France’s delay

Traditionally in France and elsewhere in Europe, Ukrainian studies has been considered a sub-discipline of Russian studies. Russia’s major attack on its neighbor in February 2022 has brought the unknown country of 45 million people into sharp focus. Two and a half years later, while most other major European countries have opened major centers of study specifically dedicated to Ukraine, France appears to be lagging behind.

In August 2022, a few months after Russia launched a full-scale war against Ukraine, I published an article in The Conversation that began with the following statement: “Ukraine’s foreign policy and the peculiarities of the Ukrainian mentality are little known in France.”

How has Ukraine research developed in France, as well as in some other major European countries, two years later? Has Ukraine become an object of study in its own right, or is it considered a theme to be studied primarily in terms of its relationship with Russia?

Rapid awareness in Poland, Germany and the UK

In Germany, from summer 2023, the University of Münster will bring together the various departments of Ukrainian Research and Studies (URSiM) in Münster, while the Viadrina University in Frankfurt/Oder, on the German border in Poland, will open the Viadrina Center for Polish and Ukrainian Studies (VCPU), the only one of its kind that studies both Ukrainian and Polish history. The center was established as a component of the university. This means that it will continue to function as such for as long as the Viadrina University exists.

The German Foreign Ministry will provide five million euros until 2028 for the development of two Ukrainian research centers, one in Regensburg and the other in Viadrina, which will be used to disseminate information about Ukraine in Germany, in order to coordinate the work of German researchers working on Ukraine, as well as to establish relations with Ukrainian scientists. They will also be useful to representatives of German institutions that will participate in the post-war reconstruction of Ukraine in the future.

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In the UK, this realisation is more gradual. In 2023, the University of Manchester became the first university in the English-speaking world to open a full professorship in Ukrainian politics, entrusted to political scientist Olga Onuch.

In Poland, Ukrainian political science studies are at a high level, and Polish experts working on Ukrainian politics all speak Ukrainian, which is not systematically the case elsewhere. Polish research centres such as the Centre for Oriental Studies (OSW), the Centre for East European Studies at the University of Warsaw (SEW UW) or the Centre for European Studies at the University of Lublin MK Sklodowska deal with the following themes: The whole of Eastern Europe devotes a large part to Ukrainian studies.

Their strategies for disseminating research results are interesting. For example, the East European Centre of MK Skłodowska University in Lublin simultaneously publishes collective monographs of Polish and Ukrainian researchers in Polish and Ukrainian, and some collections of scientific papers published in Lublin contain articles written by Ukrainian authors in Ukrainian and by their Polish colleagues in Polish.

Although there is no shortage of political scientists specializing in Ukrainian affairs in Poland, a Center for Ukrainian Studies (CSU) was established in 2022 on the initiative of Jan Malicki, director of (SEW UW). Given the importance of Polish-Ukrainian relations and the presence of a significant number of Ukrainian refugees in Poland (around 1 million today), this insightful decision is certainly worthwhile.

Interest in France has increased, but much remains to be done

After February 24, 2022, it became clear that interest in Ukraine in academia in France increased. In particular, a number of conferences, symposiums and roundtables on Ukraine were held in 2022 and 2023. But have permanent structures been created in France to analyze contemporary Ukraine?

We may see the launch of Coruscant, a research center on Russia that proposes to rethink the modes of knowledge production regarding Russia since the invasion of Ukraine, in October 2023. On the other hand, there is not yet a Center specifically dedicated to Ukraine, focusing on the analysis of this country’s security policy and its political and military aspects.

Will French doctoral students want to take up Ukrainian subjects if they are offered positions as lecturers only on Russian language and civilization, and not Ukrainian? It should be emphasized that the problem of Ukrainian studies concerns, first of all, political science, international relations and geopolitics, since France has a tradition of sociological research, and the study of foreign societies, including Ukrainian society, is carried out at a high level, as evidenced by the research of Anna Colin-Lebedev and Yulia Shukan, among others. Also at INALCO, Ukrainian language, literature, culture and history are taught, in particular by Iryna Dmytrychyn.

Read more: Ukraine is looking for its own history

But are the lectures on Ukrainian politics of interest to students? Referring to my teaching experience in France, my occasional lectures on the difficulties of the Russian-Ukrainian war and contemporary Ukrainian politics have generated great interest among students at the Paris Catholic Institute and Paris-Pantheon Assas University. On the other hand, the series of semester lectures on contemporary Ukraine was followed by only a few students in the 2022-2023 and 2023-2024 academic years.

In the context of a large-scale war in Europe unprecedented in the 21st century^to In the 2022 year, the study of Ukraine’s foreign and security policy and work on defense and development of the Armed Forces of Ukraine should attract the attention of at least a narrow circle of specialists. In 2022, I gave a series of continuing education courses on Ukraine’s foreign and security policy at INALCO to a group of young officers, most of whom had a keen interest in this training.

The course was prepared with the help of consultations with Ukrainian military analysts and led me to the conclusion that it is important for the future leadership of the French army not only to learn positive information about the forces of the Ukrainian army, but also to get to know themselves, ensuring transparency in the armed forces, corruption, the period when the potential of the Ukrainian army has significantly decreased and the next stage of military reforms, issues related to the training and transformation of the armed forces, and finally, understanding the unexpected success of the Ukrainian armed forces in response to Russian aggression, without mentioning purely technical points, such as the ingenuity of the Ukrainian Armed Forces or the importance of the Ukrainian air defense equipment, which, despite its obsolescence, played an important role during the war. However, there is no official interest in continuing to teach this course in French institutions.

Is there any closeness with Russia in academic and institutional areas?

As soon as Ukraine gained independence, French diplomats already emphasized that until 1991, Franco-Soviet cooperation was mainly carried out with Russia (almost 90% of exchanges) and therefore was given a very marginal place in Ukraine. When Ukraine became an independent state, the lack of French political scientists who could study Ukrainian-language sources played a negative role. Didn’t this contribute to the repetitive nature of Russian stories? A comprehensive analysis of Ukrainian issues should be carried out by political scientists who can study Ukrainian sources. Interesting works by young French researchers such as Adrien Nonjon show that the new generation of academics is fully capable of studying the most complex problems of Ukrainian reality.

Read more: Azov regiment, Ukrainian scarecrow at the heart of Russia’s “Nazification” narrative

Also among the many French researchers interested in the USSR and Russia themes, the work of French historian Daniel Beauvois stands out. The historian’s impartial perspective, based on careful analysis of archives and sources, has made this French academic one of the best experts on Ukrainian history. He has traveled to Ukraine several times and worked in archives, which makes him a good example for young French historians and political scientists interested in this field, especially since he avoids the pitfalls of manipulation and information warfare by relying on primary sources.

At this stage, Daniel Beauvois believes that there are too few historians among Ukrainian refugees in France to write books that would deconstruct the pro-Russian narratives that are still so prevalent in the media and academia.

Is it possible to develop in-depth and sustained studies of the security dimensions of contemporary Ukraine in France? This would require an awareness similar to that observed in Paris, Warsaw, Berlin or London, and we are currently far from that…