Petryshyn Lecture: Timothy Snyder

Timothy Snyder, Yale University

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Co-sponsored by the Institut für die Wissenschaften vom Menschen/ Institute for Human Sciences in Vienna
 

Abstract

Ukraine seems to appear in every sort of unusual predicament. Whether we study it from the inside or the outside, we are tempted to see it as exceptional. In this lecture, Snyder will argue that Ukrainian history is exceptional only insofar as it embodies major trends with unusual intensity. Much might be said for contemporary Ukrainian politics: what is unusual is how much they reveal about challenges Americans, Europeans, and others face in the twenty-first century.

About the Speaker

 Timothy Snyder was educated at Brown and Oxford and held postdocs at Harvard before joining Yale University’s faculty, where he is the Levin Professor of History and Global Affairs. His historical work concerns central and eastern Europe, the Soviet Union, and the Holocaust. He has also written on U.S. history, international relations, health care, digital politics, and political thought. His fifteen books, which include Bloodlands and Black Earth, have been translated into more than forty languages and have received a similar number of awards. He holds state orders and honorary doctorates, and has appeared in documentaries, on television, and in films. His writing has inspired poster exhibitions, sculpture, a punk rock song, a rap song, films, a play, and an opera. His pamphlet On Tyranny is quoted in demonstrations around the world. In 2021, he introduced the terms “big lie” and “memory laws” into the American political and legal discussion. He is finishing a philosophical book about freedom. 

Chair: Serhii Plokhii, Director, Ukrainian Research Institute, Harvard University

Moderator: Emily Channell-Justice, Director, Temerty Contemporary Ukraine Program, Ukrainian Research Institute, Harvard University

Watch on YouTube

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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 in advance of the session (at least two weeks prior, if possible).

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