Viadrina Center of Polish and Ukrainian Studies

Founded in July 2023, the Viadrina Center of Polish and Ukrainian Studies (VCPU) merges the Center for Interdisciplinary Polish Studies and the Chair for Entangled History of Ukraine into a new research institution at the European University Viadrina. The VCPU focuses on interdisciplinary research on Polish and Ukrainian history and the present day, as well as on the transfer of science-based and up-to-date knowledge about Poland and Ukraine to the public.

Interdisciplinary conferences, workshops, open lectures, summer academies, research trips as well as university lectures and seminars by the VCPU’s academic staff and international guest researchers, several publication series, an academic blog and a YouTube channel stimulate research on Poland and Ukraine and underline the special role of the Viadrina as a place of European intellectual exchange.

The agenda includes an analysis of the local and European dimensions of memory in border regions, as well as the presentation of best practices relating to local memory policies, cross-border knowledge transfer and opportunities for forming transnational communities of memory. Academics and practitioners (local activists, representatives of civil society and those working in education) from Germany, Poland and Ukraine are invited to attend.

Poland and Its Neighbours in the 20th and 21st Centuries revisits methods, assumptions, and priorities in research on Central and Eastern Europe. Drawing on interdisciplinary case studies on memory, migration and wars, it argues for a nuanced understanding of the region’s past and present. The authors show that classical epistemologies, regional entanglements and materialist analyses remain indispensable. They trace convergences between Poland and its neighbours, Russia and its opponents, national projects and global processes, as well as symbolic struggles and material interests.