Free Ukrainian history lessons in English are now available with a new online course.
“Ukraine: History, Culture, and Identities” was launched by the state-run Ukrainian Institute on education platform Udemy on Dec. 21. With some of Ukraine’s best professors as lecturers, the introductory course covers major events that have shaped the country from the Middle Ages to the present.
According to Volodymyr Sheiko, director of the Ukrainian Institute, the course will come in handy for international diplomats, students who plan on coming to Ukraine and those who study social sciences abroad. The class is also set to debunk common myths about the country and give a better understanding of what modern Ukraine is like.
“It’s important for us that listeners ‘catch’ the image of Ukraine not as a blank spot on the map of Europe, not as a country of corruption, war and Chornobyl, but as an important nation in the European community,” Sheiko told the Kyiv Post.
No global visibility
The desire to create such a course was long-held.
“The idea came to me when I was scrolling through Coursera (global online courses provider) trying to find something about Ukraine,” Ukrainian Institute communications director, Tetyana Oliynyk, told the Kyiv Post.
She was both disappointed and surprised to find nothing about Ukrainian history, culture or politics on Coursera – one of the world’s most popular providers of online education.
The same goes for EdX, another popular platform that collaborates with some of the world’s best educational institutions such as Harvard, Massachusetts Institute of Technology and University of California, Berkeley. Among its 3000+ offers, there is no course about Ukraine.
“Ukraine and Ukrainian universities are generally very poorly represented on these global platforms,” Sheiko said. Ukraine’s reputation remains tainted by the lack of knowledge about the country abroad.
“We see that foreigners know very little or nothing about Ukraine or Ukrainian cultural phenomena are often credited to other countries,” Sheiko said.
Breaking myths
Through “Ukraine: History, Culture, and Identities,” the Ukrainian Institute, an affiliate of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, hopes to improve the nation’s cultural diplomacy.
“Ukraine is the largest European country, so it’s time for you to learn how Ukrainians and events on Ukrainian lands influence the course of world history,” the course’s video teaser says.
To develop the course, the agency teamed up with Ukrainian online education studio EdEra and academics from the National University of Kyiv-Mohyla Academy, one of Ukraine’s top universities.
The class requires no previous knowledge of Ukrainian history and is available for anyone upon registration on Udemy.
Comprising five modules, each dedicated to a specific historical period, the course sums up the millennium of Ukrainian history from the Kyivan Rus times to the 1990s, when Ukraine regained its independence after the fall of the Soviet Union. The lectures cover some of the country’s most defining periods and events including the Cossacks’ military organization and their role in European wars, Ukraine’s struggles under the reign of two empires during the 19th century and Soviet occupation.
Each module includes short lectures narrated by Kyiv-Mohyla Academy’s professors – an hour of on-demand video material in total. Along with the videos, students can access 12 short quizzes, 11 articles in the form of glossaries and timelines, as well as a final exam.
It also includes lists of thematic literature and acclaimed Ukrainian films that will help better understand the country’s art and culture.
One of the main goals of the project is dispelling stereotypes about Ukraine, developers say.
“I think it is always important to fight against stereotypes and debunk some negative myths, and there are plenty of them regarding Ukraine,” Maksym Yakovlyev, one of the professors involved in the project, told the Kyiv Post.
Yakovlyev, who is the head of international relations chair and director of School for Policy Analysis at Kyiv-Mohyla Academy, lectures in the first module of the course called “Independence XXI.”
“Many think Ukraine is an undeveloped, corrupt and even unintelligent nation. And, of course, there is still no clear understanding of why ‘Ukraine is not Russia’,” Yakovlyev said.
Already a success
Since its launch in late December, nearly 800 students have joined the class, giving it a rating of 4.5 out of 5.
This proves that there is a large natural demand for such projects, developers say, because the enrollment came without any advertising.
“A fantastic course on the history of Ukraine, covering religious, military, diplomatic, political and revolutionary influences to geography, language and culture,” wrote one of the students, Jared Brown.
The developers wish to find financing for developing more courses about Ukraine in English, possibly focusing on culture or literature, explaining what doing business in Ukraine is like. But as for now, the team behind the project hopes that their history course makes its impact on improving Ukraine’s image on the international arena.
“Ukraine has always been a key player on the world map and actively influenced global historical processes – that is our key message which we hope the students will understand after the course,” Sheiko said.
