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Languages, Linguistics and Film

Ukrainian Visiting Lecturers Scheme

Introduction to Ukrainian Studies by Sergei Zherebkin

(a mini-course)

Week One: 20.11.23 at 5pm, Laws 308.B

Ukrainian National Idea vs Russian National Idea: a Short History of Ukrainian-Russian Relations

  1. What is a national idea and what it is like amongst different nations? The difference between the nationalism of colonizing and colonized nations.
  2. The emergence and development of the Ukrainian national idea at the beginning of the 20th century. How Ukrainians from the people of “peaceful ploughmen” («мирні хлібороби») (Mikhail Drahomanov) turned into “the nation of steppe knights” (Dmitro Dontsov).
  3. A brief period of the Ukrainian independence after the Russian revolution (1917 - 1920).
  4. “Resolution” of the national question and the fight against the Ukrainian “bourgeois” nationalism in the USSR.
  5. The emergence of the Ukrainian nation-state after the dissolution of the USSR in 1991 and the resurge of nationalism in Ukraine.
  6. The ideological origins of the Russian-Ukrainian war. From the conflict of ideologies to the military conflict between Russia and Ukraine.

 

Week Two: 27.11.23 at 5pm ,iQ East Court (Scape): 0.14  

Political Life in Ukraine after the USSR: the War and Revolutions

1. How Russia’s war against Ukraine began: unexpected/expected war.

2. What kind of war is a war between Russia and Ukraine (arguments of political theorists)?:

a) war against authoritarianism for democracy (Timothy Snyder, Helen Petrovsky);

b) proxy war of oligarchic empires (Maurizio Lazzarato, Antonio Negri);

c) just war of Ukrainians for independence (Etienne Balibar, Slavoj Zizek);

3. Ukraine’s journey from Russia to Europe: Ukrainian social movements and protests after the collapse of the USSR:

a) The first Ukrainian revolution: the collapse of the USSR and the emergence of an independent Ukrainian state (1991);

b) Second Ukrainian Revolution: “The Orange Revolution” (2005);

c) The third Ukrainian revolution: “The Euromaidan” and the beginning of the war in Ukraine (2014);

d) The Fourth Ukrainian Revolution: 2019 Ukrainian Presidential elections.

4. Debates about Ukrainian revolutions (The Maidans) in political philosophy and social theory.

5. What are the a) local (in Ukraine and Russia) and b) global consequences that could a war in Ukraine have?

 

Week Three: 04.12.23 at 5pm, iQ East Court (Scape): 0.14  

Cultural Politics in the Contemporary Ukraine: Decolonization, Decommunization, and De-russification

  1. Postcolonial/decolonial turn in Ukrainian literature (Yuri Andrukhovych, Oksana Zabuzhko, Sergiy Zhadan).
  2. Politics of decommunization in Ukraine after the Euromaidan (2014).
  3. Hot war and cultural wars: debates on de-russification and cancelling of Russian culture in Ukraine after the Russian invasion.

 

Week 4 of the course, will be a public lecture at 6pm on 11/12/23. See details here: https://projects.history.qmul.ac.uk/cerees/2023/09/12/cerees-lecture/

 

 

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