussion, "Ukraine in Europe: What controversies, complexities, and agency determine our common future?" will explore Ukraine’s evolving relationship with Europe, its EU accession path, and the role of research and policy in shaping our shared future. 🎤 Featuring expert insights from: 🔹 Timm Beichelt (European University Viadrina) 🔹 Ljudmyla Melnyk (Institut für Europäische Politik e.V.) 🔹 Fausta Šimaitytė (Konrad-Adenauer-Stiftung Lithuania) 🗣️ Moderated by Jan Claas Behrends (European University Viadrina, ZZF Potsdam) 🗣 Language: English

Special Guest Talk co-hosted by UNET at ZOiS, Forum Transregionale Studien, KIU and Prisma Zentrum für Osteuropa- und internationale Studien (ZOiS) Mohrenstraße 60 10117 Berlin Oksana Kis is a feminist historian and anthropologist. She is Senior Research Fellow and Head of the Social Anthropology Department at the Institute of Ethnology, National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine (in Lviv). She is also President of the Ukrainian Association for Research in Women's History. Her most recent book, Survival as Victory: Ukrainian Women in the Gulag, was published by Harvard University Press in 2021. She is the recipient of several academic awards, research grants, and fellowships. Her research interests include women’s lives in traditional Ukrainian peasant culture and society, women’s experiences of the Holodomor (Great Famine of 1932-33), women’s participation in the Ukrainian nationalist anti-Soviet underground in the 1940 and 1950s, as well as gender transformations in post-socialist countries. Moderated by Viktoria Sereda The presentation and discussion will begin at 11.30 am. We cordially invite you to a light lunch and an informal Q&A at 12:45pm.

Meet KIU and academic coordinator Dr. Susann Worschech speaking about challenges for Ukrainian scientists under wartimes conditions and debating the current state of German-Ukrainian affairs.

Join us for an insightful conversation with Maksym Butkevych, a leading human rights advocate and former Ukrainian prisoner of war. In this event, Butkevych will share his harrowing experience of over two years in Russian captivity, offering a powerful account of his fabricated trial and the threats made by his captors about Russia’s wider aggression. He will also shed light on the plight of Ukrainian prisoners of war and detained civilians, urging us to see their fate as a global human rights issue. The discussion will touch on the current state of human rights in Ukraine and feature his new book, "Am richtigen Platz".

19:15-20:45 Uhr (Tübingen) - Friedrich Naumann Stiftung // Am 24. Februar 2025 jährt sich die großflächige russische Aggression gegen die Ukraine zum dritten Mal. Russlands Präsident Wladimir Putin und seine Propagandisten begründen Russlands Ansprüche auf die Ukraine und die angebliche Nichtexistenz der ukrainischen Nation mit historischen Argumenten. Der Krieg dauert unterdessen unvermittelt an und das Land kämpft weiterhin für seine Freiheit und Unabhängigkeit. Veranstaltung der Naumann Stiftung mit KIU Koordinatorin Dr. Susann Worschech.

Solomiya Magazine is hosting Solomiya Festival from 5-19 February 2025 at Berlin Kunstverein Kvost. Tetiana Gardashuk (KIU Alumni Fellow, Kyiv) and Nataliia Zalietok (Freie Universität Berlin) will contribute to the festival programme. 15 February, 5. p.m. 'Poem about the Sea' - Lecture and Screening (Kyiv) with Tetiana Gardashuk. 19 February, 5.30 p.m. - Panel Discussion (Berlin) 'Beauty on Duty' - Julie Poly/ Nataliia Zalietok Click here to see the programme.

6.15 p.m.// A conversation based on 'Russia’s War in Ukraine: Personal Experiences of Scholars' (ibidem 2024, ed. by T. Martsenyuk and T. Kostiuchenko) Humboldt-Univeristät Berlin, Grimm-Zentrum, Auditorium, Geschwister-Scholl-Straße 1/3.

6 p.m. - 8 p.m. // Russia’s war against Ukraine has changed Ukraine’s religious landscape. Due to its ties to the Russian Orthodox Church, the Ukrainian Orthodox Church (UOC), once the biggest Christian denomination in the country, has faced declining membership, public scrutiny and restrictive government policies. Since February 2022, UOC members have been under pressure from society, the media, and the authorities to change their affiliation to the other religious jurisdiction, one that has the largest share of support in the country.

4 p.m. - 5.30 p.m. // Presentation of the preliminary results of a longitudinal study of the transformational experience of Ukrainian refugees in the process of their flight, adaptation and integration in Germany since the beginning of the war. Based on qualitative data from two rounds of in-depth interviews and quantitative data from 5-wave online surveys, the author presents some socio-economic characteristics of Ukrainian refugees in Germany, the reasons and circumstances of their flight, their daily practices of integration into the host society and their transnational activities, their expectations and intentions, and their changes over time.

6 p.m. - 8 p. m. // Since 1990, citizens of Ukraine have used two distinct forms of struggle against Russian domination of their country: first, many episodes of civil resistance including mass demonstrations on the Maidan in Kyiv, and then armed defense against Russian invasion and occupation, symbolized by the fight against the siege of Mariupol, now under Russian control. How does civil resistance persist in the occupied territories? What is the connectivity between 1990, 2004, 2014 and 2024? What lessons can be learned about the combination of two approaches?

The ongoing conflict in Ukraine has not only led to military aggression but also sparked a new type of information war. In this context, the destruction of Ukraine's sovereignty and national identity has become a central theme in Russian narratives, which serve to construct anti-Ukrainian myths. Krylova-Grek examines the dual functions of language in information warfare: 1) how verbal ideological structures have been used by Russian authorities and media to construct anti-Ukrainian myths, and 2) the transformation of language in the context of armed conflict. The talk will analyze the evolution of Russian propaganda narratives, from hate speech to direct calls for inciting hate crimes. Special attention will be given to human rights violations in the context of international law.

11: 00 a.m. // In his book, political philosopher Mykhailo Minakov examines the period from 1989 to 2022 as an unprecedented chapter in human history. Combining historical, sociological and philosophical perspectives, Mykhailo Minakov’s new book delves into the achievements and failures of this period. After the presentation, the author will discuss key results with ZOiS Director Gwendolyn Sasse.

4 - 6 p.m. // The undermining of the Kakhovka Hydropower Plant (KHPP) on 6 of June 2023 became one of the biggest russian war crimes in Ukraine. In the lecture, the multiple roles of rivers, the historical, economic and cultural context of hydropower development, and dam building with a special focus on the case of the Dnipro Hydropower Cascade, part of which is the KHPP, will be considered. The possible scenarios for the future of the area will be outlined. The presentation of the KIU-Fellow Tetiana Gardashuk is part of the seminar program ‘Sociology of Water’ of Estela Schindel. Location: European University Viadrina, Audimax, Logenstraße 4, 15230 Frankfurt (Oder), Room: AM 205

In this lecture we will present a publication project whose idea emerged from a joint master's seminar at the HU. It is about nothing less than rewriting the legacy of Slavic literary theory. To this day, all Slavicists and, more generally, all literary scholars begin their studies by reading the ‘Texts of the russian Formalists’, which are generally regarded as the founding texts of 20th century literary theory. By making important essays by Ukrainian literary theorists accessible through translation from Ukrainian and Yiddish, we want to decenter the traditionally russocentric perspective and thereby also rewrite the canon of theory history. We want to show that russian formalism and the Ukrainian theoretical developments of the 1920s have a common Ukrainian origin and that important theoretical approaches also emerged in Kharkiv and Kyiv in response to formalism, which, through their regional focus and their sociological and reception-aesthetic orientation, not only contributed significantly to the general development of theory at the time, but also still appear inspiring and relevant today.

The US Embassy, together with the Competence Network for Interdisciplinary Ukrainian Studies (KIU) and the European University Viadrina, invite you to a film screening with lecture of Michael Kimmage on Wednesday, November 27, 6 p.m., in the main building of the Viadrina. Michael Kimmage’s presentation delves into the origins of Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine, starting in 2008, when war was not predestined, and traces Russia’s growing antagonism toward Ukraine as well as tensions with Europe and the United States. He examines why the war started and how its origins have influenced the war’s ongoing course, now in its third year. Kimmage concludes with insights on the lessons learned — or still to be learned — from the conflict, particularly focusing on their importance for Berlin, Washington, and the U.S.-German relationship Venue: Große Scharrnstraße 59, Frankfurt (Oder), Senate Hall, Room 109.

Wednesday, 11 December 2024, 1 - 2 p.m. - Launch of the KIU Brown Bag Lunch Lectures with Mykhailo Minakov: ‘Goodbye to Homo Sovieticus: Reviving the Heroic and Creative Spirit of the 1990s’

War is an ultimate disruption in human experience; it causes reevaluation and reframing, as the predictability of everyday life is lost due to violence and destruction. People learn to navigate in a new reality and search for possible connections—to experiences of others, family narratives, history textbooks, stories available in the culture, etc. Natalia Otrishenko will refer to the documentation project ‘24/02/22, 5 am: Testimonies from the war’ that was launched in March 2022 as a reaction to the russian full-scale invasion of Ukraine. She will reflect on the examples from the interviews where people refer to the idea of ‘impossible war’ but also provide different meaning-making frames to explain the event. The lecture will describe the transformation of the extended self during the war as people reframe their lives regarding the past(s)—their personal ones, families, communities, and society in general. It will conclude with notes on new war temporalities that not only disentangle personal stories but also make new connections within them.

During the russian invasion of Ukraine, archives and cultural heritage were severely damaged and lost. Arolsen Archives' research shows that the destruction of historical documents was often deliberate and premeditated.

For Michel Foucault, the archive opens up a new discursive field that offers additional possibilities for understanding what is said and what remains beyond what is said in individual texts. In the intensified process of revising the Ukrainian cultural tradition, literary archives become an important resource not only for the reinterpretation of individual texts, but also for the reconceptualization of cultural history itself. The archive of Yuri Mezhenko, a literary critic and one of the leading Ukrainian bibliographers of the 20th century, contains unique evidence of an intensive process of theoretical reflection and emotional experience of the cultural reality of the 1920s, a period that today is one of the most important and at the same time the most controversial for understanding cultural continuity.

The opening ceremony of the Competence Network Interdisciplinary Ukrainian Studies (KIU) was celebrated on 11 July 2024, a good five months after the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD) made the decision to support the KIU in Frankfurt (Oder) – Berlin with 2.5 million Euros. During the ceremony, tangible and specific steps for action were presented and a debate was held on the role that Ukrainian studies will play in those steps.

On 7 March 2024, Viadrina President Prof. Dr Eduard Mühle and Prof. Dr Gwendolyn Sasse, Director of the Centre for East European and International Studies (ZOiS), gave an insight into the projects of the "Competence Network Interdisciplinary Ukrainian Studies Frankfurt (Oder) - Berlin (KIU)" during a media conference. Following the decision of the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD) to fund a Ukraine Centre under the direction of Viadrina, they described the research and teaching projects in detail for the first time in public.