Yale to host conference on Soviet and post-Soviet Ukraine (03/19/00)

Yale to host conference on Soviet and post-Soviet Ukraine

NEW HAVEN, Conn. - The Yale Ukraine-Initiative will host a two-day international conference on Saturday, April 8, and Sunday, April 9, that will examine Ukrainian politics of the past century. The recent elections in Ukraine have once again made evident the complex issues facing Ukrainian society: integration of regional and national interests, economic reform, relations with the ex-Soviet world and beyond, and the enduring influence of earlier political and cultural processes. In this context, the conference will explore the nature and distinctiveness of Ukrainian politics today.

Topics at the "Soviet and Post-Soviet Ukraine" conference will include: the historical legacy of politics in Ukraine from 1890-1917; cultural politics from the 1920s to the present; language and national identity; an analysis of the 1999 presidential elections; and an examination of interrelations between politics and economic development.

On both days the conference will be held 9 a.m. - 6 p.m. at the Yale Center for International and Area Studies, Luce Hall Auditorium, 34 Hillhouse Ave., New Haven. It is open to scholars and members of the community.

Roman Szporluk, the Mykhailo S. Hrushevskyi Professor of Ukrainian History and director of the Ukrainian Research Institute at Harvard University, will deliver the keynote address on Saturday morning.

The conference will open with a panel on politics in Ukraine from 1890 to 1917 that will discuss pre-revolutionary Ukraine from the perspective of its Ukrainian, Russian and Jewish societies. It will feature historians Olga Andriewsky of Trent University, Theodore Weeks of Southern Illinois University and Robert Weinberg of Swarthmore College.

This session will be followed by a close analysis of the presidential election of 1999, delivered by Valeriy Khmelko, professor of sociology of the Kyiv-Mohyla Academy and president of the Kyiv International Institute of Sociology; Serhiy Hrabovsky of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine; and Dr. Taras Kuzio of the School of Slavonic and East European Studies, London and visiting fellow.

Economic transformations in Ukraine: macro and micro perspectives will be discussed by David J. Anderson, president and CEO, Elidale Holdings, Inc., who has been based in Ukraine for the last decade; Oleh Havrylyshyn, senior advisor of the International Monetary Fund in Washington; World Bank consultant Lucan Way, and Prof. Stephen Whitefield of the departrnent of political science, Yale University.

The important issue of language and national identity will be analyzed by Dominique Arel, assistant professor of the Watson Institute, Brown University; Laada Bilaniuk, assistant professor at the department of anthropology, University of Washington; Jennifer Dickinson, post-doctoral fellow at the University of Alberta; and Jan G. Janmaat of the University of Amsterdam.

An overview of literary and cultural developments will be presented by Halyna Hryn, lector in Ukrainian at the department of Slavic languages and literatures, Yale University; Maxim Tarnawsky, associate professor of Ukrainian literature at the University of Toronto; and Oleksandr Hrytsenko, director of the Institute of Cultural Policy, Ukrainian Center for Cultural Studies in Kyiv. The conference will conclude with a roundtable, led by political scientist Prof. Alexander Motyl of Rutgers University.

The conference banquet will be held on April 8 at 7 p.m. at the Quinnipiack Club, 221 Church St., in New Haven. The address will be given by George G. Grabowicz, Dmytro Cyzevskyj Professor of Ukrainian Literature, Harvard University, and editor-in-chief of the contemporary Ukrainian journal Krytyka.

Support for the conference is provided by Yale's Edward J. and Dorothy Clarke Kempf Fund and the Yale Center for International and Area Studies. Conference organizers at Yale are Harvey Goldblatt, chair and professor of Slavic languages and literatures, Paul Bushkovitch, professor of history; Prof. Arel and Ms. Hryn.

Now in its sixth year, the Yale-Ukraine Initiative came to fruition through the vision and support of George Chopivsky, Jr. (Yale '69) and the Chopivsky Family Foundation. The initiative is a multi-disciplinary program through which Yale scholars and students can explore the language, society, culture and economy of Ukraine, not just through the annual conference, but also through fellowships, and an academic program of study and research grants. Currently under the leadership of Prof. Goldblatt, the initiative has expanded its activities. In addition to a full program of language, literature and culture courses taught by Ms. Hryn, this year the initiative is pleased to offer a course in Ukrainian politics taught by Prof. Arel.

The initiative is in its third 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. Two graduate students from Ukraine are presently enrolled at Yale, supported by the George Chopivsky Fellowship Program: Olena Maslyukivska of the National University of Kyiv-Mohyla Academy is completing a master of environmental studies degree and conducting research on the Chornobyl nuclear accident; Anatoliy Bizhko, formerly of Lviv University, is pursuing studies at the Yale Law School.

Prof. Oksana Nadzhafova of Kyiv University is spending this year at the School of Forestry and Environmental Studies as part of a junior faculty exchange program. The initiative's activities are strongly supported by the newly formed Yale Ukrainian Students' Club (YUSC), headed by Adrian Slywotzky and Olena Maslyukivska.

Over the past six years more than a dozen talented young scholars have attended Yale through the George Chopivsky Fellowship Program. The fellowship provides the opportunity for qualified Ukrainian students to enroll in the international relations program, the school of management, the program in international and development economics, and in the School of Forestry and Environmental Studies. Many have returned to Ukraine and now hold positions with the World Bank, the international firm of Deloitte and Touche, and other academic and financial international institutions. Additionally, medical internships in urology at the renowned Yale-New Haven Hospital have been arranged for Ukrainian doctors by Dr. Bernard Lytton, the organizer of Yale's medical internship program.

This year's conference offers a comprehensive look at Ukraine both yesterday and today, bringing together the different threads of ideas, programs and initiatives that have come to define the Yale-Ukraine Initiative. Yale Univesity requests that interested individuals preregister for the conference by March 29. For regristration and other information contact Marina Andrews at the Yale-Ukraine Initiative: telephone, (203) 432-3107; fax, (203) 432-5963; e-mail, [email protected] or consult the website, http://www.yale.edu/rees/yui.

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