Osteuropäische Kulturstudien

The history and culture of Ukraine remain largely de-personified or reduced either to contemporary figures of mass-culture and sport, or mythologized embodiments of radical nationalism like Bandera. In our course we will analytically explore the creation and contextual dynamics of the images of most important and controversial historical figures of Ukraine. We will seriously discuss the images of Bohdan Khmelnytsky, Ivan Mazepa, Symon Petliura, Pavlo Skoropadskyj, Nestor Makhno, Stepan Bandera. We will put them into comparative and transnational contexts. We will also analyse such prominent cultural figures as Taras Shevchenko, Lesja Ukrainka, Oleksandr Dovzhenko, Les` Kurbas in their entanglements with Russian, Polish and German culture.