Culture War: Soft Power, Memory, and Identity in the Fight for Ukraine

Ian Kujit, professor in the Department of Anthropology at the University of Notre Dame moderates a panel of speakers who explore the emblems of resistance informing the identity of the Ukraine of tomorrow.

Speakers include:

• Olga Filippova (V.N. Karazin Kharkiv National University): “Ukrainian Forced Migrants in Finnish Memoryscapes: How ‘Immigration into History’ Sparks Reconsideration of the Past and Self-Identity”
• Olena Kovalenko (Ukrainian Institute in Kyiv): “Ukraine’s Wartime Cultural Diplomacy: Between Threats and Hope”
• Khrystyna Kozak (Notre Dame): “Incorporating Memory and Narrative into the Register of Damages for Ukraine (RD4U)”
• Mykola Riabchuk (Institute of Political and Nationalities’ Studies of the Academy of Sciences of Ukraine): “When the Soft Turns Hard: Cancel-Culture Controversy during the Russian-Ukrainian War”

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