2017 Spring Seminars

Interwar Poland has a less than stellar reputation for its treatment of minority ethnic groups, which was cause for concern, considering that nearly one-third of Poland’s population comprised minorities—particularly Ukrainians, Belarusians, Jews, and Germans. While most historical literature focuses on group-level policies pursued by Warsaw to create an ethnically homogenous Poland, in this seminar I will disaggregate the level of analysis to focus on the dynamics between the Polish government and political organizations that claim to represent minority ethnic groups. 

Using the case of the Ukrainian minority, I explore how the Polish government pursued a divide and rule strategy to manage Ukrainian opposition. This was done through the promotion and exploitation of inter- and intra-organizational conflicts, the creation of loyalist Ukrainian organizations, the activation of sub-ethnic group cleavages, and the banning of organizations that could credibly unite the Ukrainian opposition. I reconstruct the intentions of policy makers using process-tracing analysis and extensive archival research of the main organ responsible for formulating minority policies, the Ministry of Interior (Ministerstwo Spraw Wewnętrznych). 

Daniel Fedorowycz
Eugene and Daymel Shklar Research Fellow, HURI

Read a Q&A with Daniel here: http://huri.harvard.edu/news/news-from-huri/298-daniel-fedorowycz.html

Daniel Fedorowycz completed his doctorate in Politics at the University of Oxford. His dissertation examines ethnic politics in multinational states and focuses on the variation in state response to minority group organizations in interwar Poland. More broadly, Daniel researches questions relating to the causes of ethnic conflict through examining local-level dynamics in the Polish-Ukrainian borderlands during the interwar and World War II era. In 2014-15, Daniel was a pre-doctoral fellow at Yale University’s Program on Order, Conflict, and Violence. He holds a MA in European, Russian, and Eurasian Studies and BA(Hons) from the University of Toronto. Currently, Daniel is a Shklar Fellow at the Harvard Ukrainian Research Institute.

2017 03 27 Daniel Fedorowycz: Divide and Rule: Managing the Ukrainian Minority in Interwar Poland

How Strong Is the Ukrainian State? Institutions and Society; External and Internal Threats

In his talk, Adrian Karatnycky, Senior Fellow and co-director of the Atlantic Council’s Ukraine in Europe Program, will examine the record of the Poroshenko Presidency, assessing its accomplishments and failings. He will discuss the steep decline in popularity and the traditionally low levels of support for all Ukraine’s presidents as well as the factors that contribute toward them. He will also offer an assessment of the prospects for Poroshenko’s reelection in 2019 and attempt to answer the question of whether Ukraine can successfully face the challenge of Russian aggression in the absence of a strong and popular President.  

More information: https://www.facebook.com/events/630789423778566/

2017 04 12 Adrian Karatnycky: How Strong Is the Ukrainian State?

The Petryshyn Memorial Lecture in Ukrainian Studies

"Mobilizing the Peasantry: The Quandaries of Modernity in the Galician Carpathians, 1880-1914"

Frank Sysyn 
Director, Peter Jacyk Centre for Ukrainian Historical Research, Canadian Institute of Ukrainian Studies;
Professor, History and Classics, University of Alberta 

Among the Austrian Galician counties, Turka and the highland areas of Staryi Sambir stood out for the high percentage of Ukrainian speakers and Greek Catholics. They also had high rates of illiteracy, few towns, and a high percentage of land in forests. Villagers were divided into various social groups, including former serfs and petty nobles alongside a substantial Jewish rural population. Trade in livestock was an important part of the local economy and especially important for Jewish market towns. Political and economic reforms in the 1860s and 1870s unleashed a series of changes in this isolated region. The granting of Galician autonomy created a new political situation and competition between Poles and Ruthenians. New legislation granted economic emancipation to the peasants and the Jews. Construction of a railway system on the outskirts of the region enabled new movement of people and goods. 

More information: https://www.facebook.com/events/1304652979581867/

2017 04 03 Frank Sysyn: The Quandaries of Modernity in the Galician Carpathians

In his talk at HURI, Volodymyr Kulyk will present preliminary findings of his most recent project which he implements in collaboration with Professor Henry Hale of George Washington University. It is based on a representative survey of the Ukrainian population that was conducted in February 2017 by the Kyiv International Institute of Sociology. The project examines public support for radical reforms in post-Euromaidan Ukraine. It analyzes what parts of Ukrainian society support radical changes in various domains, to what extent the groups supporting such changes in different domains overlap, and how support for reform is related to the preference for national identity over its sub and supranational competitors. 

Watch a video here: https://www.facebook.com/events/275324829591965/permalink/281494632308318/

2017 05 01 Volodymyr Kulyk - Nat'l Identity and Public Support for Reforms

Prior to the diplomatic appointment, Mr. Shevchenko had accomplished an outstanding career in politics and media. He is also well known in Ukraine as a civil activist and a human rights defender.

After that Mr. Shevchenko started a successful political career. He won seats in the Ukrainian Parliament 3 times (in 2006, 2007, 2012). In 2006-12 he served as the Chairman of the Free Speech Committee. In 2012-14 he served as the 1st Deputy Chairman of the Human Rights Committee.

Mr. Shevchenko is a sponsor of 60 legislative acts, adopted by the Ukrainian Parliament. That includes the Law on Access to Information – a corner stone of the Ukrainian anti-corruption legislature.

In 2013-14 Mr. Shevchenko was an active participant of the EuroMaidan protests. He was deeply involved in organizing peaceful demonstrations and protection of the protesters from the brutal violence by the police and legal repressions by the authorities.

He graduated from Kyiv Shevchenko University (1999). He was a Yale World Fellow (2008), a Draper Hills Fellow at Stanford (2009), and a John Smith Fellow in the UK (2013).

Watch the video here: https://www.facebook.com/events/431659743844098/permalink/439612686382137/

2017 04 27 Andriy Shevchenko: Ukraine: Workshop in Nation Building

Founded in June 1973, the Harvard Ukrainian Research Institute (HURI) serves as a focal point for graduate and undergraduate students, fellows, and associates pursuing research in Ukrainian language, literature, and history as well as in anthropology, archaeology, art history, economics, political science, sociology, theology, and other disciplines. 