Profile

Profile

Prisma Ukraïna - Research Network Eastern Europe is a research program at the Forum Transregionale Studien that opens up new regional and transregional perspectives on and from the East of Europe through the prism of Ukraine. Initiated in 2015 and directed by Andrii Portnov, Prisma Ukraïna provides scope for academic research, transregional exchange and communication through fellowships, workshops, panel discussions, seminars, lectures and science communication.

Prisma Ukraïna: War, Migration, Memory is an interdisciplinary research group of Ukrainian scholars in Ukraine and Germany that has been constituted in 2022 under the direction of Viktoria Sereda. The research group investigates the transformational effects of war and dislocation on people’s memory, history, and sense of belonging. The complementary project Prisma Ukraïna: Science Communication and Networks offers research-related, participatory and multilingual communication on Ukraine-related topics. It facilitates decentralized forms of academic cooperation.

Literally “Ukraine” means “border region”. A look at its past impressively demonstrates the strong entanglements of regional history – or rather histories, be they Russian, Polish, Ottoman, Austro-Hungarian, Soviet and European. The history of Ukraine as well as that of Eastern Europe bears witness to the close contact, interaction, mutual permeation and coexistence of different cultures and religions, such as Western and Eastern Christianity, Islam and Judaism. The degree of social and cultural diversity of Ukraine – and of other countries and societies too, of course – has to be taken seriously. All of these aspects form the initial position for further scientific and social research processes that have been set in motion by a new quest for the definition of national identity and sovereignty on the backdrop of wars, crises, pervasive transformations and changing regional orders.

Using the example of Ukraine, the research group War, Migration and Memory tackles questions of memory, migration, forced displacement, memory, social cohesion and disruption in times of War, and the resilience of plural societies. Adopting such a research focus opens up new opportunities for a comparative analysis of the Ukrainian case with societies or social groups that live through similar experiences in other regions of the world. The research group is directed by Viktoria Sereda, Senior Fellow of the Forum Transregionale Studien.

Prisma Ukraïna - Research Network Eastern Europe has been realized with funding from the Land Berlin. The projects War, Migration, Memory and the complementary project “Science Communication and Networks” are funded by the Berlin Senate Department for Higher Education and Research, Health and Long-Term Care; the ZEIT Stiftung Ebelin und Gerd Bucerius and the Marga and Kurt Möllgaard Foundation provide funding for sur-place or non-resident fellowships for scientists in Ukraine affected by the war.

Contact:
Prisma Ukraïna – Research Network Eastern Europe
c/o Forum Transregionale Studien
Wallotstr. 14
14193 Berlin

prisma(at)trafo-berlin.de