Looking Back to Move Forward: History, Recovery, and Sustainability in Understanding the War in Ukraine on a Global Scale

Major Grant, Institute of Advanced Study, Durham University, 2024-25

^{During the evacuation at Kyiv train station, 28 February 2022. Photo by Oles Navrotskyi}

PIs:

• Professor Markian Prokopovych, Department of History
• Dr Chrysostomos Apostolidis, Durham Business School (DUBS)

Team:

• Dr Natalia Ishchenko, IAS Fellow 2024, Petro Mohyla Black Sea National University of Ukraine
• Dr Kateryna Ivashchenko-Stadnik, CARA/IAS Fellow 2024-2025, National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine
• Dr Kateryna Maltseva, IAS Fellow 2024, National University of Kyiv-Holyla Academy
• Dr Tetiana Vodotyka, CARA/IAS Fellow 2024-2025, Kyiv School of Economics

Europe finds itself at a predicament of another war on the continent driven by territorial claims, supported by historical justifications that until very recently would have appeared obsolete to most people. The project starts from the assumption that to draw meaningful recommendations for managing major crises and supporting post-conflict institutional and societal recovery and reform in Ukraine it is necessary to understand history and to listen to the expert community in Ukraine. At the same time, there is also a need to re-examine the corpus of research on other bloody conflicts – from Northern Ireland to the Balkans, the Near East, Afghanistan and Vietnam – and to what extent lessons can be drawn from it that would benefit Ukraine, Ukrainians and Europe. Focusing on displacement, the project considers complex historical background of the war in Ukraine as well as present challenges caused by the war, to develop more effective models for major crises management and a fairer, resilient, and more sustainable post-war Ukrainian society.

The project recognises the need to understand the past of an ongoing conflict from multiple perspectives to be able to offer meaningful and sustainable support. The project aims to explore historical, economic, socio-cultural, and health implications of displacement in contemporary Ukraine. It involves interdisciplinary expertise of historians, sociologists, psychologists, lawyers, as well as knowledge from international relations, business, economics, marketing, and education to think in new and unexpected ways. It builds on cross-school and cross-departmental partnerships within Durham and international partnerships with Ukrainian scholars, as well as those working on Ukrainian topics, urban history and studies, refugee studies, sustainable development, and social and cultural aspects of social reconciliation in societies affected by war.

^{Taras Shevchenko monument damaged by Russian shelling in the liberated city of Borodyanka, 16 April 2022. Photo by Serhii revera, UNIAN}

Find out more:

• Understanding Displacement in Ukraine: Interdisciplinary Perspectives – International Workshop (6-7 June 2024, programme)
• Understanding Ukraine after 2022: New Perspectives on History, Recovery, and Sustainability Interdisciplinary Workshop (28 July 2025, programme)