Witnessing the War in Ukraine Summer Institute 2025
Witnessing the War in Ukraine:
Testimonies as Cultural Heritage for Future Memory Landscapes
Summer Institute
28-31 July, 2025 - Uzhhorod, Ukraine
Call for Applications
In 2022, as an urgent response to the Russian full scale invasion of Ukraine, several partner institutions launched the Summer Institute Witnessing the War on Ukraine. This initiative arose from the pressing need to document wartime testimonies, a task embraced by individuals and organizations both in Ukraine and abroad, regardless of their prior experience in oral history or interviewing practices.
Over the past three years, the Summer Institute has provided a critical platform for sharing expertise in oral history, ethnography, memory studies, and witness literature with an expanding community of scholars and practitioners. Each year, the Institute has addressed evolving challenges and themes:
- WWSI 2022: A “rapid response” focus on the ethics of conducting research amidst ongoing trauma and how to conduct interviews without causing harm.
- WWSI 2023: An exploration of current trends in scholarly and creative reflections on witnessing the war.
- WWSI 2024: A focus on testimony research in the pursuit of justice, charting innovative disciplinary approaches while creating spaces of trust and dignity for victims.
In support of numerous scholarly initiatives focusing on the documentation of war, WWSI 2025 convenes to examine the place of oral history as socially and historically responsible research practice that pursues conceptualization and preservation of war testimony as cultural heritage and a building block of future historical memory(ies) of Ukraine.
In the light of the growing role that Ukrainian oral history plays as a ‘frontline’ academic documentational practice, the invited speakers, workshop leaders and participants will examine (a) the ongoing pursuit of testimony as national (and transnational) heritage, (b) the relationship between testimony and the formation of new cultures of memory, and (c) the collaborations between oral historians as testimony researchers and Ukrainian institutions of memory and national heritage preservation.
WWSI 2025 will bring together theorists and practitioners of oral history in Ukraine and elsewhere to advance the dialogue on the relationship between oral historical research, formation of (in)tangible national heritage and evolving memory landscapes in Ukraine, Europe and elsewhere.
Why does oral history matter in times of crisis, wars and social upheavals? The key distinction in the work of oral historians and others is that oral history embraces the complete spectre of academic activities — from (a) building an empirical evidence (collecting interviews), to (b) mobilizing new knowledge (publishing academic reflections), and (c) sharing their research findings through the development of public exhibits, museum collections, and oral history archives.
The latter foci are in particular key elements in the development of new understandings of history and the formation of new public memory as oral historians generate not only witness accounts of social change but their work directly contributes to the construction of national cultural and historiographical heritage.
In what ways the ongoing oral history projects focusing on the war contribute to the formation of new memory landscapes in Ukraine?
- What role does oral history play in our changing understandings of past and current events?
- What is the contribution of today’s oral historical research into the evolving understandings of what should constitute Ukraine’s (trans)national historical heritage?
- What can we do to ensure testimonies’ proper preservation and placement in the archives?
- How can we improve methodologically sound training in testimony research in Ukraine (i.e. through the formalization of oral history education in Ukraine’s universities)
We invite researchers and practitioners engaged in oral history research on the unfolding war in Ukraine to apply for our Summer Institute for an in-depth exchange of ideas and expertise on topics raised in this call for papers.
What to expect
There is no registration fee for the Summer Institute. Accommodation and meals will be covered for those invited to attend and travel costs may be reimbursed pending funding.
To participate in the institute, APPLY HERE
The application should include a personal statement explaining how this Summer Institute will benefit your scholarly work, a brief bio, and contact information.
Important Deadlines and Dates:
- Application Deadline — 15 April, 2025
- Notifications of Acceptance — 15 May, 2025
- Summer Institute — 28-31 July, 2025
Organizers and Partners
Ukrainian Oral History Association, Ukraine
Uzhhorod National University, Ukraine
National University of Kyiv-Mohyla Academy, Ukraine
Organizing Committee
- Natalia Khanenko-Friesen — Oral historian and cultural anthropologist, Director of the Canadian Institute of Ukrainian Studies and Huculak Chair in Ukrainian Culture and Ethnography, both at University of Alberta; Co-Head of Ukrainian Oral History Association.
- Eleonora Narvselius — Anthropologist from Lund University, currently leading the research project Ukrainians in Poland: Making Home in Times of Peace and War, in collaboration with Wrocław University.
- Gelinada Grinchenko — Oral historian, Philipp Schwartz Fellow at the University of Wuppertal (Germany); Co-Head of Ukrainian Oral History Association.
- Alina Doboszewska — Researcher at the Institute of Sociology of Jagiellonian University, NGO activist, founder and president of the Dobra Wola Foundation in Krakow.
- Pavlo Leno
- Oksana Khomiak
- Anna Olenenko