CIUS Director Zenon Kohut honored by Kharkiv University (07/02/06)

CIUS Director Zenon Kohut honored by Kharkiv University

by Volodymyr Kravchenko

KHARKIV - At a meeting of the Academic Council of the Vasyl Karazyn Kharkiv National University on May 26, the director of the Canadian Institute of Ukrainian Studies (CIUS), Dr. Zenon E. Kohut, was ceremonially awarded an honorary doctorate.

The award was a tribute to Dr. Kohut's extensive scholarly work in the field of Ukrainian history, especially the study of Ukrainian-Russian relations in the early modern period, as well as his signal achievements in the organization of Ukrainian studies and the development of contemporary scholarship in that field in the West and in Ukraine, notably at Kharkiv University.

In 1999 Dr. Kohut initiated the establishment of the Kowalsky Program for the Study of Eastern Ukraine, whose purpose is to develop Ukrainian studies on an up-to-date methodological basis. Kharkiv University was chosen as the program's base of operations, and its coordination was entrusted to Prof. Volodymyr Kravchenko, who holds the university's Chair of Ukrainian Studies. As a result of these initial steps, the Kowalsky Eastern Institute of Ukrainian Studies was founded at Kharkiv University in 2000.

The institute proceeded to develop and carry out a number of long-term research and organizational projects. These include the establishment of a branch in Zaporizhia headed by Prof. Anatolii Boiko; the publication of a scholarly journal titled Skhid-Zakhid (East-West), now considered one of the best scholarly publications in Ukraine; the arrangement of an annual Kowalsky student research paper competition; and the organization of annual international conferences, symposia and seminars that confirm Kharkiv's reputation as an important center of contemporary Ukrainian studies.

The award of an honorary doctorate to Dr. Kohut by Kharkiv University may be seen as an indication of the success of the Kowalsky Program, its utility and benefit to the university and the region and its good prospects of development. That is how Dr. Kohut characterized the occasion in his thank you speech.

The list of well-known historians and honorary members of Kharkiv University includes August Ludwig Schlzer, Nikolai Karamzin, and Johann Christian Engel, while Mykhailo Hrushevsky, Ivan Franko and Oleksandra Yefymenko were awarded honorary doctorates in their day.

Symbolically, in honoring Dr. Kohut with an honorary doctorate, the Academic Council of Kharkiv University simultaneously took the decision to establish a new structural sub-unit, the Dmytro Bahalii Ukrainian Studies Research Center. Thus, on the eve of the Bahalii sesquicentennial in 2007, a distinguished phase of Ukrainian historical scholarship associated with the Dmytro Bahalii Institute of the History of Ukrainian Culture, which was active in the 1920s, will be revived.

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