Keynote by Timothy Snyder

In English with simultaneous translation into German

Far more than we realize, the constitutive stories of contemporary Western civilization have their origins in the cultures of the Ukrainian lands. Bringing fable and history together can help us to understand connections and reconfigure our sense of cultural place.

Timothy Snyder is the Richard C. Levin Professor of History at Yale University and a permanent fellow at the Institute for Human Sciences in Vienna. His books include The Reconstruction of Nations: Poland, Ukraine, Lithuania, Belarus, 1569-1999 (2003), Bloodlands: Europe Between Hitler and Stalin (2010), Thinking the Twentieth Century (with Tony Judt, 2012), Black Earth: The Holocaust as History and Warning (2015), On Tyranny: Twenty Lessons from the Twentieth Century (2017), The Road to Unfreedom: Russia, Europe, America (2018). Snyder’s work has appeared in forty languages and has received a number of prizes, including the Emerson Prize in the Humanities, the Leipzig Award for European Understanding, the Dutch Auschwitz Committee award, and the Hannah Arendt Prize in Political Thought. He has appeared in documentaries, on network television, and in major films. His books have inspired poster campaigns and exhibitions, films, sculpture, a punk rock song, a rap song, a play, and an opera. His words are quoted in political demonstrations around the world. He is researching a family history of nationalism and finishing a philosophical book about freedom.