Science and Education

War and economic problems in Ukraine have complicated but not interrupted the annual excavations conducted by the Canada-Ukraine archaeological expedition in the town of Baturyn, Chernihiv Oblast since 2001. This is thanks largely to the sponsors of the Baturyn historical and archaeological project: the Canadian Institute of Ukrainian Studies (CIUS) at the University of Alberta, the Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies (PIMS) at the University of Toronto, and the Ucrainica Research Institute in Toronto. Prof. Zenon Kohut, distinguished historian of the Hetman state and former director of CIUS, serves as the academic adviser of this undertaking. Orest Steciw, M.A., managing director of the National Executive of the League of Ukrainian Canadians, is the president of the Ucrainica Research Institute...

New OSAP calculator consistent with MPP Baker’s proposed online tool for students and families...

The Peter Jacyk Centre for Ukrainian Historical Research of the Canadian Institute of Ukrainian Studies, University of Alberta, and CIUS Press announce the publication of a new volume of Mykhailo Hrushevsky’s History of Ukraine-Rus'. The new English-language volume 3, like the eight volumes previously published (between 1997 and 2014), was prepared by the Jacyk Centre’s Hrushevsky Translation Project. With its appearance this year, volume 3, subtitled To the Year 1340, also marks the 150th anniversary of Mykhailo Hrushevsky’s birth...

The accompanying text is the inaugural lecture delivered on September 20, 2016 by academician Professor Dr. Paul Robert Magocsi on the occasion of his having been nominated Honorary Professor at the Ivan Ohiienko National University of Kamianets’ Podil’s’kyi...

Valentina Kuryliw, Director of Education at the Holodomor Research and Education Consortium (Canadian Institute of Ukrainian Studies, University of Alberta), visited Ukraine in September 2016 to conduct teacher training sessions as part of a symposium organized by the Holodomor Research and Education Centre in Ukraine. Kuryliw met with policy-makers, educators, and leading academics to exchange ideas on new methodologies for teaching about the Holodomor and other genocides...

The Holodomor was a central theme at the conference “Empire, Colonialism, and Famine in Comparative Historical Perspective,” held in Toronto. This is the fourth international conference organized by the Holodomor Research and Education Consortium (HREC) of the Canadian Institute of Ukrainian Studies (University of Alberta). The first day, held at University of Toronto, featured presentations on the Irish Famine, the Holodomor, and the Bengal Famine of 1943. Liudmyla Hrynevych, from the Institute of History, National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine, presented on “The Ukrainian Holodomor in the Context of Soviet Imperialism.”...

“A jewel in the Faculty of Arts”—this is how Lesley Cormack, Dean of the Faculty of Arts at the University of Alberta, described the Canadian Institute of Ukrainian Studies (CIUS) on the opening morning of the conference “Ukrainian Studies in Canada: Texts and Contexts,” held in Edmonton on 14–15 October 2016. Over the course of two days, thirty scholars and community figures from across Canada and abroad reviewed the history of the institute and the development of Ukrainian studies as an interdisciplinary field...

Despite the challenges of conducting excavations in Baturyn, Chernihiv Oblast, at a time of war, Ukrainian and Canadian archaeologists and historians have steadfastly proceeded with researching the town and the publication of their findings. In 2015, about 45 students and scholars from the universities of Chernihiv and Hlukhiv, as well as the National University of the Kyiv Mohyla Academy took part in the annual Baturyn excavations. Last summer, the expedition grew to some 70 members from these institutions and Sumy State University. It was led by archaeologist Yurii Sytyi of Chernihiv National University. Archaeologist Dr. Volodymyr Mezentsev of the Canadian Institute of Ukrainian Studies (CIUS) at the University of Alberta is the Canadian executive director of the Baturyn archaeological project. Prof. Zenon Kohut, the eminent historian of the Hetmanate and former director of CIUS, is the academic adviser of this undertaking. The noted historian of Ukraine-Rus’, Prof. Martin Dimnik of the Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies (PIMS) at the University of Toronto, has also participated in the investigation of Baturyn and the publication of excavation reports...

In 1988 journalists Volodymyr Maniak and his wife Lidiia Kovalenko launched a campaign to gather accounts of the Famine of 1932-33. They received an outpouring of some six thousand letters by mail. These letters—the result of the first major attempt in Ukraine to collect personal accounts of the Famine—represent an important primary source for Holodomor research. The ground-breaking publication Holod 33-y: Narodna Knyha Memorial (The Famine of ‘33: A People’s Memorial Book) was based on about 450 of these accounts and was a notable achievement of the nascent Ukrainian civil society to raise the Holodomor as a public issue. The letters were never archived systematically. A portion were passed on in the early 1990s to Wolodymyr Bojczuk, a French-Ukrainian colleague of Maniak and Kovalenko, with the hope that all the testimonies would somehow, someday, be published...

Zenon Kohut, Volodymyr Mezentsev, and Yurii Sytyi, Rozkopky u Baturyni 2015 roku. Rekonstruktsii inter’ieriv palatsu Ivana Mazepy (Excavations at Baturyn in 2015. Reconstructions of the Interiors of Ivan Mazepa’s Palace), Toronto: Ukrainian Echo Publishing Company Ltd., 2016, 36 pp., 79 colour illustrations, glossy paper, paperback. This new booklet continues the series of annually issued, richly illustrated brochures dedicated to the historical, archaeological, architectural, and artistic study of Baturyn, one of the capitals of the Cossack Hetman state. It was prepared by Canadian and Ukrainian archaeologists and historians participating in the Baturyn excavations and is addressed to both the general public and scholars...