Modern Ukraine Through Culture

Undergraduate / Graduate

The 2022 escalation of Russia's war on Ukraine to a full-scale invasion was a wakeup call which exposed how little had been known about Ukraine globally. While for many in the world Ukraine's ongoing resistance has been a surprise, for those familiar with Ukraine's history in the 20th and 21st century, the resistance is rooted in Ukraine's longer culture of civic mobilization and Ukraine's complex relationship with Russia. In this course, we revisit major political and cultural events of the 20th and 21st centuries that have shaped today's Ukraine: the revolutionary period of 1917-1921 to the Chornobyl nuclear catastrophe, to the Orange and Maidan revolutions. One third of the course focuses on Russia's war on Ukraine starting with the annexation of Crimea and the war in Donbas. While addressing major historical turning points, the course engages literary texts (poems, novels, memoirs), films (feature, short, documentary), and other forms of cultural production (visual artwork, music, multimodal digital projects), testimonies and historical debates. No prior knowledge of Ukraine or knowledge of Ukrainian language is required. The assignments include a choice between a traditional paper or a critical-creative project (video essay, poster, other creative forms).