A Century of Ukrainian Statehoods: 1917 and Beyond

Conference venue: University of Toronto, Canada
Period: March 24–25, 2017
Deadline for submitting abstracts: December 1, 2016

The conference commemorates the 100th anniversary of the Ukrainian Revolution of 1917 by examining its major consequence: the phenomenon of Ukrainian statehood. The conference aims to look at how the successive revolutionary Ukrainian governments (1917–20) and the Ukrainian SSR (1917–91) carried out their respective nation-building, state-building, and revolutionary projects. How did the context of war and imperial collapse shape the first attempts to create a Ukrainian state? What strategies did the various Ukrainian state formations use to legitimize themselves among the population and how were those efforts received? How did the unexpected strength of the Ukrainian national idea during the Civil War influence Soviet policymakers? How can we evaluate the history of the Ukrainian SSR from the perspective of sovereignty, foreign policy, national “unification,” and policy toward non-Ukrainian minorities? The conference seeks both to integrate the Ukrainian perspective into the broader scholarly conversation around 1917 as well as to integrate the Ukrainian SSR back into Ukrainian history by bringing out its previously neglected aspects.

Possible topics include (but are not limited to):

The goal of the conference is to prepare a set of papers to be published in an edited volume or possibly a special issue of an academic journal.
The conference is open to senior scholars, junior scholars, as well as Ph.D. students that have advanced to candidacy from all disciplines. Applicants should submit a single Word document or PDF containing the following elements: name, institutional affiliation, paper title, paper abstract (500 words), a brief bio (100 words), and a brief CV.

Applications should be submitted to jacyk.conference.2017@gmail.com by December 1, 2016. Applicants will be notified of their acceptance by December 16, 2016.

Limited funding may be available to defray the travel expenses of presenters who are coming from outside the Toronto area. Applicants are encouraged to apply for funding from their home universities to defray travel costs.