Ukrainian Courses in GNS+: An Interview with Oksana Stoychuk

Photo credit: Daria Bedernichek

Slavic Studies to offer Ukrainian language and culture in Fall 2022

Slavic Studies is delighted to announce that Dr. Oksana Stoychuk, a native of Lviv in Ukraine, will be teaching Ukrainian language and culture in Fall 2022. First-Semester Ukrainian language for three credits will be offered at both undergraduate and graduate levels (GNS 270/370); it will meet MWF at 1:20pm. Dr. Stoychuk will also offer a three-credit course on Ukrainian culture and society (Slavic 245-003/Lit Trans 247-003), which will meet MW from 4:00pm to 5:15pm. Her third course will be Women vs Power (Slavic 245-002/Lit Trans 247-002), and it will be taught MWF at 12:05pm.

We interviewed Dr. Stoychuk about past courses she has taught in GNS+ as well as her fall offerings, her native city of Lviv, and how the war has impacted life in Ukraine.

You’ve taught in an adjunct capacity in GNS+ for a number of years. What courses have you taught and what is your impression of teaching at UW-Madison?

Since I moved to Madison, I have had the pleasure to teach a great variety of courses, including German and Polish languages, a literary course on migrants and refugees in Berlin, an interdisciplinary course on European cities—and also to co-teach a famous course about vampires in literature and film. From my international teaching experience, I can say that UW-Madison is an amazing place both for teachers and for students as it has not only a great intellectual community but also a strong institutional support system that is based on an individual approach to each student’s needs. And of course, the best part of teaching is the amazing students. With all the challenges that they are facing, the students at UW-Madison are incredibly curious and motivated, which gives me as a teacher real pleasure to learn with and to learn from my students.

You’ll be teaching three courses in the fall, including two that are directly related to Ukraine. What would you like students to know about these offerings?

For many people Ukraine, the biggest European country, has been until today terra incognita, unknown territory. The headlines that Ukraine is now making globally sadly emerged from the war started by Russia and the unthinkable suffering of the Ukrainian people. One of the main lessons we should learn from everything that is happening now in Ukraine is the fact that it is not possible to understand Europe and today’s world without understanding Ukraine. The two courses that I am offering to the students in the fall will be, I’m sure, an eye-opener to their participants, introducing them to a whole new world they previously knew very little about.

In my course on Ukrainian culture and society we will learn about Ukraine as a country with a unique ancient culture: Ukrainian Baroque architecture, universities dating back to 17th century, the first constitution developed in 1710, brilliant minds such as the philosopher Gregory Skovoroda (a true 18th-century hipster). We will learn about the literature and theatre of the Ukrainian avant-garde and the Executed Renaissance, a brutal extermination of Ukrainian intellectuals under Stalin, but also about Sofia Yablonska, a travel writer and photographer, who travelled around the world in the 1920s and 1930s and became one of the first women documentary cinematographers, about the Sixtiers, a generation of intellectuals and artists, one of whom, Sergej Parajanov, is seen by film historians as one of the most influential filmmakers in cinema history, about feminist art and activism from the beginning of the 1990s—and much more. By the end of this course, the students will not only know that the well-known Christmas song “Carol of the Bells” was composed by the Ukrainian composer Mykola Leontovych or that the first helicopter was built by the Ukrainian engineer Igor Sikorsky. They will be exposed to a unique intellectual tradition that has shaped our shared heritage in the past and is shaping the global present.

Ukrainian history is a history of oppression and a constant struggle for independence. And the Ukrainian language, which I also warmly invite students to start learning in my fall course, is a great example of this. Not only did it survive centuries of repression (even today, school teachers who teach in Ukrainian are among the first targets for Russian soldiers), but it is currently a language spoken by about fifty million people. In 1934, during the language competition in Paris, Ukrainian was named the second most melodic language in the world after Italian and the third most beautiful, after French and Persian, because of its phonetics, vocabulary, and phraseology. Moreover, speaking Ukrainian gives you great advantage in understanding other Slavic languages. As a direct descendant of Markian Shashkevych, a nineteenth-century Romantic poet and one of the developers of modern Ukrainian, I feel it is a great responsibility—as well as a great joy—to teach Ukrainian. It is a language I am sure many will fall in love with.

You are originally from Lviv in Western Ukraine. Could you tell us something about your native city—its history, its culture, its place in contemporary Ukraine (if not in East Central Europe as a whole)?

Lviv is indeed my home city, the place of my alma mater, the National Ivan Franko University of Lviv, where I received my bachelor’s and master’s degrees. Lviv is an ancient city with a multicultural history that began in 1256. It has been at the crossroads of East and West since its founding and has experienced drastic changes throughout its history. Over the centuries, it was part of Poland, the Austro-Hungarian Empire, then Poland again before it was occupied by the Soviets after World War II. In different periods of time, it was a major center of Polish, Ruthenian, Jewish, and Armenian culture. All this shaped the architecture and traditions of Lviv tremendously and made it a place where you can see and feel different historical periods next to each other. The city is seen by many as the cultural capital of Ukraine, and rightly so. Just to give you a few examples: Lviv is the place where in the sixteenth century Ivan Fedorovych printed early books, which are of huge significance to Ukrainian and European history and culture; where Ioann Pinzel, “the Ukrainian Michelangelo” of the 18th century, created his Baroque masterpieces; where Franz Xaver Mozart, the youngest son of Wolfgang Amadeus, wrote his best compositions, some of them based on Ukrainian folk music. Later, in the 1960s and 1970s, Lviv was a mecca for hippies coming from all parts of the Soviet Union. With now almost one million people, the city is a very popular destination for students, artists, and IT workers. And of course, once you visit Lviv, the local traditions, the culture of chocolate, cakes, coffee and beer will make you want to write to your friends the same words that Stanisław Lem, the Polish fantasy writer born in Lviv, once wrote in his memoirs: “Lviv is a part of me and I am part of Lviv. I am rooted into this city like a tree.”

What would you like people to know about how Putin’s aggression has impacted life in Ukraine? How might people in the US best help Ukrainians who have been caught up in these unbelievably tragic circumstances? 

I could bring up different concepts, ideas and prognoses, but I cannot answer this question without being emotional. I feel absolutely speechless at the moment. Theodore Adorno’s famous words about the impossibility of poetry after Auschwitz might be an apt analogy to what many Ukrainians are feeling today. Raped and murdered children, body parts of loved ones scattered on the streets, people starving, tortured and executed at this very moment, children who must watch their parents being killed—this sounds brutal but this is what many Ukrainians are experiencing now on a daily basis. I think I can speak for many when I say that with every killed Ukrainian, but also with every destroyed street, building, school, library, museum or church a part of us is dying. At the same time, this war is a place of love and power, paradoxical as it may sound. Besides feelings of extreme sadness and anger, the amount of love, support and unity among people is what gives us hope. Using this opportunity, I would like to say thank you to the fantastic communities of UW-Madison, the city of Madison, and the American people in general for showing tremendous solidarity with Ukraine. How can you help? Educate yourself about Ukraine, spread the truth about this war, participate or organize events, contact your local representatives and urge them to lobby for help to the Ukrainian army. Everything helps except staying silent.