Serhiy Bilenky. Ukrainian Nationalism Between Democracy and the Dark Side: A Talk About Its Legacy

Tuesday, December 30th, 2014, 19:00
Visual Culture Research Center (44 Hlybochytska Street, Kyiv)

Visual Culture Research Center and Political Critique invite you to the lecture by Serhiy Bilenky, which will take place on Tuesday, December 30th, at 19:00.

Today, more than ever, we experience the tension between the democratic potential of Ukrainian nationalism and its “dark” side, both real and imagined threat of neo-Nazism and right-wing populism. Both threats were manifested during the Maidan and in the discourse around it. In his lecture historian Serhii Bilenky will explore origins of the current developments and history of the so-called classical period the Ukrainian national movement (or “Ukrainian nationalism” as it is often called in the West) of 19th – early 20th centuries, its main dilemma, traditions and sources, including roots of its “dark “side.

Serhiy Bilenky is a historian and lecturer at the University of Toronto. He taught courses on Russian, Ukrainian, and east European histories at the University of Toronto (2009-2010) and Columbia University (2009-2012). Prof. Bilenky is the author of two monographs: Mykhailo Maksymovych ta osvitni praktyky na Pravoberezhnii Ukraїni u pershii polovyni XIX stolittia (Kyiv, 1999) and Romantic Nationalism in Eastern Europe: Russian, Polish, and Ukrainian Political Imaginations (Stanford University Press, 2012); also he is the editor of the selected writings of the 19th century Ukrainian intellectuals Fashioning Modern Ukraine: Selected Writings of Mykola Kostomarov, Volodymyr Antonovych, and Mykhailo Drahomanov (Canadian Institute of Ukrainian Studies, 2014).

Admission is free

Supported by ERSTE Foundation

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Visual Culture Research Center (VCRC) is a platform for collaboration of artists, activists and academics founded in Kyiv-Mohyla Academy in 2008. Since its inception VCRC had organized over 100 debates, conferences and research seminars, nearly 20 exhibitions and a series of street protest actions.

Contacts:

+38097 436 98 99 (Yustyna Kravchuk)
www.facebook.com/vcrc.org.ua
vcrc@vcrc.org.ua