Podcasts

Slavic History and How Ukraine Evolved Into Its War of Independence: Serhii Plokhy

Legendary historian and author Serhii Plokhy explains how Ukraine and Russia got where they are today, with a comprehensive overview of the origins of Slavic cultures, Ukrainian history of both independent statehood and subjugation to Russia, the role of language as a tool for imperialism, and how Ukraine’s tradition of pluralism has evolved, in recent times, into a society and nation-state fully capable of fighting its war of independence.

Serhii Plokhy is widely considered in Ukraine and in academic circles worldwide, to be the greatest living expert in Ukrainian history. He is prolific, with a book coming out every year for the last 20 years. His book, The Gates of Europe, A History of Ukraine, is considered the definitive history of Ukraine.

Plokhy is the Mykhailo Kruszewski, Professor of Ukrainian history at Harvard since 2013 where he has served as the director of the Harvard Ukrainian Research Institute, where he leads a group of scholars working on Mapa the digital atlas of Ukraine. He was born Ukrainian and between 1983 and 1991, Plokhy taught at the University of Dnipropetrovsk, where he was promoted to the rank of full professor and held administrative positions during perestroika. In 1996, after visiting appointments as the Ramsey Tompkins Professor of Russian history at the University of Alberta, Plokhy joined the staff of the Canadian Institute of Ukrainian Studies, where he founded the Research Program on Religion and Culture. As part of the Peter Jacyk Center for Ukrainian Historical Research he participated in the publication of the English-language translation of Mykhailo Hrushevskys History of Ukraine-Russia. Plokhys books have been translated into numerous languages, including Albanian, Belarusian, Chinese, Estonian, Greek, Finnish, Korean, Lithuanian, Polish, Portuguese, Romanian, Russian, Spanish, and Ukrainian.