Freedom's Liberator: Taras Shevchenko and the Making of Modern Ukraine
The roots of modern Ukraine are the rhythms and rhymes of Taras Shevchenko (1814-1861). His innovative poetry has long been Ukraine’s source code, a cultural algorithm in pursuit of personal, national, and universal human freedom. Today it helps fuel widespread grassroots resistance against a Russian war of aggression and conquest that threatens all of Europe.
Experience the Event
Presented by The Nanovic Institute for European Studies
The roots of modern Ukraine are the rhythms and rhymes of Taras Shevchenko (1814-1861). His innovative poetry has long been Ukraine’s source code, a cultural algorithm in pursuit of personal, national, and universal human freedom. Today it helps fuel widespread grassroots resistance against a Russian war of aggression and conquest that threatens all of Europe. Rory Finnin, professor of Ukrainian Studies at the University of Cambridge, places Shevchenko’s work in the context of a long Ukrainian anticolonial struggle against Russian imperialism. Through close readings, he examines Shevchenko’s fierce “solidarity with the subaltern” and explores coded mysteries in his painting and poetry, where freedom is depicted as buried and entombed, awaiting rescue.
Revolutions of Hope: Resilience and Recovery in Ukraine is a collaboration between Notre Dame’s Nanovic Institute, part of the Keough School of Global Affairs, and Ukrainian Catholic University (UCU). The conference, hosted at the University of Notre Dame in March 2025, focused on the positive and corrective response to this destruction, exploring reasons for hope, sources of hope, and the politics and ethics of hope in Ukraine. How is hope powerful or even revolutionary? How does it encourage resilience and recovery? And, above all, how can we build and promote the integral development of hope in Ukraine? The conference explored the concept, dynamics, and practices of hope through keynote addresses, panel discussions, the arts, and liturgical observances. For more information visit the event website.
Co-sponsors included:
- Department of German, Slavic, and Eurasian Studies
- Kellogg Institute for International Studies
- Kroc Institute for International Peace Studies
- Notre Dame Democracy Initiative
- Notre Dame Global
- Office of the President, University of Notre Dame
- The Program of Creative Writing
- Raclin Murphy Museum of Art
- Ukrainian Catholic University
Meet the Speaker: Rory Finnin
Rory Finnin established the Cambridge Ukrainian Studies program in 2008. Finnin has curated and organized over 40 exhibitions and cultural events, advancing public understanding of Ukraine’s language, history, and society in the UK and beyond. His research focuses on the interplay between culture and identity in Ukraine, with particular attention to Crimea and Crimean Tatar literature, and his broader interests include nationalism studies, solidarity studies, and cultural memory in the region of the Black Sea. Finnin received his Ph.D. in Slavic languages and comparative literature from Columbia University. He is also a Returned Peace Corps Volunteer (Ukraine, 1995-97). Finnin has published extensively, and his book, Blood of Others: Stalin’s Crimean Atrocity and the Poetics of Solidarity (University of Toronto Press), has received eight international awards, including the 2024 Laura Shannon Prize in Contemporary European Studies, administered by the University of Notre Dame’s Nanovic Institute for European Studies. Professor Finnin has also served as Head of the Department of Slavonic Studies and Chair of the Cambridge Committee for Russian and East European Studies.
Meet the Faculty: Clemens Sedmak
Clemens Sedmak is a professor of Social Ethics and the director of the Nanovic Institute for European Studies in the Keough School of Global Affairs at the University of Notre Dame.
Sedmak is a concurrent professor at Notre Dame’s Center for Social Concerns. Before coming to Notre Dame, Sedmak was the FD Maurice Professor for Moral Theology and Social Theology at King’s College London. He has held multiple positions at the University of Salzburg, serving as Director of the Center for Ethics and Poverty Research and Chair for Epistemology and Philosophy of Religion. Sedmak also was President of the Institute for Advanced Studies in Social Ethics in Salzburg.
Sedmak holds doctoral degrees in philosophy, theology and social theory. Born in Austria, he has studied at the University of Innsbruck, the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich (ETH Zurich), Maryknoll (New York) and the University of Linz. He has been a visiting professor at the Jomo Kenyatta University in Nairobi, the Ateneo de Manila University in the Philippines, the University of Jena in Germany, the Vienna Business University, and the Universidad Iberoamericana in Mexico City.