The Harvard Ukrainian Research Institute (HURI) forms a vital component
of Harvard University's vibrant international studies community. The
Institute's mission includes the advancement of knowledge about Ukraine
in the United States through research and teaching of the highest quality.
This mission was shaped by HURI's founder, Omeljan Pritsak, the first
Mykhailo S. Hrushevs'kyi Professor of Ukrainian History and a scholar
of broad scope and erudition, who served as the Institute's first director
until his retirement in 1989, and by another Harvard scholar of international
distinction, Ihor Sevcenko, Dumbarton Oaks Professor of Byzantine Literature
and History.
With Ukraine's independence, the Institute's mission has broadened
to include contemporary political, social, and economic issues. HURI
also seeks to foster the study of the diverse religious and ethnic
groups that make their home in Ukraine, to act as a bridge between
Ukrainian studies and the study of Russia, Poland, Turkey, Belarus,
and Moldova, and to develop close and supportive relations with Ukraine's
emerging cultural and academic institutions.
The Institute's programs are supported by the work of three endowed
professorships in Ukrainian studies in the Departments
of History and Slavic
Languages and Literatures together with associated faculty at Harvard
and from other universities, visiting scholars, and graduate and undergraduate
students at Harvard. HURI has a publications program that distributes
its titles through Harvard University Press and publishes the Harvard
Ukrainian Studies journal. The Institute also maintains a reference
library, archives and a seminar series
in Ukrainian Studies within the Harvard curriculum. The Institute
organizes the Harvard Ukrainian Summer Institute,
which is part of the Harvard Summer School and hosts conferences, symposia,
and special seminars for practitioners and policymakers, in addition
to lectures, films, art exhibits, and other public programs.