Индивидуални проекти

This project analyses the apocalypse phenomena along with three categories: self, time, and emotion. These three categories shape an interpretational space for our thoughts about the apocalypse in general, the COVID-19 pandemic in particular, and apocalyptic experiences in the war. As the simplest form of a micro-apocalypse, one takes a personal experience at the border of the subjective present time. An experience flow goes to its limit, the world ceases to exist, and all that remains is the self, which is interpreted as the central entity of personality. This experience is a very short interruption in the flow of consciousness as a brief break of personal being in the world (Polunin, 2011). This micro-break has a specific timing and emotional accompaniment. The discrepancies in the self-experience given directly at the border of the subjective present time and outside the border are of particular interest. Comparing them, we examine how the cognitive system overcomes the periodically appearing micro-apocalypse, taking this mechanism as natural. Then we move from the micro-apocalypse to the social level. At the social level, we analyse the apocalyptic thinking regarding Covid-19 and the war. From person to society, we interpret the social self as a stable group identity. Thus, the model will develop further from the micro-level to the larger social dimension. The resulting theoretical model should interpret apocalypses of different natures - personal, social, economic, and military. This approach should contribute not only to the theoretical modelling of the apocalypse but also to improved communication in society at large.

The project is focused on studying the peculiarities of an important Ukrainian region through the prism of quality of life. "Quality of life" is used as a collective interdisciplinary category (at the intersection of Sociology, History, Medicine, Economics, and Psychology), which allows us to look at the human environment, the influence of natural conditions and climate, changes in nutrition and their consequences, the (un)successful fight against diseases and medicalization, changing social conditions and social standards. These are difficult areas to reflect on, especially if the historian wants to find long-lasting, important changes and tectonic shifts. It is uneasy to compare the quality of life in time or space because the population has different standards and expectations. In his research, Dr Igor Serdiuk has to apply universal comparative indicators, such as mortality parameters, food security, earnings ratio and prices of basic necessities. At the same time, it is essential how people of that time, especially representatives of the "silent majority", imagined the quality of their life. To investigate this, I apply micro-historical and historical-anthropological approaches to working with sources that allow hidden "voices" to be heard. The result of the project will be several scientific publications, an optional discipline for master's students-historians, updating the existing educational courses "Everyday life history" and "Methodology of history", which I teach to students-historians.

Ibn Taymiyya (1263-1328) was a Muslim theologian and jurist, one of the most influential representatives of the Hanbalite theological and legal school in Sunni Islam. As such, his work has been extensively studied in the context of Islamic theology and the Islamic religious law Sharī a. This project aims to examine Ibn Taymiyya’s work from a different andʽ previously unexplored perspective: that of translation studies. To this end, it will identify the texts from his works in which the main elements of his understanding of translation are presented. Critical analysis of the texts will reveal Ibn Taymiyya’s place in the history of Arabic translation discourse and facilitate the presentation of his understanding of translation. He perceives it both as a historical process of interlinguistic transfer and as an analytical category that enables the exploration of divergences within the Islamic culture and identifies differences between Islam and other epistemological and religious traditions.

The project aims at analyzing and synthesizing the evidence for critique of religion and rulers from Ancient Mesopotamia cuneiform sources (ca. 2600-500 BC), which has often been neglected in Ancient Near Eastern Studies themselves and as a consequence also in neighboring fields. The Enlightenment, is an intellectual movement of utmost importance for the development of the history of the modern world. Enlightenment fostered a democratic development as well as the liberation of sciences and humanities from the control of the church and other authorities. Therefore, historians and philosophers intensively studied the European Enlightenment and its forerunners. For our understanding of intellectual history and Enlightenment phenomena the Mesopotamian evidence is of utmost importance, as it precedes the Greek developments and provides an intellectual context for them. In a series of articles, I have demonstrated that such phenomena, as the critique of the king or even critique of the gods, exist in cuneiform sources and during my stay at CAS I will refine and extend these findings and publish them in the form of a short monograph.

Based on a detailed historical analysis of the emergence of the contemporary concept of equality in international human rights law the project paints a comprehensive picture of the structural deficiencies of this concept and proposes an alternative. The research on equality is a burgeoning field. However, as highlighted by many scholars, the processes of globalisation require a re-articulation of the traditional vision of equality and in particular alternatives to both the welfare state and neo-liberal thinking. I argue that to achieve this re-articulation a deeper historical understanding of the structural elements and presuppositions underlying the current equality thinking in international human rights law is required. Systemic and systematic analysis of this deficiencies can only emerge from a careful historical analysis of institutionalisation of equality in the League of Nations and the United Nations. Insights gained from this historical examination are then complemented by philosophical and broader theoretical reflections on difference and identity by Deleuze, Derrida, Nishida, and queer theory to propose a novel approach to equality. This approach is expected to be more adapted to the conditions of globalisation. Examples from arts to be created in cooperation between the scholar and the artists are used as illustrations.

The project seeks to explore the history of mercenary employment in Muscovy during the Smolensk War with Poland-Lithuania from 1632 to 1634 within a broader historical context. This period represents the most extensively documented case in Muscovite history where large military units, comprised entirely of foreigners (primarily Germans, Englishmen, and Scotsmen), were recruited abroad under fixed mercenary contracts. Through this case study, I investigate the dynamics of interaction with foreign private military entrepreneurs in Muscovy and present this evidence within the framework of state-building processes and mercenary service in Early Modern Europe. While recent research has highlighted the significance of private military actors in Central and Western Europe from the 15th to the 18th centuries, the narrative surrounding Russian military history during this period has predominantly remained state-centered. My objective is to challenge this narrative by applying methodological frameworks developed for studies on European military entrepreneurship to 17th-century Muscovy. The research is primarily based on unpublished sources from Russian, British, Swedish, and German archives, which I have already collected. During my time in Sofia, I intend to finalize my prosopography database on mercenary officers in Muscovite service and complete the draft of the monograph on this subject.

The purpose of this comparative research is to analyze similarities of modernist literatures of two port cities – Odesa and Tel Aviv, both in terms of direct influence and in broader typological terms. By pointing to these cities’ seaport aspect, the project foregrounds the common denominator of this research – the hybrid nature of port cities, evidenced in their literary output, which transgresses assumed ethno-linguistic boundaries. While the hybrid characteristics of port cities are well researched in general and in particular with regard to their Levantine and Black Sea examples, scholars have confined their research predominantly to urban and sociocultural intra-contextual analysis, whereas Dr. Waysband's project combines intra- and inter-textual analysis of their literature, drawing upon interdisciplinary Levantine studies with an emphasis on the concept of hybridity. The project foregrounds a reciprocal process of cultural transmission between Mediterranean/Levantine and Black Sea cultural areas, (1) highlighting the Ukrainian constituent of Hebrew modernist poetry and (2) analyzing thematic and linguistic forms of expression of the Levantine self-perception of Odesa’s modernist writers. By pointing to the interconnectedness of these processes, the project aims at cross-fertilization of  Mediterranean/Levantine, Black Sea, and Ukrainian cultural studies.

This comparative study, the first of its kind, will answer several questions: how do disputes over history and identity in international politics unfold and what actions are taken by states? Can historians work simultaneously as servants to nation-states and as independent trans-national professionals? What are the roles of history professionals in domestic politics and identity formation in the “age of memory”? Having surveyed twenty-plus joint historians’ commissions created in Europe and Asia since the 1990s, I plan to spend three months at CAS in Sofia in 2025 to fill the only remaining gap: an in-depth examination of N. Macedonia’s JHCs with Bulgaria and Greece. By including these two little-studied JHCs, my book will be truly comprehensive, and will be a significant and original contribution to the growing literature on the entanglement of history and identity in international politics.

This project will trace the nexus between infrastructure, politics, and emotions in Southeast European history, focusing on the entangled Bulgarian and Turkish history. In order to operationalize the insight that “infrastructures are a critical site through which politics is translated from a rationality to a practice,” I have developed the term developmentality to capture both discourses on and practices of infrastructure. I investigate both official and partisan discourse on and practice of infrastructure development and their relationship to the hegemonic order as well as signs of discord, dissent, and resistance from the advent of modernity to that of postmodernity. In this political discourse, connectivity is initially seen as a prerequisite for creating prosperity, but, following an intellectual reduction, the traffic infrastructure often becomes a signifier of happiness itself. Moreover, the infrastructural source of future bliss justifies suffering in the present, manifested in violent suppression of protest, forced labor, tolls and levies, and the destruction of property, housing, landscapes, eco-systems, or archaeological heritage. My stay with CAS Sofia serves to write up my monograph manuscript based on archival and library research in Frankfurt, Sofia, and Istanbul.

This project delves into the understudied realm of late Soviet photography, particularly focusing on the phenomenon of fotografika, a term encompassing various manipulative techniques employed by amateur photographers to transform their images into the likeness of graphic pieces. Despite its prevalence, it remains largely unexplored in scholarly discourse, presenting an opportunity to unravel its significance within the Eastern Bloc and on an international scale. Drawing upon a diverse range of sources, including periodicals and exhibition catalogues, the project aims to analyse the reception of fotografika in Soviet critical literature, shedding light on its dual existence within both official and non-official spheres. By examining the material gathered from the Museum of the Kharkiv School of Photography and similar collections, supplemented by materials from other ex-socialist countries and FIAP salons, the project seeks to construct a comprehensive understanding of fotografika's role in amateur photo club movement of the 1960s-1980s.