“The past helps us understand what is happening today and what could happen tomorrow. History demonstrates how society has overcome problems. It’s necessary to understand how to use this knowledge to one’s advantage.” – Canadian historian and professor of Oxford University Margaret MacMillan.
The opening of the Mykola Haievoi Center for Modern History. Margaret MacMillan gave the inaugural lecture.
On 17 October in Lviv, the Mykola Haievoi Center for Modern History had its ceremonial opening. The center was jointly founded by Ukrainian Catholic University and Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich. The center is named in honor of a young historian and graduate of the UCU Humanities Faculty, a doctoral candidate who perished in the Kursk area on 27 August 2024. The hero was 28 years old. The Modern History Center will research the history of Ukraine and Europe in the 20th century.
Professor Margaret MacMillan, a Canadian historian who teaches at Oxford University, was a special guest at the ceremonies. She gave the inaugural lecture, “Using History to Understand the Present.”
The opening of the Mykola Haievoi Center for Modern History
The center’s administrative director, Marianna Pyrih, explained how in the beginning they planned to name the center in honor of Raphael Lemkin, a law scholar who first introduced the word “genocide” as a legal concept. Mykola Haievoi was a young historian, UCU graduate, and doctoral candidate who was to become a researcher at the center. But this was not meant to be. War ended Mykola’s life: on 27 August 2024 he perished in the Kursk area. The hero was only 28 years old. After the terrible news, the team from Ukraine approached their German partners with a proposal to name the institution in honor of Mykola Haievoi. Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich supported this initiative.
The center’s director, Prof. Yaroslav Hrytsak, stated that the historians who will work at the center know firsthand about war. In particular, these are friends of Mykola Haievoi: Mykhaylo Martynenko, a soldier in Ukraine’s army (2022-2023) and junior researcher at the Mykola Haievoi Center for Modern History; soldier Maksym Osadchuk, a doctoral candidate at the UCU Humanities Faculty; and Ulyana Kyrchiv, a junior researcher at the center whose husband is serving in the army.
Yaroslav Hrytsak
Yaroslav Hrytsak thanked Natalia, Mykola Haievoi’s mother, who traveled from Uzhhorod for the center’s opening: “We will always remember Mykola and do everything to be worthy of his name.”
The historian emphasized that projects like the Mykola Haievoi Center for Modern History are important: “Individual and collective trauma, the challenges of just peace and security, war and ecological damage, transitional justice, the renewal of cultural heritage, management of migration and the coordination of humanitarian aid – through joint research projects like this, Ukrainian scholars can become aware that they have access to unique data and that their being in Ukraine can give them a competitive advantage in conducting research.”
The opening of the Mykola Haievoi Center for Modern History
Temporary Chargé d’Affaires of the Federal Republic of Germany in Ukraine Dr. Tim Prange stated that he was quite impressed by a video prepared in memory of Mykola Haievoi and presented at the center’s opening. He emphasized that we have a great obligation to the heroes who are serving. In his opinion, the opening of the Ukrainian-German center for researching history is exceptionally important. This will encourage deeper international cooperation between our two countries.
Assistant Minister of Education and Science Mykhaylo Vynnytskyj recalled that the agreement to create the center was reached 12 hours before Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine. It is important that no one refused this international scholarly cooperation. Also, in his speech, Mykhaylo Vynnytskyj mentioned the fact that Mykola Hayevoy, just like Minister of Education Oksen Lisovyj, served in the same 95th brigade: “I think this is symbolic. This shows that we are a community of perseverance and memory,” emphasized Mykhaylo Vynnytskyj. “We must win the war and re-build the country.”
Mykhaylo Vynnytskyj
The opening of the Mykola Haievoi Center for Modern History
UCU Rector Taras Dobko stated that it is important that international universities not only invite Ukrainian scholars for internships but that they also offer various forms of support, so that they can remain at home and continue their scholarly activities.
“Joint research projects will help decrease ‘brain drain.’ Ukraine today is one of the most interesting places for study and research, where it’s possible to study questions of global significance. I believe that the Center for Modern History will be important for the development of Ukrainian scholars and their careers in Ukraine,” stated Taras Dobko.
Bernd Huber, Rector of Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich, and Jens Brandenburg, a representative of the Ministry of Education and Research of Germany, joined the event online. Bernd Huber wished fruitful cooperation for the Ukrainian and German colleagues. Jens Brandenburg added that the goal of the center will be to disprove myths about war.
Professor of History Martin Schulze Wessel from Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich emphasized: “The Ukrainian army must receive greater support from the Western community of states. In the far right or far-left parties in Germany and other European countries, there is a growing tendency to demand a peace that is not based on justice, in other words Putin’s peace. This is a position that is detached from reality in Ukraine and also from reality in Germany. Putin has long since set his sights on Germany using hybrid warfare. As the President of the German Federal Intelligence Service Bruno Kahl stated to the Bundestag earlier this week [14 October – editor]: “We are in a direct confrontation with Russia.” If the West does not support Ukraine effectively, Russia’s war will come to the west.”
Martin Schulze Wessel
During the opening of the center at UCU, Professor Margaret MacMillan, a Canadian historian who teaches at Oxford University, gave the inaugural lecture, “Using History to Understand the Present.”
Margaret MacMillan
Professor MacMillan, the former rector of Trinity College in Toronto and professor of history at the University of Toronto and Ryerson University, is an expert in history and international relations. She is the author of the book “War: How Conflict Shaped Us,” which has also been translated into the Ukrainian language.
We include a few points from Margaret MacMillan’s lecture:
Ukrainians, you inspire hope. You are experiencing war, and to be together with you now is a great honor for me.
What is happening here [war – editor] has great significance for Ukraine, Ukrainians, and for the whole world. We, the rest of the world, cannot allow ourselves to ignore this.
Information wars, which have always been part of war, are, I think, more important now than ever before, through the power of social media.
The past helps us understand what is happening today and what could happen tomorrow. Not everything that we are facing is new. We know this from history. Turning to the past, we can see how society has overcome problems. But it’s necessary to understand how to use this knowledge to one’s advantage.
History reminds us of the importance of humility. We are not always smarter than people in the past. We don’t always do things better than they did. We often do worse and make mistakes.
We thought that after 1945 the epoch of empires had ended. But in many senses, Russia never stopped being an empire. Other European empires disappeared, but it did not.
It’s impossible to understand other people without knowing their history. We cannot understand why Russia behaves how it behaves today without understanding its history.
If Russia’s illegal aggression against Ukraine is unpunished, it will encourage, in particular, the Russians themselves, who have new goals for other countries and who make territorial demands on their neighbors, to wage conflicts throughout the world.
