Holocaust Research and Memory Politics in Ukraine in Times of War

Putin has justified his attack on Ukraine with, among other things, his long-standing claim that the government in Kyiv is led by Nazis and supporters of nationalist leader and Nazi collaborator Stepan Bandera. Although this propaganda is primarily aimed at domestic audiences, it has also had an impact in Germany, where knowledge of Ukraine's past and present is limited: the "Holocaust by bullets" in the occupied Soviet territories has only recently come to the attention of a wider public, and as has now become clear, Ukrainian history as a whole represents terra incognita even for many historians of Eastern Europe.

This roundtable discussion will therefore focus on Holocaust research in Ukraine itself and how it is embedded in Ukrainian memory politics: What have been the priorities of researchers in Ukraine, under what conditions have they conducted their research - and how does the current war affect their work in practical and conceptual terms? What place does the Holocaust occupy in the historical narrative about World War II in Ukraine, how are Holocaust victims treated in relation to victims of Stalinism, and how is the issue of local cooperation with the occupiers handled? What is the impact of the large-scale Russian invasion on this area?

Online-Lecture with Yurii Kaparulin (Kherson State University & currently Scholars at Risk Fellow at the University of Michigan), Marta Havryshko (research associate at the I. Krypiakevych Institute of Ukrainian Studies of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine, currently URIS Fellow at University of Basel), Tobias Wals and Bert Hoppe (both Center for Holocaust-Studies at the Leibniz Institute for Contemporary History).

The Research Colloquium ‘The Holocaust and its Contexts’ is co-hosted by the Department of Modern and Contemporary History at LMU Munich and the Center for Holocaust Studies at the Leibniz Institute for Contemporary History (IfZ). The Colloquium is held in cooperation with the Oberseminar ‘New Research in Contemporary History’.

LOCATION
You are invited to join the lecture and discussion via Zoom.

REGISTRATION
In order to receive the link, please register for the event by sending an email to zfhs[at]ifz-muenchen.de until 27th November 2022.