You Tube Theology

The Alfred Landecker Programme is pleased to host Dr Dmytro Vovk for a roundtable on the relationship between Ukrainian national identity and ethnic/religious plurality.

Ukraine has historically been home to a large number of ethnic, religious and ethno-religious identities, many of which are connected to specific regions within Ukraine.

When Western scholars speak of nation and nationalism, they often divide states between 'ethnic' or 'civic' nations: how do these designations map onto social realities in Ukraine? How is Ukrainian national identity shaping and being shaped by its internal plurality? And how has the Russian invasion impacted on internal discourses on identity and belonging? Which differences have become more important? And which differences less so? How is the role of Ukrainian national identity changing in domestic and international politics? And what are the opportunities and challenges that lay ahead?

Dr Dmytro Vovk runs the Centre for the Rule of Law and Religion Studies at the Yaroslav Mudryi National Law University (Kharkiv). As an expert in constitutional law and religious freedom, he is academic advisor to the Constitutional Court of Ukraine and the Ukrainian State Agency for Ethnic Policies and Freedom of Conscience. He has published extensively on law and religion, church-state relations, and the rule of law in post-Soviet countries. He is also a co-editor of BYU ICLRS’s blog 'Talk About: Law and Religion'.

Ms Liza Raichynets is a research assistant with the Alfred Landecker Programme. She has a graduate degree in Religious Studies from the Taras Shevchenko National University of Kyiv, specialising in philosophy or religion. She is interested in the role religion plays in the formation of (national) identity, as well as in political and military conflicts.

Dr Marietta van der Tol is the Landecker Postdoctoral Research Fellow. Her research interests include the relationship between religion, politics and society, and the role that political imaginaries play in the formation of law and public policy with regard to ethnic and religious minorities in Europe. She leads the international networking collaboration ‘Religion, ethnicity and politics in German, Dutch and Anglo-American contexts: nationalism and the future of democracy’.

Maya Tudor is Associate Professor of Government and Public Policy at the Blavatnik School of Government and her research focuses on nationalism and democracy.

Blavatnik School of Government,
University of Oxford
http://www.bsg.ox.ac.uk/