Yevhen Yashchuk (Ukraine)

Vitaiu! I am delighted to continue my academic journey in History here, in Oxford. Born in Zhytomyr, Ukraine, I started my studies at the National University of Kyiv-Mohyla Academy, where I read for a BA in History and Archaeology, graduating with honours in 2021. In the same year, I joined the MA programme in Comparative History at Central European University in Vienna. After graduating in 2023, I came to Oxford for a DPhil programme in History. Being a passionate academic traveller, I was also an exchange student at Charles University (Prague, Czech Republic) and the Ukrainian Catholic University (Lviv, Ukraine) during my BA years and at Utrecht University (Utrecht, The Netherlands) during my MA studies.

For the past five years, I have been looking at the history of the Great Eastern Crisis of 1875-1878 and its echo in various imperial contexts. Starting with the field of the history of diplomacy, I defended my Bachelor’s thesis on the Eastern Question in the British Conservative Press during the crisis and then shifted my focus to the provincial context of the Russian Empire, exploring the appearance of the Eastern Question in the city of Kyiv between 1875-1878. I am going to continue researching the crisis, focusing primarily on its everyday aspects and its presence in the lives of people who lived in Kyiv and Lviv in the second half of the 1870s. As my side interest, I am also excited about studying contemporary politics of memory in Ukraine and the neighbouring countries of East Central Europe.

The full-scale invasion of Russia against Ukraine affected all my activities in the past two years. Together with research and study endeavours, I have been joining volunteering and activist initiatives in Vienna and beyond. I was grateful to help the NGO YOUkraine, which constantly delivered medical supplies, IFAKs, and ambulances to hospitals and doctors in Ukraine. Recently, I was also engaged in helping with performances organised by Unlimited Democracy, which raises awareness about the war that is still going on. Thanks to these people and many others who work closer to the frontline, I have the privilege to continue my education.

The presence of war had an immediate impact on studies in Ukrainian universities. Since April 2022, I have been involved in the activities of the Invisible University for Ukraine (IUfU), a certificate programme developed by several professors from the Central European University and partner global and Ukrainian institutions to maintain the education of students affected by war. Being a transnational initiative of academic solidarity, the IUfU offers a lot of space for useful experiments in times of total uncertainty. I have had the pleasure to participate in some of those experiments as a student coordinator and a mentor, and glad to observe how the new cohort of students will co-create the fourth semester of the programme in the Autumn of 2023.

Now, I am a member of the Oxford University Ukrainian Society, looking forward to exploring and presenting Ukrainian culture and society in the magnificent international environment created at Oxford. I am incredibly thankful to the Ertegun Graduate Scholarship Programme in the Humanities for making this exploration and my whole academic journey possible at this stage.