2026 marks 60 years since the first Shevchenko Lecture in Edmonton, initiated by the Ukrainian Canadian Professional and Business Association, and 49 years since it has been sponsored by CIUS. As the institute’s oldest and most distinguished invited lecture, it attests to our commitment to build and disseminate knowledge about Ukraine and Ukrainians in the world.

This year, we welcome the well-known historian and author Serhii Plokhy from Harvard University, who will deliver the 60th Shevchenko Lecture. 

“The Russo-Ukrainian War through a Historian’s Eyes”

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine constitutes the largest war in Europe since 1945. It is also the first war to employ drones on a massive scale, both in the air and at sea, and the first major conflict that is widely characterized as hybrid warfare—combining conventional military operations, cyberattacks, and the active use of disinformation. The latter is a key element of the Kremlin’s war propaganda, aimed not least at its own population as well as Ukraine and the outside world. How important have misuse and abuse of history been in the perpetration and justification of this war, and what are the actual historical causes of the conflict? Why did Putin start the war―and why has it unfolded in previously unimaginable ways? Ukrainians have valiantly resisted a superior military; meanwhile, the West has been vacillating as Russia colludes with allies in the international arena. The lecture will provide answers to these and related questions by tracing the origins of the Russo-Ukrainian war and explaining the reasons for the return of armed conflict in Europe, the very same part of the world where the Cold War had ended thirty years earlier.

About the lecturer:

Serhii Plokhy is the Mykhailo Hrushevsky Professor of Ukrainian History at Harvard University. A leading authority on Ukraine, Russia, and Eastern Europe, he has published extensively on the international history of World War II and the Cold War. His books have won numerous awards, including the Lionel Gelber Prize for the best English-language book on international relations for The Last Empire: The Final Days of the Soviet Union (2014), the Taras Shevchenko National Prize (Ukraine) for The Gates of Europe: A History of Ukraine (2015), the Ballie Gifford Prize and Pushkin House Book Prize (UK) for Chernobyl: History of a Tragedy (2018), and the Duke d’Arenberg Prize in European History for The Russo-Ukrainian War: The Return of History (2023). His latest book is The Nuclear Age: An Epic Race for Arms, Power, and Survival (2025).