As a result of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, many scholars and scientists have left the country. More than 30 Ukrainian researchers displaced by the war have temporarily joined the University of Luxembourg mainly as research fellows and in some cases under temporary contracts funded by the FNR. In this series of interviews, we briefly present the researchers and their work.
Oksana Karbashevska is an Associate Professor at Vasyl Stefanyk Precarpathian National University in Ivano-Frankivsk, Ukraine. She is now a Visiting Researcher at the Department of Humanities of the Faculty of Humanities, Education and Social Sciences at the University of Luxembourg.
What is your research field and which specific topic are you working on?
My research fields are Folkloristics, Literary Studies, and Translation Studies. The specific topics I work on are the folk ballad in the UK, USA, and Ukraine as well as folk-literate relations, text interpretation, and image rendition.
What would you like to achieve in your research work here?
My research work is focused on developing a course of lectures “Folklore of Great Britain”. The English Studies Department of the Faculty of Humanities, Education and Social Sciences at the University of Luxembourg has a unique Bachelor’s programme. The teaching staff of the English Studies Department at the University of Luxembourg and Dr. Lena Steveker in particular, are highly professional and deliver interesting and useful lectures allowing students of the department to obtain necessary skills and knowledge in their sphere of specialisation. Thanks to the collaboration with the University of Luxembourg, I am improving my hard and soft skills, obtaining a cutting-edge experience both in scientific research and teaching while also broadening my professional and cultural background.
Will your research have a potential impact on people’s everyday life?
People’s values and opinions, beliefs and stereotypes, habits and traditions, actions and ambitions are conditioned by their cultural identity. My research in the sphere of the humanities, namely folkloristics, will give society an understanding of roots of the modern cultural expressions, will show the development of kinds of arts in connection with historical events, will give an insight into the mentality of nations. The results of my research will hence add to determining people’s perception of the environment, worldview orientations and everyday behaviour.
What do you think is the biggest contribution your work can bring?
The University of Luxembourg can benefit through experience exchange, acquaintance with the folk cultural heritage of Ukraine, Great Britain, and the USA, as well as with contemporary artistic manifestations in literature, music, and theatre grounded in folklore.
The residents of Luxembourg will get acquainted with Ukrainian verbal-musical culture, cuisine, and history. The cultural and social identity of citizens of Luxembourg as a multicultural centre will be enriched with a Slavic input. As a result, this will lead to strengthening multicultural tolerance and respect, sustaining international peace and cooperation, developing Luxembourgish material and non-material cultural projects, boosting cultural life thanks to Ukrainian influences.