On July 9, 2025, members of the project “Mykhailo Drahomanov: Switzerland on Ukrainian Intellectual Map of Europe” co-organized a panel discussion titled Invisible Swiss Roots of Ukrainian Intellectual History as part of The Seventh Swiss History Days. The panel was co-organized and moderated by Prof. Frithjof Benjamin Schenk (University of Basel), who also heads the Ukrainian Research in Switzerland (URIS) initiative.

Location: Universität Luzern, Seminarraum 3B48

Time: Wednesday, July 9, 09:15–10:45

 

Panel Abstract:

Sheets of the notebook of Kh. Vovk (Scientific Archives of the Institute of Archaeology of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine, fond 1, description 1, file no. 173, sheets 83-84)^[1]

 

This document contains a drawing depicting a group of Ukrainian scholars and Ukrainophile activists who gathered on August 7/19, 1883 at the Dolmen La Pierre aux Fées, located 14 km from Geneva, to discuss the future of the Ukrainian people. The author of the drawing, archaeologist and anthropologist Khvedor Vovk, described this day in his diary in a remarkably vivid and personal way. The drawing is notable because, despite its simplicity, it reveals the invisible ties between Ukraine and Switzerland that date back to the 19th century.

At that time, liberal Switzerland had become a symbol of freedom in Europe and a refuge for dissidents from various countries, including Ukrainian intellectuals. The individuals depicted were active participants in the late 19th-century debates on the creation of a Ukrainian nation-state, among whom Mykhailo Drahomanov (1841–1895) stands out as a central figure.

In this panel discussion, we explored the previously overlooked influence of Swiss intellectual and philosophical currents on the ideas of key figures in the Ukrainian national movement of the second half of the 19th century.

Moderator: 

Prof. Frithjof Benjamin Schenk | Universität Basel

 

Speakers:

Prof. Béla Kapossy |  Université de Lausanne | Switzerland

“Mykhailo Drahomanov: Switzerland on Ukrainian Intellectual Map of Europe”

Mykhailo Drahomanov (1841-1895) is a major figure in Ukrainian intellectual history and a key contributor to late nineteenth-century debates on the creation of a Ukrainian nation-state. Like many thinkers at the time, Drahomanov constructed his own political vision of a viable modern nation-state by borrowing concepts and ideas from different, seemingly opposing, philosophical currents, including anarchism, socialism, liberalism and modern constitutionalism.

It makes little sense to label Drahomanov as either an anarchist, socialist, proto-communist, or liberal. Instead, one needs to read him as an eclectic thinker who combined ethnographical, historical, legal, and political arguments to imagine ways in which the multi-cultural features of an Ukrainian nation could be aligned with a common legal structure similar to what he believed allowed the Swiss federal state to function. From this perspective, Darahomanov, looks like a rather relevant figure for current political discourse.

 

Dr. Anastasiia Shevchenko | Université de Lausanne | Switzerland

“M. Drahomanov in Geneva: How the Ukrainian intellectual ‘discovered’ Switzerland”

Geneva and Switzerland occupy a leading place on Mykhailo Drahomanov’s intellectual map. In many ways, the image of Switzerland is central to M. Drahomanov’s worldview, with which he associated civilised Europe. At the same time, Switzerland was the place of his cultural and social life. In the Swiss environment, M. Drahomanov built communication networks with both Ukrainian figures and European intellectuals. In certain sense, Switzerland became M. Drahomanov’s intellectual guide in his attempts to study and comprehend European civilisation including the history of Ukraine. Although scholars usually acknowledge his Swiss exile as an important stage in his intellectual development and refer to his interest in the social and constitutional arrangements of the Swiss Confederation, comparatively little is known of his Genevan years and his engagement with European debates.

The report will be focused on the intellectual network of M. Drahomanov in Switzerland.

 

Dr. Fabian Baumann | Universität Heidelberg | Germany

“Cooperation and Conflict: Ukrainian and Russian Socialists in Switzerland”

While the Russian socialist emigration in Switzerland during the 1870s and the 1880s has attracted broad historiographical attention, the contribution of Ukrainian radical émigrés has largely remained invisible in the history books. While nationally oriented Ukrainian intellectuals interacted regularly with other émigrés from the Russian Empire, their ideological differences manifested themselves both in direct encounters and in press debates. This paper will reflect on the Russian-Ukrainian encounter in Swiss exile, analyzing how these debates amidst a liberal host society brought to the fore contradictory positions on such contested questions of Russia’s “liberation movement” such as federalism, nationalism, and terrorism.

 

^[1] Buzko, О. V., Rohde, M. 2023. Community in images: archival sources on the biography of Khvedir Vovk. Археологія і давня історія України, 4 (49).