Ukrainian Studies in Victoria: New Developments

AUV partners with the University of Melbourne

A new academic position in Ukrainian Studies is the primary objective of a recently announced collaboration between the Association of Ukrainians in Victoria and the University of Melbourne.

The partnership was made public through a post on the news page of the university’s Faculty of Arts at https://arts.unimelb.edu.au/news/announcement-of-partnership-with-the-association-of-ukrainians-in-victoria. The full text of the notice is as follows:

Announcement of Partnership with the Association of Ukrainians in Victoria

The Faculty of Arts at the University of Melbourne are delighted to announce the recent formation of a partnership with the Association of Ukrainians in Victoria (AUV).

The AUV is a not-for-profit organisation that has served the Ukrainian community in Victoria for more than seventy years. A relationship with the AUV aligns with the University’s strategy to benefit society through the transformative impact of education and research. The collaboration enhances the University’s capacity to work with communities and to embrace our place in Australia and the world, partnering in the future of Melbourne as a thriving and sustainable global city.

We are currently working together on our first collaboration together which will culminate in the support of an academic position in Ukrainian Studies within the Faculty’s School of Historical and Philosophical Studies.

We look forward to a long and prosperous relationship with AUV that will enrich our curriculum and allow students to engage in Ukrainian Studies. There will also be many more opportunities for collaboration as our relationship grows, including research, joint programming, cultural advocacy and the development and support of academic expertise.

Representatives of the AUV and the committee of the AUV’s Ukrainian Studies Support Fund are working with the university and its School of Historical and Philosophical Studies on the details of the collaboration and the position to be created.

The University of Melbourne enjoys a distinguished reputation among the world’s universities and is often identified by global university ranking systems as Australia’s foremost university.

Impressive work on Ukrainian themes has been undertaken in the School of Historical and Philosophical Studies by its current members Professor Mark Edele, holder of the Hansen Chair in History, and Dr Julie Fedor, both of whom have connections with international colleagues, especially but not only historians, working in Ukrainian Studies. Topics related to Ukraine have been the subject of research by scholars in other disciplinary areas of the University, including international relations.

Select Ukrainian Studies Activities Continue at Monash University

A program in Ukrainian Studies conducted teaching and research at Monash University in the years 1983-2020. It was known in 2004-2020 as the Mykola Zerov Centre for Ukrainian Studies. While the teaching program at Monash was discontinued in the context of Covid-related closures of low-enrolment subjects, the university continues to host a number of Ukrainian Studies activities.

The “Association of Ukrainians in Victoria Archival Project,” funded in large part by the Ukrainian Studies Foundation in Australia, continues to be administered through Monash University. Chief Investigators of the project are Dr Alessandro Achilli, who accepted a voluntary separation package from Monash University but remains an Adjunct Fellow of the university, and Emeritus Professor Marko Pavlyshyn. This project has seen the AUV’s archives ordered and catalogued under the supervision of project researcher Dr Yana Ostapenko, and relocated to purpose-built premises within Ukrainian House in Essendon.

Monash student Jared Malec is completing his Honours Bachelor of Arts degree with a thesis on Volodymyr Svidzinsky, a notable Ukrainian poet of the first half of the twentieth century, under Dr Achilli’s supervision.

The Monash University Library, as part of its commitment to the collection of Slavic Studies materials under the terms of its Ada Booth bequest, will continue to expand its extensive Ukrainian Studies collection, believed to be the largest in the Southern Hemisphere.

Ukrainian Studies Support Fund (USSF) Committee
of the Association of Ukrainians in Victoria