Ukraine and Russia: Writing History in the Time of War

Wolf Humanities Center • University of Pennsylvania

2025–2026 FORUM ON TRUTH

Benjamin Nathans

Alan Charles Kors Endowed Term Professor of History, University of Pennsylvania

Serhii Plokhy

Mykhailo S. Hrushevs'kyi Professor of Ukrainian History, Harvard University

Is it a legitimate undertaking for a historian to write history as it unfolds? What are the challenges, advantages, and disadvantages of such an undertaking? What opportunities might this create or hinder for the work and international collaboration of historians? Penn historian and 2025 Pulitzer Prize-winning author Benjamin Nathans will explore the impact of the Russo-Ukrainian war on academia, the field of European Studies in particular, with Harvard Professor of Ukrainian History Serhii Plokhy. They’ll discuss Plokhy’s fothcoming publication, a collection of essays and interviews titled David and Goliath: Commentaries on the Russo-Ukrainian War, as well as a project launched in Ukraine during the war with his participation, The Ukrainian History: A Global Initiative.

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Benjamin Nathans is the Alan Charles Kors Endowed Term Professor of History at Penn. His most recent book is To the Success of Our Hopeless Cause: The Many Lives of the Soviet Dissident Movement, which was awarded the Pulitzer Prize in General Nonfiction and the Pushkin House book prize. He is also the author of the multiple prize-winning Beyond the Pale: The Jewish Encounter with Late Imperial Russia. Nathans directs the Robert K. Johnson Integrated Studies Program at Penn and is a frequent contributor to the New York Review of Books and the Times Literary Supplement.

Serhii Plokhii (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 won numerous awards, including the Lionel Gelber Prize for the best English-language book on international relations, the Baillie Gifford Prize for Non-Fiction, and Duke d’Arenberg Prize in European History. His latest book, The Nuclear Age: An Epic Race for Arms. Power, and Survival has been released by W.W. Norton in the U.S. and Penguin in the UK in October 2025.

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This event is free and open to the public. Registration is encouraged.

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Host or Publisher Wolf Humanities Center