During the past 20 years, Ukrainian society has experienced radical change, in its economy, in its polity, in its social practice (habitus).read more This course contextualizes these transformations in current social theory, and focuses its empirical investigations on three concrete social phenomena that have appeared in Ukraine since independence. In the first portion of the course, the phenomenon of post-Soviet entrepreneurship is examined – where did new business owners come from?; was privatization of Ukraine’s legacy Soviet-era assets really as important to the country’s future socio-economic development as one would gather from the literature?; are “oligarchs” really in control? These questions lead us to an examination of the structure of Ukraine’s post-Soviet elite. Focusing specifically on the political elite, the second part of the course examines elite networks, recruitment and circulation (particularly prior to and immediately following the Orange Revolution), and sources of elite consensus/dissensus. Finally, the third part of the course turns to an examination of transformations of everyday life practices in post-Soviet Ukraine: is the ‘homo sovieticus’ characterization still relevant?; to what extent are Ukrainians European in their values?; are regional differences exaggerated or real?

The course will consist of daily class discussions, and nightly reading assignments. Two individually written short papers will be assigned (one on socio-economic aspects of Ukraine’s transformation, and one on political change). A final “field research” assignment will be presented in groups.

How much do we know about the resent past of the region, called by Timothy Snyder as Bloodlands?read more Do we know in which way the tragic past, described by Snyder, has been used by the politicians of the region after 1989? How much has politics of history influenced identity construction in the respectful countries after collapse of communist regimes? We will answer these questions while focusing on how history has been used and abused in different political and intellectual projects in East Central Europe since 1989. Our task will be to understand the nature of memory wars in Ukraine; impact of the past on contemporary relations between Poland and Ukraine, Poland and Germany, Czech Republic and Germany; and impact of the past on internal political struggles and identity constructions in the respectful countries (Ukraine, Poland, Czech Republic, Slovakia and Hungary).

It is hard to find Ukrainian literature on the world literary map. read more Gifted writers from Ukraine often became Russian writers and created the empire’s culture. That is true for the XIX century, and for the beginning of the 20th century.

Despite of this the 1920th appeared to be incredibly fruitful and diverse for the Ukrainian literature. A lot of new names came to literature; each one had the outstanding fait. Many of these poets, drama and fiction authors had no good education, didn’t know traditions of the XIX century Ukrainian literature, but they were gifted, inspired, eager to create new, European, modern literature. All these three epithets though did stay tropes, since everybody gave them his/her own sense, it was impossible to reach common understanding. However these young people gave birth to really new, modern literature we shall talk about during our lectures; we shall read it in English translations; we’ll observe Ukrainian modernist arts in the museums and modernist architecture on the streets of Kyiv; we’ll find the dominances in socio-political situation, which allowed this great phenomenon to appear.

The phenomenon through lasted for one decade, after which it was destroyed in absolutely brutal way, while “creative method” of socialist realism was implanted. A lot was told about this cultural phenomenon while its very important quality was not mentioned - its popularity among the contemporaries and its vitality even after the Soviet Union collapsed. We shall read samples or social realist books; we’ll analyze the reasons of their popularity and those “viruses” of dehumanization of the society, which were implemented there. We’ll also try to discover and understand the presence of the social realism features in the today’s Western cultures, in particular, in the American one.

For more then half a century not any book written beyond the bounds of social realism appeared here. Up to the beginning of the 80th there was no writer in Ukraine, who was grown up outside the traditions of this “creative method”. Thus, the literature’s resurrection in 1980-90th was extremely hard – the writers had to overcome colonial and totalitarian syndromes, create new traditions, while their main their task was to create a new language. Generation of the 80th is one of the brightest in history of Ukrainian literature, these young people had managed to overcome these barriers and come to a reader with the new word. They were called avant-gardists, they tried to be postmodernists, but mostly they stayed in the traditions of modernism of the 20th.

Very few works by Ukrainian writers of the 20th century have been translated into English. Still, after this course, we’ll be able to imagine the starting point, from which the literature of the new age started for the future. By now this literature has not get rid of totalitarian and colonial heritage - as totalitarianism is a kind of disease, which traces unstable health state for a long time.

The Beginner’s Intensive Course was developed for students having experience neither in Ukrainian nor in any other Slavonic language.read more The course gets students familiar with Cyrillic and with grammar constructions most often used in Ukrainian, and provides them with elementary speaking, reading and writing skills. 10 lessons include practical exercises and enable students to operate a “must-have” set of words and phraises for elementary communication in everyday life.

The course for UFL Speakers is offered in three modifications:read more for Beginner’s+ (for students already familiar with Cyrillic and having a small experience in Ukrainian or/and any other Slavonic language), Intermediate and Advanced levels. For every level, the 10 lessons course provides a short review of the main grammar topics based on practical exercises for better speaking, reading and writing skills; it also extends students’ vocabulary and develops their ability to understand complex words and to combine grammatical forms and structures.