| Ukrainian Programs at CERES | ||
The Centre for European, Russian, and Eurasian Studies hosts two programs devoted to the study of contemporary Ukraine. The Petro Jacyk Program for the Study of Ukraine Established in 2001 with the support of Petro Jacyk and The Petro Jacyk Educational Foundation, The Petro Jacyk Program for the Study of Ukraine actively encourages scholars at the University of Toronto and Ukrainianists at other North American institutions to develop joint projects, and facilitates the study of contemporary Ukraine by organizing workshops, conferences, lectures and seminars. The Program supports graduate students at the University of Toronto with the Petro Jacyk Graduate Fellowship in Ukrainian Studies and maintains a graduate student exchange with Kyiv-Mohyla Academy in Ukraine. The Program brings visiting scholars from Ukraine for a one-month period and invites Ukraine's statesmen and cultural figures to speak in its guest lecture series.The major themes covered by the Program focus on "Challenges of Independent Ukraine" and include: Building an Effective State; Foreign Policy and International Relations; and Education, Culture and National Identity.
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The Dopomoha Ukraini Foundation The Centre for European, Russian, and Eurasian Studies (CERES) at the University of Toronto is pleased to announce another generous gift from Borys Wrzesnewskyj, Member of Parliament for Etobicoke Center, and his family's charitable The Dopomoha Ukraini Foundation, to fund a course on contemporary Ukraine at the University of Toronto for three academic years. With the support from the Dopomoha Ukraini Foundation and in partnership with the Department of Political Science, CERES will be offering two half-credit joint undergraduate-graduate courses dedicated to politics and political economy of Ukraine in 2010-2013.
Mr. Wrzesnewskyj has dedicated much of his life to working with community groups and humanitarian causes both in Canada and abroad. As an activist in Ukraine, Mr. Wrzesnewskyj funded, organized and supported civil rights groups and democratic reform on the ground in Ukraine prior to glasnost and the collapse of the Soviet Union. He was instrumental in securing the Government of Canada’s commitment to send 500 election observers to Ukraine for the December 2004 Presidential election. With the support from the Dopomoha Ukraini Foundation and iIn partnership with the Department of Political Science, CERES will be offering two half-credit joint undergraduate-graduate courses in 2011/2012. POL2344H-F and POL414H-F Politics of Independent Ukraine The course will focus on the pertinent challenges of transition from communism the post-Soviet states faced through an in-depth study of the politics of independent Ukraine. Some of these challenges include reforming the state and redefining the role it is to play in the economy and vis-à-vis the society, reforming the economic system and building a viable market economy, undergoing political transformation, constructing a national identity, formulating foreign policy. Although a substantial portion of the readings will be on Ukraine, students will be asked to read some theoretical pieces too and apply the main Political Science theories to explaining Ukrainian politics. The course will also aim to put Ukraine into a comparative perspective by drawing analogies with its eastern and western neighbours. Although some familiarity with Ukraine’s history and politics is desirable, it is not a pre-requisite for taking this course. POL2341H-S and POL415H-S Nations and Nationalisms in the former USSR The collapse of the USSR along national lines surprised most contemporary observers in 1991. Over the next twenty years, as cultural, political, and military conflicts shook Eastern Europe and Central Asia, they raised troubling questions about the reach and claims of national identities and nationalisms in the region. A historical and transnational approach is crucial for understanding these issues, for key associations and overlapping fault lines were established in the late Soviet period. By examining how the nominally socialist Soviet state dealt with its multi-ethnic population, this course illuminates key aspects of post-communist transformations in Ukraine and other countries of the former USSR: state building and modernisation; centre-periphery dynamics; and interethnic conflict and violence.
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