# Decolonial Vertigo: Greatness, Universalism, and Musical Imperialism in the Russo-Ukrainian War ![Collage showing Mariupol Drama Theater](/sites/g/files/omnuum4931/files/styles/hwp_5_4__480x385/public/2025-02/Decolonial%20Vertigo_MariupolDram.jpg?itok=MSGvA2jZ) #### calendar\_today Date and Time **February 26, 2025** 05:00PM - 06:30PM EST #### pin\_drop Location **Thompson Room, Barker Center** [12 Quincy St. Cambridge, MA 02138 United States ]() [ WATCH THE RECORDING arrow\_circle\_right ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t00LKICNOPk&ab_channel=HarvardUkrainianResearchInstitute%28HURI%29) ### A Sochor Parry Memorial Lecture by [**Maria Sonevytsky**](https://mariasonevytsky.com/about/), Associate Professor of Anthropology and Music, Bard College. Moderated by [**Emily Channell-Justice**](https://huri.harvard.edu/people/emily-channell-justice), Director of the [Temerty Contemporary Ukraine Program](https://www.huri.harvard.edu/temerty-contemporary-ukraine-program) at the Ukrainian Research Institute, Harvard University. **IN-PERSON and ONLINE** via Zoom Webinar (live). Registration is required to attend online. ## About the Lecture Since February 2022, many scholars of Russia and Ukraine have asked how far culturalist explanations can get us in comprehending Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine and the broader stakes of this war for the global order. As the Russian state justifies its invasion in culturalist and decolonial terms, as Ukrainians articulate competing visions of how Ukrainian and Russian culture both might be “decolonized,” and as generations of anti-, post- and decolonial thought become applied and appropriated by opposing camps, the effects can be dizzying. Since 2022, the so-called “musical front” has been a prime site of wartime spectacle and contestation. From the Kremlin Orchestra’s staging of Tchaikovsky’s Fourth Symphony (known by its programmatic title, “Fate”) on the ruins of the Mariupol Drama Theater, to the debates over the potential renaming of the “Ukrainian National Tchaikovsky Academy of Music” in Kyiv, the mythical figure of Tchaikovsky appears centrally in debates today about musical colonization and decolonization. This lecture contends that Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine unfolds in an era of decolonial vertigo, and that the arena of musical politics potently exposes some of these disorienting discourses of decoloniality. Teasing apart a few strands of the entangled histories of Ukrainian and Russian musical production alongside the asymmetrical construction of competing discourses of musical “greatness,” I question how “greatness” operates as a form of universalism familiar to postcolonial critics. I further observe how the deployment of revanchist Russian imperial greatness operates as justification for the ongoing violence conducted by Russia against Ukraine, while questioning the logics of Ukrainian efforts to narrate compensatory histories of greatness under the banner of decolonization. Ultimately, I ask whether there are alternative models by which we might resolve–or at least escape–the escalating “decolonial” culture wars of our time. ## About the Speaker [ ![Maria Sonevytsky](/sites/g/files/omnuum4931/files/styles/hwp_1_1__360x360_scale/public/2025-02/headshot%20MS%202021.jpeg?itok=CROhjm54) ](https://mariasonevytsky.com/about/)[Maria Sonevytsky ](https://mariasonevytsky.com/about/)is Associate Professor of Anthropology and Music at Bard College. She is author of the award-winning book *Wild Music: Sound and Sovereignty in Ukraine* (2019), and *Vopli Vidopliassova’s Tantsi* (2023), part of Bloomsbury’s 33 1/3 series. Professor Sonevytsky has published articles on folklore and nuclear experience after Chornobyl, epistemic imperialism after Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Crimean Tatar Indigenous politics and expressive culture, and the circulation of post-Soviet Ukrainian folklorized kitsch, or *sharovarshchyna*, among other subjects. She is currently at work on her third book, tentatively titled *Singing for Lenin in Ukraine: Children, Music, and the Communist Future.* In addition to her scholarly writing, Prof. Sonevytsky is a singer and accordionist. *This event is organized by Harvard's* [*Ukrainian Research Institute*](https://huri.harvard.edu/) *(HURI) as part of* *the* [*Temerty Contemporary Ukraine Program*](https://www.huri.harvard.edu/temerty-contemporary-ukraine-program)*.* *Persons with disabilities who wish to request accommodations or who have questions about access, please contact Hanna Leliv, HURI Events Logistics Coordinator, at* [*hleliv@fas.harvard.edu*](mailto:hleliv@fas.harvard.edu) *at least two weeks in advance of the session.* *Watch videos of past HURI events on our* [*YouTube Channel*](https://www.youtube.com/user/huriyt) *and* [*subscribe*](https://web.lists.fas.harvard.edu/mailman/lists/huri-events-list.lists.fas.harvard.edu/) *to our email list to receive announcements about events and other activities.* See also:- [ Sochor Parry Memorial Lecture ](/event-type/sochor-parry-memorial-lecture) - [ Contemporary Ukraine ](/fields-expertise/contemporary-ukraine) - [ Russia-Ukraine War ](/fields-expertise/russia-ukraine-war) - [ Temerty Contemporary Ukraine Program ](/program/temerty-contemporary-ukraine-program) Share on:- [ Facebook ](#) - [ Twitter ](#) - [ Linkedin ](#) Save: [ Add to calendar calendar\_today ](https://www.huri.harvard.edu/node/1617926/event-feed.ics) Copy link link