Schedule

* All times are based on Canada/Mountain MDT.

  • 8:30 AM

    Canada/Mountain

    3 parallel sessions
    8:30 AM - 10:00 AM MDT
    Tory 2-32
      Session 1
      Track 3: Literature

    Imagery and Identity in North Caucasian, Yugolsav, and Russian Literature

    Chair: Mark Conliffe

    8:30 AM - 10:00 AM MDT
    Tory 2-28
      Session 1
      Track 2: History

    Medieval Influences and Legacies Today

    Chair: Nigel Raab

    8:30 AM - 10:00 AM MDT
    Tory 2-44
      Session 1
      Track 1: Culture

    Representation and Memory in the USSR, Ukraine, and Canada

    Chair: Jelena Pogosjan

    10:30 AM

    Canada/Mountain

    3 parallel sessions
    10:30 AM - 12:00 PM MDT
    Tory 2-32
      Session 2
      Track 2: History

    Living History: Ukraine through the Lens of Autobiography and Family History

    Chair: Jars Balan

    10:30 AM - 12:00 PM MDT
    Tory 2-44
      Session 2
      Track 2: History

    Revolutionary Identities: Continuities and Transformations in Ukraine’s Past and Present

    Chair: Serhy Yekelchyk

    10:30 AM - 12:00 PM MDT
    Tory 2-58
      Session 2
      Track 1: Culture

    Trauma and Memory in Ukrainian Literature and Culture

    Chair: Luc Beaudoin

    12:00 PM

    Canada/Mountain

    12:00 PM - 1:30 PM MDT

    Lunch

    Light lunch will be served, the complements of the Shevchenko Scientific Society of Canada and the Department of Modern Languages and Cultural Studies, University of Alberta. Location: Arts and Convocation building, Main floor Foye. Join us for Shevchenko Scientific Society of Canada Presentation: 12:15 pm, Arts and Convocation Building, Main Floor, Student Lounge. Join us for the Exhibit Opening: Our Life Behind Barbed Wire: Photographs of Ukrainian Ostarbeiters in Nazi Germany. Curated by Alex Averbuch: 12:45 pm, Arts and Convocation Building, Main Floor, Student Lounge. This exhibit showcases rare photographs of Ukrainians brought to Nazi Germany as forced labourers (Ostarbeiters) during World War II, accompanied by excerpts from their letters to relatives back in Soviet Ukraine. Presented within the context of official visual and textual propaganda, these personal materials are explored as carriers of news, covert messages, and creative resistance under totalitarian rule. Highlighting the historical and emotional weight of firsthand accounts, the exhibit challenges the prevailing notion that Ostarbeiters left no cultural or artistic record.

    1:30 PM

    Canada/Mountain

    3 parallel sessions
    1:30 PM - 3:00 PM MDT
    Tory 2-32
      Session 3
      Track 1: Culture

    Documenting the Ukrainian Experience

    Chair:

    1:30 PM - 3:00 PM MDT
    Tory 2-44
      Session 3
      Track 5: Publishing

    From the Editor's Desk: Publishing Trends in Slavic Studies

    Bringing together editors from a variety of perspectives, this panel offers an excellent way to understand the state of the field and new directions in research. The Canadian Association of Slavists covers a large multi-ethnic territory, thus regional focuses impact research . Have we seen publishing trends favor distinct regions while others drift into the shadows? In light of the war in Ukraine, has military and diplomatic history risen in importance or does cultural history still dominate? As Artificial Intelligence gathers steam, are works in the digital humanities on the rise or has this wave not hit the Slavic world? Have recent technological innovations changed the publishing process in important methodological or intellectual ways? What gaps in scholarship have emerged? The panel will offer scholars constructive insights into recent publishing trends. Michaela Jacques, Acquisitions Editor, McGill-Queen's University Press James Krapfl, Co-Editor, Canadian Slavonic Papers Stephen Shapiro, Acquisitions Editor, University of Toronto Press Marco Stech, Director, CIUS Press and Scholarly Publications Chair: Nigel Raab, Loyola Marymount University

    1:30 PM - 3:00 PM MDT
    Tory 2-28
      Session 3
      Track 2: History

    Political and Historical Legacies of Stalinism

    Chair: Maria Dyczok

    3:30 PM

    Canada/Mountain

    3 parallel sessions
    3:30 PM - 5:00 PM MDT
    Tory 2-32
      Session 4
      Track 1: Culture

    Dis(continuities) of Displacement : Recent Ukrainian Experiences of War-Induced Migration in Europe and Canada

    Chair: Natalia Kanenko-Friesen, University of Alberta

    3:30 PM - 5:00 PM MDT
    Tory 2-28
      Session 4
      Roundtable

    The Reshaping of Russian, Ukrainian, and East European Studies: Challenges and Opportunities

    Discussant: Marko Stech Chair: Tania Plawuszczak-Stech

    3:30 PM - 5:00 PM MDT
    Tory 2-44
      Session 4
      Track 6: Linguistics

    War and Support in Canada and Ukraine

    Chair: Piotr Kajak

    5:15 PM

    Canada/Mountain

    5:15 PM - 6:15 PM MDT

    War, Memory, and Song: A Musico-Poetic Performance

    Join us for a powerful performance featuring poet Alex Averbuch and musician and composer Olga Zaitseva-Herz — an immersive blend of poetry, music, and storytelling that offers a profound meditation on war, memory, and resilience. Averbuch will read from his original Ukrainian poetry and its English translations, weaving together voices from past and present wars. Through his pages, a Babylonian mix of peoples, restlessly and torturously displaced, speaks in a multitude of voices — revealing Ukraine’s horrors and inspirations. His work evokes the trauma of war through poeticized documentary materials — from WWII Ostarbeiters and Holocaust survivors to those enduring Russian aggression against Ukraine, currently unfolding in Averbuch’s home region of Luhansk. Accompanied by Olga Zaitseva-Herz's haunting melodies and song, the performance paints a poignant portrait of uprooted lives — registering the stories of those captured, deported, or lost to violence, alongside reflections on people and objects left behind in occupied territories.

    6:30 PM

    Canada/Mountain

    6:30 PM - 8:30 PM MDT

    Reception