Stipeniaten und Stipendiatinnen
Hannah Steckelberg
University: University of Vienna
Project Title: Violence in Urban–Rural Relations in Revolutionary Ukraine
Year: 2025
In 2025, Hannah Steckelberg received a scholarship for online archival services in support of her doctoral project at the University of Vienna. Her dissertation examines violence in urban–rural relations during the Ukrainian Revolution, with a particular focus on Otaman movements and the interactions between peasant insurgencies and urban populations. The project investigates how violence shaped relationships between cities and rural regions in revolutionary Ukraine and addresses an important historiographical gap concerning local power dynamics and paramilitary formations. Through the support of the German-Ukrainian Historical Commission, archival materials from Ukrainian state archives were digitized and made accessible for research, substantially strengthening the empirical basis of the dissertation.
Dr Oksana Prokopyuk
University: Goethe University Frankfurt am Main
Project Title: The History of Pre-Modern Kyivan Christianities
Year: 2025
In 2025, Dr. Oksana Prokopyuk received funding from the German-Ukrainian Historical Commission for her research project The History of Pre-Modern Kyivan Christianities, conducted at Goethe University Frankfurt am Main within the framework of the DFG-funded Centre of Advanced Studies Polycentricity and Plurality of Premodern Christianities (POLY). The project explores the religious diversity, plurality, and interconnectedness of Christian communities in Ukraine and East-Central Europe from the twelfth to the eighteenth century through an innovative polycentric research approach. DUHK/УНІК funding supported archival services, digitization, and English translations of historical sources for an international sourcebook, making key materials on Kyivan Christianities accessible to a broader scholarly audience. The project contributes significantly to international scholarship on Eastern Christianity, religious plurality, and the cultural history of Ukraine.
Dr Jakob Stürmann
University: Leipzig University
Project Title: Excitement, Uncertainty, and Nostalgia. Everyday Objects of Soviet-Jewish Refuseniks
Year: 2025
Dr. Jakob Stürmann received a scholarship from the German-Ukrainian Historical Commission in 2025 for archival research related to his habilitation project Excitement, Uncertainty, and Nostalgia. Everyday Objects of Soviet-Jewish Refuseniks. Conducted at Leipzig University, the project investigates Soviet-Jewish migration experiences through the lens of material culture, focusing on everyday objects and personal belongings of Soviet Jewish refuseniks. Particular attention is given to urban Jewish communities in Soviet Ukraine, including Kyiv, Odesa, and Kharkiv. Despite the challenges posed by Russia’s ongoing war against Ukraine, the scholarship enabled the acquisition of archival materials from Ukrainian archives and the identification of previously unexplored sources. The project contributes to new perspectives on late Soviet Jewish history, migration, and Ukrainian-Jewish entanglements.
Julia Elena Grieder
Universität: Universität Basel
Projekttitel: Defying Soviet Assimilation: Non-Titular Minorities in Post-Stalinist Transcarpathia and Lviv Oblast (1953–1982)
Jahr: 2025
Julia Elena Grieder erhielt im Jahr 2025 eine Förderung für digitale Archivrecherchen in der Ukraine im Rahmen ihres Dissertationsprojekts an der Universität Basel. Das Projekt Defying Soviet Assimilation: Non-Titular Minorities in Post-Stalinist Transcarpathia and Lviv Oblast (1953–1982) untersucht, wie nicht-titulare ethnische Minderheiten – insbesondere jüdische, ungarische und polnische Gemeinschaften – auf Assimilationsdruck, religiöse Reglementierungen und staatliche Homogenisierungspolitiken in der poststalinistischen Westukraine reagierten. Durch die Förderung der Deutsch-Ukrainischen Historischen Kommission konnten Archivbestände aus Kyjiw und Transkarpatien digitalisiert und in den Quellenkorpus des Projekts integriert werden. Die neu erschlossenen Materialien leisten einen wichtigen Beitrag zur Fertigstellung der Dissertation sowie zur Erforschung von Minderheiten, Agency und Governance in der späten Sowjetukraine.
M.A. Christina Eiden
University: University of Augsburg
Project Title: “Brandstiftung, ‘seniler Marasmus’ und Delinquenz” – Socioeconomic and Medical-Historical Analysis of Psychiatric Documents in the 19th and 20th Centuries
Year: 2025
Christina Eiden received support from the German-Ukrainian Historical Commission in 2025 for archival research related to her doctoral project on the history of psychiatry in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Her research focuses on the comparative analysis of psychiatric institutions in Bavaria and the former Habsburg region of Bukovina, with particular attention to the Bukovinian State Psychiatric Institution in Chernivtsi. The project investigates psychiatric diagnoses, institutional practices, and the socio-economic backgrounds of patients in changing political and social contexts. DUHK/УНІК funding enabled the digitization of archival materials from Chernivtsi, including administrative documents and patient-related records, thereby contributing to research on medical and social history in East-Central Europe and the Habsburg borderlands.
Olesia Isaiuk
University / Institution: National Museum-Memorial “Prison on Lontskoho” (Lviv, Ukraine)
Project Title: A Family Drama Amid Political Conflicts: Dilemmas Surrounding the Death of the Bandera Brothers in Auschwitz Concentration Camp
Year: 2025
In 2025, Olesia Isaiuk received a research scholarship from the German-Ukrainian Historical Commission to conduct archival research in Germany on the circumstances surrounding the deaths of Vasyl and Oleksandr Bandera, brothers of Stepan Bandera, in Auschwitz concentration camp. The project aimed to reassess established interpretations of this case, examining it not only as an episode of political conflict but also as a complex intersection of Nazi violence, Polish-Ukrainian relations, and internal dynamics within the concentration camp system. During her research stay, the scholar worked in Berlin archives, including the Federal Archives (Bundesarchiv) and the Political Archive of the German Federal Foreign Office, examining materials related to the administration of Auschwitz, Nazi institutions, and the security apparatus of the Third Reich. Although several research questions remain open, the project significantly deepened the understanding of the historical context and raised new questions concerning camp decision-making processes, interethnic tensions, and internal power structures within Auschwitz.
Illia Parshyn
University / Institution: Ivan Franko National University of Lviv
Project Title: German Ambassadors and Diplomats at the Court of the Princes of Galicia-Volhynian State in the 13th–14th Centuries
Year: 2025
In 2025, Illia Parshyn received a research scholarship from the German-Ukrainian Historical Commission for a project devoted to diplomatic relations between the Galicia-Volhynian State and German political elites in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. The project focused on a prosopographical study of German envoys and diplomats at the court of the Romanovychi dynasty and sought to reassess the place of medieval Rus’ within broader European diplomatic networks. During his research stay in Berlin, the scholar worked at the Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin and the Geheimes Staatsarchiv Preußischer Kulturbesitz, examining medieval charters, genealogical sources, and materials related to the Teutonic Order. The research enabled the clarification of the diplomatic role of members of the Schwarzburg family in contacts with the Romanovychi and identified new evidence concerning dynastic alliances and political relations between Rus’ian princes and German elites. The project contributes to overcoming Soviet historiographical stereotypes and offers new perspectives on the European dimension of medieval Ukrainian diplomacy.
Anastasiia Chumakovska
University / Institution: Borys Grinchenko Kyiv Metropolitan University
Project Title: Socio-Political Camp Periodicals in the Activities of Roman Rakhmannyi (Based on Archival and Library Collections of the Ukrainian Free University in Munich, 1945–1948)
Year: 2025
In 2025, Anastasiia Chumakovska received a scholarship from the German-Ukrainian Historical Commission to conduct research at the archives of the Ukrainian Free University (UFU) in Munich. The project examined the contribution of Roman Rakhmannyi (Oliinyk) to the development of Ukrainian displaced persons’ camp press in post-war Germany and explored his role as editor, publicist, and organizer of the Ukrainian émigré information sphere. During her archival work, the researcher analyzed multilingual bulletins of the Ukrainian Press Service, systematized a corpus of Rakhmannyi’s publications, and investigated the development of key Ukrainian camp periodicals, including Chas and Ukrainska Trybuna. An important outcome of the scholarship was the completion and publication of a scholarly article on Rakhmannyi’s editorial and journalistic activity in the newspaper Chas (1945–1948), based on materials from the UFU archives in Munich. The project makes an important contribution to the study of post-war Ukrainian emigration, media history, and the intellectual life of displaced persons in Germany after the Second World War.