Non-State Diplomats: North American Ukrainian Diaspora and the Ukrainian Cause

A lecture by Ola Hnatiuk, HURI Research Fellow, Professor at the National University of Kyiv-Mohyla Academy (NaUKMA), and Professor Emeritus at the University of Warsaw.

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. 

About the Lecture

The presentation will focus on non-state diplomacy on behalf of Ukraine in the interwar period. The primary goal of Ukrainian non-state diplomacy was to seek recognition of the right of Ukrainians to self-determination. The intermediate objective was to alert the international public that the fundamental rights of Ukrainians living in the USSR, Poland, and Romania were under threat. The key actors who spearheaded those initiatives were Ukrainian émigrés residing in the United States and Canada. They became lobbyists for the Ukrainian cause in the international arena. Since the beginning of the twentieth century, they have worked to make politicians in their countries recognize the right to self-determination of Ukrainians and to exert pressure in international forums to guarantee Ukrainians a minimum of the rights granted to them under international understandings reached after the First World War.             

About the Speaker

Prof. dr hab. Ola Hnatiuk (b. 1961) is a Polish and Ukrainian scholar, Professor at Kyiv Mohyla Academy and Professor–Emeritus at the University of Warsaw. She is also a translator, diplomat, civic activist and was Vice-president of Ukrainian PEN centre (2018-2022). Her scholarly work has been in the borderlands between the disciplines of history, the history of ideas, philology, literary studies, cultural studies, and the sociology of culture. Since 2017 she has been editor-in-chief of the project Ukraine. Europe 1921–1939, a publishing series at the Ukrainian Catholic University with the support of the Canadian Institute of Ukrainian Studies, the aim of which is to publish little-known documents that counteract falsifications of history, which are still prevalent in eastern Europe. Hnatiuk's main publications include: Courage and Fear (Academic Study Press and Harvard Ukrainian Research Institute, 2020), a study of Lviv/Lwów under Soviet and Nazi occupation, 1939–1945 [English translation of Odwaga i strach, published in 2015; Ukrainian translation – Kyiv 2015] and Pożegnanie z imperium. Ukraińskie dyskusje o tożsamości [Farewell to Empire. Ukrainian Debates on Identity] (Warsaw, 2003), in Ukrainian translation, Прощання з імперією. Українські дискусії про ідентичність, 2005. This book was awarded the Jerzy Giedroyć Scholar Prize in 2004. She is the recipient of the 2018 Pruszyński Prize of the Polish PEN Club, for services to the Humanities and Literature, the Knight’s Cross of the Order of Polonia Restituta in 2012, for public service, in particular contributions to Polish-Ukrainian dialogue, and the 2010 Antonovych Prize for scholarly achievements and public activity. Currently, Dr. Hnatiuk is editing Vasyl Mudryi’s works (1921–1939) in three volumes and editing the London Diary (1931-1939) by Volodymyr Julian Kysilevskyi.

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This event is organized by Harvard's Ukrainian Research Institute (HURI) as part of the Seminar in Ukrainian Studies event series. It is co-sponsored by the Department of Slavic Languages & Literatures at Harvard.

Persons with disabilities who wish to request accommodations or who have questions about access, please contact Megan Duncan Smith, HURI Programs Coordinator, at duncansmith@fas.harvard.edu at least two weeks  in advance of the session.

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