Rise 
MT Weeks 1-2

In this first section, guided by the figure of the mysterious Kozak Mamai, we rush headlong into the complex and contested history of the territory now known as Ukraine. We explore the legacies of the era of (Kyivan) Rus’; tour the Cossack Baroque; and witness the loss of 17th-/ 18th-century Ukrainian political autonomy. This history may seem distant and arcane to some. But it has profound implications for coming to grips with Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine today.

Riot
MT Weeks 3-4

Here we relish the first work of modern Ukrainian literature: Ivan Kotliarevs'kyi's erudite, manic and ribald travesty (mock epic) Eneida of 1798. We then take stock of the lasting influence of Ivan Kotliarevs’kyi’s portrayal of modern Ukrainian culture in the works of his epigones (‘poor’ imitators), the so-called kotliarevshchyna. Among these writers was a young man from the Poltava region: Nikolai Gogol’. In reading these selected works, we seek to understand the interest of the imperial centre in the culture of the Ukrainian ‘periphery’ — as well as the periphery’s interest in selling (out?) its culture to the centre.

Rebel
MT Weeks 5-6

In this section we ascend to the heights of Romanticism in Ukrainian literature, which was led by the serf-turned-painter-cum-poet-turned-national prophet Taras Shevchenko. The movement marks a crucial shift in the development of Ukrainian national culture from a discourse largely oriented toward the entertainment of imperial elites in St Petersburg and Moscow to a discourse oriented toward the edification and mobilisation of the Ukrainian gentry. The movement was committed to lofty artistic expression in the Ukrainian vernacular and to the promotion of a Ukrainian identity that would inspire pride and passion - as well as a new politics.

Representation
MT Weeks 7-8

As a visual artist, Shevchenko had a motto: ‘Ні однієї риски без натури’ (Not one line removed from nature). In the realm of literature, Marko Vovchok and Ivan Franko turned this maxim into a call to social action. They were at the vanguard of a Realist aesthetic that sought to shame elites with no-holds-barred representations of systemic oppression of the poor and the marginal. In this section, we hold tightly to our maps and discuss the divergent historical experiences of Ukrainians in both the Russian Empire and the Austro-Hungarian Empire in the mid- to late- 19th-century.

Rejection
LT Weeks 1-2

Three audacious cultural rebels and risktakers — Lesia Ukrainka, Ol’ha Kobylians’ka, and Mykhailo Kotsiubyns’kyi — rejected ‘worn-out tendencies and compelling morals’ in favour of ‘works with a free, independent outlook’ (Mykola Voronyi, 1901). They chased the idea of Europe toward new modernist horizons, championing a pioneering feminism along the way.

Renaissance
LT Weeks 3-4

After a discussion of the tumult of 1914-1922, we savour some of the magnificent achievements of a ‘New Generation’ that later comes to be known as the ‘Executed Renaissance’. We approach the 1920s in Soviet Ukraine as a period of feverish polemics and radical artistic innovation. Theatre, film, and visual art provoke and amuse us. In our reading, we pay particularly close attention to the poetry of Pavlo Tychyna and Mykhail’ Semenko and to the prose of Mykola Khvyl’ovyi, literary organiser and legendary enfant terrible.

Repression
LT Weeks 5-6

In this section we get to know the ‘60ers’ in Ukrainian culture, a generation of writers and artists who fought back against forces of authoritarian repression by rousing the individual ‘I’ out of the conventional Soviet ‘we’. We examine the phenomenon of political ‘dissidence’ and consider the use of literature as a form of action in defence of freedom, equality, and a universal respect for others.

Return
LT Weeks 7-8

The final section of Lent Term explores the return of sovereignty and independence to Ukraine. We navigate the cultural explosions after 1991 through Andrei Kurkov and his shape-shifting Russianlanguage work. We then confront the tumult and tragedy of revolution, annexation, and war between 2013-2021, which placed Ukraine on the perilous frontline of a global contest between democracy and autocracy, transparency and corruption, and truth and ‘post-truth’.

Resistance
ET Weeks 1-2

We conclude SL9 with difficult discussions about the role of culture in resisting a war of aggression and conquest in the twenty-first century. We reflect upon Ukraine’s vibrant civic national identity and consider the lessons of Western blindness and ignorance of its existence before 2022. Above all we look ahead and focus on Ukraine’s future.