Events

The conference organized by the U-CORE project took place at the University of Luxembourg, 26-27 March 2024 and hosted UNDIPUS-scholars from three German universities, four disciplines and five projects.

As part of the joint project “(Un)Disciplined: Pluralizing Ukrainian Studies—Understanding the War in Ukraine” (UNDIPUS), interdisciplinary approaches to Ukrainian studies are being explored at the universities of Greifswald, Giessen, and Regensburg. In addition to analyzing the current situation in Ukraine, attention is also focused on neighboring states, especially Poland and the Republic of Moldova. The thematic focus lies on critically examining cross-border societal dynamics, the impact of the war on Ukrainian society, and pluralistic identity discourses. Equally central to the project is networking Ukrainian studies and providing new impulses for its academic establishment. Since the “Ukraine. Collecting. Recording” (U-CORE) project recently started at the University of Luxembourg, it was considered an excellent opportunity to organize a joint scientific conference under the title “Ukrainian Studies Across the Borders”, which already implies multinational approaches to current issues surrounding Ukraine. Therefore, approaches from Luxembourg, Germany, and Ukraine were synthesized at this event.

In the first thematic section moderated by Vitalii Klymchuk (Luxembourg), two contributions on psychology were presented. To start, Roman Dubasevych (Greifswald) provided an overview of the metaphorical aspects of war events and demonstrated how heroism is constructed. His presentation titled From Zero to Hero: Masculinity and War in Ukraine also explored the mythological forms currently activated in Ukrainian discourses. The second presentation titled Mental Health for Ukraine focused on the complex issue of mental health. Viktoria Gorbunova (Luxembourg) described how this phenomenon can be targeted and theorized for different groups of people.

The second section, under the direction of Alexey Aleksandrov (Luxembourg), was dedicated to the construction of identities and narratives of freedom. Ksenia Fedorova (Luxembourg) first discussed Delineating a Digital-Scape: A Critical Practice of Freedom during the Russian War in Ukraine . In her dissertation project, Fedorova examines the concept of freedom and the role of the internet in times of war, analyzing various databases. Olga Plakhotnik (Greifswald) then elucidated the interplay between self-determination and state institutions. In her presentation on Sexual Citizenship and Borders Crossing , she characterized citizenship as a complex and dynamic process specific to LGBT+ communities in Ukraine, expanding beyond borders as some fled before the war to settle in the EU.

Kataryna Zakharchuk (Luxembourg) moderated the third section, which focused on the digitization of Ukrainian studies. Two projects located at the University of Luxembourg were presented within this framework. Machteld Venken (Luxembourg) discussed the Architecture of the Project “Ukraine. Collecting. Recording” (U-CORE) , presenting the initial research activities of the project, which began in January 2024 and documents migration stories from Ukraine. Inna Ganschow (Luxembourg) then spoke about the VYSH-project: AI Generated Embroideries for Ukrainian Dancing Costumes . In this project, involving both the contributor and the section moderator, Ukrainian costumes were designed using AI and are now deployed in Luxembourg to promote Ukrainian culture.

The second day of the conference began with a section on post-industrialism, led by Oleksiy Kiryukhin (Luxembourg). Oleksandr Zabirko and Alina Strzempa (both from Regensburg) presented a contrasting perspective on literary production in Donbas and Upper Silesia ( Exploring Anthropocene Perspectives on the Donbas and Upper Silesia ), exemplifying texts from Ukraine and Poland that address the ecological consequences of industrialization and the cultural achievements of both regions. Alexander Chertenko (Giessen) then examined the portrayal of Ukraine in Poland. In his presentation Voices from the Periphery: Mapping Ukraine after 2014 in Polish Books of Interviews , he argued that countries with historical traumas of territorial loss tend to generate restorative discourses in times of war, thereby enacting themselves as “quasi-empires.”

The concluding section was dedicated to themes in linguistics and history and was moderated by Olga Kryvets (Luxembourg). Martin Henzelmann (Greifswald) spoke on Minority Languages and Education in Bessarabia , outlining how minority languages in the present-day Republic of Moldova and the extreme southwest of Ukraine are incorporated into school curricula. This was followed by the presentation by Iryna Pogrebynska (Luxembourg) on the issue of addressing the narratives of the Holocaust in Luxembourg and Ukraine ( Ukrainian-Luxembourg Historical Research: Invariance of Subjects—Difference in Approaches: A Case Study ). Despite certain progress in addressing these narratives, she argued that there are still remarkable deficits, particularly in digital processing of historical data. The section was concluded with a presentation by Zhanna Serdiuk (Luxembourg), documenting the life and work of Andriy Melnyk ( Andriy Melnyk: Additional Features to the Historical Portrait ). The presence of this Ukrainian military officer and politician in Luxembourg (1946-1964) presents comprehensive research potential.

The aim of the conference was to discuss diversified approaches to the Ukrainian cultural landscape, critically evaluate multiple explanations for the current war situation and its societal consequences, address the interconnections between Ukraine and its neighbors, and intensify academic exchange between universities in Germany and Luxembourg. Researchers who had to leave Ukraine and are now working abroad were actively involved in shaping the program to ensure the broadest possible access to the overall issue.

Martin Henzelmann

The dynamism of nineteenth-century Europe elevated technological progress to the status of virtue itself. The expansive mining zones, heralded as catalysts of the Industrial Revolution, became this new, vibrant reality, shaped by imperialism and a confluence of demographic, technical, and economic powers. Over the following two centuries, industrial regions emerged as embodiments of social forces, driven by class loyalties and labor migrations. In border-straddling industrial areas (such as the Donbas or Upper Silesia), the interplay of competing nationalisms and particular forms of national indifference collided with class dynamics and migration patterns. However, structural transformations have since turned industrial regions into murky landscapes full of ruins. Despite occasional revitalized symbolic remnants of the glorious industrial past, these regions now grapple with identity crises stemming from the decline of heavy industry and a transition from once-thriving hubs to realms of uncertainty, where the proximity of the state border remains a potential trigger for armed conflict.

The aim of the conference is to conceptualize the fluid and overlapping identities within Europe’s industrial spaces as well as their shifting loyalties to central governments or nation-states. Additionally, it aims to explore their impact on cognitive, economic, and  political shifts and transitions, which have significantly shaped collective paradigms in these regions. Focusing specifically on cultural and literary studies, it encompasses researchers specializing in anthropology, history, political studies, sociology, economy, and other related disciplines. Although the main focus of the conference are the Eastern and Central European old industrial borderlands of the Donbas and Upper Silesia, situated along the (cultural) frontiers of Russia-Ukraine and Germany-Poland respectively, its ultimate goal is to foster broader comparative dialog, which also involves other European industrial areas and borderlands.

September 30, 2024

5 PM – 5.45 PM
Welcoming address by
Prof.in Dr. Ursula Regener
Vice President for
Internationalization and
Diversity at University of
Regensburg

Dr. André Schüller-Zwierlein
Head of the University Library

Opening of the exhibition
“Shifting Borders,
Fluid Landscapes”
with photographs by
Viktor Marushchenko
Karolina Jonderko
Alexander Chekmenev
Michał Cała

5.45 PM – 7.45 PM
Podium discussion with
Lyuba Yakimchuk
and Zbigniew Rokita

7.45 PM –
Reception

Viktor Marushchenko (1946-2020) was one
of the most internationally renowned Ukrainian
photographers. He participated in the Venice
Biennale in 2001 and in the São Paulo Biennale
in 2004. He also founded the Victor Marushchenko
School of Photography in Kyiv.

Karolina Jonderko , born 1985 in Rydułtowy,
Upper Silesia, works on both local and international
projects, focusing on themes of loss and its aftermath.
She won the World Press Photo Award in 2021.

Alexander Chekmenev , born 1969 in Luhansk,
Donbas, has been living in Kyiv since 1997.
He continuously documents the changing reality
of hiscountry and exhibits his work internationally.

Michał Cała (1948) photographed Silesia most
intensively between 1975 and 1992. In 2007,
he was invited to participate in an exhibition at the
Palace of Culture and Science in Warsaw,
showcasing the works of the 100 most
important Polish photographers.

Lyuba Yakimchuk , born 1985 in Luhansk, Donbas,
is a Ukrainian poet and writer known for her
compelling work that often explores
themes of identity, memory, and the effects of
historical trauma. Her work has been translated
into several European languages.

Zbigniew Rokita , born in 1989 in Gliwice,
Upper Silesia, explores the multiple identities
of the former German territories in today’s
Poland in his non-fiction literary works. He won the
prestigious Polish NIKE Award in 2021.

October 1, 2024

9 AM – 10.45 AM
Andrii Portnov (Frankfurt/O.)
Chair: Oleksandr Zabirko
(Regensburg)
DONBAS: SOME
REFLECTIONS ON POSSIBLE
RESEARCH PERSPECTIVES

11 AM – 12.30 PM
Panel 1
Across the Disciplines:
Donbas and Upper Silesia in
Comparative Perspective
Chair: Oleksandr Zabirko (Regensburg)
Peter Oliver Loew (Darmstadt):
Upper Silesia and Donbas:
Century-Spanning Conflicts
over Two Industrial Regions
Vlad Mykhnenko (Oxford):
Geopolitics versus the Regions:
Reframing the Old Industrial
Regions Research
Alina Strzempa (Regensburg):
Region, Globalization, Industry,
Borderland, Comparison: Donbas
and Upper Silesia in Literary and
Cultural Studies

1.30 PM – 3 PM (parallel panel)

Panel 2
Traditions and Transitions:
Questioning Social Formations in
the Post-Industrial Regions
Chair: Alina Strzempa (Regensburg)
Wiktoria Tombarkiewicz-Gorzelik
(Kraków): Folk Costume and Miner’s
Uniform as a Representation of
Upper Silesianness – Roots,
Transformations, Meanings
of the Practice
Monika Glosowitz (Katowice):
Memoirs of Women from Upper-Silesian
Families as Counter-Archive of
De/Industrialisation
Olena Syaivo Dmytryk
(Cambridge): ‘A Multi-Layered Pie
of Contradictions’: Luhans’k
‘Orchid’ Theatre of Provocative
Fashion_VIA ZOOM

1.30 PM – 3 PM (parallel panel)

Panel 3
Identity Crises in Upper Silesia
and the Donbas: From Industrial
Heritage to Separatism and Beyond
Chair: Andrzej Czyżewski (Warsaw)
Alexandr Osipian (Leipzig):
Identity Crisis in Old Industrial Region:
Historical Legacy of Donbas
in Ukraine and Russia, 1991-2024
Jerzy Gorzelik (Katowice):
The Industrial Heritage of
Upper Silesia after 1989 as a
Factor of Cohesion and Subversion
Kyrylo Tkachenko (München):
Separatism, Irredentism, or
Something Else? The Shifting Image
of the “Exploiting Center” in
the Political Debates in the Donbas,
1989-1993

3.30 PM – 5 PM (parallel panel)

Panel 4
Belonging, Displacement, and
Propaganda in the Donbas
Chair: Vlad Mykhnenko (Cambridge)
Qianrui Hu (London): Evolving
Narrative of Self and Belonging
among Displaced Ukrainians
from ‘Donbas’
Jon Roozenbeek (London):
The Long-Term Failure of Russian
Propaganda_VIA ZOOM

3.30 PM – 5 PM (parallel panel)

Panel 5
Upper Silesian Borderland
Narratives
Chair: Anna Seidel (Berlin)
Jess Jensen Mitchell
(Harvard/Katowice): ‘Still nothing
about Silesia’: Regional Family
Sagas in Contemporary Polish
Writing
Leszek Drong (Katowice):
Ghost of Borders Past: Haunted
Borderscapes in Contemporary
Narratives from Upper Silesia
Adam Kubik (Heidelberg): Industry
as a Mirror of the Self and the
Other in Contemporary Literature
of Borderlands: Upper Silesia and
South Tyrol

October 2, 2024

9 AM – 10.30 AM (parallel panel)

Panel 6
Environmental Footprints: Water,
Nuclear, and Coal Legacies
Across Europe
Chair: Olga Plakhotnik (Greifswald)
Anna Barcz (Warsaw):
Major River Floods in
19th Century Europe: Literary
Sources and a Non-Anthropocentric
History of Hydro-Infrastructure
Juliane Tomann (Regensburg):
Nuclear Heritage in the Making.
Negotiating the GDR Uranium
Mining Past in the “New Landscape”
Park in Ronneburg (Thuringia)
Marta Tomczok, Paweł Tomczok
(Katowice): Coal Humanities:
Assumptions, Perspectives,
and Possibilities

9 AM – 10.30 AM (parallel panel)

Panel 7
Community Dynamics in
Industrial Landscapes
Chair: Maria Mayerchyk (Kleve)
Oleksandr Zabirko (Regensburg):
The Owner and the Debt:
The Symbolic Economy of Miners’
Cult in the Soviet Donbas
Karolina Pospiszil-Hofmańska
(Katowice): Human Waste:
Exploring Narratives of Spoil Tip
Inhabitants in Upper Silesian
Literature
Anna Seidel (Berlin): Scooping
Oil and Digging Coal. Literary
Representations of Workers’ Lives
in Teschen Silesia and Eastern
Galicia

11 AM – 12.30 PM

Panel 8
Art and Identity in Post-Industrial
Urban Settings
Chair: Juliane Tomann (Regensburg)
Clemens Günther (Berlin):
Colours of Ostrava – Examining
the Colour Schemes of the Historical
Past and Present
Carlos Navarro González (Paris):
Cinema and Audiovisual Art in the
Post-Industrial Landscape of
Lisbon: Migrant, Working, and
Racialized Communities
Andrzej Czyżewski (Warsaw):
Promised Land – in Search of the
City’s Identity (Łódź)

11 AM – 12.30 PM (parallel panel)

Panel 9
Myths of the Donbas: Creation,
Persistence, and Destruction
Chair: Oleksandr Zabirko
(Regensburg)
Mykola Riabchuk (Kyiv): Donbas
versus Galicia: Different Modes of
Othering and Mythologizing
Roman Dubasevych (Greifswald):
“You must defend what rightfully
belongs to you”: Masculinity,
Violence, and (Impending) War in
Serhii Zhadan’s novel
Voroshylovhrad (2010)
Oleksandr Chertenko (Giessen):
“Fortress Donbas”: Going Back to
a Wild Field? Cultural Accounts
of a (Former) Industrial Region
after 24.2.2022

12.30 PM –1 PM
CONCLUDING REMARKS

Where: GCSC (International Graduate Centre for the Study of Culture), Otto Behaghel Str. 12, 35394 Giessen
When: January 31 - February 2, 2025
Organizers: Justus Liebig University Giessen / UNDIPUS joint project & Charles University in Prague / IMS Research Centre “Ukraine in a Changing Europe”

The end of February 2024 marked ten years since the beginning of the war in Ukraine—heralded by an (almost) non-violent annexation of Crimea in March 2014 and culminating in an all-out war launched by Russia in February 2022. During this period, the war, which brought about massive destruction of human lives, ecosystems, and infrastructure, as well as large-scale displacement, became part and parcel not only of the global agenda in journalism, politics, culture, and academic research, but also a crucial factor in cultural production and identity formation.

Our interdisciplinary conference “Re-Thinking Post-Socialist War(s): Comparative Dimensions of the War in Ukraine (2014-2024)” aims at conceptualizing the repercussions of this highly traumatic event that changed the lives of millions of people in Ukraine and also became a game-changing factor on a global scale. It is a collaborative effort between the Justus Liebig University Giessen and the Charles University in Prague. As the title suggests, rather than focusing on the war’s idiosyncrasy, we instead try to juxtapose it to other typologically comparable military conflicts in order to grasp their convergences and divergences. Premising on that, we also discuss the possible peacebuilding strategies and compare them to the relevant experiences observed in other countries and cultures.

The comparative stance underlying this endeavor is twofold. On the one hand, we approach the decade-long war in Ukraine as probably the most salient case of resolving post-socialist disputes with military means. Here, the conference zooms into the phenomenon of post-socialist wars,” understood as military conflicts in various areas belonging to the socialist camp before 1989-1991, from Yugoslav wars to armed tensions in the Caucasus, or, typologically, from warmongering and swiftly frozen conflicts to protracted genocidal wars. In particular, we focus on the ways in which the retreat of socialist practices and ideologemes opened space for overlapping layers of neoliberalism and nationalism, thus making affected polities less equal and more polarized.

On the other hand, we treat the war in Ukraine as an illuminating example of wars legitimized—or explained—within anti-/post-/decolonial or post-dependency frameworks (in post-socialist countries as well as in Africa or in the Middle East). From this perspective, the conference pinpoints the specific regimes of dealing with—or constructing—collective traumata, discourses of power, knowledge, and resilience, as well as identity and cultural politics resulting from the identitary (also nationalist) appropriations of post- and decolonial lines of thought—in Ukraine and elsewhere. By this means, the conference tries to reconnect the post-socialist wars (and the war in Ukraine as a “post-socialist” one) to the war-induced discursive, behavioral, economic, and ethical practices born out of post-dependency conflicts outside of the post-socialist space. Another goal is to figure out the specific features of post-Soviet narrations on (post-)coloniality and their role for the dynamics of war(s).

Our guiding questions are (i) what enabled armed conflicts (and the war in Ukraine in particular) as legitimate tools for achieving (geo)political goals; (ii) how warfare (co-)produced certain social and cultural practices that transformed implicated actors and polities or (iii) which social, cultural, and economic factors possibly prefigured the emergence and the perpetuation of warfare; (iv) finally, how the post-socialist and post-dependency wars were framed—in warring countries and in third states; by victims and by aggressors—and how those framings, in turn, reshaped identities of the involved sides?

The conference draws some 40 participants from political science, sociology, literary and cultural studies, international relations, linguistics, and history representing universities and research institutions in Austria, Czech Republic, Germany, Hungary, India, Israel, Italy, Lithuania, Poland, Serbia, Switzerland, Ukraine, and the USA. In addition to regular panels, the program of the conference also includes the keynote by Prof. ­Mark R. Beissinger (Princeton University, USA) on „Imperial Decline and Post-Socialist Wars: Russia’s Invasion of Ukraine in Comparative Perspective“ .

DAY 1 (31.1.2025)

8.30 – 9.00 – registration

9.00 – 9.30 – opening remarks

9.30 – 12.30 Panel 1

CHALLENGES OF POSTSOCIALIST WARS

Chair: Vitaly Chernetsky (U of Kansas)

Monika Wingender (Giessen): Language(s) and War in Ukraine: Problems, Challenges, and Perspectives in Dealing with the Soviet Legacy

Roman Horbyk (Zurich): From Participative Warfare to Participatory Attrition: Technology and the Russo-Ukrainian War

*

Chair: Valeria Korablyova & Alexander Chertenko

Valeria Korablyova (Prague): From Hope to Fear and Back: The Geopolitics of Emotion after 1989

Mikhail Minakov (Milan): War-Making as Autocracy-Building: Autocratization through Wars in Post-Soviet Countries

12.30 – 14.00 Lunch at the Mensa (Otto Behaghel Str. 27, 35394 Giessen)

14.00 – 15.20 Panels 2A & 2B

2A. HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVES ON WAR(S)

Chair : Thomas Bohn (Justus Liebig University Giessen)

Semion Goldin (Jerusalem): Russian Army and Jewish Population During WWI: Some Lessons for Ukraine

Aliaksei Bratachkin (Hagen): The War in Ukraine and the Discursive Legacy of WWII Memory in Belarus: Radicalization of Changes?

2B. WAR & MEMORY

Chair: Oleksandr Zabirko (U of Regensburg)

Anna Ivanova (Giessen): Wartime Memory Politics and the City: Competing Approaches in the Production of Space in Kharkiv, Ukraine

Iryna Tarku (Giessen): Narrative Construction of Memory and Identity in Donbas War Prose

15.20 – 15.40 Coffee break

15.40 – 17.40 Panels 3A & 3B

3A. POST-WAR TEMPORALITIES

Chair : Tatjana Petzer (U of Graz)

Dagmar Gramshammer-Hohl (Graz): Imagining Generations in Times of War

Iryna Orlova (Graz): Temporalities of Displacement

Tatjana Petzer (Graz): Transforming the Post-War(s) Environment

3B. HUMAN RIGHTS VIOLATIONS & WAR

Chair : Dmitry Dubrovsky (Charles U, Prague)

Irina Rebrova (Berlin): The Future of the Holocaust Remembrance in Contemporary Russia

Alexander Cherkasov (Prague): The Chain of Wars, the Chain of Crimes, the Chain of Impunity: Russian Wars in Chechnya, Syria, and Ukraine

Dmitry Dubrovsky (Prague): The Notion of the “Genocide of the Soviet People” in Putin’s Propaganda

17.40 – 18.00 Coffee break

18.00 – 19.30 KEYNOTE LECTURE

Mark R. Beissinger (Princeton): Imperial Decline and Post-Socialist Wars: Russia’s Invasion of Ukraine in Comparative Perspective

Moderation: Valeria Korablyova

20.00 – 22.00 Dinner at “Croatica” (Ludwigsplatz 8, 35390 Giessen)

DAY 2 (1.2.2025)

09.00 – 12.00 Panels 4 & 5

4. UNRAVELLING THE POST-COMMUNIST SPACE I

Chair : Andreas Langenohl (Justus Liebig U Giessen), Valeria Korablyova (Charles U, Prague)

Aleksandar Životić (Belgrade): Geopolitical Consequences of the Collapse of the Soviet Union and Yugoslavia: Similarities and Differences of the Wars in Yugoslavia and Ukraine

Alessandro Achilli (Cagliari)/Marco Puleri (Bologna): Intellectuals and the Nation (Yesterday and Today): Pluralism and the Responsibility of Culture

Péter Hevő (Budapest): The End of the Visegrád Cooperation? The V4 and the War in Ukraine

Jochen Kleinschmidt (Dresden): From Realpolitik to Surrealpolitik? Russia’s War in Ukraine and the Discursive Antinomies of the Berlin Republic

5. OTHERS’ WAR(S) I

Chair: Roman Dubasevych (University of Greifswald)

Ewa Wróblewska-Trochimiuk (Warsaw): What Happened to homo sovieticus ? Reshaping Ukrainian Society in Social Media

Alexander Chertenko (Giessen): Voices from Periphery: Mapping Ukraine after 2014 in Polish Books of Interviews (Andrukhovych & Savchenko)

Matthias Schwartz (Berlin): Kresy as a Combat Zone: Ukrainian, Belarusian, and Russian Borderlands in Poland's Popular Culture

12.00 – 13.30 Lunch at the Mensa (Otto Behaghel Str. 27, 35394 Giessen)

13.30 – 15.30 Panels 6A & 6B

6 A. WAR AND GENDER

Chair : Olga Plakhotnik (U of Greifswald)

Andreas Langenohl (Giessen): Queering Warfare: LGBTQI+ Presences On and Off Military Scenes

Roman Dubasevych (Greifswald): From patsan to Veteran: Masculinity and War in Ukraine

Tania Arcimovich (Erfurt): War and Epistemology: Displaced Scholars’ Perspectives

6 B. OTHERS’ WAR(S) II

Chair: Alexander Chertenko (Justus Liebig U Giessen)

Alina Strzempa (Regensburg): Unravelling War and Peace in Contested Regions: A Comparison of Upper Silesia and the Donbas from a Literary Perspective

Aleksei Surin (Tel Aviv): Toppling Idols, Redefining the Past: Russian-Israeli Poetic Strategies Responding to the War in Ukraine

Namita Kumari (Delhi): Narratives about the Ukraine War in India: A Study of National Newspapers

15.30 – 16.00 Coffee break

16.00 – 17.30

Moderation: Alexander Chertenko

7A. DYNAMICS OF CONFLICT

Chair: Jochen Kleinschmidt (TU of Dresden)

Oksana Myshlovska (Bern): Contesting the New “Legitimate Political Order”: Conflict Escalation and Local-Level Peacebuilding in Ukraine from February to April 2014

Andrei Vazyanau (Vilnius): Disintegration via Infrastructure: A Case of Public Transport Activists from Donetsk Region

7B WAR IN POPULAR CULTURE

Chair: Alessandro Achilli (U of Cagliari)

Oleksandr Zabirko (Regensburg): Microraion as Battleground: Post-Socialist Landscapes in Video Game Warfare

Beata Waligórska-Olejniczak (Poznań): Turning Trauma into Art of Life: New Ukrainian Cinema in Time of War

17.30 – 18.45 Dinner buffet with varenyky

18.45 – 20.45 Film screening and discussion: THE HAMLET SYNDROME

(directed by Elwira Niewiera & Piotr Rosołowski, GER/PL 2022)

Moderation: Alexander Chertenko & Valeria Korablyova

21.15 – 23.59 Twilight get-together at “Bolero” (Ostanlage 45, 35390 Giessen)