Ukraine has been a hot topic in the media for years. Now, BYU students can learn more about the country in a new course.
Visiting Ukraine can teach you a lot about the country, but not everything. Seeing the timeless golden domes in Kyiv and adventuring in the Carpathian Mountains may give you a feel for Ukraine, but they won’t teach you much about the country’s rich history—or help contextualize the war currently taking place there. In winter 2025, four BYU professors created a course titled “Ukrainian Identity in Conflict: Between Europe and Russia,” which aims to teach students about modern-day Ukraine by discussing its history, politics, and language. Chair of the German & Russian Department, Jennifer Bown (Second Language Aquisition), one of the course’s instructors, hopes students will develop greater information literacy and empathy while learning about Ukraine.
The Makings of Modern-Day Ukraine
Historically, Ukraine has been part of numerous empires (including the Ottoman Empire, Austro-Hungarian Empire, the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, and the Russian Empire), which has created a complex identity for the country as a whole. Recent events in Ukraine inspired Bown and three professors from the College of Family, Home, and Social Sciences (history professor Jeff Hardy and political sciences professors Scott Cooper and Celeste Beesley) to create this course about Ukrainian identity. Ultimately, the professors want undergrads to learn about the recent events in Ukraine through the context of its history and politics while giving them tools to discover more about Ukraine on their own.
Bown explains that she and her co-instructors thought it was essential that this course be interdisciplinary: “I am not an expert myself in Ukraine, and so the idea came that several different experts come in and talk about different aspects [of Ukraine].” Each professor uses their expertise in Russian history, language, and politics to provide context for modern-day Ukrainian identity.
Some days, Hardy will discuss Ukrainian history, diving into the empires it once was part of and the many ways that they have impacted the country today. On other days, Cooper and Beesley lecture on the country’s politics, especially helping students learn about politics since Ukraine became independent. Likewise, Bown will lecture on the languages found in Ukraine and how the main two—Ukrainian and Russian—can be used to understand the country’s identity before and after the start of the Ukrainian war. Together, these concepts aid students’ ability to understand the complexity of life and identity in Ukraine.
Diving into Ukrainian Identity
In order to understand what Ukrainian identity looks like, the class has had discussions on the language, religions, literature, and politics of Ukraine. However, understanding Ukrainian identity first requires students to grapple with the concepts of identity and nationality in their own lives. “If you’re born in the United States, you’re American, regardless of what your ethnic background might be,” Bown says. “However, it’s a more difficult question when you’re talking about Ukraine. . . . We’ve spent a lot of time talking about who is Ukrainian and how the idea of Ukrainian nationhood emerged.”
It’s really important to at least be able to look past the rhetoric and see that people are affected on both sides
While in this course, students take an active role in learning these topics by comparing European and American media. Bown notes that students make “media logs every week and look at what’s being written about Ukraine in the US media versus what’s being written in other European countries.”
Along with this, students receive training on how to find and interpret information from multiple sources, especially in Russian media. “Dr. Hardy’s had the students fact checking Putin and looking at the claims that he’s made based on history [to see] where there is some truth and where there’s room for interpretation as well,” Bown says. This practice helps students learn how to decipher truth from bias while diving into both Ukrainian and Russian perspectives of the same events.
An Open-Minded Approach to Learning
The professors hope that these activities will teach students how to balance truth and compassion despite conflict. Undergrad Samuel Devenport (International Relations, Russian ’27) has found that this course allows him to learn about Ukraine while adding to the personal experiences he gained serving a mission there. Since starting this class, he says, “I already have a better understanding of the complex, often opposing forces and motions in Ukraine that have been key to shaping Ukraine in each part of its history.” Devenport hopes to use this understanding of Ukraine to continue his studies of post-Soviet countries beyond graduation.
When teaching this course, the professors give special attention to presenting information objectively, helping students to be empathetic and open-minded while discussing difficult topics. Ultimately, they hope students will learn to look first at the people that make up countries like Ukraine and Russia and not automatically deem them either good or evil. “There are people on both sides—they are all children of God,” Bown explains. “I think it’s really important to at least be able to look past the rhetoric and see that people are affected on both sides. . . . Empathy’s one of the main things we emphasize.”
Learn more about the RUSS 490R course here.