Introduction:
HANNES SWOBODA, President of the IIP, former MEP
Speakers:
VOLODYMYR ISHCHENKO
Volodymyr is a research associate at the Institute of East European Studies, Freie Universität Berlin. His research focuses on protests and social movements, revolutions, radical right and left politics, nationalism and civil society. He authored a number of peer-reviewed articles and interviews on contemporary Ukrainian politics, the Euromaidan uprising, and the ensuing war in 2013-14 — published in Post-Soviet Affairs, Globalizations and New Left Review, among other journals. He has been a prominent contributor to major international media outlets, such as The Guardian, Al Jazeera and Jacobin since 2014. He is working on a collective book manuscript, The Maidan Uprising: Mobilization, Radicalization, and Revolution in Ukraine, 2013-2014.
STEFAN SCHOCHER
Stefan is a freelancer and correspondent for various media in Germany, (Welt, Funke, Neues Deutschland), Luxemburg (Luxemburger Wort) and Switzerland (ChMedia). In Austria he writes for Furche, Der Standard, and Datum. He previously worked at the foreign desk at Kurier for 18 years, specializing on Ukraine, Belarus, and Moldova. Prior to the pandemic, he regularly visited Ukraine and lived there in 2007 and 2008. Stefan was in Kyiv in 2013 when the Maidan revolution took place. He also visited Donetsk in May 2014 when separatists in the Donbas region organized a referendum to legitimize the establishment of the so-called Donetsk and Luhansk People’s Republics. Later in 2014, Stefan reported from the contact line between government- and separatist-controlled areas in the Donbas.
HANNA KRAVCHENKO
Hanna is from the south of Ukraine. She graduated as a translator. The topic of her diploma was the study of the slang of servicemen in the anti-terrorist operation zone in Ukraine and the complexity of its translation into English. After university, she moved to Kyiv and worked as a translator for the Rokada Charitable Foundation, which helped refugees to integrate in Ukraine. Therefore, the war and its consequences, both psychological and social, were familiar to her firsthand. Today, she is one of 40 million Ukrainians affected by the war. She was forced to leave the country and is a refugee herself in Austria.
Moderator:
ÖZGE ÇETINKAYA
The economist with an enormous interest in foreign policy has already hosted several events in cooperation with the IIP, such as "Nuclear Rearmament" or "Tunisia's Arab Autumn: A State Crisis between Reform and Dictatorship". Özge is also one of the early members of the association Forum Interdisciplinary Rhetoric and Expertise.
Content:
When did Ukrainian national identity emerge? What are the roots of the Ukrainians’ fierce belief in their right to an independent statehood? And on what basis does the Russian president question the very existence of Ukraine? How do identity issues play into the ongoing war in this country? A lot of questions that should be asked to understand the background of the war… And we will!
Former Ukrainian president Leonid Kuchma who has been widely considered a Russia-friendly politician in Kyiv, authored a book in 2003 with a title ‘Ukraine is not Russia’. Despite Vladimir Putin’s recent claims about artificiality of the Ukrainian state (and nation) even one of the country’s most pro-Russian presidents does not seem to share this vision. The polling data from 2001 shows that 78.8% citizens called themselves Ukrainian, while in 2017 the number grew to 92%.
The ongoing war had its precursors. In late 2013 protests started in Ukraine after President Yanukovych – pressured by Moscow – refused to sign the long-negotiated Associated Agreement with the European Union. In March 2014 Russia annexed Crimea – an autonomous region of Ukraine predominantly populated by ethnic Russians and Tatars. Later, the Kremlin backed local separatist groups in the country’s eastern regions of Donetsk and Luhansk, launching a hybrid war there. The ongoing fully fledged military conflict started with a formal recognition by President Putin of the self-proclaimed Donetsk and Luhansk People’s Republics.
In the upcoming event we will discuss the origins of Ukraine’s national identity, its current interpretation inside Ukraine, Russia’s counter-claims and reasons for starting the unprovoked military invasion of its neighboring country that it has considered a ‘brotherly nation’.
Fishbowl-Format:
For this event, three experts from different disciplines will be invited to give a short 7-10-minute lecture about the topic, followed by a 60-minutes open discussion round, during which the audience is invited to ask questions and directly take part in the discussion on the podium. The aim of this active participation is to encourage the audience to engage in a dialogue with people from different disciplines and with people who think differently in order to learn from each other.