Click here to view the LIVE webcast of this event starting at 9 a.m.

In the wake of Euromaidan, Germany has played a leading role in shaping Western policies toward the long and perhaps frozen conflict between Moscow and Kyiv. With its leading position in the EU, economic relations with Eastern Europe, and close historical ties with Russia and Ukraine, Germany was fated to play a major role in dealing with the crisis in the East. But this has not proven a simple task. Russia’s disregard for the Budapest Memorandum and its annexation of the Crimea have undermined the German policy of promoting secure, stable, and predictable relations between Russia and the EU. Decades of a German Ostpolitik, based on constructive engagement with the Soviet Union/Russia, have been threatened, as Berlin has found less and less common ground with Moscow. At the same time, Germany’s relative neglect of Ukraine in the past has been replaced by new attention to Kyiv and the Ukrainian internal politics.

In its two panel sessions, the workshop will explore both (1) historical relations between Germany and the states and societies located on the territories of contemporary Russia and Ukraine and (2) the sources and evolution of contemporary German policy on the confrontation in the East. The historical panel will consider, inter alia, why most German historians and intellectuals have concentrated on Russia to the neglect of Ukraine. In Germany’s memory culture, one of the most developed and self-critical in the world, Ukraine plays a relatively small role, despite the important impact of Germany on Ukrainian affairs during World War I and the fact that a significant part of Germany’s war of extermination and the Holocaust during World War II took place on the territory of Ukraine. The contemporary panel will address Germany’s cautious response to the Orange Revolution and Euromaidan, notwithstanding their similarities to the 1989 demonstrations in Leipzig and East Berlin. Arguably, the United States and Canada have been more ready to accept Ukraine as a sovereign state and autonomous society than has Germany. In short, the workshop will discuss both the complex history of Ukrainian-German relations and the ‘German factor’ in today’s crisis and ask what has changed in Germany as a result of the nearly two years of Ukrainian-Russian conflict.
 
Workshop Schedule

9:15: Welcome and opening of workshop

9:30-12:00 Panel one: Thinking about the History of Germany and Russia/Ukraine

Chair: Professor Paul Robert Magocsi (University of Toronto)

Presenters:

Professor Yaroslav Hrytsak (Ukrainian Catholic University)
Professor James Casteel (Carleton University)

1:30 to 4:00 Panel two: Contemporary Relations

Chair: Professor Volodymyr Kravchenko (University of Alberta)

Presenters:
Professor Klaus Segbers (Free University of Berlin)
Professor Constanze Stelzenmueller (Brookings)
Professor Alexander Motyl (Rutgers University)

This event will be broadcast live:
Link: http://hosting2.desire2learncapture.com/MUNK/1/live/353.aspx
Time: Oct 29th 2015 @ 9.15 am