Thursday 7the – 5.30-7.30 – War in Ukraine: Context, Causes, Consequences

Seminar Speakers

Professor Andrew Cottey, Department of Government and Politics UCC

Dr Bozena Cierlik, School of History UCC

Dr  Tatiana Vagramenko, Study of Religions UCC

Venue:  Hybrid: In person at the CACSSS seminar room, ground floor, O’Rahilly Building. Also streamed online

Time: 5-7PM

Join Zoom Meeting
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/81617507112?pwd=SWNESjRiNXpJQjZyRmF6RnRFTE45Zz09

Meeting ID: 816 1750 7112
Passcode: Praxis

(see zoom link for mobile phones at the bottom of this page)

Professor Andrew Cottey

Andrew Cottey will ask ‘what explains the war in Ukraine?’ Drawing on debates and theories in international relations, Andrew will explore different understandings of the origins of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and the reasons for the horrors we are now witnessing in Ukraine. Andrew’s contribution will draw on various classic works on international relations.

Andrew Cottey is a Professor in the Department of Government and Politics, University College Cork. He is an expert in international relations, security and defence and his research focuses on European security. He is author of ‘Security in 21st Century Europe’ (Palgrave Macmillan) and many other books and academic papers.

Dr Bozena  Cierlik will give background to independent Ukrainian state, its orientation towards Russia and more recently towards the West. In terms of global citizenship she will look at the impact of the war, including influx of refugees, on neighbouring countries and the European Union.

Dr Bozena Cierlik – is an expert in Polish and East Central European history in the School of History, UCC. She is implementing innovative Service-Learning component as part of UCC long-term strategy of sustainability of collaborative research between higher education institutions and community organizations, and global citizenship attributes.  She was an expert evaluator in EU Framework Programs – Challenges of EU enlargement, Access to digital collections of cultural and scientific content and User Centred Design. Her latest publication – Living near Dragons. Polish and Irish struggles for self-determination.

Dr Tatiana Vagramenko will talk about contested pasts and the Soviet legacy that became hidden actors that triggered the war in Ukraine. “The past is re-written so fast that you don’t know what will happen yesterday”, is a Soviet joke that is even more relevant nowadays. History is instrumentalised, although in different ways, in the politics and everyday life in both Russia and Ukraine. Putin consistently tries to restore what was left from the Soviet Union, glorifying Soviet history and, at the same time, erasing from school textbooks and the public space records on Soviet-era crimes against humanity.  Ukraine’s recent “Memory Laws”, on the contrary, ensured public access to the Soviet-era state archives, particularly the KGB archives, the biggest database of Soviet-era crimes. This material evidence of the hidden history is under attack in the current war.   

Dr Tatiana Vagramenko is a Senior Postdoctoral Researcher in the Study of Religions Department. She is PI in the SFI-IRC Pathway project “History Declassified: The KGB and the Religious Underground in Soviet Ukraine”. Based on a lengthy field experience and archival work, Tatiana’s work focuses on post-Soviet Ukraine and Russia, the complex history of the entanglement of religion with the Soviet secret police and its legacy in the post-communist context. Her latest publications: “KGB ‘Evangelism’: Agents and Jehovah’s Witnesses in Soviet Ukraine.” Kritika: Explorations in Russian and Eurasian History, Vol. 22/4 (2021); co-editor, with James Kapaló, of Hidden Galleries: Material Religion in the Secret Police Archives in Central and Eastern Europe (Lit Verlag).  

Zoom Link

Topic: War in Ukraine
Time: Apr 7, 2022 05:30 PM London

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Meeting ID: 816 1750 7112
Passcode: Praxis
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