In 2012–2013 three international academic conferences aimed at understanding the Ukrainian historiographic process of the 20th — early 21st centuries were held. The first one, «Ukraine on the Historiographic Map of Interwar Europe» was organized at the Ukrainian Free University (UFU) in Munich (Germany) in 2012. The following year conferences were held in Kyiv (Ukraine) at the Institute of History of Ukraine («The Light and Shadows of Ukrainian Soviet Historiography», 22–23 May 2013) and Cambridge (Mass., USA) at the Harvard Ukrainian Research Institute («Quo Vadis Ukrainian History? Assessing the State of the Field», 19–20 November 2013).
The leading centers of Ukrainian Studies — the Harvard Ukrainian Research Institute (USA), the Peter Jacyk Centre for Ukrainian Historical Research (Canadian Institute of Ukrainian Studies, University of Alberta), the Ukrainian Free University (UFU) in Munich, the Institute of History of Ukraine at the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine, the W. K. Lypynsky East European Research Institute (Philadelphia, USA), and the Department of History of Eastern- and Southern-Eastern Europe at the Historical Seminar (Ludwig Maximilian University in Munich) were the organizers of these events.
This volume contains some of the materials of the first conference which was held 1–3 July 2012 at the premises of the Ukrainian Free University. Founded in Vienna in 1921, the UFU was soon transferred to Prague and in 1945 to Munich. In the interwar period, it was not only a higher institution for émigré Ukrainian youth but also one of the leading institutions for researching Ukrainian history in Europe. Not surprisingly, the interwar historiographic legacy of the UFU and its professors was often addressed at the conference.
Six panels were held at the conference. On 1 July, the thematic direction of the conference was defined by Professor Andreas Kappeler in his introductory lecture, «What is Ukraine? What is Europe? What is a Historiographic Map?», in which he formulated a number of important questions. What territories should be included in interwar Europe? Who could be considered a Ukrainian historian? Who were immigrants from Ukraine? Where was research in Ukrainian studies conducted? What were the connections with non-Ukrainian scholars? Professor Kappeler paid special attention to the content of historical research during the interwar period, provoking the following questions: what are considered to be Ukrainian studies? What historical schools were involved in the emigration? How did the historiographic situation in the new countries of settlement impact their research? Were they under the influence of Soviet historiography? What specific topics were elaborated by émigré historians? How did the political situation in interwar Europe influence the historiographic
