The head of the Department of Recent Ukrainian History is Professor Volodymyr Kindratovych Baran, Dr. of Historical Sciences.

            This department came into being on April 17, 2001 in the course of the reorganisation of the previous Department of the History of Ukraine, which was headed by Professor I. V. Kichiy, Kandidat of Historical Sciences.  Dr. V. K. Baran has been the head of the department since June, 2001. Currently the staff includes ten members---Professor V. K. Baran, Doctor of Historical Sciences; Professors M. M. Kucherepa and M. D. Pivnitskiy, Drs of Historical Science; Associate Professors O. N. Havrylyuk, V. O. Kyd, O. Y. Lenartovych, I. S. Pkhydenko and A. H. Shvab, all with the diploma of Kandidat of Historical Sciences; senior teacher L. A. Ponyedyelnyk and senior laboratory assistant R. P. Levchuk.

            The teachers of the department provide standard and special courses for the students of the Faculty of History as well as the standard program of “Ukraine History” for students whose specialisation is not history.

            The staff of this department is conducting fruitful research work, as can be seen in its active participation in the now-traditional “Research Days” of the university, in the presentation of lectures and reports at international, national and regional-level conferences, round tables and other research symposiums. In particular, the research workers of the department have been active participants in the international seminar, “Ukraine – Poland: Difficult Questions;”  congresses of the International Association of Ukrainian Language Experts and other highly-respected conferences of historians.

            The leading areas of research by members of the staff are the very current questions of the History of Ukraine in the Twentieth and Twenty-First Centuries; the political problems of national liberation conflicts between 1917 and 1921, the cultural and educational development of Ukrainian lands in the period just mentioned, the history of Western Ukraine, and even more importantly, of the Volyn Region in the period from 1921 to 1939, military events  and the Ukrainian liberation movement during World War II, the political history of Ukraine in the period of the ‘thaw’, religious and church affairs in Ukraine from the latter 1940s to the beginning of the twenty-first century, and the protection of the national cultural heritage.

            Through the university postgraduate program the Department carries out research and pedagogical personnel education. In this context, A. O. Korneyko, V. T. Borshchevych, M. B. Filipovych, M. H. Tyskiy, Y. M. Martynyuk, V. I. Mylus, T. M. Visyna and other postgraduate students have defended their theses under the direction of Prof. Baran and Prof. Kucherepa. The supervision of the research work of the students and of pupils (through the section of the Volyn History Department of the Small Academy of Sciences is carrid out under the direction of Associate Professor Havrylyuk.  Under his direction, A. Moloshyk, L. Shust, O. Razihrayev and other students of the Faculty have become award winners and winners in the nationwide and pan-university competitions of students’ research work.

            Most of the teachers in the Department are taking part in a nationally-funded project devoted to the topic, “Western Polyssya: History and Culture”, which will culminate in the publication of a monograph by the staff which will deal with questions of the socio-political, socio-economic and spiritual development of the region from ancient times up to the present.

            Аbout 150 articles in domestic and foreign research collections and periodicals have been published by members of the staff since the inception of the Department. Research workers in the Department are also the authors of a number of individually- and collectively-edited monographs. Professor Baran is the author of the books Ukraine: Recent History (1945-91), published in Lviv in 2003 by the I. Krupyakevych Ukrainian Language Institute of the National Academy of Ukraine; and The History of Ukraine, 1945-53 (Lviv, 2005) which were a continuation of the work of researchers in the 1990s. Dr. Baran has had a part in the preparation of many collectively-written monographs, and the textbook History of Ukraine (Lviv, revised editions in 2000 and 2003).

            Professor M. M. Kucherepa is the author of the textbook Volyn, 1939-41 (Lutsk, 2005), the co-author and supervisory editor of a number of volumes of the materials of the Ukrainian-Polish Seminar “Ukraine---Poland: Difficult Questions” which resumed its work at the beginning of this century, and which is coordinated by Prof. Kucherepa.

            Recognition of the effective educational and research work of the teachers of the History Department has been given by the conferring of the title, “Excellent Worker in the Ukraine Educational System” (Prof. V. K. Baran, Associate Prof. O. N. Havrylyuk), by the diplomas from the Ministry of Education and Science of Ukraine, by the regional department of education, and by the administration of the University. The basic areas of research conducted in the Department are:

● the history and culture of the Volyn Region

● Western Polyssya: history and culture

● the documentation of the victims of the Ukrainian-Polish conflict in the 1940s.

            Topics of research work carried out by teachers of the Department of History:

● V. K. Baran:  The Recent History of Ukraine

● M. M. Kucherepa: The History of Ukraine from 1920 to 1940; Rehabilitated by History: the Volyn Region

● M. D. Pivnytskiy: The Ukrainian Village in the Twentieth Century: Peasantry, Parties and Power.

● O. N. Havrylyuk: Church and religious life in Ukraine in the Second Half of the Twentieth Century

● O. Y. Kud: Ukraine in the Second Half of the Twentieth Century

● O. Y. Lenarovych: the National Liberation Movement of Ukraine in the Twentieth Century.

● L. A. Ponyedyelnuk: the Cultural Life of the Volyn Region in the Inter-war period (1921-39).

● A. H. Shvab: Processes of Migration within Ukraine.

● I. S. Pkhydenko: The development of education in Ukraine in the second half of the twentieth century.

            Contact information:

43025 LUTSK, 24 Shopena St.

Tel.: (03322) 4-80-30; 4-80-11