ABOUT THE CONFERENCE

From 1876 to 1889, Geneva was both a refuge and a vantage point for Mykhailo Drahomanov, exiled from the Russian Empire for his political convictions. From there he built a far-reaching network of correspondents and readers and developed ideas on federalism, national self-determination, and communal self-rule that placed the Ukrainian question firmly within a European framework.

This international conference brings together historians from Ukraine, Switzerland, Poland, the Czech Republic, France, Germany, Canada, and across Europe to reconstruct Drahomanov’s Swiss years and their afterlife: his personal networks in Geneva, the models of Swiss liberty, democracy, and federalism that he studied and reinterpreted, his debates with contemporaries over the Ukrainian and Jewish questions, his engagement with anarchism and communal socialism, and the circulation of his ideas across East Central Europe.

This conference is organised within the framework of the research project “Mykhailo Drahomanov: Switzerland on Ukraine’s Intellectual Map of Europe”.

 

ABOUT THE PROJECT

MYKHAILO DRAHOMANOV: SWITZERLAND ON UKRAINE’S INTELLECTUAL MAP OF EUROPE

This joint Swiss-Ukrainian research project, led by the University of Lausanne and the Institute of History of Ukraine (National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine), and funded by the Swiss National Science Foundation (SNSF) and the National Research Foundation of Ukraine (NRFU), examines how Drahomanov’s engagement with Swiss federalism and political culture shaped his vision for Ukraine, and opens new perspectives on the political and social debates of his time.

The project maintains a growing digital archive of Drahomanov’s writings, correspondence, and related research, freely accessible at drahomanov.history.org.ua.

  

INFORMATION

VENUE

Day 1  Thursday, 1 October: Room POL 342 , Amphipôle Building, University of Lausanne
Day 2  Friday, 2 October: Room CD 106, Château de Dorigny, University of Lausanne

Getting there: From Lausanne train station (Lausanne-Gare), take metro line M2 (direction Les Croisettes) one stop to Lausanne-Flon. At Lausanne-Flon, transfer to metro line M1 (direction Renens).

On Day 1, get off at UNIL-Sorge.

On Day 2, get off at UNIL-Chamberonne.

 

Amphipôle, 1015 Ecublens  (click on the link to open the Google Maps location).

Château de Dorigny, 1015 Lausanne (click on the link to open Google Maps location).

CONTACT & ORGANISATION

Conference contact: anastasiia.shevchenko@unil.ch
Organised by Béla Kapossy, Anastasiia Shevchenko and Oleksii Yas
A conference of the research project “Mykhailo Drahomanov: Switzerland on Ukraine’s Intellectual Map of Europe”

Project team:
PI Prof. Béla Kapossy (University of Lausanne)
Dr. Anastasiia Shevchenko (University of Lausanne)
PI Dr. Oleksii Yas (Institute of History of Ukraine, NASU)
Dr. Svitlana Blashchuk (Institute of History of Ukraine, NASU)
Dr. Oksana Yurkova (Institute of History of Ukraine, NASU)
Prof. Yaroslava Vermenych (Institute of History of Ukraine, NASU)

Funded by the Ukrainian-Swiss Joint Research Programme of the Swiss National Science Foundation (SNSF) and the National Research Foundation of Ukraine (NRFU).  

This poster is a collage. Elements courtesy of:
working map © Bibliothèque de Genève (Fonds Reclus–Perron, unprocessed collection)
view of Geneva © Всемирная иллюстрация [Vsemirnaya Illyustratsiya], 1869, vol. 2, p. 53
photo of Mykhailo Drahomanov © Dim Franka (Ivan Franko Memorial Collection), Lviv, inv. mem 153

 

Thursday, 1 October

Room POL 342, Amphipôle Building, University of Lausanne

9:30-10:00 Welcome Coffee

 

10:00-10:20 Welcome and Introduction

Béla Kapossy and Oleksii Yas

 

10:30-12:00

Panel 1. Drahomanov’s life and network during his Swiss exile

Panel Chair: Yevhen Yashchuk (University of Oxford)

Fabian Baumann (University of Basel): Ideology, Animosity, and Drahomanov’s Emigration from the Russian Empire

Anastasiia Shevchenko (University of Lausanne): Reconstructing Drahomanov’s Genevan Exile (1876–1889)

Bohdan Tsymbal (Shevchenko Institute of Literature, NASU): Drahomanov’s Genevan Period in Light of His Correspondence

Svitlana Blashchuk (Institute of History of Ukraine, NASU): Drahomanov’s Reading Repertoire in Switzerland (1876–1889)

 

12:00-13:30 Lunch Break

 

13:30-15:00

Panel 2. Ukrainian and Russian views of Switzerland and Europe

Panel Chair: Benjamin Schenk (University of Basel)

Sarah Evison (University of Basel): Switzerland as a Place of Political Exile from Central and Eastern Europe in the Long 19th Century

Oleksii Yas (Institute of History of Ukraine, NASU): Rethinking Space: Political Liberty in Drahomanov’s Map of Europe

Béla Kapossy (University of Lausanne): Drahomanov’s very Swiss History of Ukrainian Liberty

Irène Herrmann (University of Geneva): How Does It Feel to Be a Political Model? Conceptual Uses and Abuses of Democratic Exemplarity in Switzerland

 

15:00-15:30 Coffee Break

 

15:30-17:00

Panel 3. The Ukrainian National Question in European Context

Panel Chair: Oksana Yurkova (Institute of History of Ukraine, NASU)

Alexander Dmitriev (Charles University, Prague): Russian Socialists and the Ukrainian National Question

Ostap Sereda (Central European University, Vienna): Drahomanov and His Opponents on Redefining the Ukrainian National Project in the 1870s

Radosław Szymański (University of Warsaw): The Notion of “Feudalism” in Histories of the Rise and Fall of the Polish State, from Rousseau to Marxist Economic History

Andriy Zayarnyuk (University of Winnipeg): Drahomanov and the “Jewish question”

 

Friday, 2 October

Room CD 106, Château de Dorigny, University of Lausanne

 

10:00-12:00

Panel 4.  Communal Socialism and Federalism

Panel Chair: Radosław Szymański (University of Warsaw)

Edward Castleton (Université de Franche-Comté, Besançon): The Polish Question and the Anarchist Answer: The Refracted Emergence of Radical Anti-Authoritarian Ideology in Switzerland: 1852-82

François Allisson (University of Lausanne):  Intellectual Companionship amid Theoretical Divergence: Drahomanov and Sieber between Kyiv and Geneva

Yaroslava Vermenyсh (Institute of History of Ukraine, NASU): Rethinking Drahomanov’s Concepts of Decentralization in the Context of Ukraine’s European Progress

Yegor Vlasenko (EPFL): Hromada as Gemeinde and Gesellschaft : Drahomanov on Land, Environment, and the Rural-Urban Divide in the 1870s-1880s.

 

12:00-13:30 Lunch Break

 

13:30-15:00

Panel 5. Circulation of Drahomanov’s Ideas

Panel Chair: Fabian Baumann (University of Basel)

Yevhen Yashchuk (University of Oxford / IWM): Smuggled Ideas: The Circulation of Drahomanov’s Works across East Central Europe in the 1870s-1890s

Danylo Sudyn (Ukrainian Catholic University, Lviv), Jeffrey Stepnisky (MacEwan University, Edmonton): Drahomanov as a Ukrainian Social Theorist in the Context of Western European Sociology

Volodymyr Shelukhin (Kyiv School of Economics): Drahomanov’s Influence on Charles G. Leland

 

15:00-15:30 Coffee Break

 

15:30-17:30

Closing Session

Oksana Yurkova (Institute of History of Ukraine, NASU): The Mykhailo Drahomanov Digital Archive at the Crossroads of Digital and Traditional Humanities

General Discussion moderated by Béla Kapossy (University of Lausanne)