“Russia’s war, Ukraine’s resistance: historical, cultural, religious and media aspects” – Lecture Series

16.03.2023.

Lecture series “Russia’s War, Ukrainian resistance: historical, cultural, religious and media aspects” is organised by researchers from the ICES, European Centre for Minority Issues (ECMI), supported by the Philipp-Schwarz Initiative.

The full invasion of Russia in Ukraine in February 2022 has become a shock for many people in Ukraine and outside of the country. Despite the localised military actions that happened at the Donbas territory since 2014, still various groups and institutions, including media outlets and big political parties (such as currently banned pro-Russian party ‘Opposition Platform — For Life’) promoted the ideas of post-war era and “brother nations”, while the conflict itself was not taken seriously in the West. Only after the war outbreak the did the attention shifted to the socio-historical context of Ukraine and the development of the country and the nation in opposition to Russian influence, and not as a part of “Russian world”.

The current lecture series is aimed at revealing some of the aspects that pre-defined and framed the current occasions. On the one hand, the lectures will present the development of Ukrainian identity, nation and sovereignty in different historical context and under various, often contradicting factors. On the other hand, important part of the series is to show how Russia attempted to influence the country from several angles, often using media, culture and religion as tools of spreading narratives harmful for Ukrainian nation-building.

History, culture and identity, religion and media comprise four core topics that will be discussed in the lecture series, important to understand the varieties of the development of Ukraine and Ukrainian folk and unravel possible reasons behind the tragic events we currently observe and experience.

Speakers include such researchers as Prof. Dr. Karina Korostelina (George Mason University), Dr. Marco Puleri (University of Bologna), Prof. Dr. Alexander Wöll (University of Potsdam) and others.

Lectures will be held from 21.03 till 13.06 every Tuesday (except for 11.04) from 16:15 to 17:45 online in English. Please visit this link for full schedule.