The Association for the Advancement of Baltic Studies hosted an online roundtable discussion on “Imagining Postwar Ukraine and its Place in Europe” on Wednesday, January 18, 2023, from 12:00-1:00 pm EST.
This roundtable brought together scholars from Ukraine and the Baltic states to discuss the current state of the war in Ukraine as well as imagine the future of the country and the challenges and opportunities the postwar period will bring for Ukraine and Ukrainians. What pressing issues will Ukraine have to address after the war? What will postwar justice look like? Why are these developments important for the Baltic states? These and other questions were tackled by Yuliya Bidenko (Karazin Kharkiv National University), Denys Kuzmin (Odesa I. I. Mechnikov National University), and Piret Ehin (University of Tartu). The webinar was moderated by Daunis Auers (University of Latvia) and welcome remarks were delivered by AABS President Dovilė Budrytė (Georgia Gwinnett College).
A recording of the event is available at the bottom of this page, below the bios.
Yuliya Bidenko
V. N. Karazin Kharkiv National University
Yuliya Bidenko (PhD, V. N. Karazin Kharkiv National University) holds the position of Associate Professor and Guarantor in the Master’s Program “Global Studies and World Politics” at the Karazin Kharkiv National University, Political Science Department. She was a Research Fellow for the Civil Society Studies Department of the Charles University (Prague), an Individual Research Fellow for the Center for Advanced Studies and Education at the European Humanities University (Vilnius), a participant in the post-Soviet Researchers and Teachers Excellence Program by the Temple University, a co-facilitator for the Institute for Civic Studies & Learning Democracy by the Tufts University and the University of Augsburg. Currently, she is affiliated with ZOiS (The Centre for East European and International Studies, Berlin) as a Senior Scholar for the U-Net Program.
Professor Bidenko has published academic articles and papers devoted to the problems of civil society, decentralization, ideologies, political regime changes, and the establishment of democratic institutions and reforms in Ukraine and in Central & Eastern Europe.
Denys Kuzmin
Odesa I.I. Mechnikov National University
Denys Kuzmin (PhD, Odesa I.I. Mechnikov National University) is a Senior research fellow at the Center for International Studies and Assistant Professor at the Department of International Relations, School of International Relations, Political Science and Sociology, Odesa I.I. Mechnikov National University. He is also a program coordinator at the Odesa Center for Nonproliferation.
Piret Ehin
University of Tartu
Piret Ehin (PhD, University of Arizona) is Professor of Comparative Politics and Deputy Head for Research at the Johan Skytte Institute of Political Studies, University of Tartu (Estonia). Her research interests include democracy, elections and voting behavior, political support and political attitudes, as well as European integration and Europeanization. Her work has appeared in the European Journal of Political Research, Journal of Common Market Studies, Cooperation and Conflict, Politics, Government Information Quarterly, Journal of Elections, Public Opinion and Parties, and the Journal of Baltic Studies.
Piret Ehin is a member of the University of Tartu support group for Ukrainian students and staff. She has been contributing to the work of the Estonian NGO Vaba Ukraina (Free Ukraine) since 2014.
Moderator:
Daunis Auers
University of Latvia
Daunis Auers (PhD, University College London) is Professor at the Department of Political Science, University of Latvia. He has been a Fulbright Scholar at the University of California-Berkeley (2005-2006) and a Baltic-American Freedom Foundation Scholar at Wayne State University in Detroit (2014). He has published widely on political parties, elections and referendums as well as populism and the radical right in Baltic and European politics. His most recent book – The Comparative Government and Politics of the Baltic States: Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania in the 21st Century – was published by Palgrave Macmillan in 2015. Much of his recent research has been more policy-oriented, focusing on the growth and economic impact of international students in Latvia, projections of Latvia’s demographic future and studies of the competitiveness of the city of Riga. He currently serves as Director-at-Large of AABS.
Opening Remarks:
Dovilė Budrytė
Georgia Gwinnett College
Dovilė Budrytė (PhD, Old Dominion University) is Professor of Political Science and Chair of Faculty (Political Science) at Georgia Gwinnett College. In 2015, 2018 and 2019 she was a visiting professor at Vilnius University and Vytautas Magnus University in Lithuania. She has published articles and books on various topics related to minority rights and memory politics in Lithuania, including Memory and Trauma in International Relations: Theories, Cases and Debates (co-editor with Erica Resende, Routledge 2013), and Crisis and Change in Post-Cold War Global Politics: Ukraine in a Comparative Perspective (co-edited with Erica Resende and Didem Buhari, Palgrave Macmillan, 2018). In 2014/15, she was the recipient of the University System of Georgia Excellence in Teaching Award. She currently serves as the President of AABS.