Current Programmes

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.

This project aims to determine the specifics of the images of Ukraine constructed by church historians of the Russian Empire during the "long" 19th century. The transformation of Russian church narratives about Ukrainian history will be examined from the broad perspective of the history of colonialism, nationalism studies, and new imperial history. Dr. Pavlo Yeremieiev will try to discover how the characteristics of the Ukrainian lands in church historiography were influenced by the historians' personal theological, historiosophical, and socio-political views, changes in methodological approaches to studying history, and general cultural trends of the era. Can we characterise the Russian Orthodox Church as a maiden of the state (in terms of Richard Pipes) in constructing the images of the Ukrainian past?  What was the role of the scenarios of power (in terms of Richard Wartman) and the invention of tradition (in terms of Eric Hobsbaum) in constructing the images of Ukrainian lands by Russian church historians? How did the Russian, Ukrainian and Polish national movements influence the church's historical narratives about Ukrainian lands? In what way did the church historians actualise Biblical images and medieval concepts (the Second Jerusalem and so on) to characterise Ukrainian religious history?

The project presents an interdisciplinary approach to the interrelationship between media, language, and society in the context of conflicts and wars. It integrates frameworks from sociolinguistics and psycholinguistics, describes the phenomenon of media language and compares it in different countries. On the example of the warfare between Ukraine and Russia (Russian military aggression), the study will show the impact of the conflict on the media language, type of media and society, as well as make a comparative analysis of the methods and techniques used by media actors to communicate with people. In this context, Dr Yuliya Krylova-Grek pays attention to the different aspects of language in the period of war and conflicts: language as a weapon (“weaponized language”), language as a tool of resistance, and counteraction to psychological operations (PSYOPs). The interdisciplinary approach allows the researcher to explore what methods and tools media actors use to influence public opinion and how the choice of language is determined by social and political context, depending on the country and region. The project is based on a comparative study of how media operate during conflicts and crises in different countries and regions (Ukraine, Russia, Central and Eastern European countries).

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.

The Second World War played, and continues to play a major role in Ukrainian political, cultural, public, and scientific discourse. In the conditions of Russia's contemporary war against Ukraine, the memory of the Second World War, the previous destructive war on the territory of Ukraine, becomes even more relevant for the state, scientists, and the public. In this project, called 'Memory of the Second World War in Contemporary Ukraine', Dr. Ihor Dvorkin plans to continue his research on the place of the Second World War in the contemporary Ukrainian discourse, after the Ukrainian independence in 1991. Since then, the coexistence of national and post-Soviet historical narratives in the political, scientific, and educational spheres was typical. However, after the Euromaidan and the beginning of the Russian-Ukrainian war in 2014, and especially after the legislative changes of 2015, called "decommunization laws", the situation changed in favour of a national approach. These events had a significant impact on the humanitarian sphere in Ukraine, the politics of memory and historical politics. In his study, Dr. Dvorkin will assess the following phenomena:

• Soviet heritage and post-Soviet realities. The "Great Patriotic War" vs World War II (until 2014).
• Euromaidan (2014) and its impact on memory politics and historical politics. Legislative changes (2015). Changes in rhetoric, aesthetics and toponymy; the invention of new traditions.
• The impact of the full-scale Russian invasion (2022) on perceptions of World War II. Possible changes during and after the current war.
• Russian instrumentalization of the Second World War in the conditions of hybrid and full-scale wars and the Ukrainian response.
• "Memorial places" dedicated to the war in the Ukrainian city: Soviet and post-Soviet (memorials, monuments, commemorative practices).
• Memory of the war in the toponymy of the Ukrainian cities: dynamics of changes.

  

The majority of Ukrainians have grown up with the Soviet/post-Soviet tradition of World War II/“The Great Patriotic War” commemoration. For decades, this topic has been a central part of the politics of memory and family history in Ukraine. Everyone has knowledge about WWII, even those who might not be interested in history. It was this kind of knowledge that formed the general image of war as a phenomenon. But since the beginning of the Russian invasion of Ukraine on February 24, 2022, people got a direct experience of the war in different roles: as a soldier, a refugee, a volunteer, or a bystander. How does the image of 'that war' overlap the image of 'this war'? How does the image of 'that war' change under the influence of the ongoing war? The main research question of this project is to examine how do the images of WWII and of the current war interact in Ukraine. How does the ongoing war affect the image, memory and commemoration of WWII? And, how do image, memory and commemoration of WWII influence the perception and expectations of commemoration of the ongoing war? The proposed research questions will especially focus on the local level in the city of Kryvyi Rih, and how 'this war' and 'that war' phenomena is reflected there.

In his project, Prof. Volodymyr Bureha plans to present life of the Orthodox Churches in Ukraine during the ongoing war  - with a focus on the time period from February 2022 to February 2023. After the Russian military invasion of Ukraine, profound transformations took place in the Ukrainian Orthodox Community. These processes will have an impact on post-war Ukraine in the future.For his research, Prof. Bureha will consider the main official documents of the Orthodox Churches in Ukraine, dedicated to the war. It is important to understand how the Churches viewed the war and how they carried out their ministry in the conditions of war. The study will tackle the fundamental difference between the position of the Orthodox Churches in Ukraine, and the position of the Russian Orthodox Church, which fully supported the aggression.Special attention will be paid to the deep transformations within the Ukrainian Orthodox Church, which was part of the Moscow Patriarchate before the war started. During the first three months of the war, this Church severed all relations with Moscow and with Patriarch Kirill.Another aspect of this project is the evolution of relations between the Churches and Ukrainian state authorities. Special attention will be paid to the differences in the confessional policy of the central and regional authorities of Ukraine.

The protection of Ukraine’s Russian speakers was among the pretexts for the 2014 Russian invasion as well as the full-scale war unleashed by Russia in 2022. Russia’s claims of authority over the speakers of Russian have been based on simplistic equations of language and national identification. To show that these speculations bear little resemblance to how the things stand on the ground, Ukrainians have started the process of linguistic conversion. The years following the 2014 Russian invasion have seen a growing shift to Ukrainian from Russian whereby language choice is perceived as a social action with an existential effect. My project is an ethnographic study of Russian speakers in eastern Ukraine who are involved in linguistic conversion. I concentrate primarily on those individuals who are switching to Ukrainian from Russian within grassroots Ukrainian language initiatives. Besides the motivations behind their language choice, I explore the reasons prompting them to invest in the language learning, as well as the process of education. I aim to establish the role of the war in the mass transition to Ukrainian from Russian, define its impact on Ukrainian language pedagogy, and also cast light upon the transformation of identities in eastern Ukraine.