Valentyna Savchyn

Visiting Scholar at the Harvard Ukrainian Research Institute

September - December 2025

Supported by Einar Hansens Allhemsstiftelse with a Lund-Harvard Visiting Fellowship

Research Project

Reclaiming Ukrainian linguistic identity: Unravelling Russification in Soviet-era dictionaries

This project addresses an issue of Ukrainian linguistic identity, which was challenged by the policy of Russification – a systematic effort to assimilate Ukrainian into Russian. Specifically, it examines the role of Soviet lexicography in facilitating linguistic erasure, uncovering both overt and subtle mechanisms that contributed to the suppression and distortion of Ukrainian language norms. The study focuses on bilingual Russian-Ukrainian dictionaries, particularly those published between the 1920s and the 1960s. Tracing the evolution of Ukrainian-language entries in these dictionaries reveals not only the direct introduction of Russian lexical elements in support of assimilationist language policies but also more systematic techniques used to erode and reshape the Ukrainian language.

By examining dictionaries as ideological instruments rather than neutral linguistic tools, this research will advance the field of critical lexicography by offering new insights into how lexicographical practices have been shaped by political agendas. At the same time, it will contribute to broader discussions on decolonizing Ukrainian linguistics, contemporary language policy, and postcolonial language recovery. 

Biography

Dr. Valentyna Savchyn is an Associate Professor of Ukrainian Studies at Lund University. She is also a researcher in the project De/colonizing Ukraine: Practices of Russification and Modes of Resistance, 1922-1991, funded by the Foundation for Baltic and East European Studies. Savchyn earned her PhD in Translation Studies from the Taras Shevchenko National University of Kyiv in 2007. Her research encompasses various aspects of the Ukrainian language, with a particular focus on dictionaries and literary translation in the historical context of Soviet Ukraine. Her work also delves into the strategies employed by translators and lexicographers to resist Russification. She is the author of a monograph titled Mykola Lukash As a Pillar of Ukrainian Literary Translation (Litopys, 2014; in Ukrainian) and numerous articles and book chapters that provide a nuanced perspective on the historical contextualization of literary translation during the era of Soviet Ukraine. Her research experience and academic network have been significantly enriched through her residential fellowship at the Swedish Collegium for Advanced Study, Uppsala University (2021-2023), a research stay at Stockholm University (2019-2020), as well as visiting fellowships at the University of Turku, the Institute for Human Sciences (IWM) in Vienna, University of Rzeszów, and a long-standing tenure  at the Department of Translation Studies and Contrastive Linguistics at the Ivan Franko National University of Lviv (2000-2023). Savchyn’s stay in HURI is supported by Einar Hansens Allhemsstiftelse within the recently launched Lund–Harvard Visiting Fellowship program.