Culture at War: Ukrainian Revolution, Russian Fascism, European Decolonization

In his lecture, Vasyl Cherepanyn, the director of the award-winning Visual Culture Research Center in Kyiv, will analyze the cultural and societal context in Ukraine under the conditions of Russia’s war of annihilation and occupation of the country, putting this new catastrophic reality into the perspective of Europe at large. The idea of a free Europe, that came to being on the basis of anti-Nazism, is now existentially threatened by Russian state fascism. Discussing the recent as well as historical experiences of imperialism, anti-colonialism, authoritarianism, and revolution, the talk addresses European destinies in the realm of memory politics and traces how political, social, and artistic antagonisms have developed on a pan-European scale from the perspective of a civically engaged cultural institution.

Vasyl Cherepanyn (Ukraine, 1980) is Head of the Visual Culture Research Center (VCRC), an institution he cofounded in Kyiv in 2008 as a platform for collaboration among academic, artistic, and activist communities.

Introduction to the lecture series by Moritz Ege, professor of cultural studies at ISEK - Department of Social Anthropology and Cultural Studies, Popular Culture Studies, University of Zurich