Courses

Ukrainian Language Courses

UKRN S-Aab Beginning Ukrainian

Alla Parkhomenko, British Council, Kyiv, Ukraine

(8 units: UN, GR, NC)

An intensive course for students with little or no knowledge of Ukrainian. Basic grammatical structures are introduced and reinforced through an active oral approach. By the end of the course students are expected to develop the ability to conduct short conversations in a range of familiar situations related to daily activities, understand simple factual texts, and write routine messages. They will be able to initiate, maintain, and bring to a close simple exchanges by asking and responding to simple questions. A variety of original sources will be used to establish an authentic environment

UKRN S-B Intermediate Ukrainian

Yuri I. Shevchuk, Lecturer, Department of Slavic Languages, Columbia University

(8 units: UN, GR, NC)

Audio Exercises

Development of students’ conversational skills in a variety of real-life communicative settings gets priority treatment in the course. This is accompanied by a review of basic structures and further expansion of grammar fundamentals. Major emphasis is placed on the development of vocabulary through readings and viewings of videotaped programs focusing on contemporary cultural and political issues. By the end of the course students will be able to narrate and describe in major time frames and deal effectively with unanticipated complications in most informal, and some formal, settings on topics of personal and some general interest.

UKRN S-C Advanced Ukrainian

Volodymyr Dibrova, Preceptor, Department of Slavic Languages and Literatures, Harvard University
(8 units: UN, GR, NC)
This is an intensive course for students who wish to develop their mastery of the language. Reading selections include annotated articles on contemporary issues in business, economics, politics, and culture. Short written reports and oral presentations will be part of the course. By the end of the course the students will be able to discuss extensively a wide range of general interest topics and some special fields of interest, hypothesize, support opinions, and deal with linguistically unfamiliar situations. Classes will be conducted largely in Ukrainian.

Literature, Linguistics, and History Courses

UKRN S-103 Ukrainian Literature and Popular Culture

Syllabus

UKRN S-124 Soviet Ukrainian History, 1914–1991

Syllabus

Andrea Graziosi, Professor of Contemporary History, University of Naples “Federico II”
(4 units: UN, GR, NC)
The course explores the history of Ukraine in the Soviet period, from its roots in World War I (1914–1918) through the formation of Soviet Ukraine during the revolution and the civil war (1917–1922) to the disintegration of the USSR and the formation of an independent Ukrainian state in 1991. The impact of the warrevolution- civil war period, as well as the experience of Stalinism, the Holodomor and WWII will be at the core of the course’s first part. The second half of the course will subsequently deal with the attempts at reform and the final decay of the Soviet system, the special features these processes took in Ukraine, and the way Ukraine achieved independence and its legacy of the Soviet past.

UKRN S-127 Ukraine as Linguistic Battleground

Syllabus

Michael S. Flier, Oleksandr Potebnja Professor of Ukrainian Philology, Harvard University
(4 units: UN, GR, NC)
An exploration of the Ukrainian language in linguistic, historical, sociolinguistic, anthropological, and political terms. Topics will include the historical emergence of Ukrainian on East Slavic territory, its varied relationships to Russian, the status of Rusyn within the Ukrainian language sphere, the typology and function of Ukrainian linguistic hybrids (surzhyk), current problems of Ukrainian standardization, and Ukrainian language politics.