Ambicoloniality and War: New Perspectives on Ukrainian Culture and Russian Colonialism

CBEES Advanced Seminar with Svitlana Biedarieva, Art Historian and Artist, Universidad Iberoamericana, Ciudad de México & Kyiv School of Economics.

Speaker: Svitlana Biedarieva, Art Historian and artist, Universidad Iberoamericana, Ciudad de México & Kyiv School of Economics

Discussants: Camilla Larsson, Senior Lecturer at the School of Culture and Education, Södertörn University and Yuliya Yurchuk, Associate Professor of History of Ideas, Södertörn University.

Chair: Julia Malitska, Project Researcher at the School of Historical and Contemporary Studies and Research Coordinator at CBEES, Södertörn University.

Abstract: The seminar introduces a new notion of “ambicoloniality,” first used in the book Ambicoloniality and War: The Ukrainian-Russian Case (Palgrave Macmillan, 2025) by Svitlana Biedarieva. The concept of ambicoloniality is used to analyze the current situation, in which Ukraine has become Russia's territory of obsession, and Russia, in its desire to occupy Ukraine, has, in effect, subjected itself to Ukraine’s symbolic dominance. Ambicoloniality presents a key point of divergence from already existing models. The mutual impact of the two countries over centuries has gone both ways, across a shared border, in contrast to many other empires that established their colonial power relations at a distance. In her book, Biedarieva argues that the Ukrainian-Russian case is different from the examples covered by both postcolonial and decolonial theorists. To explore the reasons and consequences of such a differing process of colonial expansion, anti-colonial struggle, and decolonial release, the seminar inquires into the historical and cultural reasons for the emerging gap between the two states. It examines the role that cultural hybridity plays in political self-identification in both Ukraine and Russia, and how this hybridity has manifested in society and culture (including examples of art and literature) following the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991, up to 2023.

Dr. Svitlana Biedarieva is an art historian, artist, and curator. She is the author of the book Ambicoloniality and War: The Ukrainian-Russian Case (Palgrave Macmillan, 2025), the editor of Art in Ukraine Between Identity Construction and Anti-Colonial Resistance (Routledge, 2024) and Contemporary Ukrainian and Baltic Art: Political and Social Perspectives, 1991-2021 (ibidem Press, 2021), among others. Dr. Biedarieva is the General Editor of The Harvard History of Ukrainian Art forthcoming book series. She serves as President-Elect of the Society of Historians of East European, Eurasian, and Russian Art and Architecture (SHERA) and is the Founder of Ukraine Decolonial Studies Network. She has published texts in leading academic journals and media outlets, such as October, Daedalus: Journal of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, Financial Times, and The Art Newspaper. Dr. Biedarieva holds a PhD in History of Art from the Courtauld Institute of Art, University of London.