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Description: “Where to live?”, “How to live?”, and “With whom to live?” are the questions that were tantamount in the beginning of the 20th century, when communism promised the new man, the new society, and new spaces. Literary and autobiographical texts in Russia and in the West reflect upon the clash between dreamworld and reality – for while projects for ideal living were abundant, living space was minimal.”

Chaired by Thomas Lahusen (University of Toronto)

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Political and church leaders placed high hopes in this unusually numbered (1025 years) jubilee of the Christianization of Rusʹ. For Viktor Yanukovych it was to be the beginning of his presidential campaign; for Vladimir Putin, a serious step in the drawing of Ukraine into the Eurasian union; for Patriarch Kirill of the Russian Orthodox Church, a demonstration of the unity of “Holy Rusʹ,” while for both the Kiev Patriarchate and for the Ukrainian Greek-Catholic Church, it was to allow the consolidation of religious-national forces and the strengthening of the “Ukrainian world.” The jubilee revealed that religion in the post-Soviet space in general and in Ukraine in particular is becoming an ever more important resource for political mobilization and nation building.

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Please note: this is a two day conference and if you wish to attend ‘Day 1’ please register under the heading ‘Day 1’

Conference Programme: Saturday, September 28, 2013 (Day Two)
St. Vladimir Institute, 620 Spadina Ave.

9:30 a.m. SESSION FOUR

What impact has the study of the Holodomor had
on our understanding of Ukrainian history?
Speaker: Olga Andriewsky, Trent University, Peterborough
Discussant: Serhii Plokhii, Harvard University
Chair: Paul R. Magocsi, University of Toronto

12:00 Lunch Break

1:00 p.m. SESSION FIVE
What impact has the study of the Holodomor had
on our understanding of communism?
(N.B.: This session will be in Ukrainian.)
Speaker: Stanislav Kulchytsky, Institute of the History of Ukraine,
National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine, Kyiv
Discussant: Liudmyla Hrynevych, Institute of the History of Ukraine,
National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine, Kyiv
Chair: Volodymyr Kravchenko, University of Alberta

3:15 p.m. Concluding Comments
Speaker: Roman Serbyn, Université du Québec à Montréal.
“From Great Famine to the Holodomor: A Reflection on the Evolution of a Conceptualization.”
Speaker: Frank Sysyn, University of Alberta.
“The Holodomor Research and Education Consortium: Research Plans.”

4:00 p.m. Reception
Offices of HREC and the Ukrainian Canadian Research and Documentation Centre
(St. Vladimir Institute, 2nd floor)

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In early October 2013, it will be a mid-term of the six month of Lithuania’s Presidency of the EU Council which started in July 2013. The lecture by Ramunas Vilpisauskas from the Institute of International Relations and Political Science, Vilnius University, will assesses the first months of this rotating Presidency, the main issues on the EU agenda as well as Lithuania’s potential to influence EU decision-making during its EU Council Presidency in two priority areas: energy policy, and EU-Eastern Partnership relations. It will discuss the factors of possible Presidency influence, reflecting on the Presidency’s roles and functions, how these roles changed with the Lisbon Treaty, and how the incumbent can use its position to increase its influence, also different national, issue- and context-related conditions for influence, and how they apply to Lithuania’s EU Council Presidency. The lecture will conclude with observations on the extent to which Lithuania fulfils national conditions for influence, what specific constraints are present in such issue areas as energy and Eastern partnership policies, finally, what is the policy context for advancing ambitious goals in these areas. There will be time after the talk for Q&A session.

Dr. Ramunas Vilpisauskas is a Director of the Institute of International Relations and Political Science, Vilnius University, since September 2009. He has worked for five years (2004-2009) as the Chief Economic Policy Advisor to the President of Lithuania H. E. Valdas Adamkus and the Head of Economic and Social Policy Group at the President’s Office. Since 2006 until the end of the term he has been the Coordinator of the advisory team of the President of Lithuania. He is also a Professor at the Institute of the International Relations and Political Science, Vilnius University.

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Mark J. Freiman practices law at the firm of Lerners LLP in Toronto. He is currently lead Commission Counsel for the Military Police Complaints Commission for an extensive Public Interest Hearing. He has previously served as Lead Commission Counsel for the Commission of Inquiry into the Investigation of the Bombing of Air India Flight 182, and as lead counsel for the Canadian Human Rights Commission in the proceedings against Ernst Zundel. From 2000 to 2004, Mr. Freiman was Deputy Attorney General for Ontario. He had previously served as Law Clerk to Chief Justice Brian Dickson and as Senior Policy Advisor to then Attorney General Ian G. Scott, Q.C. He has been President of Canadian Jewish Congress and is currently President of the Canadian Peres Centre for Peace.

Mr. Freiman is co-author of The Litigator’s Guide to Expert Witnesses, and frequently writes, teaches and speaks on topics related to national security, human rights law and media. He has been the recipient of numerous academic awards and has also taught extensively at the university level. In addition to undergraduate and law degrees from the University of Toronto, Mr. Freiman also holds a PhD. in Modern Thought and Literature from Stanford University.

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Canada holds the chair of the International Holocaust Research Alliance (formerly the International Task Force on Holocaust Remembrance) for 2013. As part of the annual meeting, which will take place in Toronto, there will be an academic conference, “Holocaust: New Scholars-New Research on the Holocaust,” which will take place on October 6-7, 2013. Beginning with an event open to the public on Sunday evening, October 6th, the conference will screen a new Israeli film, “Numbered,” dealing with Auschwitz survivors, to be followed by a panel discussion featuring Dr. Vivian Rakoff, a pioneer in the field of Holocaust-related psychiatry; Na’ama Shik, an historian from Yad Vashem; and Carson Phillips from Toronto’s Neuberger Holocaust Education Centre.

On Monday, twenty-four speakers from eleven countries will showcase and consider new Holocaust-related research in the field in six discussion panels. The conference papers will explore new sources, methodologies and approaches to key themes such as reportage, militaries, subject nationalities, cooperation and collaboration, and postwar issues. The themes will include gender; economic and religious and cultural aspects of the Holocaust; local studies that impact wider interpretations; and contributions of media and literature to an understanding of the Holocaust; and many other innovative and interdisciplinary topics.

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In March 2012, the text of an EU-Ukraine Association Agreement was initialed. It was to be the successor to the Partnership and Co-operation Arrangement that has guided EU-Ukraine relations since 1998. An essential feature of the expanded relationship includes the establishment of a Deep and Comprehensive Free Trade Area, which has been under negotiation since 2008. The ratification of the Association Agreement, however, has been stalled by European concern about the “stark deterioration” of political rights and the rule of law in Ukraine under the Yanukovych administration. At the same time, Russia has been pressuring Ukraine to move away from the European option in favour of a Customs Union within the rubric of the Eurasian Economic Community.

The geopolitical and cultural implications of these negotiations are profound. They will be examined by a panel of experts, including Yevhen Bystrytsky (International Renaissance Foundation, Open Society Foundation), Valeriy Chaly (former deputy foreign minister of Ukraine and now deputy general director of the Razumkov Centre in Kyiv), and Oleksiy Haran (political science, Kyiv Mohyla Academy National University). Lucan Way (University of Toronto) and Oleh Havrylyshyn (University of Toronto) will be discussants.

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In the interwar period a narrow strip of land on the South-Western border of the Soviet Union became the meeting point of conflicting nation- and culture- building ambitions and geopolitical visions of the party activists in Moscow, Kharkiv, Odessa, as well communists from Romania. In the talk Alexandr Voronovici tracec the process of the establishment of the Moldovan ASSR on this territory (which roughly corresponds to the territory of the nowadays unrecognized Transnistrian republic) in 1924. The talk will demonstrate how a certain understanding of the future of the republic and the identity of the local population emerged as predominant in the party politics. The talk will devote special attention to the impact of the Ukrainian party activists. It will follow to demonstrate the role of the “Ukrainian factor” in the nationality policies in the first several years after the establishment of the Moldovan ASSR.

Alexandr Voronovici (Petro Jacyk Visiting Young Scholar) is a PhD Candidate in History at the Central European University, Budapest, and an AFP Returning Scholar and Lecturer at the Department of World History of “Ion Creanga” State Pedagogical University, Chisinau, Moldova. He has received fellowships from the German Historical Institute Moscow, Open Society Foundation, and International Visegrad Fund. At CERES he will be working on the project “Collectivization and Famine in the Borderland Areas: The Ukrainian SSR and the Moldovan ASSR, 1928-1933.” Alexandr Voronovici’s research visit was made possible thanks to the support of the Holodomor Research and Education Consortium, Canadian Institute of Ukrainian Studies, University of Alberta.

The talk will be chaired by Professor Lynne Viola.

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Why do some organized crime groups succumb to state attack while others survive, adapt and continue on? Since 2005, Georgia created and implemented the most hard hitting anti-mafia policy in the post-Soviet space, targeting in particular bosses known as vory-v-zakone or thieves-in-law. It has been undoubtedly successful in reducing the influence of these figures but, as part of wider ‘zero tolerance’
criminal justice policy, the social costs have been large. The talk will explore why the anti-organized crime policy was successful in Georgia by investigating the vulnerabilities of the mafia itself and the combinations of international best practice and local worst practice in attacking the mob. In this vein, the talk looks at how the anti-mafia policy has affected penal practices and the ways in which this became a topic of electoral contestation in the run up to the October 2012 election culminating in the political defeat of those who had led the attack on crime in the first place.

Gavin Slade is Assistant Professor of Criminology, based at the Centre for Criminology and Socio Legal Studies, University of Toronto. He is the author of the forthcoming book, Reorganizing Crime: Mafia and Anti-Mafia in Post-Soviet Georgia Oxford: Oxford University Press (Due out in December 2013)

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Please RSVP at http://events.r20.constantcontact.com/register/event?llr=n6cqsnlab&oeidk=a07e84xz8d7ca347c1d&oseq

There are two ways to think about justice: One focuses on goods to be distributed to persons based on the situation these recipients are in, the other focuses on past and present relations between persons and possible structures of domination. Both try to overcome the arbitrariness that may inhere in political and social life, but they have very different interpretations of it. The lecture argues for a relational view of justice as based on a principle of the proper justification of social norms – in short, for a discourse theory of justice.

Nationally and internationally, Rainer Forst is considered the most important German political philosopher of his generation. As the Frankfurt-based scholar continues the German — and especially Frankfurtian — political philosophy of Jürgen Habermas and Axel Honneth, and engages it critically with American representatives like John Rawls, he shapes his very own philosophy. It revolves mainly around the basic concepts of justice, tolerance and justification. In a highly original fashion, Forst has contemplated and formulated the insight that humans have always been embedded in various “practices of justification.” These require that ultimately all actions must be legitimized according to particular logics of morality, law and other discourses. Our practical reasoning is the ability to recognize and accept these logics — such is Forst’s far-reaching conclusion as a political philosopher.
A strong international orientation, with a particular interest in the United States, was seen early on in Rainer Forst. After studying in Frankfurt, New York/Binghamton, and Harvard, he was a lecturer and visiting professor in Berlin, Frankfurt and New York. Following stints in Frankfurt and Gießen, he became a professor at the University of Frankfurt in 2004. He is director of the Cluster of Excellence on “The Formation of Normative Orders” at Goethe-University. Rainer Forst has accepted the Senior Emile Noël Fellowship and is spending the fall 2013 semester at New York University.
His most recent publications are:
“The Right to Justification: Elements of a Constructivist Theory of Justice” (2012)
“Toleration in Conflict. Past and Present” (2013)
“Justification and Critique” (2013).

The Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz Prize is the highest honor awarded in German research. Established in 1985, the prize provides an unparalleled degree of freedom to outstanding scientists and academics to pursue their research interests. Up to ten prizes are awarded annually with a maximum of €2.5 million per award. Prize recipients are awarded the prize solely on the basis of the scientific quality of their work. The Leibniz Prize honors the well-known scientist and humanist Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz (1646-1716), who was a leading figure in the fields of philosophy, mathematics, physics and theology.

The German Research Foundation (DFG) is the central, self-governing organization funding science and basic research in Germany. Serving all branches of science and the humanities, its members comprise German research universities, non-university research institutions, scientific associations and the Academies of Science and the Humanities.
The chief task of the DFG is to fund the best research projects by scientists and academics at universities and research institutions, which are selected on the basis of a multi-layered peer review process. The DFG is a cornerstone of Germany’s strength as a research nation and it plays a key role in structuring academic research in Europe.
The DFG organizes Leibniz Lectures in different regions across the world in order to promote the prize, the research conducted by the prize holders, and the high quality of German science in general.

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Information is not yet available.

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Although both the bolshevik regime in the era of Lenin and Stalin and the Nazi regime disposed of nearly allmighty political police apparatuses, which played the central role in carrying out the mass persecutions so characteristic for these dictatorships, they still never completely dispensed with political justice as a tool of their governing practice.
Andrey Vyhinsky and Roland Freisler respectivly became emblematic figures in this regard. What did the regimes hope to gain by organizing political trials, that took far more efforts and expenses than having virtual or real enemies liquidated without “unnecessary formalities” by the political police? This is the key question of Dr. Zarusky’s ongoing project on “Political Justice Under Lenin, Stalin and Hitler”, on which he will give a workshop report. The project aims at comparing those practices of political persecution that included and apparently required legitimization by the use of legal proceedings. By contrasting the preconditions, institutional framework, legal norms, forms of political control and, in an exemplary way, the concrete practice of political justice under Bolshevism and Nazism it is hoped to obtain new insights into the dynamics of the respective politics of persecution. This is also intended to contribute to badly needed scholarly answers to the highly politicized discussion about comparing Stalin’s and Hitler’s dicatatorship.

Dr. Jürgen Zarusky is a historian at the Institute of Contemporary History (Institut für Zeitgeschichte München – Berlin, IfZ) in Munich. Together with Hartmut Mehringer he edited “Widerstand als ‘Hochverrat’ 1933-1945”
[“Resistance as ‘High Treason’ 1933-1945”] München 1994-1998, a microform edition that includes indictments and verdicts from more than 1800 political trials in Nazi Germany. He is also interested in Russian/Soviet History and has published inter alia on German-Soviet interaction and on the life and works of Soviet writer Vasily Grossman. Dr. Zarusky is deputy editor in chief of IfZ’s journal “Vierteljahrshefte für Zeitgeschichte”.

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French History Seminar 2013-2014

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Ukrainian writer Yuri Vynnychuk will be interviewed by Dr. Maxim Tarnawski and Dr. Taras Koznarsky (Department of Slavic Languages). Mr. Vynnychuk will talk about his writing, the cultural situation in Lviv, and his vision of politics in Ukraine.

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This talk will focus on events at the Moscow and Leningrad zoos during the Second World War. The aim of the talk is to begin to talk about the place of Human Non-Human Animal Studies in Soviet history.

Dr. McDonald is a specialist in Russian and Soviet History. Her areas of interest include social and cultural history, micro-history, film, agrarian studies, violence, and animal studies. Her articles on peasant rebellion and on banditry in Riazan have appeared in the Journal of Social History and Canadian-American Slavic Studies as well as the edited volume, Contending with Stalinism: Soviet Power and Popular Resistance in the 1930s. She is the author of Face to the Village: The Riazan Countryside under Soviet Rule, 1921-1930 (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2011). In November 2012, her book received the ASEEES Reginald Zelnik Book Prize in History for outstanding monograph published on Russia, Eastern Europe or Eurasia in the field of history in 2011. Recent publications include a review article for the International Journal of Working Class History and a forthcoming article on violence and collectivization in Europe-Asia Studies. She was one of the three founding members of the independent documentary-film company Chemodan Films. Between 2004 and 2009, she participated in the making of four films including Province of Lost Film, Uprising, and Photographer.