Stela Tasheva, Sasha Lozanova
An international conference on Bulgaria, Ukraine in European History was held on 18–19 June 2018 in Sofia, on the occasion of the centenary since the establishing of diplomatic relations between the two countries.
The main organiser was the Institute for Historical Studies, BAS in collaboration with the Ukraine’s embassy in Sofia, the Ukrainian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Directorate General for International Organizations.
Research conducted by the Institute for Historical Studies, BAS and the Institute of History of Ukraine underpinned the scientific concept of the conference. Coordinators for the Bulgarian part: Assoc. Prof. Daniel Vachkov, Director of the Institute for Historical Studies; Assoc. Prof. Vladimir Zlatarski; Asst. Prof. Inna Manasieva; Asst. Prof. Aleka Strezova.
The conference conformed with the established format of such scientific events, that of bilateral relations and parallels. The following factors were taken into consideration:
* Interest of institutions and persons in both countries;
* Close positions of Bulgarian and Ukraine in Europe;
* Similarities in their historical development;
* Related elements in their languages, cultures, ethnic composition, etc.
The participants––renowned Bulgarian and Ukrainian historians and researchers––were numerous and ‘symmetrically’ represented; more than twenty authors from each country. The papers were thematically divided into three panels: the Middle Ages; 1917–1921; the twentieth and twenty-first cc.
There were three main lines of expositions:
* Ethnic Bulgarians in Ukraine: events, figures and community;
* Ethnic Ukrainians in Bulgaria: migration and way of life;
* Formal relations and contacts between the counties.
A wide range of problems were broached: from the international relations and diplomacy to ideology, politics, historiography, archival studies, social studies (ethnology) of minorities; personalia –contribution by certain figures, etc.
Relatively few were the papers providing material about the European context and the role of both countries in the general history of the Continent: Viktor Rogozenski’s ‘Heroes of the state independencies of the Slavic peoples in 1918 Central Europe’; Simona Samuilova’s ‘The US democracy promotion programmes for Eastern Europe after the end of the Cold War: The cases of Bulgaria and Ukraine’; Viktor Boiko’s ‘European trends in reforming the local self-government authorities: Ukrainian and Bulgarian responses’.
Interdisciplinary methods and interpretations of important historical events were presented in Petia Dimitrova’s paper ‘Ukraine and World War Two: From the ‘vast country’ to the bloodlands’. Our paper: ‘Bulgaria and Ukraine: Architectural parallels of the interwar years’ dealt with the common occurrences and processes in the architecture of Eastern Europe.
Gosprom/Derzhprom or, Kharkov, House of State Industry 1926–1928
The conference program is available here: http://www.ihist.bas.bg/archiv_doc_info/Programa_Konferentsiya_BG-UKR_18-19062018.pdf
