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, digitisation, 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
University: University of Basel
Project Title: Defying Soviet Assimilation: Non-Titular Minorities in Post-Stalinist Transcarpathia and Lviv Oblast (1953–1982)
Year: 2025

In 2025, Julia Elena Grieder received funding for online archival research in Ukraine in support of her doctoral dissertation at the University of Basel. Her project, Defying Soviet Assimilation: Non-Titular Minorities in Post-Stalinist Transcarpathia and Lviv Oblast (1953–1982), examines how non-titular ethnic minorities—particularly Jewish, Hungarian, and Polish communities—responded to assimilation pressures, religious regulation, and national homogenization policies in Soviet Western Ukraine. Through the support of the German-Ukrainian Historical Commission, archival materials from Kyiv and Transcarpathia were digitized and incorporated into the project’s source base. These newly acquired sources contribute to the completion of the dissertation and ongoing research on minority agency, governance, and identity in late Soviet Ukraine.    

Christina Eiden, M.A.
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 digitisation 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.    

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 digitised and made accessible for research, substantially strengthening the empirical basis of the dissertation.    

Mykhailo Kostiuk
University / Institution: Lutsk National Technical University
Project Title: Germans of Volhynia during the Second World War (1939–1945)
Year: 2024

In 2024, Mykhailo Kostiuk received a research scholarship from the German-Ukrainian Historical Commission for the project “Germans of Volhynia during the Second World War (1939–1945)”. The project investigates the legal status, socio-economic conditions, migration processes, and cultural life of the German minority in Volhynia during the Second World War, with particular attention to the resettlement of Volhynian Germans to the Warthegau and later to Germany. During his research stay, the scholar worked at the Bundesarchiv in Berlin, the Political Archive of the Federal Foreign Office, the Bavarian State Library, the Martin Opitz Library in Herne, and several research institutions in Munich, Göttingen, and Berlin. Particularly valuable were newly identified archival materials concerning Nazi resettlement policies, the activities of German-Soviet relocation commissions, the adaptation of Volhynian Germans in the Warthegau, and their post-war experiences. The research significantly expanded the project’s source base, systematized German-language historiography on the topic, and laid the foundation for further scholarly publications on the history of Volhynian Germans in the twentieth century.    

Khrystyna Mereniuk
University / Institution: I. Krypiakevych Institute of Ukrainian Studies, National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine (PhD Candidate)
Project Title: The Portrayal of Bellatores from Rus’ in Medieval German Literature and Historical Narrative Sources
Year: 2024

In 2024, Khrystyna Mereniuk received a research scholarship from the German-Ukrainian Historical Commission for a project devoted to the representation of warriors from Rus’ (bellatores from Rus’) in medieval German literature and historical narratives. The project forms part of her doctoral dissertation on the tournament culture of Rus’ in the twelfth to fourteenth centuries and explores perceptions of Rus’ian princes, nobles, and warriors in the medieval German cultural sphere. During her research stay in Berlin, the scholar worked at the Humboldt University Library, the Berlin State Library, and the Berlin State Archive, examining medieval manuscripts, chronicles, and literary works containing references to Rus’ and Rus’ian warriors. Of particular importance were materials from Jans Enikel’s World Chronicle and medieval German heroic poems, which revealed unique miniatures and descriptions of the participation of Rus’ian rulers in knightly tournaments. As a result of the research, several scholarly articles were prepared on the image of the “Rus’ian king” in medieval European traditions and the participation of Rus’ian elites in the chivalric culture of Central Europe.    

Hanna Malaia
University / Institution: Institute of History of Ukraine, National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine
Project Title: Memoirs as a Source for the Study of the Dissident Movement in Soviet Ukraine (1960s–1980s)
Year: 2024

In 2024, Hanna Malaia received a research scholarship from the German-Ukrainian Historical Commission for a research stay at the Research Centre for East European Studies (Forschungsstelle Osteuropa) at the University of Bremen. Her project focuses on memoirs as a source for studying the Ukrainian dissident movement of the 1960s–1980s, with particular attention to identity formation, political worldviews, and intellectual practices among members of the Soviet Ukrainian opposition. During her stay, the researcher worked with collections of ego-documents, memoirs, and samizdat materials preserved in the archival and library holdings of the Bremen Research Centre. The study of materials by Ukrainian dissidents, including Ivan Hel, the Horyn brothers, Valentyn Moroz, Mykola Rudenko, and Ivan Svitlychnyi, significantly expanded the source base of the dissertation and helped refine its conceptual framework. An important outcome of the fellowship was the strengthening of the methodological approach to studying the Ukrainian dissident movement within a broader European context of resistance to totalitarianism and the struggle for human rights.