Short description

Ever since Russia launched its full-scale war against Ukraine on 24 February 2022, Ukraine has been the focus of attention not only in German public and scientific discourse, but also on a global scale. What many events on the topic have shown, however, is that the study of the ongoing war and its effects on Ukrainian society and culture, as well as the study of Ukraine in general, are often characterised by an ethically underpinned strategic narrowing of methodological approaches and analytical tools. The conscious inclusion of Ukrainian voices did not bring a significant change here. All the more so, since many Ukrainian speakers demanded an outright “cancelling” of Russian culture as the imperial culture and the culture of the aggressor. Attempts to de-radicalize the discourse were, in turn, often dismissed as „westsplaining“, thus ruling out an assessment of intercultural influences and entanglements.

In what way should (and can) Ukraine—and the war in Ukraine—be researched and discussed in all its complexity? How can historical, political, economic and social as well as cultural entanglements be adequately addressed? Which issues or methodological approaches are especially contentious due to ethical considerations or because they presumably „play into the hands of the aggressor“? How could a re-orientation of East European and Slavic Studies toward Ukraine and other „minor“ cultures be carried out on a methodological, institutional, and structural level? In what ways can the results of such a re-orientation be transferred to decision- and policymakers?

Following these debates, the UNDIPUS workshop, organized by the UNDIPUS project together with the Center for East European and International Studies (ZOiS) and the Leibniz-Zentrum für Literatur und the Leibniz Center for Literary and Cultural Research (ZfL), related the contemporary discussion on the decolonization of Ukraine to the conceptual apparatus developed within transnational postcolonial and decolonial studies. In doing so, we tried to explore its analytic potential with respect to Ukraine and develop new ideas and theoretical models for understanding the current war. Considering the complexity and dynamic character of global colonial relations, the workshop’s aim was to facilitate scholarly dialogue about the prospects of Ukrainian Studies’ decolonization project while also keeping in mind the growing political instrumentalization of the decolonial terminology.

The workshop opened on December 8 with the panel discussion „Navigating Ukrainian Studies in Time of War” at ZOiS. On December 9, we continued with the academic part centered around three impulse lectures at ZfL.