The Representative Office hosted a lecture by Oleksandr Galenko, a lecturer at the Kyiv School of Economics, historian, orientalist and one of the leading Ukrainian Turkologists, on “Crimea in the history of Ukraine”. The event was supported by the NGO Crimea_ SOS.

Mr. Galenko started studying Turkology on his own. He deepened his knowledge at Western universities, including Cambridge, Harvard and Princeton. Back in Kyiv, he contributed to the establishment of the Institute of Oriental Studies, which was headed by the legendary Professor Omelan Pritsak.

During the two-hour lecture, the professor proposed a scheme of Ukraine’s past that takes into account the role of Crimea in it and gives real meaning to the slogan “Crimea is Ukraine.” It should be understood that the Soviet regime not only stopped the study of Crimea by Ukrainian scholars, but also imposed the vision of the peninsula’s connection with Ukraine that it wanted after it was transferred to the Ukrainian SSR.

Oleksandr Galenko spoke about the territorial, military, cultural, and trade ties between the Crimean peninsula and mainland Ukraine from ancient times to the present. He also spoke about the connection and mutual influences between Ukrainians and Crimean Tatars, in particular on the basis of historical documents and folklore.

And I must admit that this view of Ukraine’s past-not only as the history of Rus, but much broader (in the words of the processor, the history of Ukraine begins with the steppe, that is, with the southern regions, even before the foundation of Rus)-forces us to rethink our understanding of the history of Ukraine, and to take an even broader look at our identity. After all, Ukrainians have borrowed a lot from the steppe people, both during wars and alliances with them over the centuries of coexistence and neighborliness.

The Mission sincerely thanks Oleksandr Halenko for the informative, important and interesting lecture!