Prometheism and Power: Mobilizing Nationalism to Confront the Russian Empire - A panel discussion

Please watch the recording of the KF webinar featuring speakers: Olga Avdeyeva, Ph.D. of Loyola University; Marcel Garboś, Ph.D. of the University of Aberdeen, and Maciej Olchawa, Ph.D., KF Scholar at Loyola University,
who moderated the discussion.
The outcome of the Russo-Ukrainian war will shape the security of all of Europe, and if the Kremlin succeeds in its genocidal war to subjugate the Ukrainian nation, Poland may be next. This concern is not new for Poland, and the roots of its ongoing support for Ukraine may be traced back to the concepts of prometheism and 20th-century Polish attempts at mobilizing nationalism against Moscow in the Soviet borderlands. What was prometheism, and how does it continue to shape Poland’s foreign policy? How was this doctrine pursued by Polish and Ukrainian émigrés during the Cold War? How does Putin’s regime react to efforts at mobilizing nationalism in post-Soviet states?
About the panelists:
Olga Avdeyeva is an associate professor in the Department of Political Science at Loyola University Chicago. Her research focuses on international influences on national policy on gender equality. Her book “Defending Women’s Rights in Europe: Gender Equality and EU Enlargement” (2015, SUNY Press) investigates compliance factors with EU gender equality requirements in eight Central European post-communist states. In her current work, she studies the transformation of gendered attitudes and gendered roles in diverse societies, focusing on public support for female political leaders. Her articles appeared in International Studies Quarterly, Political Research Quarterly, Post-Soviet Affairs, and Politics and Gender.
Marcel Garboś is a historian of social and political thought in the late Russian Empire and the Soviet Union, with broad interests in the comparative history of empires and visions of post-imperial order in the modern world. In 2021, Marcel completed his doctorate in the History Department at Harvard University, where he wrote a dissertation on projects for the geopolitical reorganization of the imperial Russian and Soviet spaces that developed across revolutionary networks in the Eurasian borderlands between the late nineteenth century and the Second World War. His current research investigates the international origins of federalist thought and politics in the Russian Empire, focusing on non-Bolshevik socialist movements that led the struggle for post-imperial decentralization on the eve of the October Revolution and beyond. Marcel has previously taught at Columbia University and the University of North Carolina Wilmington and will begin a postdoctoral fellowship at the University of Aberdeen in February.
Maciej Olchawa is the Kosciuszko Foundation scholar at Loyola University Chicago, where he teaches about Polish and Eastern European politics. He grew up in Chicago and attended LUC, where he received a BA in history and international studies. Maciej graduated from Jagiellonian University in Krakow with an MA in Central and Eastern European studies, an MA in Ukrainian studies, and a PhD in political science. Between 2008 and 2012, he served as a policy adviser on Ukraine in the European Parliament’s Committee on Foreign Affairs, the Delegation to the EU-Ukraine Parliamentary Cooperation Committee, and the Delegation to the Euronest Parliamentary Assembly. He is the author of the books Imperial Games: Ukraine in the United States’ Geopolitical Strategy (Krakow: Arcana 2009), Stars and Trident: The European Integration of Ukraine (Krakow: St. Volodymyr Foundation 2013), and Mission Ukraine: The 2012-2013 Diplomatic Effort to Secure Ties with Europe (Jefferson: McFarland, 2017). His articles have appeared in several academic journals as well as in Foreign Policy, The Diplomat, Kyiv Post, New Eastern Europe, and The Huffington Post.

[@vujna]

please improve the auto subtitles by correcting names of Jerzy Giedroyc and Juliusz Mieroszewski

[@afd4017]

strange how one could do a presentation on Prometheism and not mention Dr Jason Jorjani

[@joeyjojojunior1794]

If there's any group who are experts in not being conquered, it's definitely the Polish people.

[@ivan200804]

Can you define "genocidal war to subjugate the Ukrainian nation?"

[@joeyjojojunior1794]

It's a useless term to throw around "genocide" in these political conflicts; overused to the point of inefficacy like when the race card is used in American political discourse.