Ukrainian Studies Initiative

The Slavic Department is working with REEEC and other campus and community partners to grow Ukrainian Studies on the University of Illinois campus. An interdisciplinary committee of scholars and students leads the initiative, which offers degree programs with a growing list of courses, a world-class collection of Ukrainian materials in the library, regular events with leading scholars, writers, and artists (see our YouTube channel), and visiting scholar and exchange programs.

Academic programs

Bachelor's Degree programs:

• BA in Slavic Studies with a concentration in Ukrainian Studies
• BA in Russian, East European, and Eurasian Studies (REEES) with Ukrainian language
• Minor in Slavic Language, Literature, and Culture
• Minor in REEES

MA program:

• MA in REEES

PhD program:

• PhD in Slavic Languages and Literatures; Ukrainian literature and culture can be a major or minor field

Courses

Ukrainian Language
UKR 101 – Basic Ukrainian I
UKR 102 – Basic Ukrainian II
UKR 201 – Second-Year Ukrainian I
UKR 202 – Second-Year Ukrainian II

Ukrainian Culture & Literature
UKR 113 – Ukrainian Culture
UKR 218 – Survey of Ukrainian Literature
UKR 498 – Problems in Ukrainian Literature

Slavic
SLAV 120 – Russian and East European Folktales
SLAV 452 – Slavic Cultural Studies – Kyiv: Biography of a City
SLAV 452 – Slavic Cultural Studies – Diasporic and Exilic Literature
SLAV 477 – Postcommunist Fiction

History
HIST 260 – History of Russia
HIST 354 – Twentieth Century Europe
HIST 355 – Soviet Jewish History
HIST 461 – Russia- Peter the Great to Revolution
HIST 462 – Soviet Union Since 1917
HIST 467 – Eastern Europe

Events

Ukrainian Studies events regularly appear on the REEEC and Slavic Department's calendars of events. You can fill out a form to get added to REEEC's email list for notifications of events and opportunities. 

Please see our YouTube channel for interviews with recent guests!

Image

Caption

Poet and translator Oksana Maksymchuk reflects during her visit in January 2025

Slavic calendar

REEEC calendar

Affiliated faculty

• Olha Khometa
• Valeria Sobol
• Anastasiia Strakhova
• Tatyana Deryugina

Visiting Scholars Programs

Illinois Scholars at Risk Program (ISAR) – aims to support scholars at risk by providing a safe
environment for scholars at risk to enable them to continue their professional development.
Has hosted Ukrainian scholars in economics and physics.

BridgeUSA – REEEC and ISAR hosted 3 scholars from Ukraine for a month-long residency at the
University of Illinois in Fall 2024, in collaboration with American Councils for International
Education and the U.S. Embassy in Kyiv. Another collaboration is planned in 2025.

Indiana-Ukraine Nonresidential Scholars Program – REEEC at the University of Illinois is a
participating institution in the Big Ten Academic Alliance’s IU-NRSP program, which provides
direct support to scholars in Ukraine who are affected by the war. This year Illinois hosted a
historian and a geographer who were non-residential.

Notable Library collections

• Rare Ukrainian Serial Publications – well over 200 serials published during the late
  1880s–early 1930s.
• Holodomor: Famine in Ukraine, 1932–1933. Archival collections from the Central State
  Archive of Public Organizations (Kyiv) contains 158 microfilm reels and include
  resolutions, directives, and official telegrams from central and local officials, information
  reports, and letters.
• Jewish pogroms in Ukraine, 1918–1921: documents of Kyiv District Commission for
  Relief to Victims of Pogroms. Over 30,000 pages documenting the commission’s
  activities, including its work with orphanages, schools, hospitals, work centers, shelters,
  and refugee camps.
• Chernobyl Collection (digital). Contains documents relating to the less known
  September 9, 1982 partial meltdown of the reactor Block no. 1, the subsequent
  mishandling of which was perhaps the first indication of the inevitability of the 1986
  accident. All in all, the collections contains materials going as far back as 1971 and up to
  1991.
• Digital archives of Pravda Ukraïny, Narodna Armiia, Za Vil’nu Ukraïnu, Demokratychna
  Ukraïna, and others.
• Gubernskie vedomomosti newspaper collection – pre-revolutionary local governmental
  newspapers published throughout the Russian Empire largely between 1838 and 1917.
  These newspapers were also published in Ukraine, Belarus, Poland, Estonia, Latvia,
  Lithuania, the Caucasus, and Central Asia.
• An extensive collection of newspapers (in microfilm format) published in Ukraine and
  abroad in the Ukrainian language.