Laboratory of Modernity: Ukraine between Empire and Nation, 1772–1914

Book Talk by:

Serhiy Bilenky, Research Associate at the Canadian Institute of Ukrainian Studies, University of Alberta, Editor-In-Chief of East/West: Journal of Ukrainian Studies, and Director of the Harvard Ukrainian Summer Institute (HUSI)

Moderated by Serhii Plokhii, Mykhailo S. Hrushevs'kyi Professor of Ukrainian History and Director of the Ukrainian Research Institute at Harvard University

IN-PERSON and ONLINE via Zoom Webinar (live). Registration is required to attend online. 

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Book Description

When the powers of Europe were at their prime, present-day Ukraine was divided between the Austrian and Russian empires, each imposing different political, social, and cultural models on its subjects. This inevitably led to great diversity in the lives of its inhabitants, shaping modern Ukraine into the multiethnic country it is today. Making innovative use of methods of social and cultural history, gender studies, literary theory, and sociology, Laboratory of Modernity explores the history of Ukraine throughout the long nineteenth century and offers a unique study of its pluralistic society, culture, and political scene. Despite being subjected to different and conflicting power models during the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, Ukraine was not only imagined as a distinct entity with a unique culture and history but was also realized as a set of social and political institutions. The story of modern Ukraine is geopolitically complex, encompassing the historical narratives of several major communities – including ethnic Ukrainians, Poles, Jews, and Russians – who for centuries lived side by side. The first comprehensive study of nineteenth-century Ukraine in English, Laboratory of Modernity traces the historical origins of some of the most pressing issues facing Ukraine and the international community today. [Source] More about the book from CIUS.

About the Speaker

Serhiy Bilenky is a Research Associate at the Canadian Institute of Ukrainian Studies, University of Alberta and, since 2023, Editor-In-Chief of East/West: Journal of Ukrainian Studies. He also has been Program Director of the Harvard Ukrainian Summer Institute (HUSI) since 2015. Born in Kyiv, Ukraine, Bilenky graduated from Kyiv National Shevchenko University, from which he also received his Candidate of Sciences degree in 1997. In 2007, he received his PhD in History from the University of Toronto. Bilenky has taught courses on Russian, Ukrainian, and east European history at the University of Toronto, Columbia University, and Harvard University. His monographs included Romantic Nationalism in Eastern Europe: Russian, Polish, and Ukrainian Political Imaginations (Stanford University Press, 2012) and Imperial Urbanism in the Borderlands: Kyiv, 1800-1905 (University of Toronto Press, 2018). He is also the editor of the selected writings of the leading 19th-century Ukrainian intellectuals: Fashioning Modern Ukraine: Selected Writings of Mykola Kostomarov, Volodymyr Antonovych, and Mykhailo Drahomanov (Canadian Institute of Ukrainian Studies, 2014). Bilenky's most recent book is Laboratory of Modernity: Ukraine between Empire and Nation, 1772–1914 (McGill-Queen's University Press and CIUS, 2023) – a multidisciplinary history of Ukraine during the “long” 19th century.

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This event is organized by Harvard's Ukrainian Research Institute (HURI) as part of the weekly Seminar in Ukrainian Studies public event series.

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