What We Can Learn from Ukraine’s Fight for Democracy

Experience the Event

Presented by The Nanovic Institute for European Studies

Historian Olesya Khromeychuk challenges us to view democracy not as a static inheritance, but as a grueling “learning curve” forged in resistance. Centering on the concept of “hope as an emergency tool,” Khromeychuk reveals how Ukraine’s “hopeless hope” offers a strategic blueprint for collective survival and democratic perseverance in an increasingly uncertain global order.

Speakers include:

• Clemens Sedmak (Director of the Nanovic Institute for European Studies, Notre Dame)
• Olesya Khromeychuk (Director of the Ukrainian Institute, London)
• Michael Pippenger (Vice President & Associate Provost for Internationalization, Notre Dame)

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: Olesya Khromeychuk

Olesya Khromeychuk, a historian and writer, has served as director of the Ukrainian Institute London since September 2020. She earned her Ph.D. in history from University College London and has taught East-Central European history at several institutions, including the University of Cambridge, University College London, the University of East Anglia, and King’s College London. In 2019, she also taught a special module at the Ukrainian Catholic University in Lviv. Dr. Khromeychuk has been widely published, including the books The Death of a Soldier Told by His Sister (2022) and ‘Undetermined’ Ukrainians: Post-War Narratives of the Waffen SS ‘Galicia’ Division (2013). Other writing has appeared in media publications such as The New York Times, The New York Review of Books, The Guardian, and Der Spiegel. In February 2024, she delivered a TED Talk entitled “What the World Can Learn from Ukraine’s Fight for Democracy.”

Meet the Speaker: Michael Pippenger

Michael Pippenger was appointed vice president and associate provost for internationalization at the University of Notre Dame in 2016. As the university’s chief international officer, he oversees Notre Dame’s global strategy to become the world’s premier Catholic research university. He leads Notre Dame Global, the division of over 225 people worldwide responsible for the university’s global operations and programs. This includes the management of 12 global locations as well as administrative teams for strategy, innovation and faculty research, international students and scholars, study abroad, communications, and travel health and safety. He chairs the University Committee on Internationalization, dedicated to providing good faculty governance and engagement in the university’s global work.

Meet the Moderator: 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.