International Conference on Ukraine Will Take Place at Yale University, April 23 -- 24

Academic authorities and prominent representatives of Ukrainian and international institutions will meet in a two-day conference at Yale to view the past, take stock of the present, and ponder the future of Ukraine from a historical, cultural, economic and political perspective. Hosted by the Yale Center for International and Area Studies and the Yale-Ukraine Initiative, the conference will cover such topics as national identity and nation-building; the legacy of the Soviet past and its implications for post-Soviet Ukraine; the political and economic history of Ukraine in the 20th century; and the development of a distinctive Ukrainian society within its larger political, economic and cultural confines.

The conference will take place Friday, April 23, and Saturday, April 24, 8:30 a.m. to 6 p.m. at the Yale Center for International and Area Studies, Luce Hall Auditorium, 34 Hillhouse Avenue, New Haven, Conn.

The conference organizers are Paul Bushkovitch, professor of history, Harvey Goldblatt, chair and professor of Slavic languages and literature and master of Pierson College, and Halyna Hryn, lector in Ukrainian, department of Slavic languages and literature.

Gustav Ranis, Frank Altschul Professor of International Economics and director of the Yale Center for International Area Studies will open the conference. The keynote address will be delivered by George G. Grabowicz, Dmytro Cyzevs’kyi Professor of Ukrainian literature at Harvard.

Serhiy Holovaty, president of the Ukrainian Legal Foundation and former justice minister of Ukraine, will address the conference banquet, which will be held at The Graduate Club, 155 Elm Street in New Haven, on Friday April 23 at 7 p.m.

A panel on the historical legacy of the last century will open the conference. It will feature Yaroslav Hrytsak of Lviv University, Georgii Kasianov of the Ukrainian Academy of Sciences’ Institute of History, and the renowned authority on the Stalin period, Yuri Shapoval. This session will be followed by a panel discussion on economic and political history by distinguished economists Ivan Koropeckyj and Volodimir Bandera. Volodymyr Kulyk of the Ukrainian Academy of Sciences will speak on post-Soviet nation building in Ukraine.

The contemporary political situation will be addressed by Taras Kuzio from the Ukraine Centre, University of North London. He will be joined by Professor Dominique Arel of Brown University and Hryhoriy Nemyria of the Kyiv Mohyla Academy.

A second session on economics and society will include Financial Times correspondent Charles Clover; Joel Hellman, senior counsellor at the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development; and Oleksander Savchenko, managing director of the Austrian bank Creditanstalt in Ukraine.

An overview of literary and cultural developments will be presented by recognized scholars Bohdan Rubchak of the University of Illinois in Chicago, Solomea Pavlychko from the Institute of Literature, Academy of Sciences of Ukraine and Mykola Riabchuk, the deputy editor of the new journal Krytyka.

The conference will conclude with a roundtable that will explore historical and comparative perspectives and offer direction for new scholarly initiatives.

Now in its fifth year, the Yale-Ukraine Initiative came to fruition through the vision and generous support of George Chopivsky, Jr. (Yale ‘69) and the Chopivsky Family Foundation. It recognizes the emerging importance of Ukraine in the aftermath of the breakup of the Soviet Union and its cultural, political and economic importance to the region. This year’s conference is also sponsored by Yale’s Edward J. and Dorothy Clarke Kempf Fund.

The Yale-Ukraine Initiative is a multi-disciplinary program enabling Yale scholars and students to explore the society, culture and economy of Ukraine, not just through the annual conference, but through fellowships, language study and research grants. Currently under the leadership of Harvey Goldblatt, the Initiative has been responsible for creating several opportunities for students and scholars at Yale and from Ukraine. The Initiative is also in its second year of collaboration with the Open Society Institute in hosting economics professor Yury Bilenko of Lviv University as part of the Faculty Incentive Fellowships Program. Two Yale students have used Initiative funds to undertake research in Ukraine.

Through the Chopivsky Family Fellowship Program, the Initiative also brings Ukrainian scholars to Yale to study in the International Relations Program, the School of Management, the program in International and Development Economics, or in the School of Forestry and Environmental Studies. Three students matriculated into the International and Development Economics Program during the fall of 1997 and more recently, two recipients of the Chopivsky Fellowships have enrolled at Yale, one in the School of Forestry and the other in the IDE program.

In another program of the Initiative, medical internships in urology at Yale-New Haven Hospital have been arranged for Ukrainian doctors by Dr. Bernard Lytton, the organizer of Yale’s medical internship program.

This year’s conference is particularly exciting because it offers a comprehensive look at Ukraine both yesterday and today, bringing together the different threads of ideas, programs and initiatives that have come to define the Yale-Ukraine Initiative.

Conference sessions are free and open to the public. A registration fee of $50 purchases conference materials and admission to receptions. Friday and Saturday lunches are $10 each, and the banquet on Friday evening is $50.

For more information contact the Yale-Ukraine Initiative by telephone (203) 432-3107, by fax (203) 432-5963, by email, rees@yale.edu, or consult the web site, www.yale.edu/rees/yui.html.