INTERNATIONAL SCIENTIFIC AND METHODOLOGICAL SEMINAR “HISTORY OF GENOCIDE IN UKRAINE: STUDY OF EXPERIENCE AND CHALLENGES OF THE PRESENT TIME”

June 12-13, 2024 at the Kuras Institute of Political and Ethnic Studies of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine International Scientific and Methodological Seminar “History of Genocides in Ukraine: Study of Experience and Contemporary Challenges” was held.

The organizers of the event were the Kuras Institute of Political and Ethnic Studies of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine, the Ukrainian Center for the Study of the History of the Holocaust and the Shoah Memorial (Memorial de la Shoah) in Paris.

The purpose of the event was a professional discussion of Ukrainian and French scientists and educators on the issues of researching and teaching the history of the Holocaust and other genocides of the 20th century. How important is the memory of the genocides of the past for understanding and comprehending the events of modern Russian aggression and the war against Ukraine.

Director of the Institute, Academician of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine, Doctor of Historical Sciences Oleg Rafalskiy welcomed the participants of the seminar and emphasized the importance of researching the history of crimes of totalitarian regimes of the last century in order to understand the nature of the modern dictatorial Russian regime, which is waging war against Ukraine.

The moderators of the scientific seminar were Anatoliy Podolskiy, a leading researcher of the Department of Ethnopolitics of our Institute, Candidate of Historical Sciences, and Bruno Boye, the head of the Educational Department of the Shoah Memorial in Paris.

Anatoliy Podolskiy and Bruno Boye

The participants of the two-day event were researchers, teachers of history and social sciences of secondary schools and higher education institutions of Ukraine. The organizers prepared a rich program for 25 participants. During two days, classes, lectures and workshops devoted to the history and memory of genocides on the territory of Ukraine took place at the seminar.

Lecture topics presented during the seminar

  • Holocaust Remembrance Today. Historical parallels, relevance of commemoration.
  • A multitude of crimes against humanity. Modern qualification.
  • Post-Holocaust Suffering and Memory: What’s Wrong with “Never Again”?
  • The multitude of reactions of local non-Jews to the Holocaust.
  • Methods, approaches, challenges to teaching about the history of the Holocaust and genocide.
  • How to use Holocaust photographs in the educational process.
  • Museum of military childhood. Relevance of the context for modern Ukraine

Participants of the seminar

Lecturers at the seminar were Ukrainian and French scientists: Toma Shopar, Oleksandr Voronyuk, Pascal Zahari, Lesya Hasydzhak, Virginia Sansiko, Svitlana Osipchuk

Program of the seminar

 Photo gallery of the seminar