Invisible University for Ukraine: Essays on Democracy at War

The Laurence and Lynne Brown Democracy Medal, awarded by the McCourtney Institute for Democracy at Penn State University, recognizes outstanding individuals, groups, and organizations that produce innovations to further democracy in the United States or around the world.

Invisible University for Ukraine (IUFU) is an initiative of Central European University that began in Spring 2022, only months after Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine. Since that time, nearly 1,000 Ukrainian students have taken online and on-site courses taught by hundreds of faculty from across Europe and beyond. The program’s objective is to help sustain intellectual growth in the midst of incredible hardships, with coursework designed to mitigate the effects of the war on students’ academic development and provide a framework to push back against autocracy. This volume recognizes the initiative of IUFU’s organizers and its students, describes their work to sustain democracy, and outlines their innovative educational model developed in the face of ongoing war.

For this important work, they are the recipients of the 2024 Brown Democracy Medal from the McCourtney Institute for Democracy.

Ostap Sereda is Professor of History at Bard College Berlin.

Balázs Trencsényi is Professor of History and Director of the Institute for Advanced Study at Central European University.

Tetiana Zemliakova is Visiting Fellow in the Max Weber Programme for Postdoctoral Studies at the European University Institute.

Guillaume Lancereau is Visiting Fellow in the Max Weber Programme for Postdoctoral Studies at the European University Institute.