Open Lecture “The Project of European Unity in Historical Development”

18.11.2025

An open lecture “The Project of European Unity in Historical Development” was held at Luhansk Taras Shevchenko National University.

The lecture was delivered by Yevhenia Shevtsova, PhD in History and Archaeology, Senior Lecturer at the Department of History and Archaeology. The event was held in a mixed format – both in the classroom and online – which allowed to attract a wide audience of students and teachers of various specialties and structural divisions of the university. This format provided the opportunity for interdisciplinary discussion, because the topic of European unity concerns not only historians, but also political scientists, psychologists, economists, philologists, educators, sociologists and specialists in the field of natural sciences and international relations.

In her lecture, Yevhenia Shevtsova offered a holistic vision of the historical prerequisites, intellectual concepts and political decisions that became the basis for the formation of the modern European Union. She outlined continental Europe before the 20th century. as a space of deep political fragmentation, dynastic empires and long-term rivalry between great powers. The audience was drawn to the fact that for centuries Europe remained a territory of constant wars, border changes and conflicts for influence, resources and colonial possessions. It was this historical tension that gave the project of European unification special significance, because it arose as a response to the experience of destruction and hostility.

A special place in the lecture was devoted to the analysis of the situation after the Second World War, when the continent found itself in a state of physical, economic and moral devastation. The lecturer drew attention to the fact that it was in 1945 that objective conditions appeared that made it possible to transition from a model of conflict interaction to the search for joint solutions.