Ukrainian Institute London
Professor Matthew Pauly (Michigan State University) in conversation with Olena Palko (Birkbeck)
Join us to discuss how Ukrainian national culture and language shaped early Soviet power in Ukraine.
About this event
In a televised address on 21 February that served as a justification of the Kremlin’s escalated aggression against Kyiv, Russian President Vladimir Putin claimed that Ukraine was “entirely created by Russia or, to be more precise, by Bolshevik, Communist Russia.” In fact, the true history of Ukraine’s early place in the Soviet Union is the opposite: a pre-existing Ukrainian national culture and language shaped the contours of Bolshevism in practice, not the other way around.
In 1923, the Communist Party leaders embarked on a novel campaign to use “national culture” to build socialism in Soviet Ukraine. Known as ukrainizatsiia (Ukrainisation), this effort to legitimise and consolidate Soviet power gave a central role to education. The Communist Party intended schools to be the training ground for a new generation of skilled, politically conscious, and economically informed Soviet citizens. It was through the national language, promoted by schoolteachers, that the Soviet ideal was to be realised.
The event will be followed by a drinks reception.
Date and time
Mon, 20 June 2022
19:00 – 20:30 BST
Location
Ukrainian Religious Society of St Sophia
79 Holland Park
London
W11 3SW
Get your tickets here.
Study Group for Minority History 