Participation in the 17th International Congress of SIEF

9.6.2025

The Associate Professor of the Department of History and Archaeology Olha Drobysheva participated in the 17th International Congress of the International Society for Ethnology and Folklore (SIEF). 

The congress was held on June 3–6, 2025 at the University of Aberdeen (United Kingdom). The theme of this year’s forum was “Unwriting” – rethinking what remains outside the text, outside the research, outside the voice.

The congress was attended by over 1,200 scholars from all over the world – ethnologists, folklorists, anthropologists, historians and representatives of related fields. The main goal of the event was to think about ways to overcome the limitations that predetermine the framework of scientific research, as well as to highlight the reasons and consequences of why certain topics remain invisible, unheard or untold in academic discourse.

As part of the congress, Olha Drobysheva joined the panel “Unwritten and silenced voices of trauma in Ukraine and beyond”, dedicated to the ethical and methodological challenges that have arisen in the conditions of the full-scale war of the Russian Federation against Ukraine. Despite the fact that this war is often called the most documented in history, a significant part of the experience, trauma and testimonies still remains outside the attention of the scientific community. Scientists have been looking for an answer to the question of how we can speak about the unspoken and unheard when most of the horrors remain unspeakable.

In her report “History and Modernity of Luhansk Region: What and Why Are We Silent About?”, the university representative analyzed the difficulties faced by Ukrainian scientists in studying the Luhansk region, in particular, she formulated the reasons why some topics remain unexplored or pushed out of the academic field, despite their importance and relevance.

According to the Department of History and Archaeology