Prof. Dr. Andrii Portnov

Prof. Dr. Andrii Portnov

Faculty of Social and Cultural Sciences (Kuwi)

Chair Holder

Andrii Portnov is Professor of Entangled History of Ukraine at the European University Viadrina (Frankfurt/Oder). He graduated from the Universities of Dnipro (M.A. in history) and Warsaw (M.A. in Cultural Studies), and defended his Ph.D. thesis (2005) on the Ukrainian emigration in inter-war Poland at the Ivan Krypiakevych Institute of Ukrainian Studies in Lviv. In the years 2006–2010 he worked as editor-in-chief of the Kyiv-based journal of humanities “Ukraїna Moderna”. In 2012 he came to Berlin as a Fellow of the Institute for Advanced Study (Wissenschaftskolleg zu Berlin) and started to teach at the Humboldt University of Berlin. In 2014–2015 he was an Alexander von Humboldt Fellow at the Institute for Slavic Studies at the Humboldt University of Berlin and at the Centre for Contemporary History (ZZF) in Potsdam. In 2015 he was awarded the Baron Velge Prize and held a series of lectures as the International Chair for the History of the Second World War at the Free University of Brussels. He has conducted research and lectured at the Universities of Basel, Cambridge, Geneva, Potsdam, the Free University Berlin, SciencesPo Paris, SciencesPo Lyon, the Institute for Human Sciences (IWM) in Vienna, and the Historisches Kolleg in Munich.

In 2015 he initiated and co-founded the Berlin-Brandenburg Ukraine Initiative which became the PRISMA UKRAЇNA Research Network Eastern Europe at the Forum Transregionale Studien Berlin (https://www.prisma-ukraina.de/en/home) in 2016.

In 2018 he was appointed a Professor of Entangled History of Ukraine at the European University Viadrina (Frankfurt/Oder) and in 2023 – the Director of the Viadrina Centre of Polish and Ukrainian Studies.

In 2022 he was awarded the DIALOG Prize of the German-Polish Society for his “commitment to the dissemination of knowledge about Ukraine and its historical entanglements in Europe”.

His publications deal with intellectual history, historiography, genocide and memory studies in Central and Eastern Europe. He recently published “Dnipro. An Entangled History of a European City” (Boston, 2022), which won with the Ab Imperio Book Prize. He co-edited the volumes “Official History in Eastern Europe” (Osnabrück, 2020) and “Histoire partagée, mémoires divisées. Ukraine, Russie, Pologne” (Lausanne, 2020). His short book “Poland and Ukraine. Entangled Histories, Asymmetric Memories” was published in 2021–2023 in English, German, Polish and Ukrainian languages.

  • Intellectual History of Modern Central and Eastern Europe
  • Ukrainian Historiography in the 20th Century
  • The History of the German-language Ukrainian studies
  • Jewish History of Ukraine and Jewish-Ukrainian Relations
  • Ukrainian-Polish and Ukrainian-Russian Relations
  • Memory Politics and Genocide Studies in Central and Eastern Europe
  • History of the Dnipro City and the Dnipro River
  • Ukrainian emigration in Europe in 1919–1939 and 1945–1949
  • The Partitions of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth and early 18th century Russian Imperial Politics

You can read the information about research projects of Prof. Dr. Andrii Portnov here.  



  • Since 2023: Viadrina Center of Polish and Ukrainian Studies, Director.
  • Since 2018: European University Viadrina, Frankfurt/Oder, Professor of Entangled History of Ukraine.
  • 2018–2021: University of Potsdam, Guest Professor.
  • Since 2017: PRISMA UKRAЇNA Research Network Eastern Europe, Director.
  • 2016–2017: University of Geneva, Research Fellow.
  • 2015–2016: Forum Transregionale Studien Berlin, Long-Term Fellow / Berlin-Brandenburg Ukraine Initiative, Founding Director.
  • 2014–2015: Alexander-von-Humboldt Fellow (at the Institute for Slavic Studies, Humboldt University Berlin and Centre for Contemporary History Potsdam).
  • 2012–2017: “Historians.in.ua” web portal, co-founder and co-editor.
  • 2012–2014: Institute for Advanced Study (Wissenschaftskolleg zu Berlin) Fellow.
  • 2010–2012: Ivan Krypiakevych Institute for Ukrainian Studies, Academy of Sciences of Ukraine, Lviv, Senior Research Fellow.
  • 2008–2010: Institute for Strategic Studies, Kyiv, Senior Research Fellow.
  • 2007–2010: “Ukraina Moderna” journal in humanities, Editor.
  • 2007–2008: Institute for European Studies, National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine, Kyiv, Senior Research Fellow.
  • 2007: Centre for Holocaust and Genocide Studies, Amsterdam, Guest Researcher.
  • 2004–2006: Trier University, Research Fellow.
  • 2005: PhD (Kandydat istorychnych nauk) in History at the Ivan Krypiakevych Institute for Ukrainian Studies, Academy of Sciences of Ukraine, Lviv. PhD Thesis “Scholarship in Exile. Scientific and Educational Activities of Ukrainian Emigration in inter-war Poland, 1919–1939”.
  • 2003–2005: Ivan Krypiakevych Institute for Ukrainian Studies, Academy of Sciences of Ukraine, Lviv, Doctoral student.
  • 2001–2003: M.A. Student in the Cultural Studies of Eastern- and Central Europe at the University of Warsaw.
  • M. A. Thesis in Cultural Studies “Polish travelogues of the Balkans in the 19th century”.
  • 1996–2001: Student of History at the Dnipropetrovsk University. M. A. Thesis in History “Volodymyr Parkhomenko (1880–1942) and his historical works”.

Personen

Contact

Collegium Polonicum (CP)
ul. Kościuszki 1
69-100 Słubice

+49 335 5534 2628 portnov@europa-uni.de