Ideas of Ukraine | Istoria 2025
Date and time:
Tuesday 16 December, 2025
18:30 - 20:00
Location:
ONLINE
Focus themes: Intellectual legacies, cultural identity, and visions for Ukraine.
Description: The concluding seminar reflects on how Ukrainian intellectuals—past and present—have shaped ideas of freedom, identity, and democracy, and discuss how historical visions of Ukraine can inspire responses to today’s challenges and generate ideas for the country’s future.
Lecturer: Dr Volodymyr Yermolenko, National University of Kyiv-Mohyla Academy.
Lecturer
Dr Volodymyr Yermolenko, National University of Kyiv-Mohyla Academy.
Dr Volodymyr Yermolenko is a Ukrainian philosopher, journalist, and writer, and the President of PEN Ukraine. He holds a Doctorate in Political Studies (France) and a PhD in Philosophy (kandydat nauk) from Ukraine. He is Analytics Director at Internews Ukraine, Chief Editor of UkraineWorld.org—a multimedia project in English about Ukraine—and Associate Professor at the Kyiv-Mohyla Academy.
Dr Yermolenko is the author of several works of fiction and non-fiction, and a recipient of numerous literary and academic awards, including the Myroslav Popovych Prize (2021), Petro Mohyla Prize (2021), Yurii Sheveliov Prize (2018), and Book of the Year Award in Ukraine (2023, 2018, 2015). He currently chairs the Board of the International Renaissance Foundation (Open Society Foundations).
A prolific public intellectual and lecturer, he hosts the English-language podcasts Explaining Ukraine and Thinking in Dark Times, and co-hosts the Ukrainian-language Kultpodcast with Tetyana Ogarkova. His articles have appeared in The Economist, Le Monde, Financial Times, The New York Times, and Newsweek, and he has provided commentary for BBC, CNN, Al Jazeera, France 24, France Culture, and Radio France Internationale, among others.
