How to Teach about Ukraine during the War: Notes in the Syllabus Margins

Abstract

Vladyslava Moskalets shares her experience of teaching Ukrainian history at the University of Illinois Chicago during Russia's aggression. She notes the fundamental difference between students in Ukraine and students in America, who take a class in Ukrainian history having little to no prior knowledge about the country. So, whereas in Ukraine, critically thinking university lecturers concentrate on deconstructing the simplified national historical narrative that has been interiorized by students in secondary school, in American classrooms professors have to offer a coherent historical narrative that includes advanced methodological considerations. Another challenge is the dearth of reading materials. The available collections of primary sources translated into English are Russo-centric both in terms of document selection and the translation of key terms and concepts. Moskalets identifies the task of translating Ukrainian primary sources into English as part of "syllabus decolonization" and offers a sample selection of primary sources for the teaching module on the history of migrations at the turn of the twentieth century.