Threats of totalitarianism today. Public lecture
On 2 April 2024, a public lecture by historian Anatolii Podolskyi, Head of the UCHS, was held at the Kyiv Cooperative Institute of Business and Law. Threats of totalitarianism today. Comparison of the Nazi crimes and modern russian ideology in the war against Ukraine was the topic.
Today, the Russian-Ukrainian war is the most urgent and painful problem for our country. The entire civilised world is paying attention to the events in Ukraine. Today, Russia is destroying the post-World War II system of international relations, undermining international peace and security by waging the largest continental war in Europe since World War II against a sovereign state. Now, just as eighty years ago, Ukraine is fighting against totalitarianism; fighting for the future - its own, and the future of Europe and the entire civilised world.
With the unfolding of russia's full-scale aggression against Ukraine, everyone felt that the memory of the crimes and experiences of the Second World War was being reflected in current events. The students already knew the interpretation of the words "genocide", "filtration camp", "Gauleiter", "ghetto" from their history classes, when they studied the totalitarian ideologies of the twentieth century. But the worst thing is that they have all heard these words in the context of the present, and they have encountered them in the twenty-first century.
Analysing the feedback, we can state that the meeting with Anatolii Podolskyi was definitely not without effect, as everyone received new historical knowledge and enjoyed the emotional presentation of the material.
Yuliia Rudenko, PhD, Associate Professor
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