Berkeley Secures $3 Million Grant to Launch Ukrainian Studies Chair
The Department of Slavic Languages and Literatures at the University of California, Berkeley, is raising funds to establish a Ukrainian Studies Department. So far, they have already received a $3 million grant from the Open Society Foundations, and by the summer of 2025, they should raise the same amount.
This was announced by Oleh Kotsiuba, head of the Publications Department at Harvard University's Ukrainian Research Institute.
In a statement, the university noted that the Russian invasion has made it critical to deepen and disseminate knowledge about Ukraine. Aware of the need for more Ukrainian language instruction, the Slavic Studies Department recently hired a new faculty member and intends to officially add Ukrainian to its majors and minors.
By the summer of 2025, Berkeley has to raise another $3 million to form the department. After that, the university will make an additional contribution of the same amount, which will provide funding in perpetuity and ensure that Ukrainian scholars will always have a home in Berkeley.
If successful, Berkeley scholars hope that the chair will develop a programme that will eventually become the Centre for Ukrainian Studies.
‘Ukraine's struggle for freedom has taught us that it has its own independent traditions that require real expertise to understand. The potential impact of a chair at Berkeley is the highest imaginable,’ said John Connelly, professor of European history.
Among Berkeley's Slavic scholars are Czeslaw Milosz, winner of the 1980 Nobel Prize in Literature, and David Frick, the most prominent authority on early modern Poland, Ukraine, and Lithuania.
‘The Department of Slavic Languages and Literatures has an illustrious reputation that goes back generations. I can't imagine the last quarter-century without Milos and Frick, and I urgently need someone to take over,’ Connelly adds.
The Department of Slavic Languages and Literatures at the University of California, Berkeley was founded in 1901 and is considered one of the best programmes for its breadth of coverage and interdisciplinary approach to Slavic, East European and Eurasian studies.