The electronic version of the collective monograph “Political security of Ukraine: problems of political and state governance. Predictive assessment, mechanisms of provision” is posted on the website of the Institute, in the “Our Publications” section.

The monograph contains an analysis of the current situation and forecasts of possible dangers that could threaten political stability in Ukraine in the context of war, as well as proposals for their neutralization. The authors’ analysis of the wartime situation focuses on the problems that are most likely to arise in the exercise of state power, especially in the “center- region” line, in relations between the country’s political actors. The authors examine the symptoms of problems observed in the efforts to mobilize the country to resist the aggressor, in the interchurch confrontation in the Orthodox environment, in interethnic relations, and in the geostrategic efforts of the state.

All-Ukrainian (with international participation) conference “XIII Dragomanov Readings: Ukraine in European and World History: Modern Scientific and Educational Discourse” was held at Dragomanov Ukrainian State University. On this day, the teaching staff and students of the faculty gathered for a common goal – the implementation of scientific activity, which is so important, especially during the war.

Scientists from the Kuras Institute of Political and Ethnic Studies of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine – Chief Researcher of the Department of Theory and History of Political Science, Doctor of Historical Sciences, Professor Yuriy Shapoval and Leading Researcher of the Department of Ethnopolitics, Candidate of Historical Sciences Anatoliy Podolskiy took part in the work of the conference.

Anatoliy Podolskiy is speaking

Anatoliy Podolskiy spoke at the plenary session of the conference with the report “Memory of the victims of the Second World War as a weapon against Russian aggression (using the example of studying the history of the Holocaust in Ukraine)”. In his report, the scientist emphasized that during the years of state sovereignty of Ukraine, civil society, together with state institutions, slowly but gradually created a culture of memory of Ukrainian Jews, victims of the Holocaust. These are also memorial places, commemoration of the victims of mass murders committed by the Nazis on our land, museum expositions, educational and scientific work. In general, researchers have identified about 2,000 mass burial sites of Ukrainian Jews who were killed by the Nazi occupation authorities in 1941–1944 on the territory of modern Ukraine. Not less than 1,300 of these places were decorated, memorial signs, memorials, etc. were installed during the period of Ukraine’s sovereignty. All that was impossible to imagine during the communist dictatorship on our territory. And the dictatorial, totalitarian regime of modern Russia is a logical and terrible continuation of the Stalinist communist regime, which, like its criminal predecessors, is inherently anti-Ukrainian and anti-Semitic, and, in general, simply xenophobic. At the beginning of the full-scale war, this was clearly demonstrated by the Russian aggressors themselves, when during March 2022 Russian missiles destroyed memorials to the victims of the Holocaust. Thus, the Russian invaders and occupiers are destroying the Ukrainian culture of commemorating the victims of the Holocaust, which was respectfully and carefully created precisely in the years of independence, after the fall of the communist regime. Thus, today’s Russian criminal government and the equally criminal Russian society demonstrate their frank Ukrainophobia and anti-Semitism, continuing the worst traditions of Stalinism.

During the conference

Scientific reports of Dariusz Rogut (Poland), Oleksandr Lysenko, Dmitry Frolov (Finland), Karen Nikiforov, Mykhailo Zhurba, Andrii Bulvinskyi were also announced at the plenary session. The reports of other speakers will be published in the online collection of conference materials.

Conference program

Video recording of conference reports

April 9, 2024 at the Kuras Institute of Political and Ethnic Studies a round table presentation of the results of the scientific study “Political system of Ukraine: constitutional model and political practices” was held. The research was conducted under the leadership of the corresponding member of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine, Doctor of Political Sciences, Professor, Head of the Department of Political Institutes and Processes of our Institute, Galyna Zelenko.

In his introductory speech, the Director of the Institute, Vice-President of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine, Doctor of Historical Sciences, Professor, Corresponding Member of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine Oleg Rafalskiy emphasized the relevance of the main results of the study, which is aimed at studying the peculiarities of the formation of the political system of Ukraine in the conditions of the Russian-Ukrainian war.

Oleg Rafalskiy and Galyna Zelenko

 Head of the Department of Political Institutes and Processes of the Kuras Institute of Political and Ethnic Studies of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine, Doctor of Political Sciences, Professor, Corresponding Member of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine, Galyna Zelenko, presenting the work of her colleagues, noted that the monograph is devoted to the study of the institutional, normative-legal, and informative-communicative subsystems of the political system of Ukraine from the point of view of combining formal and real constitutionalism. Non-political institutions are studied – civil society organizations, financial and industrial groups, media, which directly influence the nature of the political system and political practices. The team of authors tried to understand in detail and structure all the subsystems of the political system and analyze its applied manifestations in Ukraine, giving answers to a number of urgent questions, among which, in particular, the following: omissions that practically made the effectiveness of certain elements of the established constitutional model impossible and, as a result, generated them weak institutional capacity; the correctness and expediency of the political choice made during the implementation of institutional construction, etc. However, the main thing is the search for tools to eliminate the existing problems, which currently prevent the further full-fledged democratic development of Ukraine.

During the presentation of the research results

During the round table, the project executors gave short presentations of their sections:

• “Form of state government: semi-presidentialism in the Ukrainian version” (executor – Oleksandr Mayboroda, Deputy Director of the Institute, Doctor of Historical Sciences, Professor, corresponding member of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine);
• “Functional capacity of the Ukrainian parliament” (executor – Vitaliy Pereveziy, Scientific Secretary, Candidate of Historical Sciences, Associate Professor);
• “The problem of structural coherence in the political system of Ukraine” (executor – Tetyana Bevz, Chief Researcher, Doctor of Historical Sciences, Professor);
• “The ruling class as a producer of changes in the political system” (performer – Tetyana Lyashenko, Leading Researcher, Doctor of Political Sciences);
• “The influence of financial and industrial groups on the functioning of the political system of Ukraine” (executor – Svitlana Brekharya, Senior Researcher, Candidate of Political Sciences);
• “Political aspects of the functioning of the judicial branch of government in Ukraine” (executor – Yuriy Nikolaiets, Head of the Department of Political Culture and Ideology, Doctor of Historical Sciences, Professor);
• “Mass media in Ukraine: structure, functions and political influence” (executor – Maxym Kyjak, Senior Researcher, Candidate of Philosophical Sciences);
• “Socio-political tasks of the post-war reconstruction of Ukraine” (executor – Nataliya Kononenko, Leading Researcher, Candidate of Political Sciences).

During the work of the round table

Scientists of the Institute took part in the round table: Deputy Director of the Institute, Doctor of Political Sciences, Professor Yurii Shaihorodskyi, Chief Researcher, Doctor of Political Sciences, Professor Vasyl Kozma, Leading Researcher, Candidate of Political Sciences Rostyslav Balaban, Leading Researcher, Senior Researcher, Candidate of Political Sciences Iryna Ovchar, graduate student Ihor Tsygvintsev and others. 50 guests also joined the discussion of the research topic online. Among them are representatives of scientific institutions, teachers and students of higher education institutions, representatives of the media sphere, etc.

The public discussion of the institutional, normative-legal and informational-communicative subsystems of the political system of Ukraine became a kind of event for the concentration of intellectual resources of scientists and public experts, and proved the importance of a professional discussion on solving institutional problems of Ukraine’s development.

Mykola Ryabchuk, a leading researcher of the Department of Political Culture and Ideology, received in Lublin the medal of the Union of Lublin from the city president and the award named after Jerzy Giedroyc from the Maria Sklodowska-Curie University for scientific and journalistic activity aimed in particular at strengthening Polish-Ukrainian relations.

The Jerzy Giedroyc Award was established in 2001. Among her laureates are Daniel Beauvois, Yaroslav Hrytsak, Jerzy Pomyanovskyi.

At the award ceremony in Lublin’s Old Theater, Mykola Ryabchuk gave a speech (in Polish) “What is left of the “two Ukraines”? Ukrainian identity after two revolutions and ten years of war”.

The vice president of the city of Lublin Beata Stepaniuk-Kusmierczak hands Mykola Ryabchuk the medal of the Union of Lublin

On March 21, 2024, the Ukrainian Institute of the Future hosted an international expert discussion: “Presidentialism VS Parliamentarism for Ukraine.” The initiator of the series of public discussions on the topic of the social contract was the Head of the Center for Constitutional Modeling Gennadiy Druzenko, judge of the Constitutional Court of Ukraine Serhiy Holovaty, representatives of the UIM Maksym Andrushchenko and Maria Chumak, Professor of Law and Professor of Political Sciences at Duke University (USA) Donald Horowitz and Professor of Constitutional Law at Indiana University (USA) David Williams.

At the event with the report “Constitution as a social contract: what should it be like in post-war Ukraine?” Doctor of Political Sciences, Professor, Corresponding Member of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine, head Department of Political Institutes and Processes of the Institute Galyna Zelenko gave a speech.

Galyna Zelenko is speaking

In her report, G. Zelenko characterized the prerequisites and circumstances of the constitutional process in Ukraine, the reasons for the establishment of teleological constitutionalism and its flaws. In particular, the reasons for the formation of a kind of “scissors” between formal and real constitutionalism. She also analyzed the qualitative changes that took place in the government itself and society under the influence of the war. In view of this, she warned against the temptation of presidential institutions to strengthen the centralization of power and personalized influence to the detriment of parliamentarism and local self-government. After all, as research shows, it is wrong to think that wars are won by centralized and authoritarian countries. In addition, the centralization of power creates prerequisites for political tension in society and is not organic for Ukrainian society, which once again demonstrated the ability to self-organize. Instead, society needs order, but order that would have institutionalized forms – the dictatorship of the law, the rule of law, social justice, a clear information policy, etc.

Employees of the Institute also took part in the discussion: leading researcher Nataliya Kononenko, senior researchers Svitlana Sytnyk and Iryna Ovchar.

On March 21, a meeting of the Director of the Kuras Institute of Political and Ethnic Studies of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine Oleg Rafalskiy with the Director of the Representative Office of the Polish Academy of Sciences (PAN) in Kyiv Mateusz Byalas. The representative office of the National Academy of Sciences in Kyiv is a unique institution that has tremendous opportunities for establishing scientific communication between Ukrainian and Polish scientists. Given the realities in which Ukrainian science found itself during the war, this cooperation is one of the main bridges connecting Ukrainian and world science. During the meeting, urgent problems and ways to solve them, possibilities of cooperation in the scientific field were discussed.

Oleg Rafalskiy and Mateusz Byalas

On March 14-15, 2024, the Jagiellonian University (Krakow, Poland) hosted the international scientific conference “New Approaches in Political Science”, which was organized by the Polish Association of Political Sciences and the International Political Science Association (IPSA).

In the center of attention of the conference participants: problems of using data in political science research; new research approaches and methods due to the development of artificial intelligence and means of communication; interdisciplinary research, which is gaining more and more popularity; mediatization of politics, use of digital technologies in political research.

Doctor of Political Sciences, Professor, Corresponding Member of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine, Head of the Department of Political Institutes and Processes of the Kuras Institute of Political and Ethnic Studies of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine, the first vice-president of the Association of Political Sciences of Ukraine, Galyna Zelenko. During the conference, G. Zelenko gave an introductory lecture on the topic: “Russian military aggression against Ukraine as a catalyst for political changes: regional and Ukrainian dimensions.” The lecture was prepared based on the results of research conducted by the Director of the Kuras Institute of Political and Ethnic Studies of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine, Doctor of Historical Sciences, Professor, Corresponding Member of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine Oleg Rafalskiy “War and civilizational choice of Ukraine” and published in the monograph “Adaptive changes of the political field of Ukraine in the conditions of war”, as well as the study “Pretend Russia: imitation of greatness and power”, prepared by a group of researchers headed by G. Zelenko with the support of the International Foundation “Renaissance”.

Galyna Zelenko is speaking

G. Zelenko characterized the relevance of the empirical base, which makes it possible to adequately assess the state of affairs in the Russian Federation, outlined how the political regime in the Russian Federation was transformed under the influence of military aggression against Ukraine, analyzed the prospects of the so-called “world order Z” and the reasons for the disintegration of the Russian Federation, which are clearly not obvious, which determines the need for an adequate assessment of the probable scenarios of the development of the Russian-Ukrainian war and an equally adequate policy for confrontation in this war.

The electronic version of the collective monograph “Adaptive Changes in the Political Field of Ukraine in the Conditions of War” is posted on the Institute’s website in the “Our Publications” section.

The monograph contains an analysis of the changes that took place in the political field of Ukraine under the influence of the war unleashed by Russia. The author’s team focused attention on the key aspects of political changes in Ukraine caused by the conditions of martial law – on functional changes in the country’s political system, on new formats of relations between the government and society, on innovations in the implementation of the Euro-Atlantic course of the Ukrainian state. The subject area of the analysis of political changes in the country is the functioning of political and power institutions, the nature of political governance in accordance with the activation of social processes in the spiritual, cultural, ethnopolitical spheres, and the search for ways to integrate Ukraine into the global democratic space.

For scientists, teachers, students of higher education, analysts, for everyone who is interested in the development of political processes in the country.

On March 13, 2024, the Cooperation Agreement was signed between the Kuras Institute of Political and Ethnic Studies of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine and the State University of Trade and Economics.

The cooperation agreement provides for the establishment of joint work in separate areas of activity of the institutions. In particular, cooperation in the creation of research, information-analytical and expert materials, organization of scientific events, implementation of joint projects based on grants, competitions, organization and conduct of practices, internships, consultations.

When signing the Agreement

The contract was signed by: the Director of the Kuras Institute of Political and Ethnic Studies of the NAS of Ukraine, Doctor of Historical Sciences, Professor, corresponding member of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine, academician of the National Academy of Pedagogical Sciences of Ukraine, vice-president of the NAS of Ukraine Oleg Rafalskiy and Rector of the State University of Trade and Economics, Doctor of Economic Sciences, Professor, academician of the National Academy of Pedagogical Sciences of Ukraine Anatoly Mazaraki.

Oleg Rafalskiy and Anatoly Mazaraki

On the website of the Institute, in the “Our Publications” section, an electronic version of the collection of scientific works “Ukrainian Society: Political and Psychological Dimensions of the Change of Generations” is posted.

The collection contains the materials of the All-Ukrainian scientific and practical conference “Ukrainian society: the political and psychological dimension of the change of generations”, which took place in Kyiv on December 15, 2023.

The scientific event was organized and conducted by the Kuras Institute of Political and Ethnic Studies of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine within the framework of the research work “The concept of the unity of Ukraine: origins, evolution, political relevance” (state registration number: 0122U000572) jointly with the Institute of Social and Political Psychology of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine, the Association of Political Sciences of Ukraine and the Association of Political Psychologists of Ukraine.

On February 24-25, Dr. Mykola Riabchuk, a Senior Research Fellow of the Department of Political Culture and Ideology, took part in a two-day conference „Challenges of Ukrainian Culture: Beyond the Times of Upheaval”, organized at the Keio University in Yokohama. On the second day of the event he presented a paper titled “Ukraine: Unmuted. The Toxic Spell of “Imperial Knowledge” and Challenges of Decolonization”.

His primary focus was on the ongoing processes of disassembling of Russian imperial legacy in both Ukraine and abroad – in mental and linguistic clichés, academic curricula, and various mechanisms of knowledge production and distribution. While any colonial power strives to deprive subjugated nations of their political agency, cultural viability and psychological self-confidence, the main goal of national liberation is to get unmuted, to acquire distinct visibility and to assume political agency beyond anybody’s „sphere of influence”.

Conference program

The journal “Political Studies”, the founder and publisher of which is our Institute, is indexed in the DOAJ (Directory of Open Access Journals) – an international multidisciplinary catalog of open access journals.

The mission of DOAJ is to disseminate reliable information about scientific peer-reviewed open access journals on the Internet, to provide an opportunity for scientists, libraries, universities and other interested parties to obtain quality and reliable information about the results of scientific research, to promote the integration of journals into the international scientific space. Through this work, DOAJ contributes to the development of science and education.

Journals that meet a number of requirements are included in the DOAJ catalog. These requirements apply in particular to:

• members of the editorial board;
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• compliance with the long-term archiving policy;
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DOAJ editors constantly monitor the quality of publications entered into the database.

The introduction of the journal “Political Studies” to DOAJ will contribute to the popularization of the publication, the expansion of the readership and the familiarization of the scientific community with the publications of domestic scientists.

At the end of January, on the occasion of the International Holocaust Remembrance Day, the 17th annual scientific round table “Ukrainian society and memory of the Holocaust: the experience of the modern war against Ukraine” was held in Kyiv. The organizer of the event was the Ukrainian Center for the Study of the History of the Holocaust with the support of Goethe-Institut Ukraine and House of Europe, the Jewish community of Düsseldorf, as well as the Ukrainian Association of Judaics and the Master’s Program in Judaics of NaUKMA.

At the opening of the annual round table, a Leading Researcher of the Department of Ethnopolitics of the Kuras Institute of Political and Ethnic Studies of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine, Candidate of Historical Sciences, Anatoliy Podolskiy.

Anatoliy Podolskiy is speaking

In his report, the scientist drew attention to the importance of academic studies and teaching the history of the Holocaust, as a component of the history of Ukraine during the Second World War, during the Russian aggression against our country. During the two years of the Russian aggressor’s full-scale war against Ukraine, the enemy’s propaganda is constantly engaged in the instrumentalization of the historical past, in particular, the falsification of the events of the Second World War, the history of the Holocaust on Ukrainian soil. Therefore, the historical fate of the Jews of Ukraine, the commemoration of the victims of the Holocaust today is also a battlefield with the Moscow invaders and occupiers. Formed during the years of sovereignty, the culture and policy of memory for the victims of the Second World War in Ukraine is today our weapon in the fight against Russian falsifications of the past, which are aimed, among other things, at smearing the history of Ukrainian Jewry and inciting anti-Semitism in Ukraine, which in fact together with Ukrainophobia and xenophobia in general is a characteristic of the modern criminal Russian political regime.

The work of this year’s scientific round table was devoted to two relevant and important aspects of studying the history of the Holocaust at the modern stage, which are reflected in the names of the two sessions of the table:

“High school and challenges in teaching the history of the Holocaust during the war”

“Memory and experience of ongoing war”

Participants of the round table

Well-known and young Ukrainian historians and political scientists studying this issue spoke at the round table: Pavlo Hudish from Uzhgorod National University, Serhii Girik from the National University “Kyiv-Mohyla Academy”, Yevgen Zakharchenko from Kharkiv National University, Roman Shlyakhtych from the State University of Economics and Technology (Kryvyi Rih), Vitaly Nakhmanovych from the Museum of the History of the City of Kyiv and others.

Round table program

Video recording of the round table reports

Photo gallery

On the website of the Institute, in the section “Our publications”, there is an electronic version of the analytical note “Political security of Ukraine: problems of political and state governance. Predictive assessment, mechanisms of provision”.

The analytical note contains an analysis of the current situation and predictive assessments of probable dangers that may threaten political stability in Ukraine in war conditions, as well as individual proposals for overcoming them. Research attention is focused on problems that may arise during the exercise of state power, especially along the “center-region” line, in relations between subjects of the country’s political field. The problems associated with the implementation of the tasks of mobilizing the country to resist military aggression are highlighted and analyzed, as well as existing contradictions in inter-ethnic relations, in inter-church confrontation in the Orthodox environment, and in the state’s geostrategic efforts. The analytical note was prepared based on the results of the research work “Forecasting the security environment of Ukraine in the political sphere” (state registration number 0123U102067).

On February 15-16, 2024, the capital of the federal state of Rhineland-Palatinate, the city of Mainz (Germany), hosted an international workshop on the topic “The European history(s) of Ukraine. About the value and values of the European past”. The organizers of the conference were the Institute of European History in Mainz and the Georg Eckert Institute in Braunschweig. Both institutions are part of the non-university (public) sector of scientific researches. It includes the institutes of all major national research organizations, including the Leibniz Association. Thanks to this association, stable and sufficient funding for research work is provided.

In recent years, public opinion in Germany was dominated by the image of Ukraine as a post-Soviet, dysfunctional state with a lot of corruption. After February 24, 2022, European politicians began to emphasize that Ukraine is a “member of the European family.” Intellectuals, the media, and a large part of public activists began to distinguish Ukrainian history from the history of Russia and the Soviet Union, noting that Ukraine’s past and present was in Russia’s shadow for a long time, emphasizing Ukraine’s European perspective.

How did Ukraine become part of Europe? What is the value of the European past for social actors in Ukraine and beyond? What values do they fit into the European past?

These and other issues became the subject of discussion by the seminar participants. Among them was the Chief Researcher of the Department of Theory and History of our Institute, Doctor of Historical Sciences, Professor Yuriy Shapoval. Together with Yulia Ostropalchenko, an employee of Borys Grinchenko Kyiv Metropolitan University, he prepared and delivered the report “Russian history textbooks of the 2023 edition: stereotypes and new accents.”

A group of Ukrainian participants of the seminar: Yuliya Ostropalchenko, Yuriy Shapoval, Maria Kovalchuk, Tetyana Portnova

On February 14, 2024, the 3rd All-Ukrainian Scientific and Practical Conference “Sociocultural Transformations in Ukraine in the XX-XXI Centuries. Overcoming the Soviet Heritage in Education, Culture, Mentality” was held at Hryhorii Skovoroda University in Pereiaslav.

The co-organizer of the scientific event was the Kuras Institute of Political and Ethnic Studies of the NAS of Ukraine. Employees of the Institute took part in the conference. At the plenary session, the Head of the Department of Political Culture and Ideology, Doctor of Historical Sciences, Professor Yuriy Nikolaiets, gave a speech “War in the value system of modern Russian society”, and a speech “Resistance of Ukrainian society to the expansion of the ideology of regional separatism and “Russian world”” was given by the Chief scientist employee of the Department of Ethnopolitics, Doctor of Political Sciences, Professor Oleg Kalakura. Valeriy Novorodovsky, a Junior Researcher at the Department of Ethnopolitics, Candidate of Historical Sciences, took an active part in the discussion.

Yuriy Nikolaiets and Oleg Kalakura

Valeriy Novorodovsky

Most of the participants of the Conference emphasized that the main goal of imperial Russian policy is the genocide of the Ukrainian people and the destruction of Ukraine as a sovereign state. Russia’s special informational and psychological operations are aimed at combating historical memory and historical heritage and are aimed at destroying the unity of Ukrainian society and erasing Ukrainian identity. To achieve its goals, Moscow, with the help of committed specialists in historiography and historiosophy, imposes a set of Russian national myths on historical science.

Overcoming the Soviet heritage in education, culture, and mentality, the participants of the Conference emphasized, is possible only if the efforts of state authorities, scientists, educators and public initiative are combined.

Participants of the Conference in Pereiaslav

The Ukrainian-Polish strategic partnership is once again being tested for strength. In the conditions of Russian military aggression, ensuring trusting relations between Ukraine and Poland is one of the aspects of national security for Ukraine. It is important that this problem became the subject of discussion within the framework of the Ukrainian-Polish Dialogue Forum, which took place in Kyiv on February 10-11, 2024.

The organizers of the Forum were the Institute of International Security (Ukraine), the Kuras Institute of Political and Ethnic Studies of the NAS of Ukraine and the Institute of Political Studies of the Polish Academy of Sciences.

Kuras Institute of Political and Ethnic Studies of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine was represented at the Forum by: Director Oleg Rafalskiy – Doctor of Historical Sciences, Professor, Corresponding Member of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine, Vice-President of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine; Galyna Zelenko – Doctor of Political Sciences, Professor, Corresponding Member of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine, Head of the Department of Political Institutes and Processes; Oleg Kalakura – Doctor of Political Sciences, Professor, Chief Researcher of the Department of Ethno-Political Science.

People’s deputies of Ukraine, representatives of the NSDC apparatus, the Ministry of Defense of Ukraine, the Ministry of Education and Science of Ukraine, the Institute of National Remembrance, the State Archive of the SSU, the Institute of International Relations of Taras Shevchenko National University of Kyiv, the National Institute of Strategic Studies, the Precarpathian National University of Ukraine and others took part in the work of the Forum.

The holding of the Forum became an example of effective cooperation and interaction of state authorities, law enforcement agencies and scientists of Ukraine and Poland, an effort to coordinate efforts and find answers to challenges that arise in view of the extremely complex geopolitical situation in the region and the EU in general, in Ukrainian-Polish relations in today’s. Also, the Forum is a continuation of the cooperation between the leading political science institutions of the National Academies of Sciences of Ukraine and Poland, declared in the Agreement on Cooperation between these scientific institutions.

Within the framework of the Forum, two panel discussions were held: “Unification of the Ukrainian and Polish peoples against the background of Russian aggression” and “Ukraine-Poland: from misunderstandings in the past to a common future.” Lessons that must be learned in order to prevent new tragedies.”

Vadym Skibitskyi, Major General, Deputy Chief of the Ministry of Defense of Ukraine

Andriy Kulikov, moderator of the Forum

Grzegorz Motyka, Director of the Institute of Political Studies of the Polish Academy of Sciences

Oleg Kalakura spoke at the first panel with the report “Ethno-cultural dimension of the Ukrainian-Polish partnership against the background of Russian aggression”.

Oleg Kalakura

Forum participants

Lukash Adamskyi, deputy director of the Yuliusz Meroshevskyi Dialogue Center

Serhiy Chernov, President of the Congress of Self-Government of Ukraine

Jakub Bjorny, Head of the Department of International Relations at the University of Wroclaw

Pyotr Kulpa, program director of the School of Ministers of the Kyiv School of Public Administration named after Serhiy Nizhnyi

During informal communication

According to the results of the Forum, a Resolution was adopted with the intention of continuing cooperation between representatives of the authorities and scientists of both countries, outlining further steps to prevent the escalation of contradictions between the two countries. Forum participants emphasized the importance of developing Ukrainian-Polish cooperation as a strategic partnership, reloading the foundational documents and institutions of the Ukrainian-Polish interstate dialogue.

On February 8, Dr. Mykola Riabchuk, a Senior Research Fellow of the Department of Political Culture and Ideology, delivered the keynote lecture at the opening of the international conference “Russia’s War against Ukraine and the Crisis in Eurasia-Challenges for the Humanities” in Sapporo, at the Slavic Research Center of the Hokkaido University.

In his presentation, titled “Mapping a “Nowhere Nation”: Imperial Knowledge and Challenges of Decolonization”, he explored the reasons of Ukraine’s long-time invisibility and de-facto absence on the mental maps of international scholars, politicians and general public. This ignorance, according to the Ukrainian scholar, largely resulted from the specific policies of the Russian (and eventually Soviet) empire aimed at silencing and marginalization of subjugated nations, particularly Ukraine.

Mykola Riabchuk

A set of peculiar narratives (“imperial knowledge”) about itself and its colonies was developed by the empire, in order to legitimize its dominance both domestically and internationally. The uncritical acceptance of these narratives largely facilitated today’s Russian aggression against Ukraine and prevented effective and timely responses to it at the earlier stages. Deconstruction of these narratives, the speaker argued, is a primary task of intellectual community in its pursuit of the de-colonial agenda.

Conference participants

On February 8, Dr. Mykola Riabchuk, a Senior Research Fellow of the Department of Political Culture and Ideology, delivered the keynote lecture at the opening of the international conference “Russia’s War against Ukraine and the Crisis in Eurasia-Challenges for the Humanities” in Sapporo, at the Slavic Research Center of the Hokkaido University.

In his presentation, titled “Mapping a “Nowhere Nation”: Imperial Knowledge and Challenges of Decolonization”, he explored the reasons of Ukraine’s long-time invisibility and de-facto absence on the mental maps of international scholars, politicians and general public. This ignorance, according to the Ukrainian scholar, largely resulted from the specific policies of the Russian (and eventually Soviet) empire aimed at silencing and marginalization of subjugated nations, particularly Ukraine.

Mykola Riabchuk

A set of peculiar narratives (“imperial knowledge”) about itself and its colonies was developed by the empire, in order to legitimize its dominance both domestically and internationally. The uncritical acceptance of these narratives largely facilitated today’s Russian aggression against Ukraine and prevented effective and timely responses to it at the earlier stages. Deconstruction of these narratives, the speaker argued, is a primary task of intellectual community in its pursuit of the de-colonial agenda.

Conference participants

Chief researcher of the Department of Theory and History of Political Science of our Institute, Doctor of Historical Sciences, Professor Yuriy Shapoval gave an interview to Polish Radio. The interview was about Yu. Shapoval’s book “Unforgiven. Oleksandr Dovzhenko and the communist special services”.

The author presents a new look at the figure of director and playwright, Ukrainian cinematographer Oleksandr Dovzhenko. The research work of our colleague is based on the unpublished documents of the case-form, which was opened on Dovzhenko by the Soviet special services, and which they conducted from the beginning of the 20s and actually until the end, until his death in 1956. The Chekists never forgave Dovzhenko for his nationalist past, his Ukrainian patriotism, albeit within the limits of the Soviet canon, which was intertwined with the conformism of the great creator.

Interview with Polish Radio