From Khmelnytsky to Zelensky. Key historical figures of Ukraine and their mythologies - Einzelansicht

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.

Marples, David R. Heroes and Villains: Creating National History in Contemporary Ukraine (Budapest-New York, 2007).

Plokhy, Serhy: The Gates of Europe. A History of Ukraine (New York, 2017).

Saunders, David: The Ukrainian Impact on Russian Culture (Edmonton, 1985).

Shkandrij, Myroslav: Ukrainian Nationalism. Politics, Ideology, and Literature, 1929–1956 (New Haven 2015).

Yekelchyk, Serhy: Ukraine. Birth of a Modern Nation (Oxford, 2007).

eine mündliche Präsentation oder ein schriftliches Essay