Looking Back at the RUTA’s 2024 Inaugural Conference

RUTA Association for Central, South-Eastern, and Eastern European, Baltic, Caucasus, Central and Northern Asian Studies in Global Conversation

International academic community gathers in Ukraine to change regional knowledge production 

Dates: 27-30 June 2024

Place: Carpathian Mountains, Ukraine

RUTA Association builds transnational and interdisciplinary dialogues, local connections and new critical knowledge about the Central, South-Eastern, Eastern Europe, Baltic, Caucasus, Central and Northern Asia regions. 

For 4 days in June, a small resort in the Ukrainian Carpathian Mountains became a home for over 150 academics, artists, and activists from all over the world (Austria, Armenia, Belgium, Kazakhstan, Canada, Czech Republic, Kyrgyzstan, Estonia, France, Georgia, Germany, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Sweden, Ukraine, UK, USA and other countries). Some, like Kavita Krishnan who flew from Delhi, Zuleikha Mahmood and Elmira Noigobaeva from Central Asia, Sarah Elbuibesi from Lebanon, crossed difficult borders and traveled for days. 

Participants of the first conference of the new RUTA Association gathered in Ukraine with several goals: to pledge solidarity with Ukraine and Ukrainian people, and to change global knowledge production about the Central, South-Eastern, Eastern Europe, Baltic, Caucasus, Central and Northern Asia regions. Conference participants believe that only the new connections of solidarity and knowledge exchange can secure a peaceful global future.

The RUTA Association is a response to Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine. Taking its name from a Ukrainian ‘ruta’ plant that has healing and anti-poisonous qualities, it is the first large association that is based in the region and centers on the knowledge and expertise of local scholars, artists, and social justice advocates. The first conference of the Association, entitled ‘Re(kn)own: Region(s) from Within’, that took place on July 27-30, 2024, addressed Russo-centrism and promoted critical research on ongoing imperial and colonial legacies that have shaped RUTA and other regions. 

At the opening ceremony, Tereza Hendl, a newly elected member of the RUTA board of representatives, stated: ‘Ukrainian scholarship and knowledge have been a long term target of Russian colonialism. As a RUTA community, it is our duty to center and amplify Ukrainian voices and history the louder, the more Russia tries to silence and annihilate Ukrainians through yet another genocide. Academia is far from a neutral set of institutions and network of actors that would be unaffected by imperial power relations. But academia can gradually become critically reflected upon, as a context that has historically and ongoingly been at the service of inequality, violence, and injustice. The Ukrainian resistance against the latest escalation of Russian colonialism has not only changed our regions and communities but also inspired important inquiries and necessary self-reflection in academic circles.’ 

The inaugural conference demonstrated how crucial it is to talk about the decentralization of narratives from this part of the world, and how the physical crossing of borders and meeting in Ukraine creates new embodied experiences and connections between researchers and different communities. The initiative of the conference and the association became the necessary basis for the registration of RUTA as an organization in Ukraine. The first such large-scale event and the efforts of all those involved in making it happen gathered impetus and ideas for the next conference, which the members of the Association plan to hold in June 2025.

The RUTA Conference was organized in partnership with the Center for Urban History, Lviv. 

The Inaugural RUTA Conference, 27-30 of June was supported by Heinrich–Böll-Stiftung (Ukraine), The International Renaissance Foundation, Körber Stiftung, IWM Vienna, Kyiv School of Economics, Fund Mieroszewskiego, US Ukraine Study Fund, House of Europe, Goethe-Institut, Danyliw Foundation. 

The RUTA Association promotes and supports Central, South, Eastern European, Baltic, Caucasus, Central and Northern Asia studies. The founding of the RUTA Association aims to transform the regions’ positions from objects of study to active and visible agents of knowledge. 

Photos and videos of the conference are available on request.

RUTA website https://ruta-association.org/ 

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The Inaugural RUTA Conference is supported by Heinrich-Böll-Stiftung (Ukraine), the International Renaissance Foundation within the framework «European Renaissance of Ukraine» project, Körber Stiftung, IWM Vienna, Kyiv School of Economics, Fund Mieroszewskiego, US Ukraine Study Fund, House of Europe, Goethe-Institut, Danyliw Foundation.