The keynote address was part of the conference "The Future of Central and East European Studies in the Light of Russia's War of Aggression Against Ukraine", which took place on October 17-19th 2024, Warsaw.

Since Russia’s full-scale war against Ukraine started, a lot of academic discussions about the importance of Ukrainian studies for understanding the whole East and Central European region were held, calling for a renewal of terminology and methodological approaches, institutional support, and curriculum changes, and a general development of historiographic legitimacy of Ukrainian studies in the eyes of Western academia. Now it is possible to give some preliminary observations about what was successfully done, and what is still seen as “that noble dream”. Special attention will be given to the following three questions: the problems of institutionalization of Ukrainian studies and the impact of the influx of Ukrainian scholars to European universities; key periods, topics and problems chosen as important for rethinking; and perspectives and challenges of decolonization approaches to the field.

Dr. Tetiana Portnova (University of Potsdam) is a historian specializing in intellectual history, urban history and museology. Since November 2023, Portnova has been working as a research associate at the University of Potsdam (DFG position). In 2012-2021 Portnova was an Associate Professor at the Chair of Historiography, Source and Archival Studies of the Dnipro National University. Since 2021 she has been working as a Senior Research Fellow at the Dmytro Yavornytsky Dnipro National History Museum.

Visit the conference website: https://instytutpileckiego.pl/en/badania/fall-conference