Yale University history professor Timothy Snyder, history professor and director of the Ukrainian Research Institute at Harvard University Serhiy Plokhii, Ukrainian Catholic University professor Yaroslav Hrytsak and dozens of other scientists are launching the project "Ukrainian History: Global Initiative".
Its goal is to investigate the deep history of the lands of modern Ukraine and the peoples who inhabited them for three years. About 50 Ukrainian and 40 international scientists will work on the project. Most of the participants are historians, but experts in natural history, zoology, paleontology and archeology will also be involved. Researchers will work on 70 topics, from the prehistory of Ukrainian lands to the present.
In particular, they will study the origin of human settlements, the spread of Indo-European languages, the relationship between classical Greece and the Black Sea region, Europe of the Viking Age, Byzantium and Kyiv, the Renaissance and the Reformation, as well as modern issues of nation-building and empire.
The project will be managed by the International Academic Advisory Council, which will include, in particular, politician and diplomat Karl Bildt, Metropolitan-Archbishop of the Ukrainian Catholic Archdiocese of Philadelphia Borys Gudziak, Pulitzer Prize laureate Anne Applebaum, poet Serhiy Zhadan and project initiator businessman Viktor Pinchuk.
"This project is in no way a response to Russian propaganda. Do not confuse history with counter-propaganda. Counter-propaganda helps to better resist propaganda and separate it from the truth. If this was Russiaʼs response, it would be evil, aggressive, and the impulse of this project is creative," historian Timothy Snyder told Babel.
Read more about the "Ukrainian History: Global Initiative" project later in Snyderʼs interview for Babel.