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Category: Rethinking East European Studies in Times of Upheaval

This TRAFO Blog series discusses issues and concerns of East European studies in times of change and upheaval – in the context of Russia’s ongoing war against Ukraine, and beyond. The series is conceived in relation to the research program Prisma Ukraïna, at the Forum Transregionale Studien, initiated by Andrii Portnov with the idea to investigate historical and contemporary European questions through the prism of Ukraine; the research project European Times: A Transregional Perspectives on the Societies of Central and Eastern Europe (EUTIM), that addresses narratives of time and space at the edges of Europe; and the Viadrina Center of Polish and Ukrainian Studies (VCPU) that focuses on interdisciplinary research on Polish and Ukrainian history and the present day. Contributions to this blog series can touch upon the concepts of times and location of East, West or Southeast Europe, on the place of the so called east of Europe in World or Global History, in comparative Literature or other disciplinary fields of inquiry, the legacies of chronologies, empires and ideologies, on the uses and misuses of history and identity. We are interested in reassessments of area studies and the humanities and social sciences, in past and current issues of and in the region, like nationalism, pluralism, war, resilience, displacement, destruction and re-construction, questions of language, traveling theory, alternative archives and popular histories. We invite looking into more neglected topics as well, such as new approaches to the pluralist past and present of Eastern Europe, or comparative perspectives to other regions of the world. Contributions can address questions on the state and future of East European studies, of the Humanities and Social Sciences in Ukraine, Poland, Slovakia, Bulgaria or Hungary. What is the potential of decolonization and what might decoloniality in different contexts mean? Which themes are important and for whom? What may historical reconciliation look like? Texts in this series need not connect to only Ukraine but can be situated in Eastern Europe. We also encourage transregional approaches through comparative perspectives, for example, those on former Yugoslavia, the Arab Spring, Latin American revolutions, or other case studies.
The series is edited by Olha Haidamachuk, Judith Sieber, Sophie Schmäing, Martin Lochthofen, and Andrii Portnov.

If you are interested in contributing or have any questions, please contact us at communication@trafo-berlin.de. For more information on general contribution requirements, please visit our Contributions page.

Drawing of Putin.

Dismantling Matter: Ukraine’s Attempts to Decolonize its Culture

By Nadiia Honcharenko. In Ukraine, there has been a strong public demand that certain elements of heritage should be removed from public space, as they contain distinct symbols of colonial and totalitarian domination and therefore aggravate the sense of trauma that Ukrainians are currently experiencing, as well as increase the pain of grief and loss caused by Russian aggression. This demand can be seen as both, reason and result of Ukraine’s struggle to reject the false and deeply violent so-called ‘brotherhood’ between Ukrainian and Russian society. Two main trends are evident: The desire of Ukrainians to free themselves from Russian shackles on one side and the attempts of the Russian political regime to slow this desire down, or even prevent it, on the other side.

Witnesses, Participants and Creators: the Two-Day Workshop “Ukrainian Scholars and Artists at War”

By Olena Sobolieva. In May 2025, the two-day workshop “Ukrainian Scholars and Artists at War” was held at Forum Transregionale Studien in Berlin. The event was organized in partnership with several organizations: the Forum Transregionale Studien, the Interdisciplinary Research Network “Prisma Ukraїna – Eastern Europe Research Network”, the academic website “Ukraine Moderna”, the NGO “The Center for Applied Anthropology”, and the European University Institute. By organizing such an event, Lidia Kuzemska, Oksana Ovsiiuk, and Iulia Lashchuk created a platform for Ukrainian scholars and artists to engage with how Russia’s full-scale invasion has impacted their professional, ethical, and existential horizons.

Traumatised Decolonial Transit: Constructing Historical Narrative in Ukrainian Culture in the Early ХХІ Century

By Tamara Hundorova. The Orange Maidan was a form of consolidation of the national community and had distinct signs of anti-colonial protest, but it ended in significant disappointment. The period between the two Maidans, or the two Ukrainian revolutions of the early twenty-first century, revealed past traumas and recorded different models of historical memory, primarily national–Eurocentric and nostalgic–Soviet–centric. The time has come to build historiographical narratives out of fragments, films, and paintings, out of the remnants of the memory erased by the era of colonialism and totalitarianism.

Травмований деколоніальний транзит: конструювання історичного наративу в українській культурі на початку ХХІ століття

від Тамара Гундорова. Помаранчевий майдан був формою консолідації національної спільноти і мав виразні ознаки атиколоніального протесту, який однак закінчився значними розчаруваннями. Період між двома Майданами, або двома українськими революціями початку ХХІ століття, проявив минулі травми і зафіксував різні моделі історичної пам’яті, передусім націо-євроцентричну і ностальгійно-радяноцентричну. Прийшов час розбудови історіографічних наративів із фрагментів, плівок і картин, із залишків стертої епохою колоніалізму і тоталітаризму пам’яті.

Dichotomy of Methodology Between the American and the French Approach in Frontier/Border Studies: Sloboda-Ukraine in the 18th Century

By Yuliia Koniva. Historical geography as an interdisciplinary discipline offers many of the conceptions for studying space and territory. In this essay, I want to address that there is no common ground on how to apply these conceptions. In every national historiography we can find plenty of historians who utilize the approaches of studying space or territory according to the research goals which were put forward in front of each scholar.

Ukraine and Ukrainians in the Panels: Global Comics Perspectives on the War

By Svitlana Pidoprygora. Russian aggression against Ukraine in 2014 and the subsequent full-scale invasion in 2022 have brought Ukrainian issues to international headlines and sparked extensive reflections in various genres of fiction and non-fiction, with documentary comics and graphic reportages being no exception. International authors bring varied perspectives to Ukrainian historical and contemporary issues, striving to explain to their audience what is happening right now – why there is war, why the Russian Federation attacked Ukraine. I am focusing on arguably the most significant documentary comics that emerged after the beginning of the full-scale invasion and primarily focus on depicting the war experience. In this essay, I will delve into several key aspects of how these comics depict Russia’s war against Ukraine.

Liminality and Museums in Ukraine: the Khanenkos’ Case

In this essay, I apply “liminality”—linked to the idea of a specific contact zone characterized by ambiguity, high potential to hybridization of identities and subversion of authority—to examine the case of Bohdan and Varvara Khanenko. The Khanenkos were prominent collectors of Ukrainian cultural heritage and the founders of the first public museums in Kyiv in the late 19th and early 20th century. Mentally shaped by the empire(s), the Khanenkos started acting on both sides of the colonial divide since the 1890s: At the Russian court, they played impeccably loyal subjects. Simultaneously, in Kyiv, they converted the empire’s trust into a new freedom of action enabling grand, future-oriented cultural changes.

‘Fight your Emotions’: Affective Injustice in Wartime

By Olena Komar. Although research on affective injustice is gaining ground, no attention has yet been paid to wartime experiences. War has many destructive and devastating consequences, but against the backdrop of the physical damage it causes, other detrimental effects are muted, shadowed, and hardly noticeable. What is perceived as aggression and anger, a manifestation of temperament or trauma, is a legitimate assertion by Ukrainians of their right to identity, which is a condition for survival in a genocidal war, as well as to cultural identity instead of the imperial dissolution of colonized peoples. It is the right to have their voices understood, not just “heard.”

Rethinking Slow Science from the Perspective of Warzone Academics

By Anastasiya Leukhina et al. With its “publish or perish” imperative, stiff competition for grants and positions, and focus on quantifiable output, neoliberal academia breeds fast science. Many academics have pointed to the need to slow down, emphasizing that good quality academic work takes time. This text attempts to expand the contextual boundaries of understanding slow science. It was born out of a conversation among eight female Ukrainian scholars, each of whom has been affected in their own way by the full-scale Russian invasion. While discussing the speed and quality of academic output, we arrived at the conclusion that the fast vs slow science debate acquires additional nuances in a war zone. The work on this text reflects the practices of slow science we are advocating for: collaborative work, sensitivity to contexts—collective and personal—and experimentation with formats. 

The Bells of Klevan′: Was the Polish-Lithuanian Rule in Rus′ a Form of Colonial Oppression?

By Tomasz Hen-Konarski. In the late eighteenth century, the small town of Klevan′ lay within the borders of the Volhynian Palatinate in Poland-Lithuania. It was a private property of the Princes Chortoryis′kyi (Czartoryski in Polish), an old Lithuanian-Ruthenian family that had become one of the most powerful houses of the Commonwealth. Spending most of their time in Warsaw or in countryside palaces, the owners of Klevan′ were absentee lords. By the 1780s, the Chortoryis′kyi were indistinguishable from other magnates of the Commonwealth: Polish- and French-speaking Latin Catholics who looked to West European capitals for cultural and intellectual inspiration. The petty burghers of Klevan, however, remained mostly Ruthenian-speaking Uniates, although Latin Catholics and Jews were also present.