Ukraine and the World: Paradise(s) Lost?

XXIX. Greifswalder Ukrainicum – Greifswald Ukrainian Summer School under the scientific direction of Professor Dr. Roman Dubasevych (Greifswald) and Dr. Oleksandr Chertenko (Gießen) 

The remarkable resilience and mobilization of Ukrainian society in the fight against Russian aggression often overshadow the profound feelings of nostalgia and mourning that have accompanied the war since its outbreak. The sorrow over daily human losses and the destruction of cities and landscapes is intertwined with a growing awareness of the irreversible transformation underway in Ukrainian society – marking the end of a long era post-World War II peace and gradual evolution. Despite the promises of decolonization, decommunization, and de-russification giving allegedly the birth of a new European and global leader, Ukrainian society now appears as wounded, vulnerable, and limited in its agency as rarely before in its history. Moreover, Ukrainian fighting spirits paradoxically co-exist with a growing war fatigue and nostalgia for peaceful past(s), including even the Soviet era – as illustrated by the widely acclaimed documentary Nazarii Iaremchuk: The Unmatched World of Beauty (2024). This year, Ukrainicum seeks to explore these contradictions and ambivalences, as well as their impact on the current cultural and political landscape. What do they reveal about Ukrainian society and the increasingly turbulent global world? Are these moments of longing for a “lost paradise” merely decadent or “restorative” in the sense outlined by Svetlana Boym, or do they also represent a “reflective” effort to seek answers to pressing contemporary issues? Might such a Stefan Zweig-inspired exploration of the ‘worlds of yesterday’ offer insights into the causes of the war – or, like Ariadne’s fragile thread, point the way out of the labyrinth of alienation and confrontation epitomized in ‘my nation first’-mentality?

The language of instruction is English. Successful participation requires language proficiency at the B2/C1 level or higher.