Ivan Lysiak Rudnytsky: Diarist, Historian, Political Thinker

Co-sponsored by the Canadian Institute of Ukrainian Studies, the Department of History and Classics, and the Ukrainian-Jewish Encounter:

A symposium on the legacy of Ivan Lysiak Rudnytsky and a book launch of his newly published diaries will be held on 29 November 2019. A professor in the Department of History and Classics from 1971 to 1984 and a founder of the Canadian Institute of Ukrainian Studies, Ivan Lysiak Rudnytsky (1919-1984) was one of the most eminent historians and intellectuals of the Ukrainian diaspora. Born into a prominent family of civic activists and intellectuals of Western Ukraine, Rudnytsky was educated at the Universities of Lviv and Berlin and at Charles University in Prague, where he received his PhD in 1945. After further studies at the Graduate Institute of International Studies in Geneva and Columbia University, he taught at LaSalle College in Philadelphia and the American University in Washington before coming to the University of Alberta. A brilliant analyst of Ukrainian intellectual and political history, he wrote numerous scholarly works and essays that appeared in Ukrainian in the volume Mizh istoriieiu i politykoiu in 1973 and posthumously in Essays in Modern Ukrainian History in 1987. His collected works were published in Ukraine in 1994 as the first volume of the Peter Jacyk Centre for Historical Research's series Ukrainian Historiography in the West. Each of these publications had a great impact on their respective publics. The collected works have recently been reprinted in Ukraine. The volume of Ivan Lysiak Rudnytsky's diaries, which were discovered in 2014, will be launched at the second part of the symposium.

Session 1. 13:30-15:45

Chair: Ryan Dunch (University of Alberta)

John-Paul Himka (Professor Emeritus, University of Alberta), "Ivan Lysiak Rudnytsky in the Department of History at the University of Alberta"

Volodymyr Kravchenko (University of Alberta), "Ivan Lysiak Rudnytsky and Ukrainian Diaspora Historiography after World War II"

Serhii Plokhy (Harvard University),"Rethinking Rethinking Ukrainian History"

Ernest Gyidel (University of Alberta), "Confronting Apologies of the Ukrainian Ghetto: Two Unknown Intellectual Discussions of Ivan L. Rudnytsky from the 1970s"

Commentator: Heather Coleman (University of Alberta)

15:45-16:00 Coffee Break

Session 2. 16:00-17:30

The Diaries of Ivan Lysiak Rudnytsky will be presented by his son Peter L. Rudnytsky (University of Florida), Yaroslav Hrytsak (Ukrainian Catholic University), and Frank E. Sysyn (University of Alberta)