Winter School on Ukrainian Studies in Munich: Linguistics, Migration, and Interdisciplinary Perspectives
From 23 to 27 March 2026, Munich hosted the international winter school “Ukrainian Migration in Europe and Globally in the 20th–21st Century”, an interdisciplinary academic platform that brought together scholars in linguistics, literary studies, history, and migration research.
It is a joint initiative of the Centre for Interdisciplinary Ukrainian Studies Think Space Ukraine / Denkraum Ukraine(University of Regensburg), with the support of DAAD Ukraine and the German Federal Foreign Office, the Ukrainian Free University (Munich), the Bukovina Institute at the University of Augsburg, Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich (LMU), and Leibniz Institute for East and Southeast European Studies (IOS) Regensburg.
The programme combined thematic academic panels with public events, addressing key dimensions of Ukrainian migration in both historical and contemporary contexts. Among the central thematic blocks were “Ukrainian Prague in the Interwar Period: History and Literature”, “Language and Migration: Teaching Ukrainian in Germany”, “Life Trajectories of Ukrainian DPs” and “Post-1945 Literary Trajectories: From DP-Camps to University Campus in North America”, “Global Villagers: Ukrainian Migration to North America in the 20th Century”, “Ukrainian Migration to Latin America”, “Ukrainian Migration to Canada after 1991”. These sessions highlighted the intersection of linguistic practices, literary production, and socio-political transformations within Ukrainian diasporic communities.
A dedicated linguistic panel, “From Displacement to Global Presence: Ukrainian as a Foreign Language in Migration Contexts,” addressed the evolving status of Ukrainian in the context of forced migration and global mobility. The discussion focused on Ukrainian as a “mobility-shaped language”, not confined to diaspora niches, horizontal language transmission, not just top-down instruction. It also covered methodological challenges in teaching Ukrainian as a foreign language to diverse learner groups, including displaced persons, heritage speakers, and international students, emphasizing the need for new pedagogical models that integrate sociolinguistic variation and multilingual environments (presentation by Solomija Buk, department of general linguistics Ivan Franko National University of Lviv, researcher at Jena University; chair Alexander Kratochvil (Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich))
The winter school gathered a wide network of scholars representing leading European and international institutions. Among them were researchers affiliated with the University of Regensburg and Think Space Ukraine — G. Hausmann, O. Zabirko, O. Turkevych, K. Boeckh; Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich — A. Kratochvil, M. Kaltenbrunner; Ukrainian Free University (Munich) — L. Didkovska, T. Hundorova, D. Shevchenko; University of Augsburg and Bukovina Institute — J. Osterkamp, T. Hoggan-Kloubert; University of Alberta / Canadian Institute of Ukrainian Studies — Serge Cipko, Natalia Khanenko-Friesen.
Further contributions were made by M. Rohde (University of Vienna), S. Grandke (Heidelberg University), A. Zhelnovach (V. N. Karazin Kharkiv National University), K. Kobchenko (University of Münster / Ukrainian Free University), P. Barvinska (Odesa Ushynsky National Pedagogical University / University of Regensburg), Tamara Hundurova (Wissenschaftskolleg zu Berlin / Ukrainian Free University), and F. Davies (Leibniz Centre for Contemporary History Potsdam). The programme also included contributions from practitioners and representatives of international organizations, such as O. Dub-Büssenschütt, V. von Cramon-Taubadel, and Vitório Sorotiuk, as well as cultural figures including M. Gaponenko and A. Seitableiev.
The academic programme was complemented by public discussions and cultural events, including the panel “Russia’s War on Ukraine in Its Fifth Year: Current Challenges for Germany and the EU”, a round table on literature in times of war and migration, and a screening of the film “Haytarma”, dedicated to the history of the Crimean Tatars.
Overall, the winter school demonstrated the growing importance of Ukrainian studies within European academia, particularly in the context of ongoing geopolitical transformations. For applied linguistics and general linguistics, the event highlighted the need to rethink language as a socially embedded practice shaped by migration, displacement, and transnational communication. At the same time, the participation of scholars from Ivan Franko National University of Lviv contributed to strengthening international academic cooperation and to advancing Ukrainian linguistics within a global scholarly framework.
Prepared by S. Buk
