Ukraine: History of Civil Society

This course presents social and political events and processes that occurred when the Ukrainian civil society was forming.

On February 24, 2022, the global attention was focused on Ukraine. Then organized civil society started its aid to Ukrainian armed forces, which surprised not only foreigners but even Ukrainians themselves.

How did Ukrainian society prove to be stable, self-organized, and capable of effective resistance to a much greater threat? Why have Ukrainians united, acted, and gone to street protests starting from the early 90s? What values did they protect?

This course will help you understand the nature of Ukrainian revolutions and the phenomenon of mass resistance, and also values motivating Ukrainians to act in the context of their independence.

In this course, you will learn:

• a short historical insight into the manifestation of Ukrainian values from the 1990s until now;

• Orange Revolution, its prerequisites, course of events, and main participants;

• establishment and development of independent Ukrainian media;

• the reasons and prerequisites of the Revolution of Dignity – a protest that transformed the entire state system of rules and the institutional environment;

• the concept of multiculturalism and its implementation in Ukraine;

• the political and public life of Crimean Tatars in Ukraine, as well as Russia's crimes on the territory of Crimea;

• the history of Ukrainian civil movements and communities in the East of Ukraine;

• the power and influence of the society's unity during crisis.

PRESENTERS

Kateryna Zarembo

• PhD, Research Fellow at the Central European University and the Technical University of Darmstadt, Associated Fellow at the New Europe Center

Tymofii Brik

• PhD, Rector at the Kyiv School of Economics

COURSE AUTHORS:

Oleksandra Matviichuk

• human rights lawyer and chair of the Center for Civil Liberties organization, was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2022

Vakhtang Kebuladze

• Doctor of Phi...