On 7–8 November 2025, as part of the Swiss-Ukrainian research initiative “Mykhailo Drahomanov: Switzerland on Ukraine’s Intellectual Map of Europe,” the international online workshop “Mykhailo Drahomanov’s Europe” took place. The event focused on Drahomanov’s Swiss period (1876–1889) and his intellectual legacy.

The project, launched in January 2025, is a joint endeavor by the University of Lausanne (Switzerland) and the Institute of History of Ukraine, NAS of Ukraine, under the program “Ukrainian–Swiss Joint Research Projects: Call 2023,” supported by the Swiss National Science Foundation and the National Research Foundation of Ukraine.

Mykhailo Drahomanov was a prominent Ukrainian thinker who sought to connect the Ukrainian national movement with the progress of European civilization. His Geneva period was marked by prolific scholarly work and active engagement with European intellectual networks. The project aims to explore these connections and the transfer of European ideas to Ukraine, involving scholars from multiple countries.

The workshop gathered 20 historians and social scientists from nine countries: Switzerland, Ukraine, USA, the United Kingdom, Canada, Germany, Poland, France, and the Czech Republic. Discussions centered on intellectual, political, and cultural transfers of European ideas to Ukraine.

Principal Investigators – Béla Kapossy (University of Lausanne) and Oleksii Yas (Institute of History of Ukraine, NAS of Ukrain) – presented the core ideas and objectives of the project.  A highlight of the event was the launch of the Mykhailo Drahomanov Digital Archive, prepared by Svitlana Blashchuk and Oksana Yurkova (Institute of History of Ukraine, NAS of Ukrain). The archive is built on the ABIC Koha library system, adapted to the project’s needs.

The workshop featured four panels:

• Panel 1: Drahomanov’s Life and Network during His Swiss Exile
• Panel 2: Ukrainian and Russian Views of Switzerland and Europe
• Panel 3: The Ukrainian National Question in European Context
• Panel 4: Drahomanov’s Social and Political Thought

The first panel explored communication networks, intellectual circles, and epistolary contacts during Drahomanov’s Kyiv and Geneva periods. Anastasiia Shevchenko (University of Lausanne) and Bohdan Tsymbal (Shevchenko Institute of Literature, NASU) emphasized Swiss connections and unpublished correspondence. Fabian Baumann (Heidelberg Centre for Transcultural Studies, University of Heidelberg) focused on ideological conflicts in Kyiv, while Yevhen Yashchuk (University of Oxford) and Svitlana Blashchuk (Institute of History of Ukraine, NASU) examined the circulation of Drahomanov’s works in East-Central Europe and his reading practices.

The second panel included Benjamin Schenk (University of Basel), who addressed Russian perceptions of Switzerland. Béla Kapossy and Oleksii Yas explored Drahomanov’s views on the idea of Freedom in Swiss and Ukrainian history. These presentations sparked a lively discussion on the European intellectual genealogy of Drahomanov’s key ideas as a historian and political thinker.

The third panel featured Aleksandr Dmitriev (Charles University), Ostap Sereda (Ukrainian Catholic University \ Bard College Berlin), and Andriy Zayarnyuk (University of Winnipeg), who analyzed representations of the national question from Ukrainian, Russian, Polish, and Jewish perspectives. Radosław Ścimanski (Center for French Culture and Francophone Studies, University of Warsaw) examined reflections on land ownership in the historical writings of Joachim Lelewel.

The fourth panel included Edward Castleton (University of Franche-Comté) and Tetiana Portnova (University of Potsdam), who discussed anarchist and socialist ideas in Drahomanov’s reception. Yaroslava Vermenych (Institute of History of Ukraine, NASU) analyzed federalist issues in his political discourse, while Volodymyr Shelukhin (Kyiv School of Economics) explored romantic dimensions of Drahomanov’s sociological concepts.

The next offline conference will take place at the University of Lausanne on 1–2 October 2026. Participants are invited to contribute to a collective volume that will serve as the outcome of this networking initiative.