"Soviet and Post-Soviet Ukraine: A Century in Perspective" to be topic of international conference at Yale University (04/11/99)

"Soviet and Post-Soviet Ukraine: A Century in Perspective" to be topic of international conference at Yale University

NEW HAVEN, Conn. - The Yale Center for International and Area Studies and its Yale-Ukraine Initiative will host a two-day conference, April 23 and 24, that will offer a fresh perspective on Ukraine of the last 100 years. The conference will be held 8:30 a.m. - 6 p.m. at the Yale Center for International and Area Studies, Luce Hall Auditorium, 34 Hillhouse Ave.

By examining evolutionary trends in Ukrainian history, economics, politics and culture, the conference will explore the opportunities and challenges that Ukraine faces in the next century. Conference topics include: national identity and nation-building; the legacy of the Soviet past and its implications for post-Soviet Ukraine; the political and economic history of Ukraine in the 20th century; the development of a distinctive Ukrainian society within the confines of larger political, economic and cultural entities; current economic and social issues; and cultural conflicts and language questions.

Academic experts, as well as prominent representatives of Ukrainian and international institutions will participate in the conference. Among them will be: Yuri Shapoval, director of the Center for the History of Political Science, National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine; Yaroslav Hrytsak, director of the Institute for Historical Research, Lviv University; Taras Kuzio, research fellow at the Ukraine Center, University of North London, and former head of mission, NATO Information Center in Kyiv; Charles Clover, correspondent for Ukraine, Financial Times; Joel Hellman, senior counselor, Office of the Chief Economist, European Bank for Reconstruction and Development; Bohdan Rubchak, professor of Ukrainian literature, University of Illinois; Solomea Pavlychko, senior research scholar, Institute of Literature, National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine; and Mykola Riabchuk; research fellow, Center for European Studies, Kyiv-Mohyla Academy, and deputy editor of Krytyka. Economic history will be presented by Profs. Ivan Koropeckyj and Volodymyr Bandera of Temple University.

George G. Grabowicz, the Dmytro Cyzevskyi Professor of Ukrainian Literature at Harvard, will deliver the keynote address. Gustav Ranis, Frank Altschul Professor of International Economics and director of the Yale Center for International and Area Studies, will open the conference.

Serhii Holovatyi, president of the Ukrainian Legal Foundation and former justice minister of Ukraine, also will participate. It was exactly a year ago, while Mr. Holovatyi was attending the Yale Conference on Institutional Reform in Ukraine, that his election to the Ukrainian Parliament was arbitrarily invalidated by the Pechersk District Court. Mr. Holovatyi now sits as the Ukrainian delegate to the European Commission for Democracy through Law. He will address the conference banquet, which will be held at The Graduate Club, 155 Elm St., on Friday, April 23, at 7 p.m.

Support for the conference is provided not only by the Chopivsky Family Foundation, which funds the Yale-Ukraine Initiative, but also by Yale's Edward J. and Dorothy Clarke Kempf Fund, Yale's Council on Russian and East European Studies, and the Yale Center for International and Area Studies.

The upcoming conference is the largest of the Yale Ukrainian initiative's efforts this year, but the initiative extends far beyond just an annual conference. Now in its fifth year of existence, the Yale-Ukraine Initiative provides an increasing number and variety of opportunities for Yale students and faculty to study and learn about Ukraine.

The Yale-Ukraine Initiative Committee, under the leadership of Prof. Harvey Goldblatt, chair of Slavic languages and literatures and master of Yale's Pierson College, guides all initiative activities, oversees the academic program, and provides oversight and administrative consistency.

The executive director of the program, Halyna Hryn, a lector in Slavic languages and literatures, not only provides direct academic guidance to the students in the Ukrainian language and culture classes, but also organizes and coordinates the program activities beyond the classroom.

The initiative also brings talented young Ukrainian scholars to Yale through the fellowship program, an opportunity that is now well-known within academic circles in Ukraine. Three students passed the rigorous admissions process and matriculated into the International and Development Economics Program in the fall of 1997, and two Yale students used initiative funds to undertake research in Ukraine.

This year the recipients of Chopivsky Fellowships are Olena Maslyukivska of the Kyiv-Mohyla Academy (enrolled in the School of Forestry and Environmental Science) and Vitaly Voytovych of the Ternopil Economic Academy (enrolled in the International and Development Economics Program). Medical internships in urology at the world-famous Yale-New Haven Hospital have been arranged for Ukrainian doctors by Dr. Bernard Lytton, the organizer of Yale's medical internship program. The Yale-Ukraine Initiative is in its second year of collaboration with the Open Society Institute in hosting economics professor Yury Bilenko of Lviv University as part of the Faculty Incentive Fellowships Program.

Neither do academic exchanges exhaust the Yale-Ukraine Initiative's efforts. Ms. Hryn offers students of Ukrainian language and culture a variety of learning opportunities both inside and outside the classroom with an emphasis on 20th century Ukraine. Working with her throughout the academic year is a group of energetic students who assist with program development and conference organization. The 1998 conference, "Institutional Reform in Ukraine: Implications for Emerging Markets," was the most successful conference so far, attracting a quality audience that exceeded 100.

The Slavic Collections of Yale's Sterling Memorial Library uses both its own and the initiative's funds to acquire and process materials for the Ukrainian Collection and recently hosted a Ukrainian intern for three months. The initiative also lent support so that the Slavic curator could attend a national conference of librarians from Ukraine and Russia.

Since its inception five years ago, the activities of the Yale-Ukraine Initiative have improved in quality and increased in scope, making the study of Ukraine an increasingly important part of the international program at Yale.

For more information please contact the Yale-Ukraine Initiative by telephone, (203) 432-3107; fax, (203) 432-5963; or e-mail, rees/yale.edu; or consult the website, http://www.yale.edu/rees/yui.html.

| Home Page |